Enough politics for one week! Let’s wrap up a tumultuous few days with something a little more enlightening than the average blog post — a Very Serious Look at the secret Pentagon history of using cats in warfare.
Careful with that trigger, Fluffy! Yes, apparently the U.S. military has been employing cats on veeeeery important national security missions for decades, for instance taking advantage of the fact that wily felines always land on their feet to have them lead the way on airborne missions (no parachutes required!).
How many Iraqi insurgents and Taliban strike teams fell victim to silent-but-deadly neck bites and the occasional vicious tail-smack? How many times have purrs of triumph echoed across the battlefield to strike fear into the hearts of our enemies? We’ll never know, because these operatives don’t talk (they just yowl now and again).
For more, check out Slate.com’s shocking exposé — and get ready to re-write the textbooks, because no military history of the 20th Century will be complete until it takes on the vital question of litter-box logistics.
– cpd