What Caused Democrats' Support for Cluster Bombs?
How Republicans use hatred of Republicans to accomplish their goals
Looks like Republicans have learned to manipulate Democrats' hated of Republicans, including and especially Marjorie Taylor Greene. They used that hatred, for example, to block a bill that Democrats would have supported and often did support in the past — opposition to child-killing cluster bombs.
How did Republicans do it, gain Democrats’ support for cluster bombs? Lee Fang in, "Why Supposed Opponents of Cluster Bombs Voted to Allow the Weapons for Ukraine," tells the tale.
First, what happened:
Last week, President Joe Biden announced a move to provide part of the U.S. stockpile of cluster bombs to Ukraine, in a bid to resupply Ukrainian forces reportedly running low on munitions. The weapons, typically delivered by artillery, open mid-air, scattering dozens or hundreds of bomblets over an area as wide as a football field. In many cases, the bomblets fail to detonate on contact with the ground, leaving unexploded ordnance that end up killing civilians for decades even after a conflict ends. America’s widespread use of cluster bombs in Laos and Vietnam in the 1970s is still killing and injuring civilians, including children.
In recognition of the dangers of supplying cluster bombs to the conflict, a coalition of Democrats and Republicans came together to block the transfer, using the National Defense Authorization Act process, now under debate.
Despite the political momentum, at close to midnight last night, the House of Representatives voted down a measure that would have stopped the transfer.
Next, how it happened:
On Wednesday, House Republicans on the Rules Committee, which sets the parameters of floor debate, voted down the bipartisan amendment backed by Reps. Sara Jacobs, D-Calif., Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., to ban the transfer of cluster bombs. In its place, the House Republican leadership swapped the amendment with a bill sponsored by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., making her the face of the anti-cluster bombs vote.
The strategy behind the gambit was clear.
Greene is deeply hated by Democrats and increasingly by many Republican lawmakers for her acidic rhetoric and frequent flirtations with extreme political stances. By swapping the amendment, a vote against cluster munitions became a de facto vote with Greene. The leadership figured that the optics of voting for a Greene amendment would be enough to kill support for the measure – that lawmakers would side with a gross violation of international human rights norms rather than cast a vote that could be vilified on social media and cable news.
And last night, at 10:55 pm, the full House brought up the substituted Greene amendment, defeating it by a 147-276 vote. The ploy worked.
More at the link. It’s deeply frightening, that this tactic works. But not a surprise.
And yes, use of cluster bombs is a war crime.