← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · jeffersonian
Thread ID: 19559 | Posts: 11 | Started: 2005-08-10
2005-08-10 22:12 | User Profile
[URL=http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wodogs0811%2C0%2C4171569.story?coll=ny-leadworldnews-headlines]Newsday.com[/URL] [QUOTE]Servants -- and Weapons -- of War U.S. forces rely on dogs to detect bombs in Iraq. Insurgents rig them with explosives.
By Borzou Daragahi Times Staff Writer
August 10, 2005
BAGHDAD -- These are the dogs of war.
At 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.
Error! Filename not specified.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.
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 insurgents, canines provide the means for a more sinister goal.
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 insurgents, called the practice un-Islamic. "Our religion does not permit us to hurt animals," he said, "neither by using them as explosive devices nor in any other manner."
U.S. troops extol the virtues of their canine allies in the war against the insurgents.
"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."
The Army has deployed dogs since World War I to locate trip wires, track enemies, stand guard at base perimeters and search tunnels for explosives or booby traps.
Even these dogs weren't always treated kindly. 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, [url]http://www.uswardogs.org[/url] , to raise funds for a memorial to honor the dogs and their handlers.
In Iraq, dogs like Gordy and Buddy are posted at checkpoints and at entrances to government buildings.
They sniff for explosives among reporters' equipment at news conferences and passengers' bags at Baghdad's international airport.
"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 25 times more smell receptors than humans, Pitt said.
"We smell spaghetti sauce and we think, 'Oh, the spaghetti sauce smells good,' " Pitt said. "To a dog, they would smell the tomatoes, the onions, the basil, oregano. They smell all the odors individually."
Insurgents have long stuffed roadside bombs into the carcasses of animals. But Iraqi security officials say they increasingly worry about the use of live animals.
"Dogs have been used in many areas by insurgents throughout Iraq" to carry explosive devices, said Noori Noori, inspector-general at the Interior Ministry. "They used mentally retarded people for operations during the elections, so why wouldn't they use animals?"
Last year in Ramadi, in the vast desert west of the capital, insurgents dispatched a booby-trapped donkey toward a U.S.-run checkpoint around sunset. "As one of the soldiers tried to stop it, the donkey exploded," said resident Mohammed Yas, 45. The only casualty was the donkey.
"Before, they used to use car bombs. Now they are using people and animals," said Col. Adnan Jaboori, a spokesman for the interior minister. "They are finding new ways to use remote-control technology."
The daily newspaper Al Mada recently published an editorial cartoon showing an insurgent who strongly resembled Saddam Hussein trying to persuade a dog to strap on a belt bomb to advance the cause of the Baath Party, which once ruled Iraq.
"It is such a simple task," the insurgent tells the terrified dog. "All you have to do is to put on this explosives belt, repeat the party's slogans, and may Allah have mercy on your father's soul!" [/QUOTE]
The insurgents had better be careful. They are in real trouble if the piss off PETA.
2005-08-10 22:46 | User Profile
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. I smell bullshit. Atrocity porn. Psy-ops.
2005-08-10 22:49 | User Profile
Like I posted last year, you can use "spy dogs" by placing a micro tv camera on their forehead with a power saddle pack on their back, the dogs would go on recon mission with the hadler monitoring with a tv monitor and the range could of of 50 feet or more.
Also you can place sadle bags with explosives and send them to a particular location or person and the explosives would be detonated by remote, is very hard to hit a running dog at full gallop whe he dosen't want to stop.
A dead dog by the road is something to avoid for they could be full of explosive and detonated by wire from 100 yards away.
The same could be done with an American soldier by placing explosives in the inside of the dead body and then waiting for some military personnel to come by in order to rescue the body.
Remember that this was one way that the American soldiers used to send snow back to the US.
I know, I know I am a bad person.... but in order to defeat the enemy you must think ahead of time, I have a 3 inch note book with tricks of the trade that I have been written over the past 30 years, with more than half of those notes being my own ideas. :evil:
2005-08-10 23:25 | User Profile
The Russians used exploding dogs in WW2
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_dog[/url]
2005-08-10 23:33 | User Profile
[QUOTE=RowdyRoddyPiper]The Russians used exploding dogs in WW2
[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_dog"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-tank_dog[/url][/QUOTE]Here's what one of the referenced works for the Wikipedia article says about that picture with plucky Fido headed under the tank:
"A soviet dog mine in training, or so it would appear. What is interesting about this picture is that although the training tank does not have a real gun, its turret appears to be that of the T-34/85. The T-34/85 was not introduced until 1944, yet dog mines were supposed to have been withdrawn in 1942!"
Like I said, premium bullshit. Right up there with the preemies dumped out of incubators and dissidents being fed feet-first into industrial shredders.
2005-08-11 03:30 | User Profile
I had seen this picture before as well as hearing of the "exploding dog" mine.
The book I saw this referenced in claimed this picture was taken after the war when the Sovs supposedly kept Rin-Tin-TNT "in reserve."
But, yeah, I think ST nailed it: atrocity porn.
The Germans on the other hand, when they weren't tossing babies into the air and spitting them on bayonets, would use Jewish children in such a manner by fooling them into thinking that their Hanukkah presents were to be found underneath the treads of Soviet tanks. Elie Wiesel claimed that at the battle of Kursk, the arms and legs of Jewish kids rained down from the sky for a solid month and fell as far afield as western France, when the wind was right.
2005-08-11 05:50 | User Profile
[QUOTE=MadScienceType]Elie Wiesel claimed that at the battle of Kursk, the arms and legs of Jewish kids rained down from the sky for a solid month and fell as far afield as western France, when the wind was right.[/QUOTE]No! Did he really? LMAO!
I've heard some outrageous lies from Elie Weasel, but that one takes the cake.
2005-08-11 06:26 | User Profile
[QUOTE]
The Germans on the other hand, when they weren't tossing babies into the air and spitting them on bayonets, would use Jewish children in such a manner by fooling them into thinking that their Hanukkah presents were to be found underneath the treads of Soviet tanks. Elie Wiesel claimed that at the battle of Kursk, the arms and legs of Jewish kids rained down from the sky for a solid month and fell as far afield as western France, when the wind was right.
[/QUOTE]I would agree this is some funny shit. I guess you could say these Hanukkah presents cost an arm and a leg. This may even beat the lampshades and soap stories,etc. I will say one thing, the Jews certainly are some great and very humorous story tellers. lol.
2005-08-11 14:54 | User Profile
Elie Wiesel claimed that at the battle of Kursk, the arms and legs of Jewish kids rained down from the sky for a solid month and fell as far afield as western France, when the wind was right.
It was a joke y'all! He never said that, but is it any more ridiculous than some of the other B.S. he's spouted as fact over the years (the one about the blood geysers being my favorite)?
2005-08-11 15:56 | User Profile
Muslims consider dogs unclean animals, so an exploding dog spreads more filth among the Great Satan's forces and thus the ultimate insult. This is better than germ warfare to them.
2005-08-11 16:44 | User Profile
[QUOTE=skemper]Muslims consider dogs unclean animals, so an exploding dog spreads more filth among the Great Satan's forces and thus the ultimate insult. This is better than germ warfare to them.[/QUOTE] They no more believe that than we believe we could stop the insurgency by using bacon bombs.
Iraqis are not a bunch of Bedouins riding camels and trading their daughters for ivory-handled daggers.