Military forces loyal to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, who have surrounded this city and vowed to crush its anti-Qaddafi rebellion, have been firing into residential neighborhoods with heavy weapons, including cluster bombs that have been banned by much of the world and ground-to-ground rockets, according to the accounts of witnesses and survivors and physical evidence on the ground.According to sources, the shelling of civilians began between Obama's second and third fundraisers last night, not between the first and second as initially reported.
Such “indiscriminate” weapons, which strike large areas with a dense succession of high-explosive munitions, by their nature cannot be fired precisely, and when fired into populated areas place civilians at grave risk.
The use of such weapons could also add urgency to the NATO campaign, which has as its mandate protecting civilians from the Qaddafi regime’s harm. And it could place pressure on the United States, which pulled back air power from the war when it ceded control of the campaign to NATO earlier this month.
When asked about the munitions at a news conference in Berlin, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she was “not aware” of the specific use of cluster or other heavy weapons in Misurata, but said, “I’m not surprised by anything that Colonel Qadaffi and his forces do.”
She added: “That is worrying information. And it is one of the reasons the fight in Misurata is so difficult, because it’s at close quarters, it’s in amongst urban areas and it poses a lot of challenges to both NATO and to the opposition.”
The cluster munitions were visible in use late Thursday night, in the form of what appeared to be 120-millimeter mortar rounds that burst in the air over the city, scattering high-explosive bomblets below.
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5 comments:
And yet I can trot out ten Conservative-leaning women who will tell you that Hillary would be a better choice for President than 'that Palin'.
This is a real. Serious. Problem.
Well, cluster bombs have been abandoned by many of the militaries of world. Land mines too. But neither has been dropped by our military. We promise to be real careful using them though.
The more Al Queda/muslim brotherhood types he kills, the happier I'll be.
Hillary, The Hippo-crite?
And the hypothetical "ten conservative women" you mentioned Uncledan are getting their political talking points from Joy Blowhard and the rest of the yeast infections of "The View" television show.
It's ridiculous that so many of our voting blocks and demographics take their marching orders and advice from idiot TV shows such as this and nitwits like Whoopie Cushion and Joy Blowhard. We're doomed if we don't get some kind of poll qualification test in this country. We must not let uninformed fools like these kind of people influence our voters and elections. This isn't Totalitarianism, it's an intelligent voting demographic.
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