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The Dogs of War
EFLAt a checkpoint leading to the U.S.-protected Green Zone, Gordy stands sentry. The affable Belgian Malinois has a nose finely tuned to detect the nitrates, plastic explosives, gunpowder and detonation cords that suicide bombers use to blow up people. On a barren stretch of road in northern Iraq, a dog rigged with explosives approaches a group of Iraqi police officers. Detonated by remote control, the bomb tears the dog apart but doesn't harm the cops. I'm glad the cops are OK, but PO'ed about the bastards using a dog for this. I mean, what if they start using jackals? In a war where the line between civilian and soldier is blurred, even man's best friend has been caught up in the combat. U.S. forces hail their trained dogs as heroes, but to Iraqi police cite the recent use of dogs rigged with explosive devices in Latifiya, just south of Baghdad, in Baqubah in central Iraq and in and around the northern city of Kirkuk. Some Iraqis are horrified by the ethics of dragging the animal world into a human conflict. "How can they use these lovely pets for criminal and murderous acts?" asked Rasha Khairir, 25, an employee of a Baghdad stock brokerage. "A poor dog can't refuse what they are doing with him because he can't think and decide." Despite a common prejudice in the Muslim world against dogs, which are considered unclean, even the most virulent clerical opponents of the U.S. presence in Iraq have decried the use of canines as proxies in the war. Abdel Salam Kubaisi, a spokesman for the Muslim Scholars Assn., a hard-line Sunni Arab clerical organization sympathetic to U.S. troops extol the virtues of their canine allies in the war against the "Dogs are vital in Iraqi counterinsurgency efforts," said Staff Sgt. Ann Pitt, 35, of Buffalo, N.Y., a U.S. Army dog handler based near the southern city of Nasiriya. "We have many items to help us do our mission, but I don't think we have a better detection tool than a dog," said Pitt, who cares for Buddy, another Belgian Malinois, a dog similar to a German shepherd. "These dogs are amazing. They are more dependable and effective than almost anything we have available to us." I love dogs (though not in the Seattle sense), but I would rather send a dog into certain death than risk a human. Of 4,300 dogs sent to Vietnam, 2,000 were handed over to the South Vietnamese army and 2,000 were put to sleep, . Only 200 managed to make it home, said Ron Aiello, Vietnam War-era dog handler who runs U.S. War Dog, a 1,100-member Burlington, N.J., organization. His group set up a website to raise funds for a memorial to honor the dogs and their handlers. "What we do is prevent people from getting killed," said Artwell Chibero, Gordy's 29-year-old Zimbabwean handler, an employee of a private security firm hired by the Defense Department. "Dogs have been used in many areas by The daily newspaper Al Mada recently published an editorial cartoon showing an "It is such a simple task," the Times staff writers Zainab Hussein and Suhail Ahmad contributed to this report. And the Jackal put it on RB. I work weekends trying to get dogs (and cats) adopted out of the local pound. These bastards work weekends making explosive vests for them. Posted by: Jackal 2005-08-10 |
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