Posted on 03/04/2008 6:36:57 AM PST by yankeedame
Last updated at 13:49pm on 4th March 2008
The U.S. military are investigating a shocking video of a smiling Marine throwing a puppy off the top of a steep hillside in Iraq into a gully below.
The video gained widespread attention and condemnation after appearing on the web site YouTube, where it has been viewed over 8,000 times.
The footage shows two Marines, in combat gear and smiling, as one holds a white-and-black puppy by the scruff of its neck.
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Sickening: The grinning soldier holds the puppy aloft
and then throws it off a hillside
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The small dog seems to be about eight weeks old and is motionless as it is held.
"Cute little puppy, huh?" says one Marine as he smiles broadly.
"Oh so cute, so cute, little puppy," says another in a child-like voice.
The Marine holding the puppy then turns and hurls the animal overhand into a desert-like gully below.
The puppy can be heard yelping in terror until it thuds to the ground at the bottom of the gully.
"That's mean," one Marine says after, in a sickening understatement.
"The video is shocking and deplorable and is contrary to the high standards we expect of every Marine," a spokesperson revealed.
Marine spokesman Major Chris Perrine believed the culprit is based in Hawaii.
"We do not tolerate this type of behaviour and will take appropriate action," he said.
The 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment of about 1,000 Hawaii Marines recently replaced a sister unit in Iraq, the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment.
Marine Corps Base Hawaii said the vast majority of Marines "conduct their duties in an honourable manner that brings great credit upon the Marine Corps and the United States."
"There have been numerous stories of Marines adopting pets and bringing them home from Iraq or helping to arrange life-saving medical care for Iraqi children," said Major Chris Perrine.
"Those are the stories that exemplify what we stand for and how most Marines behave."
“Did you post the right link?”
Yes, as a background for similar such hoax schemes perpetrated against U.S. military members.
Do you really believe only USMC can wear their uniforms? You’re too naive to be on this blog!
USMC is investigating.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,334709,00.html
I am sure they will figure out what is what in good time.
The fake puppy looks a little more flat-faced than the one in the video.
It’s not a dog at all. It’s a cloth simulation of a dog.
It's a fake dog. Those are not our military personnel. The location is someplace other than Iraq.
If you express your outrage as though it was the worse thing in the world one could do, then you are saying that killing a puppy is worse than killing a baby.
It's called defining deviancy down and it is taking over our society and shaking the foundations of COMMON SENSE.
Just read the story of Nubs—that’s a great story.
At this link:
http://abcnews.go.com/US/Story?id=4279495&page=2
there’s also a video of another military man that didn’t make it home, but the two dogs he befriended have made it back to his family in the States.
No, it doesn’t end death and suffering. It hardly makes any difference. But it makes life more enjoyable for me; that’s all.
I take vitamin and mineral suppliments; if I didn't, I would probably develop a nutritional disorder. On the other hand, red meat (beef, pork, lamb, et al.) predisposes us to arteriosclerosis. Fish does not. Poultry, without the skin, does not significantly.
And as I have said, if someone invites me to dinner and serves meat--and I can't avoid eating it without being unkind to host and hostess, I eat it with gratitude.
My mother, who was a slave to convention and nutty in other ways as well, was a closet vegetarian. She wouldn't discuss it, let alone admit it. But she never managed to eat meat. She was horrified if I deviated in any way from what she considered the norm. She had a pet lamb when she was a child, and I infer that it met a horrible death (I think it fell in a fire or something like that). She was particularly horrified at the thought of eating lamb. She NEVER served it in our house--I noticed.
I stopped eating meat in medical school because of arteriosclerosis. Sometime after that, I started feeling sorry for the animals. And after a while, I lost all taste for meat.
It's an inconvenience, but that's all it is.
My wife and I prepare terrific veg. meals, and good wine makes up for anything that could be lacking.
I'm in a weird mood today too. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have raised this issue.
I have lots of respect for my friends here on FR. These are some of the most intelligent, clever, well educated, and open minded people on the planet.
I knew there was some reason you were sharing it with us here. ;^)
Aha! My intuition never fails me. /s lol
I was picking on you, let there be no doubt. I used to hunt a little and fished a lot. I loved it and was very good at it. Then I spent a few years trying to start a business and had no time I could justify spending fishing. Then I became a Buddhist and, while not told to stop fishing, I was told it would/could be detrimental to progress in meditation on compassion and loving kindness. So I made a choice.
But I was also told that making distinctions, like becoming vegetarian because I would think of myself as being more compassionate than a meat eater, would be worse than detrimental to my practice it would pervert it. So that's my story. And it probably means as much to you as your rationale means to others. Possibly interesting (possibly not) but only really meaningful to you. : )
I could see the same sort of unbiased conclusions in your thinking and was fascinated by your description of the path to them. A process with no end or limits unless artificially imposed. FWIW my father was a doctor and loved hunting, fishing and his favorite dinner was a big juicy steak so there is something else at work there than anatomical knowledge. If'ya know whudda mean.
Now to work on my habitual nitpicking of others.
A.) I didn't say that, and
B.) This is not a blog.
“Why not save the life of an innocent puppy, and let the abusing cruel inhuman moron about to harm it fend for themselves.
Personally, I think its the perfect time for an SOB POS like that to meet The Almighty. hed sure have some splainin to do....
“
Because he did not break any laws, you committed murder, I don’t want your chances sir.
Not that I do not think it is horrible, but killing a person over a dog? — what a spoiled rotten society we have become.
“I take vitamin and mineral suppliments; if I didn’t, I would probably develop a nutritional disorder. On the other hand, red meat (beef, pork, lamb, et al.) predisposes us to arteriosclerosis. Fish does not. Poultry, without the skin, does not significantly.”
Well...red meat in the form of venison, elk, moose, caribou, bison and so on is substantially less fatty than pork, beef etc. So, another point in favor of wild game. Hormone and antibiotic free to boot.
For me, until human life extension provides vigorous, healthy life beyond 70, I won’t mince the difference between a 70 year life and a 90 year life. Further, I’d suggest that stress and worry are more adverse factors than diet. For most people I’d say that relaxing and enjoying life to the fullest beats stressing about health factors, overall. Quality of life and all that. ;-)
At any rate, thanks for an interesting conversation. I agree that the folks here at FR are generally a cut above the usual Internet fare.
So it is impossible for you to be concurrently concerned with multiple beings? Sorry if that is the case.....
These are some of my favorite lines--inscribed in both English and Sanskrit on the stone walls of the New Temple of Shiva in Varanasi, India:
It seems to me that the most dangerous net of illusion is self-deception.
On the other hand (I hesitate to include this just as the flames of fury are subsiding on this thread but...) this provocation was asked of me one evening at a gathering of Hindus in Georgia: "How can you learn compassion when your mouth is filled with blood?" It followed remarks I had made concerning carnivorism.
Yes--self-congratulation is a trap. It can be one of--apparently limitless--forms of snobbery. Some of the most unaware people I have met have been spiritual snobs. I'm sure you've met quite a few also.
I think there is an element of release of worldly traps in my loss of desire to kill and eat animals. It seems that the path to enlightenment may involve more release than anything else.
If my understanding is correct, at the moment of death there is a flash of brilliant light, the seizure of which, by the deceased, if he can hold on to it, will provide release from the samsara. This is described in the Tebetan Book of the Dead, if I understand correctly.
I could not hope to seize the flash of light, i.e. escape the samsara and the maya, trusting in my own personal resources (a little hint of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer there); however, the grace of God can provide infinite resources (a bit of Judeo-Christian imagery there) (it's all maya, of course), and I think that if I can release enough impediment to the reception of God's love (sin in Judeo-Christian terms), the embrace of the flash of light will come naturally--and easily.
It is my challenge to release as much resistance and impediment as possible--not for the self-serving purpose of seizing the light of maya escape (which, of course, is another illusion)--but for the purpose of opening myself as completely as possible to Him--or, in Hindu/Buddahist terms, to enlightenment.
I just finished a fascinating book: Prince of Foxes, by Samuel Shellabarger, one of the modern world's most underrated authors. The plot turns on Christian mysticism. The theme of this excellent novel is the triumph of virtue.
The climax of the tale is a confrontation of Cesare Borgia, utterly saturated with evil and worldy desire, with a Christian saint, a nun, Sister Lucia da Narni. Both characters are expertly drawn as larger than life by Shellabarger.
The saint hears the word of God. When Borgia asks her why he doesn't hear it, she tells him that it's because he will not listen.
In the scene, Borgia has everyone and everything within his power, and he is determined to wreak evil, including revenge and cruelty. He even threatens the saint with torture and death. However, the saint proves more powerful, and on this crux the plot of the tale turns.
It is quite a fascinating work of literature, and the author's unselfconscious invocation of spirituality (it was written in the 1940s) mocks the cynical aspiritual pseudosophistication of today.
Truth can be found everywhere.
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