Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

GDB2222

The landmark 1997 UN Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-personnel Mines and on Their Destruction (Mine-Ban Convention) bans the production, use and export of these weapons and has nearly universal support. As of September 2008, it had 156 States parties.

http://www.un.org/en/globalissues/demining/

Oh well, if the UN is to be believed, it's no longer a problem. All those catalogues Gen has read are an April fool trick.

bugslet

CKhalvashi wrote: »

Can't sleep, don't know why, taking the rest of the week off.....

Not sure if it's the best idea or not, but there we are

If you feel the need to sleep then it's a good idea!

Generali wrote: »

That's where it gets complex. Should we invest in Boeing that makes B1 bombers that keep us safe but also can deliver cluster munitions. What about the company that makes the seats for the B1. A what about the company that makes the dye that colours the thread that makes the seat for the B1 bomber that drops the cluster bomb?

Morals aren't simple to apply to business.

And what about the companies that transport them......:eek:

SingleSue

Pyxis wrote: »

Rant mode? :huh:

Didn't notice any rant mode!

Did I miss something?

Nah, it just felt like my last post was a bit of a rant when I read it this morning....

Generali

GDB2222 wrote: »

Do these things switch themselves off after a while? I thought the whole point of them was not necessarily to explode on impact, but to lie around and deny the area to the opposition?

Okays, I have spent a while looking at this at some detriment to my psyche I think.

Old cluster bombs (probably still in production, almost certainly waiting to be used) were sort of like mine dropped from airplanes.

Modern cluster munitions are a bit different. Let us take, for example the Textron Sensor Fuzed Weapon. This is not a mine dropped from an aircraft, very far from it.

The CBU-105 contains 10 BLU-108 submunitions each of which contains 4 'smart-skeets'. Once the submunitions detect a target they deploy and detonate about 20 feet above the target. The detonations create a sort of molten metal arrow which is blasted towards the target.

There are then meant to be a couple of failsafes in these weapons. If the skeet fails to be detonated in the air it should detonate on contact with the ground or target. If it fails to detonate on contact with the ground or target it should detonate within one minute of lying on the floor.

As with anything engineered, the skeets have a failure rate and that failure rate under US export laws are 1%. That means 1% of skeets can hit the ground and go from being smart, self-guiding projectiles to being de facto landmines. If a B1 bomber drops 30 CBU-105s at the average failure rate that means 12 bomblets left on the ground.

There is a Convention on Cluster Munitions to which the UK is a signatory and has also ratified the Convention. This was passed in 2008 and ratification was either one of the last acts of the Labour Government or the first of the Coalition one. Either way, good on them. The US hasn't signed this convention and continues to produce, use and export cluster munitions.

There is a separate treaty regarding landmines which is sometimes known as the Mine Ban Treaty. This has been in place since the late 90s. The UK is a signatory and has ratified the treaty. UK taxpayers, under the terms of the treaty, pay about $10,000,000 in to mine clearance and other stuff each year. Interestingly the USA which has not signed this treaty either is by far the biggest spender on mine clearance etc. The Mine Ban Treaty is a treaty and not law so the USA is perfectly able to continue to produce, use and sell landmines if she sees fit.

Mines =/= cluster bombs.

Generali

bugslet wrote: »

And what about the companies that transport them......:eek:

Well precisely.

The ethical fund that I help run has a solution: if you make more than 10% of your revenues (not profits as then you struggle with cost allocations) from a sector deemed to be immoral then we won't invest in you.

That makes BT (makes a few million each year from providing networks that allow drones to work on bombing raids) to be invested in while Airbus (makes a shed-load off killing machines) uninvestable.

If bugslet Transport spent all their time running nuclear cruise missiles around the highways of Europe we'd probably be avoiding your shares. If you gave a lift to the odd squaddie that got left behind when the battalion moved on we'd probably overlook it.

CKhalvashi

Managed to sleep for about 10 hours.

Currently at the cafe, following a visit to elderly friends to see if a letter has been signed for (it hasn't, and is still at the post office). I've advised them that the best thing to do may be to rearrange delivery for Saturday morning, but then I'm difficult like that

GDB2222

Today, I hired a private detective. Very good she is, too.

michaels

GDB2222 wrote: »

Today, I hired a private detective. Very good she is, too.

So have all your privates been successfully detected?

michaels

For some reason I was thinking about the Turing test and wondering whether any of the posters on our thread is a computer algorithm...or perhaps I am the only one who isn't a computer...or perhaps I am like that android girl on blade runner who doesn't even know she is a robot....

Generali

michaels wrote: »

So have all your privates been successfully detected?

It's not always easy on a cold day....