The United States has officially announced that its latest, brutally expensive weapons package will include cluster munitions to help Ukraine in its counter-offensive. However, the use of this insidious weapon has been banned by more than a hundred countries under a joint convention. What the US president now believes to be necessary is something he has vehemently opposed.

The Washington Post recalls that in the past, Joe Biden opposed the use of cluster bombs in war zones as firmly as possible. This weaponry is extremely insidious and can kill a large number of people in a single strike, since a large bomb contains several submunitions and can therefore destroy a large area once it has been dropped from the air.

In the 1980s, Joe Biden harshly criticised then Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. At the time, Israel was fighting in Lebanon against Palestinian guerrillas who had been bombing communities in northern Israel for years. The Israeli invasion provoked sharp international criticism and protests. Amid reports that Israel had used cluster bombs in its invasion of Lebanon, some Democrats went so far as to push for cutting off aid to Israel.

At the time Joe Biden said that Israel was clearly in violation of the convention. He said the United States should respond by “cutting off the ability to get access to that kind of weaponry in the future.”

Later, during the Second Lebanon War in 2006, when Israel was again accused of using cluster munitions (this time against Hezbollah guerrillas), then-Senator Biden was one of the Democrats who opposed an amendment to bar the use of cluster munitions in populated areas.

In 2022, however, the Biden administration said that the use of such weapons constituted a serious war crime.

BREAKING: Here is Jen Psaki in 2022 saying that using cluster bombs is a war crime

The Biden Admin is sending cluster bomber to Ukraine today pic.twitter.com/dSMKqumDm1

— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) July 7, 2023

Now, as president of the United States, he called it an extremely „difficult decision” to allow the delivery of cluster munitions to Ukraine.

President Biden tells CNN it was a “difficult decision” to provide Ukraine with cluster munitions, but that he was ultimately convinced to send the controversial weapons because Kyiv needs ammunition in its counteroffensive against Russia. https://t.co/ueW7IuD9sp pic.twitter.com/p0EEZrTRXM

— CNN (@CNN) July 7, 2023

There is no agreement among the Democrats regarding the use of cluster munitions. For example, Democrat presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr strongly opposed Joe Biden’s decision, saying in a post on social media that „cluster bombs are munitions so horrific for civilians that more than a hundred nations have signed an international treaty banning them”.

Cluster bombs are munitions so horrific for civilians that more than a hundred nations have signed an international treaty banning them. Now the Biden administration is preparing to send them to Ukraine.https://t.co/Ck2gSm0SOj

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) July 7, 2023

House Democrats swiftly came out against Joe Biden’s decision to provide cluster bombs, with 19 signatories issuing a joint statement, writing:

The reality is that there is no such thing as a safe cluster bomb — and using or transferring them for use hurts the global effort to eradicate these dangerous munitions, taking us down the wrong path. The US history of using cluster munitions — particularly the legacy of long-term harm to civilians in Southeast Asia — should prevent us from repeating the mistakes of our past.

They added that they will continue to support Ukraine’s defence efforts, but „that support does not require we undermine the United States’ leadership in advocating for human rights around the world, enable indiscriminate harm that will only further endanger Ukrainian civilians, or distance us from European partners in the conflict who are signatories to the UN Convention opposing cluster munitions,” the Democrats wrote, stressing that

„The White House’s announcement runs counter to Congress’s restrictions on the transfer of these weapons and severely undermines our moral leadership. It underscores the work still ahead to press the US to join the international community in banning the use of cluster munitions,”

they said, calling on the Biden administration in the official statement, reviewed by the American Breitbart news portal.