Belgium has fallen heroes to

[svandamme]

They wear a UN blue helmet... And clean up the mess made by other a'holes

In this case a US made M-77 cluster bomblet, fired by a US made Lockheed Martin M-270 MLRS fired by the Israeli's at a field near Ajt Arun, about 15 kilometer from Tibnin, Lebanon.




It was only one of 4 million sub munitions dropped by Israel during the last big 3 day conflict...
To put that in perspective : the US dropped 2 million of them in 3 weeks during the 2003 Iraq invasion...You can take Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kosovo... put all the used cluster ammo together, and you'de still not get close to the 4 million dropped on Lebanon in those 3 days...


with a dud rate of anywhere between 1 or 5 % ( depending on if Israel had early model M77's or late), you do the maths on how many of em are left in the fields.

Sure, the arms agreement with Israel prohibited them from using it against non military targets... i guess they forgot about that..It's not like they would intentionally forget such a clause in the agreement... would they? surely Israel always does what it says it will do?

Stefaan Vanpeteghem (35), was that hero , he lived just a mile or 2 away from my house...worked for Dovo, the Belgian military's Bomb squad, taking care of unexploded WW1 and WW2 ammo... and now sent to Lebanon to clean up the aformentioned mess... He's the 4th one to die there.. He was trained for M-77 bomblets, yet this one just exploded when he took his first look at the thing.

The school year for Lisa (7) en Sara (8), didn't get off to a good start.

[Rick Lee]

Looks like Hezbollah shouldn't have started it then.

[Rearden]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

Looks like Hezbollah shouldn't have started it then.

+1
Hopefully Stefaan's comrades will do something about the tons of weapons being brought into Lebanon for Hezbollah's next martyrdom operation.

[Normy]

Stijn, I have to appologize for our current president.

I didn't vote for dubya Bush. He's an idiot. The United States is run by Richard Cheney. If that bastard told dubya to invade Belgium tomorrow, he'd sign all the forms and then go to lunch. Without reading ANY of them!

[I'm pretty sure he can actually read....]

Listen- I suspect that you are correct. Belgian soldiers were killed by familiar fire from American guns. In wars this sometimes happens. There needs to be an investigation so that if soldiers made a mistake and other soldiers died, then the people who screwed up need to pay the price for their negligence.

The United States of America is a nation that believes in the process of justice.

N!

[svandamme]

first of all, my beef is with those who design weapons that work like this
who allow a dud rate of 5 or even 1 %

It's a cowardly weapon


my second beef, is with those who use such weapons

If sombody comes to your house, breaks in and kills somebody in your familly
I'll be the last to tell you , that you are wrong for wanting to kill him back.

But if you go to that perp's neighbourhood, and you litter it with booby traps made with claymores and handgrenades with trip wire...
then you are worse then the perp, because you kill others that are innocent.
It's a cowards thing to do

my 3rd beef, is that the US sold these things like hotcakes, to "friends" that can't be trusted

And is still refusing to sign the anti cluster bomb treaty...it refuses to sign a treaty to ban a cowardly weapon...And in fact is still actively develloping and producing such weapons..

If i give a gun, to a known violent criminal, who get's into fights with other thugs on a weekly basis... And i give that guy an M16 with a grenade launcher attached... And he goes around blasting his enemies, and kills an innocent bystander... then i would be guilty as sin..i enabled it...


And Rearden, yes, Belgium IS in fact patrolling the sea and is actively patrolling the lebanon coast, they are checking suspect ships for illegal weapon shipments...

[Normy]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

Looks like Hezbollah shouldn't have started it then.

You view a soldiers funeral, and your responce is:

"Looks like Hezbollah shouldn't have started it then."

Why don't you do me the famous favor of going straight to hell?!

N!

[Normy]

Originally Posted by svandamme

first of all, my beef is with those who design weapons that work like this
who allow a dud rate of 5 or even 1 %

It's a cowardly weapon


my second beef, is with those who use such weapons

If sombody comes to your house, breaks in and kills somebody in your familly
I'll be the last to tell you , that you are wrong for wanting to kill him back.

But if you go to that perp's neighbourhood, and you litter it with booby traps made with claymores and handgrenades with trip wire...
then you are worse then the perp, because you kill others that are innocent.
It's a cowards thing to do

my 3rd beef, is that the US sold these things like hotcakes, to "friends" that can't be trusted

And is still refusing to sign the anti cluster bomb treaty...it refuses to sign a treaty to ban a cowardly weapon...And in fact is still actively develloping and producing such weapons..

And Rearden, yes, Belgium IS in fact patrolling the sea and is actively patrolling the lebanon coast, they are checking suspect ships for illegal weapon shipments...

YES dubya is a fool! I don't know what to tell you, but the majority of Americans DO NOT LIKE THIS MAN.

-I cant return the Belgian lives. All I can do is vote. And trust me!!!!! I am going to vote for politicians who won't send your soldiers into wars that obviously don't need to be fought.

Keep up the good work. Americans need to hear all this!

N!

[jackobleep32]

I've read about this. I believe newer versions have an expiration date where they go inert after a period when they are fired.

[svandamme]

Inert ...well I doubt Israel would care about that idea...
Also I don't think the designers can deliver the specs

5% is what they claim now
But some reports say its closer to 15%

So you add a mechanism to make em inert.. Ok that means a second fuse..because it would be retarded to drop bombs that turn harmless..eg that become free explosives for anyone to grab...

That second fuse what will its dud rate be??

4 000 000 15% duds and then another percentage duds on the second fuse.. Still a lot of deadly hardware littered around the land...

[livi]

Stijn,

My sentiments exactly.

A lot of individuals make me proud of belonging to our race, but several human "accomplishments" make me wonder if we ought not just nuke homo sapience to hell and let the surviving organisms start over in world rid of the human monster.

Sorry for the faith of your neighbor family, particularly the children.

[Jim Richards]

Stijn,

It's sad that your countrymen and innocent Lebanese civilians are dying over the Israeli-Hezbollah war. I share your pride in the work your soldiers are doing and feel sad that we and our allies employ these particular kinds of weapons. My sincere condolences goes out to Stefaan Vanpeteghem's family.

[BReif61]

Originally Posted by svandamme

first of all, my beef is with those who design weapons that work like this
who allow a dud rate of 5 or even 1 %



my second beef, is with those who use such weapons


my 3rd beef, is that the US sold these things like hotcakes, to "friends" that can't be trusted

And is still refusing to sign the anti cluster bomb treaty...it refuses to sign a treaty to ban a cowardly weapon...And in fact is still actively develloping and producing such weapons..

A 1-5% dud rate is not that bad, statistically, considering manufacturing and all of that. Nothing will ever be 100% effective.

And I don't know the exact reasons we don't sign the treaty, but they are a very effective weapon when employed correctly (and judiciously).

None of this changes the fact that an innocent (yet still military) person lost their life because of it.

[Mule]

Sorry for the loss of those men & their families. As for you Stijn & Normy, why don't don't you just come on out & blame Bush for their death? What you two weasels seem to miss is that Americans have been coming back in boxes life that for almost a century to protect the freedom that you two imbeciles scorn. Folks that seem hyper sensitive to all deaths other than American deaths can kiss my "Edited - language removed, Z-man"!

[svandamme]

Originally Posted by BReif61

A 1-5% dud rate is not that bad, statistically, considering manufacturing and all of that. Nothing will ever be 100% effective.

.

It's because of this statistically error rate, even a good one, that it's a truly inhumane and cowardly weapon to use, especially the way Israel uses it, in the volume they used it... even 0.5% of 4 000 000 is still 20 000 unexploded bomblets
They don't only target the Hezbollah bastards ( who aren't Lebanese, but Palestinians, kicked out of Palestine, by the Israeli's)..But everybody...

So Israel drives em out, and to Lebanon
then Israel bombs the snot out of em with ordonance that renderds the landscape a dangerous place to be , years after wards..

like i said, dude breaks into your house
and in turn, you booby trap the entire neighbourhood he lives,

it's immoral, i'de even call it a fascist tactic...

[Mule]

What exactly is a fascist tactic?

[BReif61]

Originally Posted by svandamme

It's because of this statistically error rate, even a good one, that it's a truly inhumane and cowardly weapon to use, especially the way Israel uses it, in the volume they used it... even 0.5% of 4 000 000 is still 20 000 unexploded bomblets
They don't only target the Hezbollah bastards ( who aren't Lebanese, but Palestinians, kicked out of Palestine, by the Israeli's)..But everybody...

So Israel drives em out, and to Lebanon
then Israel bombs the snot out of em with ordonance that renderds the landscape a dangerous place to be , years after wards..

like i said, dude breaks into your house
and in turn, you booby trap the entire neighbourhood he lives,

it's immoral, i'de even call it a fascist tactic...

In all truth, cluster bombs ARE area denial weapons. Look at it this way: Four guys buy the farm in separate instances over a period of years due to submunitions that fell in that 5%. Now, lets say the Israeli's used a 500lb dumb bomb that dudded and buried itself. Now, a truck full of people, or a bus, or whatever, roll over it and BAM!

And let me preface this last statement, that I'm not trying to slight their family's loss, but these men were trained military professionals who knew what they were getting themselves into.

[svandamme]

Originally Posted by BReif61

These men were trained military professionals who knew what they were getting themselves into.

correct, they know the risks, and they do it anyway
They took the job, to clean up the mess, so no further innocent civilians, farmers, women, children don't get blown to pieces...years after the conflict ended..

Hence why i call em heroes.

Most of the big mouths who are quick to fully put the blame on Hezbollah for all that's wrong in that part of the world would hesitate to take up such a job...(not referring to you btw)

[NICKG]

after what you said about our soliders ...who cares(my grandfather died liberating your country from the Bosch)

[Tobra]

the world is a pretty scary place, war is a terrible thing, but will always be with us

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by Normy

You view a soldiers funeral, and your responce is:

"Looks like Hezbollah shouldn't have started it then."

Why don't you do me the famous favor of going straight to hell?!

N!

Why don't you do me a favor and learn to read? My comments were in response to Stijn's implied blame of the U.S. for an Israeli action in response to a terrorist attack by Hezbollah ordered by Iran. I know that's not as simple and concise for someone with as knee-jerk and limited analytical thinking ability as you. But it's the truth. Hezbollah is 100% responsible for eveything that happened as a result of its attack on Israel. Yes, it's sad that third parties are affected. Hezbollah caused that. BTW Normy, eat $hit.