I’m one of those dog-loving people that gets irrationally upset anytime anything bad happens to a dog. But I still found this funny:
The U.S. embassy in Iraq is investigating another deadly shooting incident involving its Blackwater bodyguards — this time of the New York Times’s dog.
Staff at the newspaper’s Baghdad bureau said Blackwater bodyguards shot Hentish dead last week before a visit by a U.S. diplomat to the Times compound.
On a positive note, I’m back from the hospital and everything went well. It was a long day, but the result is what counts. What’d I miss?
Oh, not much, you know, BooMan. Same old same old.
Or, more succinctly:
Just another day at the office here in Bizzaro World-O-Democrats.
Oh…that.
We’ll see what happens in conference. But we knew a cave in was coming.
Not sure why you find this funny – except in a very black, “better to laugh than cry” sort of way.
They shot this dog because it attacked their dog? And, apparently, was slowing down their bomb-sniffing sweep?
That seems to be a metaphor for Blackwater – slow us down & we’ll kill you. Not funny to me.
Still, I find them to be similar in outlook to one of the enlisted defendants at Abu Ghraib, Graner I think his name was – when I heard this guy was a civilian prison guard I knew it would be trouble, because I’ve heard guards at Folsom prison talk about how it would be “if they ran the show”. I don’t know if the job makes them into sadists or if it just brings the sadist out in these people, but it ain’t pretty.
These guys at Blackwater are the stereotype of what happens when you let muzzle-monkeys run around unchecked. These idiots chafed under “Rules of Engagement” & are now demonstrating why those rules exist.
It is sad as hell when the lunatics run the asylum, but that has been the seven years.
I used to think that adult people as a whole could distinguish between reality & “the movies” – now I think I might have been terribly mistaken.
Well, the story rings false on so many levels. Just like their oh-so-modest account of how they tried not to shoot women and children in the Square, yet somehow ALL the bullet casings were American and from their guns.
The Blackwater guy says that he got between TWO fighting snarling guard dogs?!?!!!!!
:pffffft:
What sane man, woman, or child gets between fighting dogs? I suppose he’ll say that he put his head in the jaws of death while trying to make peace between them.
Wasn’t the Blackwater dog on a leash? Why the hell not? Even a long leash is enough to remind the dog that it is under control.
Did the NYT know that Blackwater was coming to do a security sweep or spy ops? They do have telephones, don’t they? If so, the NYT should have had their dog confined or leashed for the protection of expected guests. If they didn’t know, then Hentish was doing his duty by guarding the compound against armed intruders, and major apologies are in order for bringing a dog into another dog’s area of patrol.
Hell, if Blackwater showed up on my doorstep, I’d expect my cat to pull out her claws and shred any snooping dog and ham-fisted goon-with-a-gun.
Maybe the “funny” part is that the New York Times has to have a COMPOUND in a country that’s been “liberated” for 5 years.
Or maybe what’s “funny” is that the Times has any American reporters in Iraq at all since fax machines and emails work just fine in receiving the White House’s and Pentagon’s statements to be regurgitated in print.
Or maybe what’s “funny” is that the name “Hentish” comes from the Old English word “hentan” which means “to hold or to seize”.
Or maybe what’s “funny” is once again we go back to Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar to describe Iraq:
Who knows?
Pax
.
This is the first time the military has placed therapy dogs in a combat zone, so it is unknown precisely to what degree troops will connect with and benefit from them. “We have a blank page,” says Staff Sgt. Jack Greene. “We’re writing on the page. We don’t know what’s going to be at the bottom of the page until we get there.”
But at a minimum, the dogs “will be able to serve as an icebreaker and a communication link” between troubled troops and care providers, says Mike Sargeant, chief training officer for the non-profit America’s VetDogs. Sergeant began preparing the 2-year-old Labs earlier this year after the Army queried whether the psychological benefits that therapy dogs provide stateside troops could be replicated in Iraq.
Jumping to the challenge
Therapy dogs offer affection without regard to “gender, race, disability or injury,” says Sargeant, and in many settings, troubled people have come to regard the animal as “a safe haven of communication” and have opened up in ways they have not with humans. It’s “too new to know just how far the magic will go” in a combat environment, he says, but he’s convinced the two dogs are ideally suited to the challenge.
Boe and Budge are similar to each other in their affection for people and ability to tune into individuals’ emotional states, but they have their own distinct personalities, Sargeant says. Boe is a stocky female with a playful nature who will cheerfully spend hours at someone’s feet if that’s what is asked, and Budge is a spunky male who’s hard-wired to please.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Our relationship with our animals has always fascinated me. It is odd that creatures which, on the surface, can appear to be so primitive, yet can bring out such complex emotions from “higher level” humans. Perhaps we as humans have a slightly inflated view of our place in this world.
They shot the New York Times news hound?
It sure sounds like they could use a visit from The Dog Whisperer at the NYT Baghdad Bureau.
Exposed: The New York Times’ Baghdad Attack Dogs
awww – Eason Jordan got a boo-boo!!!
That’s a front-pager right there.
Is this the reporting we can get? It reads like the diary of a self-pitying teenager.
Yep, at Huff-Po it’s kinda hit and miss sometimes.
Not sure what his point was. Sympathy, I guess.
I certainly agree that Huffpo is hit & miss – as much as it sometimes runs articles that are interesting & important – there is a lot of the same old shit that I look to blogs for relief from.
I read it regularly – but nowadays I just scan it as quickly as possible & flee. I’m sure I miss some good stuff in my desire to get away from the dreck.
I love this site, but it brings me great sadness that you find a dog’s brutal death amusing. We consider our dogs to be family members, and the fact that you can make a joke out of a brutal killing by Blackwater most disheartening. I will be deleting you from my bookmarks.
I had a rough day yesterday, spending about 10 hours in the emergency room and OR waiting room. The only humor I found in it was dark humor.
The only humor I found in it was dark humor.
Many of us who do emergency work find its a way we can cope, long term. I’m sure a lot of people would be appalled, but you get by the best you can.
On the other hand, I’ve never become callous and probably have more reverence for life in general, human or animal, than before and for that I’m grateful.
Glad to hear CBtY is doing well. The laparoscopy scar won’t be nearly as cool to show off as the old fashioned incision would have been, but he’ll be up & about much sooner:-)
It is a sad commentary on our priorities when a dog’s shooting is given similar coverage in the media as that of numerous Iraqis. Not that the dog’s death is not heinous, but that we consider some human beings to be so readily expendable for our dear leader’s misadventure in the middle east. Just sayin’.
On another note, I know how much the writer of this post adored his Newf (click on “about” in the upper right corner to see a pic), and loves the other dogs he’s known too. Knowing that BooMan spent 12 hours in the emergency room and surgical waiting room with someone with appendicitis yesterday, I would hope that people will just realize that this was a poor word choice at the end of an excruciatingly long day and cut him a break. I know I’ve misspoken plenty of times in my life…and not with ill intent.
Peace.
Glad to hear all went well.
Glad everything went well CG and that long day is over. As for Boo’s remark, well I rather thought when he said ‘funny’ he really meant just the opposite and that the story about the dog was a sick/sorry commentary on all that is happening in Iraq. I certainly didn’t think he meant that it was really ‘funny’ in any way except as he said very very black humor type thing.
Yeah – it is sad. But many of us find a real correlation between the way people treat animals & the way they treat people.
Someone (or some group) that callously hurts, mistreats or kills animals probably has serious problems in their relations with people too.
Granted, we already know that about Blackwater – this incident confirms it.