UQ Wire: Wag The Gassed Dog

Two pieces of commentary on the remarkable dog gassing video follow…

FROM: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/dog.html

This is the purest war propaganda. One video of what may be Osama bin Laden plus a video of a dog being gassed which could have been created anywhere equals the US sinking to new lows trying to manufacture support for a war nobody but the oil companies want.

This dog-video reminds me of Hill & Knowlton's much ballyhooed claim that Iraqi troops were stealing incubators from Kuwait hospitals and leaving premature babies to die on the floor. That was a hoax to sell a war. And until proven otherwise, the safest course is to assume this latest "shock video" is just another hoax by the public relations firms which grow rich and fat off of your tax dollars by lying to you for the US Government.

Anonymous US officials have declared this to be "unquestionable" evidence that al Qaeda has chemical weapons. I find it very questionable. For one thing, compare the quality of the dog video with that of the famous Osama "confession" tape or even the most recent Osama tape.

Why does a dog get much better video quality than the boss? Add to that the cuteness of the dog, as if intentionally selected by central casting to provoke the greatest feelings of sympathy in the viewer, instead of just grabbing any old mangy stray mongrel to use in such a test.

Yes, this video is shocking, but the shock is intended to shock people past questioning the claims of where the video came from. All day long the media has been blasting the "Arabs kill puppy dogs" story all over the airwaves, trying to create a linkage between Arabs and chemical weapons where none can be proven to factually exist. Given the sensitization to chemical weapons contained in this media barrage, I have to wonder if the next stage provocation, intended to further the war against Iraq, will also involve chemical weapons.

COMMENT FROM A READER

As well as the cuteness and the video quality, the dog is not malnourished and its coat seems to be in very good condition. Stray dogs in Canada don't look that good, or as well fed. Imagine how stray dogs in Afghanistan look where people don't even get fed.

COMMENT FROM A READER

Just a short note to tell you that any common average Muslim knows that Islam expressly forbids mistreatment of animals...

COMMENT FROM A READER

Here are some question raised by the 'gassed dogs' videos.

- Why weren't the videos found by US special forces who have actively been hunting for material like that? If the videos were from 'the official' Al Qaeda library, why wasn't this library or it's contents actively been hunted down? And even if CNN really got hold of a share of the videos, without government involvement, why didn't I hear of any US actions to recover the rest of the videos?, which can hold possible evidence overlooked by CNN people.

- The dogs from the movies are too well taken care of. They look like soft cozy domestic dogs, which are well taken care of. In Muslim countries, dogs aren't popular at all. They don't life inside the houses. When I visited Turkey I only saw wildered stray dogs. Osama Bin laden and his organization Al Qaeda are fundamentalist Muslims, they would have never had a animal that is considered a unclean beast and kept it in mint condition for the video.

- My theory is that if chemical test were filmed deep inside Afghanistan they would have used dirty looking, maybe crippled walking, stray dogs and not three fuzzy dogs.

"People in this devoutly Muslim country rarely keep dogs as pets because their religion frowns on them as dirty. Night brings a cacophony of barking, howling dogs in a city where the 8:30 p.m. curfew and the fear of American air attack keep people off the streets." -- http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/news/103001_nw_OEFHealth.html

COMMENT FROM A READER

I lived briefly in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and my husband took me to buy me a cat for my birthday. We went to various "pet stores" to look at cats. While looking, I noticed how HORRIBLY the animals were kept...and I can tell you, that the very few dogs I DID see in Saudi Arabia were small mangy looking things.....certainly not the fluffy, healthy looking puppy I saw on that film, (was that meant to tug at the American "soul"...."awwww...that poor, fluffy, cute puppy.....would America had reacted the same had the dog been a more realistic "picture" of an animal that is being used as a lab animal to test poison?)

The consensus of opinion seems to be that the condition of the dogs in the videos is inconsistent with the claims regarding where the tape was made.

.

COMMENT FROM A READER

do you really think gassing people is something terrorists would be doing? you need people in a small closed room and enough gas pumped in. I guess it COULD work in a building if you had truckloads of gas to pump in. but really. this looks so faked.

COMMENT FROM A READER

I'm not an animal-rights type guy, mind you, it just seems weird how the press and public can demonize one country for gassing a couple of dogs for military research, yet comepletely ignore the fact that we gas dogs by the dumpster-full, every day of the year, simply because we have too many dogs.

COMMENT FROM A READER

What about the chem weapons that the US of A has in their stockpile...Weren't there tests conducted during development of the weapons. Maybe thot video actually comes from the Pentagon's shelf itself...I wonder..

COMMENT FROM A READER

I had the same feeling watching the al Qaida - gasses - the - cute - yellow - lab video that you did: pure sensationalist propaganda. Even if the video is authentic one has to wonder at the timing of its release. Over the last week more newpapers have come out with editorials opposing, or at least questionning, Bush's impending attack on Iraq. Even some big name Republicans are going public with their doubts. How can the Bush people counter this bad press? By bypassing people's brains and shocking them with the dog video: "See the kind of bad people we're up against? They hurt a cute doggie!"

COMMENT FROM A READER

No one would feel at ease when he sees the photo of that poor dog, but any human being who has an average knowledge of Islam would consider that photo a fraud. Here are two (out of many)sayings of prophet Muhammad excerpted from a well known Islamic reference (sahih Muslim):

1- “Abu Hurairah, may Allah be pleased with him, reported: Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: A man suffered from intense thirst while on a journey, then he found a well. He climbed down into it and drank (water) and when he came out he saw a dog lolling its tongue and eating the moistened earth out of thirst. The man said: This dog has suffered from thirst as I had. So he climbed down into the well, filled his shoe with water, then caught it in his mouth until he climbed up and let the dog drink it. Allah appreciated this act of his and pardoned him. Then (the Companions around him) said: Allah's Messenger, is there for us a reward even for (serving) such animals? He said: Yes, there is a reward for service to every living animal.” Hadith number in Sahih Muslim: 4162

2- “Anas bin Malik, may Allah be pleased with him, reported: Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) had forbidden tying animals (and making them the targets of arrows, etc.) “ Hadith number in Sahih Muslim: 3616

So, how could bin Laden and his people do such a cruel thing to an innocent animal?? This may happen in one case: they are not true Moslems... the question is: are they or aren't they!!

COMMENT FROM A READER

Seems that everyone is in concensus that this puppy video is just another "U.S Gov - Golan/Globus Production" of a 2002 version of "Old Yeller" (In my opinon HIS fate was actually much worse than the puppy's..) but the reader who mentioned the fact that this act of "chemical testing" is no different from the fact that we gas dogs by the dumpsterfull because we cant find them homes hit it on the nail.. but I guess thats okay, those dogs arent cute anyway right?? The very fact that this video WILL in fact dupe those who have no idea what war is really like ( I dont but I grew up in LA and the cops and Al Qaeda arent any different..) the masses are going to be scared to death by this.. and actually believe that big bad al gaeda is coming to their town.. and THATS whats truly frightening!! that theyd believe it.. If they think that gassing that dog is truly a marker of their evilness then the duped-all-believeing public should go rent (or buy its only 9.99) a video called "Atomic Bomb Movie in 3D" which has all the test blasts from the 50 and the 60's and look at what we did to Goats, Pigs, Cows, Chicken, Advarks (well not ardvarks but you get my point..) WE NUKED THEM (and also the inhabitants of bikini atoll) and it was good because they put on DVD and allowed blockbuster to sell it.. But CNN isnt putting that one on the air are they???

COMMENT FROM A READER

It occurred to me that, even if Al-Qaida did test chemical weapons on dogs, where the fuck does our government get off acting horrified by it?:

http://www.peta.org/mc/facts/fsae9.html
http://www.idausa.org/facts/military.html

COMMENT FROM A READER

I was watching a local news station and saw them re-airing CNN's Gassed Dog film, and I saw something that might be of interest to you (I don't know if it's in CNN's Version, but the "CNN Exclusive" banner remained the whole time). The images of the Dog being gassed segued to images of "chemical or biological weapons being manufactured." They show torsos and arms/hands only, handling various chemical compounds that look rather sinister, bubbling and smoking... Ordinarily this would not be too odd since some chemical weapons do in fact do these sinister things, except for two details:

1) The hands shown in the images are all WHITE men's hands….

2) The hands shown in the images are all UNGLOVED….

No one in their right mind would be manufacturing or handling chemical or biological weapons without gloves, and the hands themselves were not Arab!

COMMENT FROM A READER

Ever saw the report on the zoo of Kabul? These animals were living skeletons, most half dead!

COMMENT FROM A READER

I just wanted to say that I visited the Middle East (syria) for two months over a summer when I was 13 years old and I never recall seeing any golden retrievers anywhere. The only kinds of dogs there were mutts, and none of them remotely resembled a golden retriever. I know that Syria is a different country than Iraq, but it's all the middle east and I guarantee you personally that there are no golden retrievers in Iraq, cause, wouldn't they have to be imported from europe or america or somewhere since they aren't found in Iraq? And I'm pretty sure that nobody in the middle east loves dogs that much, and even if they did I'm sure they have better things to spend their money on with the sanctions and starving children in that country. I mean seriously, Dubya & co. need to give it a break!

COMMENT FROM A READER

Green, in Islam, is the representative color, present on all Islamic countries' flags if I remember correctly. Health and appearance aside, why would they put a green scarf, the sacred color, on an unclean animal?

From: http://www.antiwar.com/orig/sapienza1.html

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:

See… http://www.peta.org/feat/military/index.html

"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."

See… http://www.peta.org/feat/military/index.html
And… http://www.chai-online.org/haaretz.htm#expose

Another Cute Dog Dies On Video

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."

See… http://www.mrmcmed.org/mar.html

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."

See.. http://www.pcrm.org/magazine/GM98Autumn/GM98Autumn1.html

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."

http://www.pcrm.org/magazine/GM98Autumn/GM98Autumn1.html

Roborat

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.'"

See… http://www.peta.org/mc/facts/fsae9.html

I think I'm done here.

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 http://www.anti-state.com/, and is involved with the anti-medical establishment website http://www.infectioustruth.com/. He lives in Miami Beach.

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