The initial plan was so much more bearable, too. “Dog trained to leave a timed explosive and run back” - sure, it puts the dog in serious fucking danger, but people are in serious danger too during a fascist war of extermination. Dog has to do their part against the fascist invader, it’s a shitty situation, but I get that.
But training dogs to be suicide bombers? What, was the projected 5% extra success rate or whatever the ‘improvement’ was supposed to be really worth having that on their conscience? It’s one thing to treat an animal, which cannot understand the situation, as a partner in a project, however dangerous or disagreeable that project may be; it’s another thing entirely to treat them as a tool. Or fucking munitions. Especially dogs, who we’ve bred specifically to trust and rely on us.
Unfortunately, this sort of lunacy was common in the 20th century, when the notion of animals, in general, as having any interests worth respecting beyond human utility was still not mainstream. Even as late as the Vietnam War, US military dogs were treated as equipment by government policy, and thus either abandoned or euthanized after US involvement in the war wore down.
Nowadays, military dogs are formally given status and outrank their handlers - while a little humorous and cutesy at first glance, is also a serious acknowledgement that treating them like nameless tools (or more nameless or tool-like than human soldiers, at least) is no longer acceptable.
The initial plan was so much more bearable, too. “Dog trained to leave a timed explosive and run back” - sure, it puts the dog in serious fucking danger, but people are in serious danger too during a fascist war of extermination. Dog has to do their part against the fascist invader, it’s a shitty situation, but I get that.
But training dogs to be suicide bombers? What, was the projected 5% extra success rate or whatever the ‘improvement’ was supposed to be really worth having that on their conscience? It’s one thing to treat an animal, which cannot understand the situation, as a partner in a project, however dangerous or disagreeable that project may be; it’s another thing entirely to treat them as a tool. Or fucking munitions. Especially dogs, who we’ve bred specifically to trust and rely on us.
Unfortunately, this sort of lunacy was common in the 20th century, when the notion of animals, in general, as having any interests worth respecting beyond human utility was still not mainstream. Even as late as the Vietnam War, US military dogs were treated as equipment by government policy, and thus either abandoned or euthanized after US involvement in the war wore down.
Nowadays, military dogs are formally given status and outrank their handlers - while a little humorous and cutesy at first glance, is also a serious acknowledgement that treating them like nameless tools (or more nameless or tool-like than human soldiers, at least) is no longer acceptable.