"Stephen Mull, an assistant secretary of state, briefed reporters at the State Department to explain why the United States was not attending a gathering in Ireland of representatives of more than 100 nations working on a treaty to ban the bombs blamed for killing or maiming civilians as their mini-bombs explode months or years after they are dropped.

"Cluster bombs are fired by cannon or dropped from aircraft and release hundreds of smaller explosives in the air that are supposed to explode upon impact. In Israel’s 2006 war against the Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, the bomblets’ failure rate was around 30 to 40 percent, and the United Nations said up to a million unexploded bomblets were left after hostilities ceased.

"A critic of the U.S. position, Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst for Human Rights Watch, said in a telephone interview from Dublin that it was outrageous for Mull to link U.S. military humanitarian work with the United States’ 'failed policy on cluster munitions.'

"The three biggest producers of cluster bombs - the United States, Russia and China - oppose ban proposals and have veto power on the U.N. Security Council. None of the three is represented at the talks in Dublin.

"Washington says the weapons have an important military use, although it wants their use regulated. The United States favors U.N.-organized talks in Geneva that seek nonbinding rules for using cluster bombs and cleaning up their consequences."

Another State Department Bushite, Stephen Mull, would have logical people believe the illogical cow pies argument that not banning inhumane cluster bombs assists with humanitarian work.

Next stop for Mull and his mates should be:

"They're coming to take me away, ha-haaa!!
They're coming to take me away, ho-ho, hee-hee, ha-haaa
To the funny farm. Where life is beautiful all the time and I'll be
happy to see those nice young men in their clean white coats and they're
coming to take me away, ha-haaa!!!!! 

And Bush and his loyalist flunkies at the State Department continue to damage the United States.