I think the original sources I found that led to the Reuters primary source all used the “lacing” language, so I probably internalized that language. I definitely thought I was using broad enough language to make it sound like I wasn’t being intentionally hyperbolic. But clearly my intention was not the actual effect!
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Well, I’m not writing a treatise here on acceptable weapons of war. This is a discussion thread on BoingBoing. Forgive me for not precisely defining the term evil. I don’t want us to do more harm than good with the weapons we send over there. Is that better? I don’t know where that line is. It’s somewhere in between a knife and a thermonuclear device, but I am not informed enough to know exactly where the line is or on what side of that line anti-tank rounds containing depleted uranium are. But I would guess those rounds are closer to the line than most of what we’ve sent, with the exception of the cluster bombs mentioned above. I just don’t want us to cross that line, and I’m expressing that by saying let’s not do evil.
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boingboing pushing russian propaganda, must be tuesday
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The US did decline to sign, but on the other hand, the US implemented regulations to decrease the dud rate of cluster munitions, that had the net effect of banning new production. See the fact the MLRS production is entirely unitary warhead GMLRS at this point, instead of the steel rain M26 rockets we used in ODS.
That said, we didn’t destroy all of our existing cluster munitions, because they are useful, as the Ukrainians are finding, and would suggest that any remaining M26 rockets we have should be shipped to them, if they want them (which they probably do). The faster the Russians are defeated, the sooner Ukraine can start effectively rebuilding.
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Declining to sign means we have zero moral authority to push other countries like China, Russia and Israel to agree to the ban, and that’s not a good position to be in, even if we’ve taken some steps to reduce the “dud” rate of our own munitions.
I would imagine that the vast majority of banned weapons are “useful” in certain circumstances, but that’s still not moral justification for keeping them around.
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It says it’s a tank round in the first three sentences. I’m not sure how the author got it in their mind to use the word bullets, as if the two are the same.
… of course — the laws of physics being what they are — all U-238 is the same, and equally radioactive
What has been “depleted” is the more radioactive U-235, which has been removed
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Russians have no moral standing to talk about inhumanity.
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The only weapons which are actually banned and not in use by anyone at this point are chemical and biological weapons. This is solely due to the fact that they are actually useless in warfare. Biological weapons are both too effective and too ineffective simultaneously. You can’t control the spread of them, and also your enemy can defend their military personnel against them easily.
Laser blinding weapons are banned, but it’s almost always more effective to actually shoot a guy than to blind him. And it only applies to weapons that are designed to blind. You can still use lasers that can blind, but aren’t primarily designed to do so (laser designators can be bright enough to blind, but it ends with an earth shattering kaboom.
The other primary candidates for banned weapons are land mines and cluster munitions. No country which actually finds them useful has actually given them up. Even the ban on land mines only applies to self-activated anti-personnel mines, not to anti-tank mines, remote controlled mines, anti-handling devices, etc.
The only way bans stick is if it’s not disadvantageous to not have the banned weapon, moral justification be damned. The US stopped making and using cluster munitions because we stopped finding them to be effective in the types of conflict we’ve been in.
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Depends. If you’re a sick sociopath who wants to drain your enemies’ resources and morale then saddling them with a bunch of soldiers who can’t fight but still need to be cared for can be brutally effective. It’s been a tactic of war since at least Roman times, probably much longer.
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It’s always good to have more, better info available for all.
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It’s all good. Even Reuters isn’t always perfect 
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Via Politico:
“What really is happening is that Russia simply doesn’t want to see Ukraine with tanks and more effective tank rounds that could be lethal against Russian tanks,” the official said. “If Russia has an issue with that, they can withdraw their tanks from Ukraine.”
I can’t argue with the logic.
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Why do the Ukrainians need them? Have the other armor-piercing rounds failed to penetrate Russian armor?
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The DU rounds can penetrate better at longer range.
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Why, yes. You supply an ally with tanks, you also supply them with the kind of ammunition those tanks can use. Duh.
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