Any weapon fired at a civilian is a war crime. It doesn’t matter what kind of munition was used. The problem with cluster bombs is that the shooting party, cannot control the result. Signatories of IHL have a responsibility to minimize damage to civilian people and assets. The same reason autonomous weapons are a huge ethical problem.
And im saying: is firing indiscriminately with no regard to hitting civilians, now or in 50 years, worse than trying to make sure 100% of a bomb kills as many civiliams and as much of their infrastructure as possible?
The moral calculus of bombs is a truly fucked up thing.
If the JDAM is driving a single conventional warhead, it is more ethical than a cluster bomb.
It is common for some of the cluster bomblets to not detonate creating unknown minefields that persist for decades. A single bomb only goes off once.
(This is the ethics of the bomb, not the conflict they’re used in)
Okay but if it hits a full apartment building, 100% of that bomb goes to killing unaware civilians.
Which is the whole reason cluster munitions are bad.
Any weapon fired at a civilian is a war crime. It doesn’t matter what kind of munition was used. The problem with cluster bombs is that the shooting party, cannot control the result. Signatories of IHL have a responsibility to minimize damage to civilian people and assets. The same reason autonomous weapons are a huge ethical problem.
And im saying: is firing indiscriminately with no regard to hitting civilians, now or in 50 years, worse than trying to make sure 100% of a bomb kills as many civiliams and as much of their infrastructure as possible?
Neither is worse, they both suck just as bad.
Okay hut what if one of the civilians is a white jewish man, and the other is a persian muslim woman? Killing the jewish guy is worse, right?