Word: cluster
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Earlier this week, writer and social justice activist Leonard Fein spoke at Harvard Hillel. He described the combined-effects munitions, more commonly known as cluster bombs, and their hundreds of brightly-colored bomblets that spread out over a target, and I was reminded of Fulghum's words. Yet with a cluster bomb, the child's idyll world is horribly transformed...
This may seem a familiar story. "Cluster bombs obviously have effects similar to land mines," said Marissa A. Vitagliano, coordinator for the U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines. "We abhor them." Vitagliano agreed the situation is hauntingly reminiscent of the damage inflicted by the fields of abandoned land mines that remain around the globe...
...area where you are dropping [cluster bombs] is usually a combat area," he explained to me. Since there are many types of weapons to choose from, "the Air Force or any [Department of Defense] operation takes a very serious look at a particular weapon or any sort of munition to be used; it is not a random decision and it is made looking for a particular effect...
...case of the cluster bomb, it is their ability to pierce armored vehicles, blow up personnel and otherwise alter the battle plans of an enemy brigade on the move that has made them a vital part of American campaigns in Iraq and more recently in Kosovo...
...states that the actual dud rate, as measured in the Gulf War, was close to a quarter of the bomblets, over four times the official Air Force estimate. Arkin said duds result from a variety of reasons and that their fuse work is often shoddy. He added that the cluster bombs have "Gameboy-like electronics," in an effort to create widescale destruction at minimum costs...