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The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated -- Mohandas Gandhi

Introduction

The single greatest factor that separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom is our unsurpassed intellect. Our intellect has afforded us the ability to display an incredible degree of ingenuity, which has been used for both malevolent as well as benevolent purposes. We have thought up such inventive ways to reach sublime heights of love and beauty, and thought up such ingenious ways to hate and destroy ourselves, other animals and the environment. This analysis will consider how we, as a species, have, with maniacal ingenuity, utilized animals in conflict, why this abuse of animals is detrimental to humanity, and, in the end, what it says about human nature. A variety of solutions to rectify this horrendous phenomenon will also be advanced. If we can see the humanity in other species, then maybe—just maybe—we might be able to see the common humanity in our fellow human beings. This perspective could itself frame a path that leads away from war and its destructive consequences.

One may ask, “Why choose to examine the history of animals in warfare at all?” Millions of men and women are killed, raped, maimed or mutilated through warfare every year, not to mention the emotional and psychological damage. There is certainly no shortage of pain on the human side of conflict and war. Many might say, “Really, what is the life of an animal compared to that of a human? Can one really compare the suffering of an animal to that of a human?”

First of all, let me clarify that I am not an animal rights activist. I do not belong to any animal rights organizations; I do not break into research labs in the middle of the night to liberate research animals from enslavement nor do I engage in any other activity that might label me as an animal rights activist. That acknowledged, I still believe that there is something to be said against using animals in warfare.

With the exception of children, all humans with sound minds have a say as to whether or not they join a conflict—even if they are conscripted against their will. It is true that by resisting conscription, they may risk jail, torture—even death. In the end, however, it is still their choice. Animals do not choose to join a conflict. They do not have a voice in the matter. They do not understand the basic geopolitical reasons why humans fight, nor can they differentiate between humans of different ideological persuasions; yet they suffer the same destructive fate that many human combatants suffer.

Animals are seen – by many combatants -- simply as tools to wage war on their enemies; they are not seen as living, breathing creatures with a mind who can feel pain.[1]When human beings ignore this, it can lead to grave consequences. To see a living being simply as a tool is to dehumanize that living creature. To dehumanize an animal is, in a sense, to dehumanize all human life. According to the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, people who abuse their pets are five times as likely to commit a violent act against another person. This research has been corroborated by many other organizations, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Child Study Center at New York University. Immanuel Kant seems to have said it best: “He who is cruel to animals becomes hard in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.”

How Animals are Used in War

“A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” --- Shakespeare, Richard III, Act V, scene IV

There are at least seven ways that animals are used in conflict: as beasts of burden, as actors carrying out operations in harm’s way, as messengers of death and destruction, as a strategy of war, as a source of funds, as mascots, and finally, as experimental subjects.

Beasts of Burden

No other animal, arguably, has played a greater role—or has been glorified as much—in the history of warfare as the horse. Horses were first placed into battle sometime between 2000 and 1000 B.C. The first recorded use was by the Hyksos (originating from modern day Turkey) against the Egyptian Empire. The horses were tied to what many would consider the first chariots. These chariots, which inspired awe and fear in the Egyptian Army, helped to carry the Hyksos to victory against the Egyptians, changing the course of western civilization. Horses in succeeding millennia would carry men into battle again and again, shifting the course of history in the process. Some of them have become mythical figures in their own right, Alexander the Great's horse, Bucephalus, being perhaps the most famous.

Horses would play their most pivotal role in the history of warfare by transporting the Huns into battle, defeating every foe and wreaking havoc in their wake, transforming the history of Europe and Asia irrevocably. The Huns defeated most of their enemy combatants by utilizing two new inventions: the saddle and the stirrup, giving them the balance and leverage to throw a spear, swing a sword and utilize the bow and arrow more effectively than their counterparts. Horses continued to contribute to war right up until World War I, which many historians would regard as their swan song for their involvement in large-scale warfare.

Horses were by no means the only animal used throughout the millennia as beasts of burden in warfare. Most likely originating out of northeastern Africa and domesticated around 4000 B.C., the donkey, and its offshoot, the mule, have been used for centuries as beasts of burden in warfare. Whether carrying soldiers or supplies, these animals have often contributed to armed conflict around the world. Renowned for carrying large amounts of supplies on their backs in proportion to their own weight, especially in rough terrain, donkeys and mules have been essential in warfare throughout human history. Mules, which have been praised for their lack of fear in carrying equipment in extremely narrow and elevated areas, coupled with their determination to bear their loads in slippery or muddy terrain, have proven to be indispensable in conflict. The last two major conflicts, in which donkeys and mules were used on a global scale was in World War I, in the muddy fields of France and Russia, and in World War II, mostly in the Pacific and North Africa. [2]

Other beasts of burden in warfare include the camel, which has been employed throughout the world since it was domesticated 5,000 years ago. Mohammad himself is supposed to have ridden a camel into battle. Their South American cousin, the llama, was used in warfare for centuries, most notably by the Incas. Elephants have been marshaled since ancient times to carry hefty quantities of supplies due to their size and physical strength. Oxen, cows, reindeer, even large dogs have played their part in contributing to the many conflicts around the world as beasts of burden. The price that these animals paid in loss of life throughout the ages in conflicts is horrific. In WWI, 8 million horses, donkeys and mules were killed servicing the troops in Europe alone.[3]

It is true that beasts of burden were—and are—used during peacetime. There are some major differences, however, in the way they are treated during times of peace and war. Private individuals tend not to exert the animals to death or place the animals in harm’s way because the animals that they are employing (which in many cases they own) generally have a high extrinsic value. Combatants usually do not own these animals, and therefore, there is less urgency to keep the beast of burden alive over an extended period of time.

Beasts of burden also have been treated differently from agrarian to industrial to post-industrial societies, both in war and in peace. In agrarian societies, the sheer number of beasts of burden is greater than in other types of societies, simply because technology has replaced these animals with machines in post-agrarian societies. Secondly, in agrarian societies, beasts of burden might have been driven harder, albeit not to death, because the work of these animals formed the cornerstone of the livelihood of many of the occupations found in agrarian societies. Third, all animals in post-industrial societies tend to be treated more humanely than other societies, simply because the humane movement for animals began only in the first part of the 19th century.

In Harm’s Way

The list of animals placed in harm’s way during combat is depressingly long. Besides the many beasts of burden deployed during many conflicts, there has also been an incredible variety of combat tasks where animals were—and are—being put to use in ways that may result in their death. For example, dogs were utilized in Vietnam by American troops to clear Vietcong tunnels and caves and to sniff out land mines and booby-traps. At any given time there were 4,000 dogs employed in Vietnam for military purposes. All but 200 were left to the Vietcong, many of whom were tortured: The Vietcong intensely disliked U.S. scout dogs—so much so that they often placed bounties on the dogs’ heads. It is estimated that these scout dogs probably saved 10,000 servicemen’s lives as a result of their work in Vietnam.[4]

Dogs have also been used in just about every war as sentries, guarding forts, military bases and individual soldiers. In WWI, dogs were used in and around no-man’s land to deliver messages and supplies. They were also appropriated to lay copper telephone wire around no-man's land for telephone service, with the wire placed on rolls strapped on their backs. Many were of course shot at. Their history of service received very little gratitude and recognition. To this day, dogs in the U.S. military do not retire. Military working dogs are considered equipment, no different from a shell casing or a rifle. Unlike aircraft and ships, dogs are not sold as surplus, nor are they retired. They are simply terminated as humanely as possible.[5]

Cats were used in the trenches of WWI to help eradicate the hordes of rats that were plaguing the troops, with thousands of them succumbing to mustard gas and daily shellfire. One can argue that thousands of cats and dogs are euthanised in this country alone each year. However, animals that are euthanised meet their death painlessly, unlike most animals involved in wars.

Dolphins, sea lions—even whales—have been and still are used to spot sea mines by the many navies around the world. In the past, the U.S and Soviet military have employed dolphins to retrieve sea mines. Currently, there are 75 dolphins and 20 sea lions that have been trained and employed exclusively to spot sea mines in the Persian Gulf. Once the mines have been detected, the animals leave a buoyant tag that is visible to the navy personnel on ship.[6] Elephants have been employed in battle in great numbers in Africa, Asia and Europe. Their role was more or less synonymous to that of a modern day tank. Elephants would plow through towards the enemy, causing mayhem in their ranks. Elephants were quite difficult to disable due to their size and thick skin, which could be afflicted with several wounds and still maintain battle readiness.

Pigeons have been used throughout the history of warfare. Information such as the conquest of Gaul by Caesar was relayed to Rome by pigeons, as was the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. The pigeon’s finest hour, however, came during the siege of Paris in 1870. With the aid of photography, messages were copied on collodian, a primitive form of microfilm, thus allowing more messages to be carried per flight by the carrier pigeons. During the four months of the siege, pigeons brought 150,000 official letters and a million private letters into Paris[7]. As expected, a great many of these pigeons were shot at by the Prussian and pro-Prussian French Army surrounding Paris.

Pigeons as well as Parakeets have been used as warning devices against chemical and biological weapons in several 20th century wars. Pigeons and parakeets are currently being utilized by British troops in the Persian Gulf to warn against possible nerve and chemical agents that might be employed by anti-coalition forces.[8]

Monkeys have served in different conflicts in different ways. In the current war in Iraq, Morocco has offered the U.S. military 2000 specially trained monkeys whose sole purpose is to detonate land mines.[9] Whether the U.S. military accepted the offer is unclear. Animals operating in harm’s way in combat mostly have one thing in common: although some of them were chosen because of abilities superior to humans, most were deployed because the duties that they carried out were considered too dangerous for human combatants. Thus the job fell to them, their lives amounting to less than that of humans.

Messengers of Death and Destruction

Nowhere has humanity’s diabolical ingenuity in utilizing animals in warfare been more stark than how we use animals as messengers of death and destruction. In the ancient and medieval world, armies used diseased rats, rabbits, foxes, and perhaps dozens of other animals to poison wells. The Roman army applied this tactic rather abundantly. Diseased animals were also heaved over walls of besieged cities in the hope that that they would infect the general populations. One of the most infamous examples of this practice occurred in 1346, when Tartar soldiers catapulted rats and human corpses infected with bubonic plague onto the besieged city of Kaffa (in present day Ukraine on the Black Sea), where it is believed that Europe first experienced the Black Death.

Cats and dogs have been used in a variety of lethal applications. During WWII, the OSS, the forerunner of the CIA, conceived and experimented with the idea of attaching cats to dive-bombers to bomb Nazi warships. The notion was that cats hate water and always seem to land on their feet. OSS officials thus reasoned that if a bomb was attached to a cat dropped from a plane, the cat would instinctively try to avoid the water and wrangle to land on the deck of the ship targeted, thereby guiding the bomb to its target. The test trials proved less than successful. All of the cats became unconscious in mid-air.[10]

Also during WWII, the American Army used what they referred to as tankdogs to destroy German tanks. Dogs were taken away from their mothers as soon as they were weaned, and were only given food under the bellies of tanks. Once on the battlefield, the dogs, scared and on the verge of starvation, with explosives tied to their backs, would run to the underbelly of a German tank. Once there, American soldiers would detonate the explosives on the dogs' backs, destroying both tank and dog.[11] The Russian army to this day employs similar tactics with dogs.[12] Donkeys and mules have also been used as bomb-carrying devices. At least on two occasions in the last three years, militant Palestinians have used bomb-laden donkeys to blow up Israelis in the West Bank.

In the 1950’s, dogs, mules, dolphins and whales were considered as couriers for small tactical nuclear weapons. The Sandia Corporation, under contract to deliver a small and easily portable nuclear bomb, presented its experimental delivery system: a mule, controlled by a sun compass and brain electrodes. The mule could be kept on course by the feelings of punishment or reward that the electrodes delivered into its brain.[13] Since the early 1970’s, the US Navy and the CIA have trained orcas to carry and deliver explosives. Orcas, capable of towing up to seven tons for several miles, have been taught to carry nuclear warheads to enemy shores.[14]

Dolphins, whose friendly and kind nature towards man has been legendary, have been the victims of some of the most perverted military tactics dreamt up for using animals in warfare. In Vietnam in 1972, The US Navy began what was then called the Swimmer Nullification Program to protect South Vietnamese harbors against Vietcong divers. After spotting an enemy diver, the trained dolphin would tear off his facemask, flippers and air-tube and drag him to American Navy personnel for interrogation. Eventually, the US Navy felt that deadlier tactics were needed. US Navy trainers decided to place knives in the dolphins’ snouts and flippers, thereby training the dolphins to stab Vietcong divers to death.

Even more sadistically, Navy trainers placed hypodermic syringes loaded with pressurized carbon dioxide. When injected, the enemy divers would expand from the carbon dioxide and literally explode; 40 Vietcong divers were reported to have died this way as well as, by accident, two American servicemen. [15]

Bats, during WWII, were tested for delivering bombs to Japanese cities. The plan was to release thousands of bats before daybreak by plane over a major Japanese industrial city. The bats, with small incendiary explosives surgically attached, would be dropped from planes, eventually roosting in factories, crevices in munition dumps, powerplants and other strategic locations. A leather strap attaching the bombs to the bats would irritate the bats, causing the bats to chew through the straps, igniting the bombs. When it came time to test the bomb-laden bats, they were induced to hibernate, to allow the army staff to attach the bombs. It was thought that the hibernation would wear off once the bats were released from the planes, but they simply fell to their death. The bat program was discontinued. The program lasted from 1942 to1944.[16]

Cats and Foxes have been used since ancient times as fire-starters against enemy combatants to destroy their crops. Tied to the cat or fox’s tail would be a rope. At the end of the rope would be a cloth ball about the size of a baseball, doused in a flammable liquid and set ablaze. The fox or cat, fearing the fire, would run for several hundred yards dragging the ball until exhaustion set in. The animal would rest long enough for the ball of fire to set fire to that area. The process would repeat itself until the cat or fox dropped dead from exhaustion, leaving several fires behind. This practice was employed by anti-Castro forces in Cuba in the 1960’s, during Operation Mongoose, a covert C.I.A. directed operation to oust Castro.

Strategy of War

Destruction of animals has been used as a strategy of war for centuries. The logic is to deny your adversary food, clothing, and in some cases shelter and affordances for a living, by large-scale extermination of wild and domesticated animals. This strategy was indispensably exercised by the Russians against Napoleon’s troops during their invasion of Russia in 1812.

The American government encouraged this tactic as part of their protracted conflict with the many Indian nations that occupied the Great Plains by encouraging (mostly) private hunters to slaughter millions of Buffalo, which the Plains Indians used for food, tools and material for shelter. In 1874, during the height of the slaughter, which included several million buffalo in only a couple of years, Secretary of the Interior Columbus Delano testified before Congress on the large-scale hunting of the buffalo, saying that:

The buffalo is disappearing rapidly, but not faster than I desire. I regard the destruction of such game as Indians subsist upon as facilitating the policy of the Government, of destroying their hunting habits, coercing them on reservations, and compelling them to begin to adopt the habits of civilization.[17]

This policy towards the plains buffalo, and the Native Americans that subsisted upon them, was not espoused by all high officials in the U.S. Government at the time.

One can claim that many of these animals, for example, the Plains Buffalo, would have been killed during peacetime for the resources that they provided. The truth of the matter is, is that the Plains Indians only killed the buffalo they needed, which is why they coexisted for over 10,000 years. We are considering here slaughter to the point of extinction. As far as the Napoleonic invasion of Russia is concerned, the Russians killed animals that they normally would not have killed otherwise, for example, cows to produce milk, roosters and horses. Furthermore, this analysis concerns the objectification of animals in war and how this might lead us to dehumanize each other. Although the Native Americans did kill buffalo, they never objectified the animal—even in war. There was a belief amongst the many Indian nations around the Plains that the buffalo had a spirit, and although they thought it acceptable to kill buffalo, the greatest crime would be to see the buffalo that they were about to kill as sheer property.

Source of Funds

Animals in many instances in the history of warfare have been slaughtered to support conflicts financially. In most cases, the animals have a valuable commodity on their bodies that people, whether involved in the conflict or not, have been willing to pay large sums of money to obtain. Examples of this are the killing of elephants for their ivory during the Gabonese Civil War (1997-1999) and the killing of high and low mountain gorillas for their limbs and heads, still a practice among the many parties involved in the different civil wars engulfing the Congo region.

Mascots

Not all animals exposed to conflict were treated inhumanely. Many animals served as mascots to the beleaguered troops in harm’s way, bringing a degree of humanity to inhumane situations. Mascots befriended men who were far away from home, lonely, frightened, under constant threat of death and deprived of family or girlfriends, who needed a good luck charm, and in many cases, providing unconditional love. They contributed to lifting everyone’s spirits and brought a note of comedy to the grim opera of war.[18] There was no animal that served as the prototypical mascot. Mascots came in all forms, ranging from cockroaches to elephants, serving with combatants on the ground, at sea—even in the air.

Subjects in Military Experiments

Not all animals that sacrificed life and limb did so on the battlefield or even in the great wide open; many sacrificed in the area of military testing. Of all the roles of animals in war, none appears so grizzly, horrific, barbaric, and at times, downright sadistic as does that of using animals as test subjects in military experiments. Military testing on animals has been conducted for centuries, but the 20th century took the practice to a whole new scale. The military joined forces with scientists and big corporations to form what is now known as the Military Industrial Complex, which needed huge supplies of animals to test their outpouring of military hardware. In the U.S. each year, at least 320,000 primates, dogs, pigs, goats, sheep, rabbits, mice, cats, and other animals are burned, infected, shot, blasted, shocked, poisoned, dissected and maimed by the U.S. Department of Defense. This figure does not include military animal testing carried out by contracted companies in the service of the DOD.[19]

Although animals are experimented on in many non-military contexts, for instance in the cosmetics and auto industries, military experimentation has an especially insidious character. Worldwide estimates on non-human victims killed in military experiments in the 20th century range into the tens of millions. No one, however, really knows the true number of animals killed in military testing. Arguably, the most infamous military experiment on animals was conducted in 1946 near Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific, when a menagerie of 4,000 animals was set adrift on a ship, having an atomic bomb detonated directly above them. Most of them died immediately. Many of the animals, however, lingered, horribly burnt and dying of radiation poisoning. The U.S. military sardonically referred to this test as “The Atomic Ark.”[20]

Perhaps the most ludicrous animal experiment was conducted in 1963 in an effort to train guard bugs using mosquitoes, lice, fleas, ticks, and bedbugs. The logic behind this experiment was that, if insects act differently when human beings are close to them, then one could record their responses to conclude whether or not enemy combatants were—or had been—in the vicinity. The experiment was a failure.[21]

These days the U.S. military has been working on such programs as The Roborat, in which rats become cyborg automatons through electrodes placed in their brains. These roborats are being trained to clear landmines, through a regimen of painful shocks administered to their brains by remote control to make them conform to the commands of the person guiding them.[22]

We are All Connected

Again as asked above, “Why should we care when there is so much human suffering in relation to conflict?” What place should animals in war be given within the study of peace and war in general? These are very good questions that need to be addressed. First of all, there has been a sea of scholarship on peace and war, almost all of which centers on human victims and general participants. There is very little scholarship concerning animals in war—which arguably is a mistake, simply because if we can see the suffering that conflict produces in a different dimension, then perhaps we might become less jaded and apathetic to all suffering in war. When we, as humans, see a child or adult murdered in combat, in many cases we say to ourselves, “Another victim of war.” But if we see a dog with no legs because it stepped on a grenade, it brings home the horrors of combat in a fresh way that is likely to strike a chord in many of us, which is the first step to taking action to stop the insanity of war. Secondly, just because there is a great deal of human suffering, that does not excuse us from being morally responsive to other beings who are in pain or who are conducting activities at our bidding that can cause them great harm—even death. When we see things on a wider scale, we tend to be open to more diverse views. If we learn to appreciate—even sanctify—animal life, then we as a species are more likely to respect the differences in each of us, which creates an atmosphere that is less conducive to combat.

Another common question might be this: “Animals are exploited and killed in much greater numbers in the civilian harvesting of animals for dietary consumption and testing for non-military products. So why should we care so much about the context of war? To answer this question, one needs to understand that almost all forms of animal exploitation are conducted for the survival, pleasure, or betterment of all of humanity. In many cases, the exploitation actually helps to bring incredible benefits to humanity, as with animal testing toward curing diseases. Furthermore, all of the animal testing and slaughter done in private industries is not done in every citizen’s name. It is done on behalf of certain groups such as cancer victims or, beef eaters -- not in the name of the entire country, including people who are against the use of animals in war, which is the common practice for using animals in combat.

Also, animals that are employed in the private sector that have been tortured (mostly for dietary consumption) have received the greatest amount of attention by animal rights groups and the public in general. Animals used in war rarely get this type of attention when they are tortured—either on the battlefield or in a military lab, which is a mistake because many see this lack of protest as a form of acceptance. The most important factor, however, in separating the exploitation of animals in war versus the private sector is that, in the end, privately exploited animals are not destroying human life. The use of animals in war is thus a rather insidious practice simply because animals are being employed in the destruction of members of a species, human beings, for which many animals have had an affinity for perhaps millions of years. We humans are not only being cruel to animals and to ourselves, we are forcing animals to be cruel for -- and to -- us, which in the end dehumanizes everyone.

Nobel laureate writer and holocaust survivor Isaac Bashevis Singer noted that, while living next door to a slaughterhouse in Chicago, he noticed that the men and women who worked in the slaughterhouse had the same blank expression on their faces entering and leaving work that the German soldiers guarding and running the concentration camps had on their faces during the Holocaust.[23] In an issue of Ha’aretz, Israel’s most respected daily newspaper, it was reported that experiments carried out by the Israeli Defense Forces on animals were so horrific that soldiers forced to conduct the experiments had to seek psychological counseling.[24]

When Nazi doctors were asked at the Nuremburg trials how they could have possibly brought themselves to perform such cruel experiments on human beings, they responded that they had been conducting these experiments on animals for years and that the next logical step was to practice these experiments on humans.[25] This sort of path to dehumanization by abusing animals has been documented time and time again. A member of one of Britain’s leading animal rights groups went undercover in Britain’s largest animal testing facility, Huntingdon Life Sciences. One of the things that he documented was how employees that worked at Huntingdon became more callous towards the animals as time went on, and many reverted to downright physical and psychological abuse of the animals.[26]

Christian Theologian Thomas Aquinas, not exactly an animal rights activist by any stretch of the imagination, commented that the only possible objection to the cruelty of animals is that it might lead to the cruelty of other humans.[27] By exploiting animals in war, for example, we are dehumanizing ourselves, and, when we recognize the unique beauty in all living beings, we add a new dimension of compassion, kindness and understanding to ourselves. Many people have realized this. This is why animals are brought into nursing homes, hospitals and hospices—even prisons. It has been scientifically proven that interaction with animals—even for short periods of time—actually decreases the occurrence of high blood pressure, hypertension and depression.[28]

Solutions

We have just seen how using and abusing animals in war is not only detrimental to them, but, in the end, to us as well. It eventually leads us along the path of inhumanity, creating an atmosphere that is receptive to war. So how can we prevent this exploitation of animals in war? What tangible steps can we as a species take to make sure that we do not go down the wrong path?

The origination of animal rights can be found in Jainism, India’s oldest organized religion. In Sanskrit there is a word called Ahimsa, meaning non-violence or non-injury.[29] The path to change must be peaceful and within the system. After all, the purpose of this examination is to study how humanity can create an atmosphere where humans are less inhumane to each other, in which sending animals to war is not only part of that inhumanity but it is also a phenomenon that can actually breed more inhumanity. There are many non-violent paths toward ending the use of animals in warfare. One could write to one’s representatives in Congress and clearly state that using animals in war, or for any military purposes, is wrong. One can also write to the President and tell him/her the same thing.

If you are working with animals in the military, resign your post, or write a letter to your superiors stating your moral objections to any programs that include animals in combat or military testing. If this is not a possibility, leak stories to the press during or after your tenure in the military. If you are not in the military, talk to those soldiers that work with animals trained for combat. Share your views with them. Tell them what you have read in this analysis and be humble. Do not condescend. Most of the people that work with these animals are decent human beings. Simply share your passion with them. There is an old Tibetan proverb that goes something like this…

If I tell you my dream, you may forget it, If I show you my dream, you may remember it; but if I include you in my dream it may become your dream too.

Encourage the militaries of the world to apply technological alternatives for the duties that animals now carry out in combat. Join organizations that fight military use of animals, organizations such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) or the Animal Aid Society in Great Britain.

Organize protests, marches and boycott those corporate entities (the U.S. military usually contracts out for purchasing animals and carrying out military experiments) that work with the military in utilizing animals for war. Remind defense-related corporate officials that one can utilize stem cells and cell tissue as experimenting agents. Finally, micro dosing can be applied to humans instead of animals, where test subjects receive infinitesimally small amounts of whatever is being tested, generalizing the findings with the results obtained. Many private non-defense related companies to test cosmetics, pesticides, disinfectants, etc are doing this now. Start your own organization, create a webpage, write to a local newspaper, go on public access tv, buy time on a local radio station—whatever it takes to carry out your aims peacefully and to bring an end to animals being used in—and for—combat.

Conclusion

This investigation examined how and why animals are used in war, exploring what direct effects it has on them and indirectly on humanity. It has also documented how using animals in warfare could eventually lead to more brutality towards each other. This analysis also discussed some steps that could be taken to cease these practices. The saddest aspect of this subject, however, is our complete obliviousness to the monumental sacrifices of animals in combat. Author Jilly Cooper in her book, Animals in War, commented on this in the most moving way: Most animals that died in war have no memorial. Sick, wounded, starved, slaughtered—they have perished as though they have never been. The only way that we can repay them is to treat them with more kindness in peace, and hope in the future that they are drawn as little as possible into our wars.[30] If we fail to give them at least this much, then perhaps we should at least take the time to study them as social beings, for they could teach us many things if we decided to take a cue from them. Animals do not know greed, racism, sexism, religionism or any other form of bigotry. I believe that if we decided to follow many of their examples, we might just become a better species for it.

Endnotes

[1] A team of Dutch scientist have discovered that, like the human brain, an animal’s brain releases endorphins to cope with emotional distress and pain, caused by frustration and conflict. Masri, Al-Hafiz. “Animals Have Consciousness.” Animals in Islam. 1998.

http://www.themodernreligion.com/index2.html

[2] Beyond Violence: The Human-Animal Connection. http://www.psyeta.org/

[3] “Horses in Battle.”Animals: The Hidden Victims of War. 2003.

http://www.animalaid.org.uk/campaign/vivi/war.htm

[4] “ The Vietnam Timeline 1960-1975” K-9 History:Dogs in War.

http://community-2.webtv.net/Hahn-50thAP-K9/K9History/

[5] Lemish, Michael. War Dogs. Washington: Brassey’s, 1996.

[6] “On the Frontline of Iraq” http://www.animalaid.org.uk/campaign/vivi/war.htm

[7] Cooper, Jilly. Animals in War. London: William Heinemann, 1983.

[8] “Animals Helping in the War” BBCI. 2003.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/animals/newsid/

[9] “Morocco offers U.S. Monkeys to Detonate Mines.” United Press International. 2003.