There’s a Chris Rock joke that goes, “You don’t need no gun control, you know what you need? We need some bullet control. Men, we need to control the bullets, that’s right. I think all bullets should cost five thousand dollars… five thousand dollars per bullet…”

Well, today America is admitting to some involuntary bullet control. They are simply running out of regular artillery rounds and are unloading the most vile dogshit on Ukraine, cluster munitions. Cluster munitions spray the land with explosives, many of which don’t explode. This is why they’re widely illegal, because they ruin the places they’re used in for years. And they’re doing it not for any strategic reason (however vile). They’re doing it because they’re running out of regular shells. This is a stunning admission coming from a superpower. It’s like Scarface saying “oh no! I’m not reloaded!”

Don’t take my word for it, President Joe Biden said, “This is a war relating to munitions. And they’re running out of that ammunition, and we’re low on it.” He’s lying about Russia, but he’s telling the truth about the US/NATO running low. As the privatized propaganda outlet The Washington Post (via) puts it:

The move, which will bypass U.S. law prohibiting the production, use or transfer of cluster munitions with a failure rate of more than 1 percent, comes amid concerns about Kyiv’s lagging counteroffensive against entrenched Russian troops and dwindling Western stocks of conventional artillery.

The article continues:

The United States and other Western donors have sent millions of non-cluster howitzer shells to Ukraine, but stockpiles are running low and manufacturing cannot keep up with demand. It “is not enough,” [Ukrainian Defense Minister] Reznikov said. “The Russians use three or four times more artillery shells of different calibers than we do. And we must conserve because we can’t shell as intensively,” he added.

This is quite a thing to admit. One, that you’re committing war crimes and two, that you’re incompetent criminals. Cluster bombs are the spray-and-pray of artillery, and prayer is not a winning military strategy. Especially if you’re praying to Satan. Cluster bombs salt the earth with high explosives, which make them a crazy thing for Ukraine on soil it claims to care about. They fail at a much higher rate than 1%, 14% according to the NYTimes. I’m citing from imperial propaganda rags because even they can’t hide the depravity. These are widely illegal weapons for a reason. They are also not nearly as effective as A) just having a steady supply of regular shells and B) more accurate guided and drone munitions. It’s really a unique combination of evil and incompetent.

Forget wunderwaffen like F16s and HIMARS, how do you win an artillery war with no bullets? As the Good Ole Boys from Tennessee say, “You’re gonna look pretty funny tryin’ to eat corn on the cob with no fuckin’ teeth!” People are focused on the immorality of cluster munitions, which is one thing, but the more striking thing is how much desperation this shows. I’ll repeat because it’s the point. The great White Empire is running out of bullets. They’re becoming the butt of a joke. And the punchline is the severed legs of children.