I should be writing an essay right now.

The above title says it all, but I just couldn’t help myself on this one.

So being the forum troll that I am I came across a little video which depicts a US Marine throwing a puppy off of a cliff.

Notice all of the media attention this is receiving… CNN, associated press, even a reward for $1000 reward “TO ANYONE WHO BEATS THE CRAP OUT OF THIS MARINE.” And just in case you didn’t know, caps lock is a signifier for people who have their head really, really far up their own asses. If you can’t tell, my blood has begun to boil over this, and no, my ire is not directed at the marine for throwing the dog off the cliff: it’s at the American people for, once again, jumping on a media bandwagon decrying some inane ethical affront that, most probably, they are complicit to, or directly involved in, every day. Not to mention the fact that everyone is ignoring the real problem at the heart of all of this, but I’ll get to that in a minute…

Now, don’t get me wrong, I am by no means condoning this kind of behavior. I think animal cruelty is abhorrent and wrong from an ethical standpoint, but at the same time I can’t help but realize that I, too, a middle class white male who would never harm an animal with my own hands, am involved in the torture and abuse of animals. And guess what? So are most of us. Of course, if you’re shouting: “BUT WHERE’S THE PROOF?!” like some shit flinging monkey who can’t grunt out a coherent argument:

Bam. Right there, and I dare each and every one of you who read this to sit through that entire movie then come bark at me about how high minded your righteous cause is. The only way you would be in the right on this one is if you’re a hippy, hemp-wearing, vegan, but even then you probably smell really bad and it would be difficult for me to talk to you anyway.

Now I agree that this case is completely different from eating animals for food, and I agree that this is a malicious, unprovoked act, but once again I think that everyone is missing the irony in this video. Take a look at the setting that this little melodrama takes place in. Anything familiar?

The soldiers are in what looks to be Iraq. Yes, the very same place where 3,974 of our own soldiers have died. The same place where there are estimates of 81,632-89,103 civilian deaths. Now sit back and compare this to one video of a puppy being thrown off a cliff. Perhaps we should spend another countless billions of dollars to give digital cameras to each and every Iraqi citizen so they can post videos of their brother dying from an accidental bombing of a residential area… or maybe their mother… or maybe their mother and their sister. Take your fucking pick. Sure, they’re probably not nearly as cute and innocent looking as a puppy, but I guess human lives just aren’t as valuable these days. Even if those videos did make it back to the states we would all probably turn a blind eye and say, “Oh, I can’t watch that. It’s just too gruesome.” Out of sight out of mind.

Now I’d like to make a couple of psychological assumptions as to why these soldiers did this. Let it be known that I have no formal education what so ever in psychology or sociology or any of those -ologies that might make my ramblings sound a little more reputable. Having given those details above on how many people have been killed in the war, I’d like everyone to consider what SEEING these deaths might do to a person. If you answered “desensitize,” congratulations, you get a big steaming pile of cynicism and horrific, repressed memories. Keeping this in mind, I’d like everyone to think about what is going on in the minds of these troops who are rotated out through a revolving door in what seems like an endless waking nightmare of horror and gore. If they’ve seen PEOPLE be destroyed, meaninglessly mind you, this war is NOT stabilizing the region to anyone’s great surprise, but that is a completely different rant, what makes anyone in their right minds think that these men, witnesses to countless lives swept away and forgotten, would even consider being kind to an animal?

I have a really hard time believing that this man would have done anything like chucking a puppy off a cliff before going to that god-forsaken place. Who knows… maybe he did it so he would get in trouble and have to come back home for a court martial? If so, then it’s a good thing that he threw that puppy off the cliff. The sacrifice of that puppy might have saved a life. Of course, I’m taking this all lightly now, but for God’s sake people, don’t berate this man just because you think certain cute animals have more right to life than humans. Focus on what’s really important. People are dying and you idiots care about one fucking puppy.

In actuality, I think it’s our own fault that that puppy is dead. Our rampant consumerist lifestyle and our big-headed, macho desire to subjugate people to the glory that is “democracy” and “freedom” has landed us in this mess. We elected and RE-ELECTED the fuckwads that started and perpetuated this… now we’re reaping the benefits. If we knew what horror was… If we knew and understood what these people are going through daily before we had marched our bible thumping asses into a shitstorm… well…

There’d be one more puppy alive today.

Jesus christ I’m pissed off now.