Cluster munitions

We are hearing that Colonel Gaddafi – the swine! – has used cluster bombs in the West of Libya. Human Rights Watch says it is ‘appalled’. The bombs were made in Spain.

A cluster bomb is a bomb with a lot of little bombs inside it. I first heard of them during the Falklands War, where RAF bombers were able to stop the Argentineans using an airstrip by making a lot of little holes in it, taking a long time to repair. Rather a good wheeze, I thought. Now the do-gooders have got in on the act, and cluster bombs were banned by a convention three years ago.

So they have joined pistols, which can’t be used by ordinary British people, even the Olympic Team, and landmines which can’t be used by the British Army when digging in, as weapons which can only be owned by the bad guys.

Libya did not sign the convention, nor did China, Russia or the US.

It is hard to label the do-gooders who got us into this, other than with the word ‘Blairite’. It seems they quite like wars, as long as nothing horrid goes on.

But it does. That’s why so many of us prefer to think before getting into one.