Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Cluster Bombs

You never stop learning. Today, I learned about cluster bombs, which appear to be especially destructive weapons. Basically, the cluster bomb is made up of many bombs - it could be hundreds - combined into one package. The package breaks up before it hits the ground so that the individual bombs explode over areas as large as a football field. But not all of the bombs do explode; some essentially become land mines.

They have been used since WWII; the U.S. used them in Iraq and Afghanistan. 114 countries have signed a 2008 treaty banning cluster munitions. China, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, and the United States have refrained from signing the treaty.

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