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Just
in case there were a few of you left who aren't biting the "al-Qaeda
is the most evil group of people to exist in the history of the
world" bit, along comes the "they
kill puppies!" tapes. Let's set aside for a moment the
fact that, wait – do they even have yellow labs in
Afghanistan? And in a place where people are lucky to find scraps
to eat, how is it that this dog looks like a just-out-of-the-washing-machine
teddy bear? But I digress.
 Assuming
these tapes weren't made in Studio City, how is what al-Qaeda
did with a few dogs worse than what the United States and other
governments do all the time? Now, I'm no PETA fan, but they do
make some
interesting points. For example:
"No
matter where you stand on international conflicts, it is a painful
fact that the Israeli army has also blown up unanesthetized pigs
with Scud missile explosives and conducted other painful experiments
on dogs, monkeys, doves, mice, toads, and guinea pigs. An article
in the March 17, 2000, issue of Ha'aretz, Israel’s
most respected daily newspaper, reported
that experiments carried out by the Israel Defense Forces on animals
were so horrific that the soldiers forced to conduct the experiments
had to seek psychological counseling."
Pigs
in Israel?
Anyway,
PETA says the horrors of the Israeli tests are a drop in the bucket
compared to what the good ol' US of A has done to man's best friend
and various other species.
"Each
year, at least 320,000 primates, dogs, pigs, goats, sheep, rabbits,
cats, and other animals are hurt and killed by the U.S. Department
of Defense (DOD) in experiments that rank among the most painful
conducted in this country...The cost to taxpayers for these military
experiments is estimated to be in excess of $100 million annually."
Say
what you will about Osama, but he used his own damn money
to torture animals.
 I
did some of my own research and found out that, in addition to
the fact that PETA basically ripped off verbatim
a few paragraphs from a few different sites without citing them,
the US Military, which kills
five primates a day, has done many things to animals that
would make Mengele shudder.
Medical
Research Modernization Committee reports:
"Utilizing
the DOD database listed above, while searching on Brooks as the
performing
institution, brings up 14 separate projects at Brooks. Twelve
of these projects bring $4,845,000 into the till for Brooks. The
funding amounts for the other two are listed as 'classified.'
Of these 14 experiments, 10 involve primates, and the rest use
rats, mice, or other rodent species. The 10 experiments that involve
primates are highly invasive. The 'subjects' of these projects
must endure laser effects on the eyes, radiation, and high-power
microwaves."
Cha-ching
for the mad scientists at Brook Air Force Base.
"187,257
animals die in actual DOD labs, and 139,840 suffer in non-DOD
labs funded by DOD contracts."
So
we've got 327,097 animals killed (this excludes the total number
of animals experimented on) directly or indirectly by the DOD.
And we're supposed to flip out about three dogs?
 Physicians
Committee for Responsible Medicine claims
the price tag is actually
"$200
million a year on experiments using hundreds of thousands of animals,
often with no more than the vaguest scientific rationale. By all
appearances, some Department of Defense programs have become little
more than checking accounts for ivory tower research...
"We
have found scores of military tests that kill animals and serve
no realistic military purpose."
"...military
experimenters use pigs to experiment with laser tattoo removal
and use rats, pigeons, and squirrel monkeys to study drug abuse...
Brucellosis,
anthrax, dengue fever, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, equine
infectious anemia, and the filoviruses ebola and marburg are being
tested in other military experiments...
Mustard
gas, first used in World War I, continues to be a favorite agent
for Department of Defense animal experimenters. Yet good treatments
are already available and are easy to use."
Seems
to me like
a bunch of wackos making out like bandits in two different ways:
cashing in at taxpayer expense with a thoroughly useless career
and getting off on killing animals like a five-year-old pulling
the legs off a lizard.
The
National Anti-Vivsection Society says
that
"[m]any
military experiments are conducted to test new weapons and new
developments in biological and chemical warfare. In so-called
'wound labs,' military experimenters suspend conscious and semi-conscious
animals in a sling and then shoot them with high-powered weapons
to provide battlelike injuries for military surgeons to practice
on."
 And
can any of us ever forget the ridiculous pictures of Roborat?
Not that I feel a particular affinity for these rodents (having
dealt with one of the invaders in my house recently), but wouldn't
it suck to be remote-controlled?
However,
the pièce de resistance, in my mind, is the so-called
"Atomic
Ark."
"In
1946, near the Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific, 4,000 sheep,
goats, and other animals loaded onto a boat and set adrift were
killed or severely burned by an atomic blast detonated above them.
The military nicknamed the experiment 'The Atomic Ark.'"
I
think I'm done here.
*
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A
side
note on Islam and animal cruelty:
"One
might also appeal to the Islamic law (Shari'ah) to oppose using
animals in military research in general and in the so-called wound
laboratories in particular. The...Ahadith, as well as the Juristic
Rules, would seem to support the view that our wars are our own
problems and that we have no right to make the animals suffer
for them."
*
* *
So,
in agreement with PETA, yes, I hate it when puppy-dogs die. "What
the al-Qaida did to that dog was appalling, but let’s be
honest with ourselves that we and our allies are guilty of the
same sort of barbarism.”
We?
Leave me out of this.
Jeremy
Sapienza is Assistant Webmaster/Editor for Antiwar.com, Editor-in-Chief
for the anarchist webzine Anti-state.com.
He lives in Miami Beach.
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