This isn’t really a rant, only because I almost damn near speechless about it. There aren’t words… My brain is on overload, because of the sheer “what the fuck”-edness of it.
I’ve been trying to wrap my head around the mere concept of this all night, and still…no go. The mind boggles. I’m hoping it’s not really true, but on the other hand, as they saying goes “life is truly stranger than fiction”. I mean, you can’t make this shit up…can you? Snopes didn’t have anything. I checked there, as well as urbanlegends.about.com.
What I want to know is, how do they train monkeys to do this sort of thing? I mean, once they’re trained, wouldn’t they be a little too, um…liquified to be effective?
Just to play along, what is the problem with using monkeys to detect and detonate land mines? You would rather using humans? I don’t know much about the detection or detonation of land mines, but I would make perfect sense to me to use a monkey to do it rather than a human. Now, I’m assuming our military has enough high tech equiptment and robotics that it doesn’t need to use monkeys, so I’m guessing this won’t go much farther, but if you can’t get your brain around the idea of using animals to potentially save human lives, you may want to get a checkup.
I don’t think they’re single-use. I think they’re trained to diffuse the situation rather than just trip the mine and…expire. At any rate, as much as I like the monkey and all his human-like ways, it is better than killing humans on this task.
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated…
I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man.”
-Mahatma Gandhi
“If chimpanzees have consciousness, if they are capable of abstractions, do they not have what until now has been described as ‘human rights’?
How smart does a chimp have to be before killing him constitutes murder?”
-Carl Sagan
*“Humanity’s true moral test, its fundamental test, consists of its attitude toward those who are at its mercy: animals.
And in this respect, human kind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it.” *
Anti-personel landmines are darn tough problem. If sending Cheetah into a minefield would help I would be all for throwing bananas in there and hoping for the best.
Darn shame is it won’t work.
When ya buy (from the Italians or French) by the ton, landmines used to (both countries got on the Princess Diana bandwagon) a couple of bucks each. In truth, on a good day with nobdy shooting at you they are not too dangerouse. You just find them and dig 'em up and detonate them.
In reality it is a mother. Minefields are never really fields, people always seem to be shooting at you and too often it rains.
Anywho the huge number of mines overcomes any single-use system, monkey or machine.
The best solution is to train a bunch of deimers and then pay them a bounty for each mine they dig up.
Actually, I wasn’t thinking of the animal cruelty aspect of it at all. Animals have been used in warfare since before the days of the Roman war dogs, I’m quite sure.
I was far more baffled by the fact that a Council of the Willing country’s contribution to the war was a bunch of fucking monkeys. I fully expect there to be a numerous amount Moroccan government officals snickering behind closed office doors about this, if it’s really true.
I agree that using monkeys is better then using humans. Using robots would be the best thing though and I am sure that is what the US military does.
Unless, as Kalhon suggests, the monkeys could be trained to defuse the mines. There would be some danger invovled for the monkeys of course, but it would still be better then using humans.
I agree that using monkeys is better then using humans. Using robots would be the best thing though and I am sure that is what the US military does.
Unless, as Kalhon suggests, the monkeys could be trained to defuse the mines. There would be some danger invovled for the monkeys of course, but it would still be better then using humans.
It was the first thing that struck me about the story you linked to.
It read like they were planning on donating a load of animals so they could run amok in an enclosed area and explode all the mines to clear a path through the minefield.
The idea of this being some countries sole achievement in the war would be to provide mine-fodder is quite laughable.
That sounded to me like a spectacularly bad idea. I have heard of some countries using wild pigs before to attempt to the same, but with limited success. As Paul said, “Darn shame is it won’t work.“
And anyway, what if they got captured by the enemy? Would they become ‘Morrocan surrender(ed) monkeys’?
Aro, they are trained to diffuse the landmines, not set them off, as I understand it. Seems no different to me than teaching a human to do it, other than that, if it goes wrong, we don’t lose a human soldier. We’ve used animals for military purposes for various reasons for centuries, and we still do today. Cites:
That being said, I guess I’m just more cynical than usual this morning. Am I really the only one that sees the black comedy in Morroco’s supposed war contribution being a bunch of monkeys? sigh
Cool. I read it wrong in the first instance. Guess they may be ‘multiple-use monkeys’ then.
But I still feel the animals should be left far, far away from any human war or conflict. Its not their fight nor our place to involve them in it.
We should utilise technologies not wildlife to disarm existing mines and apply even more political pressure to completely ensure no further use of mines in future conflicts.