Every now and then a story comes along that you see isn’t quite right, and you correct it, knowing the correction will please absolutely no one, because truth is truth. This is one of those cases.
Sometimes, you have to be this guy.
In this case the subject is New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof’s absurd contention that Israelis train dogs to rape Palestinians. Everyone and their dog (oops) has already piled on the absurdity of the claim and just how devoid of supporting evidence Kristof’s piece was, with even New York Times reporters saying they’re embarrassed by it.
That’s not what I want to talk about.
Many pieces have gone on to cite ludicrous Palestinian claims of all sorts of trained animals working for Israel, like in this piece from The Hill:
In 2015, the BBC published the ludicrous claim that Hamas had seized an “Israeli spy dolphin” off the Gaza coast. Earlier, CNN had publicized Sudanese claims that it had captured an Israeli “spy vulture” on a reconnaissance mission. The BBC also ran a headline in 2010 titled “Shark attacks not linked to Mossad says Israel” and the Telegraph reported “Shark ‘sent to Egypt by Mossad.’”
Tiny problem: The idea that Israel is training spy dolphins is not, in fact, ludicrous, because the U.S. Navy does it.
Back when the Navy dolphin program was a hush hush secret, a friend told me about it, saying they would never send a dolphin on a mission where it was likely to get killed because it took several million each to train them. “They’ll just send a diver instead.” He also said that once some Greenpeace types has cut through the underwater retaining fence to free the dolphins, but the dolphins simply swam right back because of how well they were fed in the program.
What used to be a highly secret program obviously isn’t so anymore, because you can find details about it on the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific’s website.
The Reconnaissance and Interdiction Division at NIWC Pacific manages the Navy’s Marine Mammal Program which trains bottlenose dolphins and California sea lions to detect, locate, mark and recover objects in harbors, coastal areas, and at depth in the open sea.
Everyone is familiar with security patrol dogs, and how some service dogs use their keen sense of smell to detect explosives on land. Since 1959, the U.S. Navy has trained dolphins and sea lions as teammates for our Sailors and Marines to help guard against similar threats underwater. The Navy’s Marine Mammal Program has been homeported on Point Loma since the 1960’s.
Now, I have no idea whether the Israelis train spy dolphins or not. It may not be cost-effective, since there are a lot more limited uses for them considering the regional threat domains they face. But the idea that the Israelis are training spy dolphins is neither “ludicrous” nor far-fetched.
Doesn’t mean Hamas captured one in 2015, since those Jihadi idiots lie about everything, but it’s definitely within the realm of possibility.
When else will I have a chance to generate a meme this obscure?
Tomorrow should see a return of non-Ackchyually content…