From "Military dog killed in Gaza blast saved handler's life":
IDF canine Tamara took the worst of the impact in house explosion • Her handler, Staff Sgt. T., was moderately wounded • "She was his best friend; he's grieving for her," says his mother • Oketz Unit holds ceremonies for dogs killed in action.I have to say that I consider immoral to have dogs or other animals take part in military operations - be it Israeli or any other - as they cannot give their consent.
A dog from the IDF's Oketz K9 unit who was killed last week when a booby-trapped house in Gaza exploded saved her handler's life.
Enza: You should say instead that it's the enemy that killed the Israeli dog. The dog saved a human life, a soldier fighting to protect his country from those who wish to destroy him and his country. Animals cannot choose their values as humans can. They can't formulate them or project them. They can't conceptualize their own existence as man can, or even ideas such as "nation" or "survival." For animals, the hierarchy of consciousness goes up only so far and stops at the point of volition. They are capable of emotion, but even their emotions are pre-programmed by their nature, such as a mother bear becoming enraged when her cub are threatened (or perceived as a threat by her). Animals are capable of forming emotional bonds with entities (such as people) they do not perceive as nemeses. Canaries were used as warnings to men in coal mines, and even during WWI, that poisonous gas was present. Perhaps you've read about the American woman who raised a chimp from its time of birth to its adulthood, treating it as a real child. But when a friend visited her home, the chimp, perceiving the visitor as a threat to his owner, went berserk and tore off the visitor's face, escaped from the house, and had to be shot by the police. (One must wonder about the state of mind of the woman who treated the chimp as a child, knowing full well that it's been recorded that chimps can turn on their owners, just as pet dogs and cats can when they become senile or contract rabies.) No, dogs do not possess the attribute of consent, as you say. But it is moral for men to use animals in wartime if the purpose – and it's a purpose the animals can't conceive of and therefore can't choose – is to protect human life and seek out an enemy of that life. It's wrong to project the whole range of human attributes onto animals, which is why I've always had trouble with "talking" animals in cartoons and the like.
ReplyDeletetime I took my Jewish support away from LIbertyGB
ReplyDeletethere were dogs used in WW2
the Isola da Elba is over-run with homeless cats
they eat live animal sushi in Japan
but look...can we talk about all this instead of being enemies?