FROM ALFIE NOBEL IN A SMALL SHELL HOLE IN EASTERN UKRAINE

THE UNITED STATES’ decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine has caused some people, whose hearts are not as robust as they should be, to suggest that the provision of such indiscriminate ordinance to the war in the Donbass and its surroundings might lead to the deaths of thousands of innocents and cause very little real difficulty to Russian troops sealed in behind lines of robust fortifications.

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” insists XX, a CIA agent who is not officially in Ukraine but is ready to pick up the phone whenever he gets a call from Kyiv. “Our cluster bombs are perfection itself. Not only do the hundreds of little bomblets, released when the things are fired, pick their individual Russian target, but they also do a quick analysis of whether that target is: a) slightly bad but redeemable; b) bad but only there because he is forced to fight; c) nasty and likes a scrap while drunk; D) really bad and getting worse; or E) a wretched unmerciful thug sent by Putin to rape and murder anything with a pulse. It’s like grading potatoes. Once that is done only the worst are eliminated. The others receive various crippling injuries which take them off the battlefield but send them back to their wives and mothers minus a body part or two. We’re always aware of victims. Not like that lot in Moscow.

“They send cluster ammunition over with the wind. Drop it everywhere, leave it lying around for children and small animals to find and pick up. Have you any idea the effect their cluster bombs have had on the bird life of Eastern Ukraine? It’s wicked. A war crime. That’s the difference between the good guys and the bad guys. The good guys like little birds. The bad guys eat little birds. Look, half the world says cluster munitions are unacceptable and have banned them. And we agree with that; except when we need to use them because we’ve either run out of ordinary high explosive shells or our side isn’t doing quite as well on the field as we’ve been telling them world. I tell you, if you took truth out of the equation, war would be so much easier.”