Someone always has to be the last...

...to see that peace is the only thing that works.

The coalition of the willing now consists almost entirely of its bully ringleader. It was a measure of the influence and sympathy the US commanded that so many countries with legitimate doubts could none the less be yoked with the label "willing". The abandonment of the US in its Iraq adventure is a measure of how the Bush administration has squandered the trust and good will of even close allies by lying and then by mismanaging the lie. My congratulations to Mr. Rudd for paying attention to the good voters of Australia. How I wish the US were so blessed.

...to see that better tools for killing never made anyone safer or even won any wars.

The US is not alone in clinging to cluster bombs the way NRA members clutch their guns: We are in a special league of morally stunted nations. China, Russia, Israel, India and Pakistan join us in tolerating the death of civilians long after the "hostilities" have ceased. 111 other countries hope to shame us into repudiating the use of sloppy weapons that assure collateral damage. Will these sanctions against use of cluster bombs work as well as the Geneva conventions regarding torture? I find it ominous that this gang of countries blind to their own barbarity happens to be a large subset of the nuclear-armed nations.