I need this debunked, as it’s making the rounds of the Tinfoil Hat forums, with the subtext, “See what the Evil Reptilian Alien Bush’s guys are doing in Iraq when they’re not offing innocent Iraqi civilians to carry out the agenda of Bush and the UN’s New World Order.”
Nothing on Snopes.
WARNING: Extremely brisk and graphic 18-second video of guys shooting a dog. It takes it many shots to actually die. [gorge rises]
Not work-safe, or kid-safe, or animal-lover safe.
But I need to know if these are really U.S. Army soldiers, in Iraq, or just a couple of guys in Army surplus fatigues out in the woodlot. Can you tell from their clothes and equipment? I can’t tell from the terrain–could be Iraq, could be Oklahoma.
As per the two-clicks rule, the link to download the video is on the ogrish website under the article, which follows.
Please remember this is not a Pit thread, so save all outrage for a more worthy venue. I’m appalled, too, but I need facts here so I can go “nyah” at the Tinfoil Hat people.
can’t comment on whether it’s true or not but when my friend was working in Dubai on construction contracts they were much troubled with packs of pi-dogs hanging around the camp eating whatever trash they could get. They were very fierce and eventually they tried to pull down a child, either because they it was small enough to tackle or didn’t recognise it as human. The father pulled it up out of the way and one of the dogs took a big chunk of flesh out of his [father’s] arm. After that one of the guys went and bought a shotgun (only thing you could buy in country) and tried shooting the dogs. That turned out rather messy too. Dogs are universally despised in the Middle East, for both cultural reasons and because they spread rabies.
I believe there are parts of the U.S. where feral dogs are considered a nuisance species that can be shot by landowners.
Dogs in the Middle East are nearly always feral, since people in that region seldom keep dogs as pets.
Videos of animals getting shot can be distasteful to many people, especially if that animal is one generally not hunted here. Keep in mind that may not be the full story, and that the description on the video might not match its actual content.
…which is why I’m here in General Questions asking to have the video debunked, rather than in the Pit.
Also, you misunderstand my OP if you think I merely read that little one-paragraph blurb and came rushing in here in a hand-wringing PETA frenzy.
I watched the video. Several times. Scrutinizing it closely for dead giveaways that it was filmed in the U.S., like a Dairy Queen or a vintage Corvette or a giggling teen dopehead in the background. And, not seeing anything obvious, then I came in here to see if the Dope military types could offer any additional input.
And yes, the description does match its actual content, except that it doesn’t show them digging the hole to bury the dog (which is what made me wonder in the first place if someone had just gotten hold of some footage of a couple guys in Army surplus fatigues out in the woodlot shooting a dog, and decided to send it in to ogrish with a fake story about Iraq.)
I’ve been a Doper too long to just go by what’s posted on the Internet without doing some digging myself. But this is beyond my skill level to find out, which is why I’m in here.
I am also perfectly aware that in the Third World, feral dogs, called “pi” or “pariah” dogs, are considered fair game for target practice. I am also aware that in many parts of the U.S., shooting nuisance or feral dogs is legal.
I don’t care about that; I’m not here to discuss the ethical ins and outs of it. I just wanna know if anybody can tell, from their clothing and their equipment, whether those two guys are in fact American GIs.
I have no proof, but word from enlisted troops on the usual gun-nut/soldier web forums is that the shootings are legit, and they are done under orders occasionally, in Iraq. The dogs are all feral as Muslims won’t have them as pets. The reason they are being shot is because (heh heh) after firefights, the dogs rush in and begin tearing up/eating fallen people. Often, fallen-but-still-alive people. So now you know.
~
Muslims (or rather ‘most Arabs’; I think the ‘Muslim’ category is rather too broad for these purposes) certainly will have dogs as pets, however they tend not to coddle them as we do and they generally aren’t welcomed into the house.
A friend of mine who was in the Army and drove a tank during the initial [phase of the] Iraq war (1991) told me guys would sometimes amuse themselves by running down camels, which are of course far larger, more useful and quite expensive. It’s the type of thing that happens when you give jacked-up 19 year olds a lot of power/firepower in an alternately tedious and stressful situation. I’d be surprised if random, probably feral dogs could get near them without getting shot.
