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This Wednesday, over 100 nations will gather in Oslo to sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions, a global ban on the use of cluster bombs. The vast majority of our allies will be there: Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and many others. The United States will not. Once again, the United States laughs in the face of international cooperation and moral leadership.

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Should I be surprised that I didn't see much coverage of this - none actually - in the U.S. press today? Channel News Asia reports on the signing of the cluster bomb ban this Wednesday:

Some 100 countries will ban the use of cluster bombs with the signing of a treaty Wednesday in Oslo but major producers such as China, Russia and the United States are shunning the pact.
The treaty, agreed upon in Dublin in May, outlaws the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of cluster munitions which primarily kill civilians.

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The United States has said that it is developing cluster bombs that will be less prone to failure (not exploding) than the current weapon. The editorial board of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer summed up that argument perfectly back in July:
The world bans an inhumane weapon. We want to perfect it. Embarrassing.

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Good God Almighty. And this is just us refusing to sign humanitarian, commonsense treaties. Take a look at the treaties that we signed and then refused to honor:

UNRATIFIED TREATIES

Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty
Signed and ratified, summer 1972; United States unilaterally withdrew on December 13, 2001. By pulling out of the ABM Treaty, the United States became the first major power to unilaterally withdraw from a nuclear arms-control treaty.
COMPREHENSIVE TEST-BAN TREATY
Signed September 24, 1996; never ratified. The U.S. Senate voted in 1999 to reject ratification of the test-ban treaty signed by President Clinton. In early 2002, the Bush White House released its Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), hinting at a return to testing and a willingness to use nuclear weapons in a first-strike attack.
UN Framework Convention on Climate Control (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol
UNFCCC ratified October 15, 1992. Kyoto Protocol signed November 12, 1998; never ratified by the U.S. Although President Clinton signed the Kyoto Protocol, the State Department under Bush rejected it on the grounds that it would harm the U.S. economy. U.S. representatives at the 2007 climate summit in Bali who maintained the same position were booed and widely condemned. Recently, the administration’s recalcitrance on this issue may be softening.
CONVENTION ON DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN (CEDAW)
Signed July 17, 1980; never ratified. The United States remains one of a handful of countries, including Iran and Sudan, not to ratify CEDAW, which was signed by President Jimmy Carter. The treaty continues to face resistance from conservatives in the Senate.
CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD
Signed February 16, 1995; never ratified. Only the United States and Somalia have not ratified the Convention, which was signed by President Bill Clinton. Among other things, the Convention forbids capital punishment of minors. Senate conservatives who support the death penalty for minors continue to oppose the treaty.MORE

WTF? What. The. Fuck??? Who the hell are we to be telling other countries how to run their shit when we haven't even ratified conventions against discrimination against women and the rights of children? On what moral grounds do we stand on, exactly? I mean, this is the nation that cannot pass the Equal Rights Amendment! Good grief! And I won't even TOUCH the bills to limit inhumane military weapons, since Americans are well imbued with the idea of empire, and might makes right, always.

But just one more thing. Remember torture? You know the stuff that a Supreme Court Judge (so help me God) defended by saying that since it worked on 24 (yes, I mean 24, the fictionalised Jack Bauer cable crap) it was a needed method of American security? (Dear God

giandujakiss! Why on earth did you decide to sandbag me with this so early in the morning?) Yeah well. Turns out info that led to the killing of that notorious Iraq Al Quaeda leader abu Musab al-Zarqawi? Didn't come from torture. In fact as Balloon Juice sarcastically links to the Washington Post article by a former Army interrogator:

Instead a renegade unit tried handling suspects with respect, a novel approach recommended by the notable terrorist lovers in Israeli intelligence. The unit found a guerilla leader’s hideout among other useful information.
We turned several hard cases, including some foreign fighters, by using our new techniques. A few of them never abandoned the jihadist cause but still gave up critical information. One actually told me, “I thought you would torture me, and when you didn’t, I decided that everything I was told about Americans was wrong. That’s why I decided to cooperate.”

[...] I learned in Iraq that the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda in Iraq. The large majority of suicide bombings in Iraq are still carried out by these foreigners. They are also involved in most of the attacks on U.S. and coalition forces in Iraq. It’s no exaggeration to say that at least half of our losses and casualties in that country have come at the hands of foreigners who joined the fray because of our program of detainee abuse.The number of U.S. soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on Sept. 11, 2001. How anyone can say that torture keeps Americans safe is beyond me -- unless you don't count American soldiers as American