Matthew Quick Low-hanging fruit

The economics of warfare determines it is better to maim than kill. It takes one person a few hours to bury another. But rehabilitation consumes resources: money, hospitals, staff, time and prosthetics.

The cluster bomb ‘refined’ this rationale. Containing hundreds of smaller bombs, the detonation failure rate is between five and 25 percent. Deliberately. This scatters thousands of unexploded ordnance over vast areas. Although usually camouflaged, there are variations fashioned to resemble canned food, while others are strangely shaped and colourful to attract children.

These are the low-hanging fruit. For they are the easy pickings. They are the naïve. The curious. The innocent.

Matthew Quick, 2012