Note: After posting, I ran across speculation that these are Blackwater employees, not soldiers, due to the lack of badges/insignia on their clothing. Whoever they are, I hope they are found and appropriately punished.

Despicable. What are they saying? My speakers are work are wonky.

They both look very pleased with themselves.

god, what a fucking bunch of shitpeas.

nb: If they do this to puppies, what are they doing to people???

At the beginning, the guy holding the puppy says, "Cute little puppy, huh?" and the other says, "Awww, so cute.. little puppy." After he throws it, someone off camera says, "That's mean." I can't make out what the thrower says at the end.

My thought: e-mail the link to your congresspeople.

would someone please make a local-copy of the video (or tell me how) in case some waste of breath, should be dead government lawyer pressure the hosts to take the film down?

The last line was "That was mean, Motari." Motari is apparently the guy's last name. Someone on Digg found this profile, which indicates that he's in the Marines. This picture certainly bears more than a passing resemblance to the video.

By the Grace of God, the video is also on YouTube. If you're on Firefox, you can download it like so.

Scratch my last sentence. If you go to this link and enter the URL of the YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlCiUMoFu84), you can download the video.

lousy muslim puppy deserved to die. what's wrong with you people? don't you know we are at war?

"Don't have to follow nobodies footsteps, i'm makin my own, fully grown, and this life is my own." - Motari The Puppy Killer

I've just looked at this thing about 50 times trying to determine the point where he substitutes a rag-doll puppy for the real thing... and I just can't find it. Please, I don't want it to be real.

Yikes....somebody posted his US address already. If it is the same guy he must be shitting bricks right about now.

I refuse to watch but that's just fucking sick.

I'm filing this under the "get them before they get us" category.
Go surge.

Yeah, don't watch it, Citrus. I already wish I didn't. You know what a puppy getting thrown off a cliff looks like anyway.

Despicable. What are they saying? My speakers are work are wonky.

They both look very pleased with themselves.
posted by iconomy 03 March | 10:13

dont listen to it. it doesnt matter what they are saying you can hear the poor baby screaming as it flies through the air. I was semi ok til I heard it... that made me sick.

Yikes....somebody posted his US address already.

Well that's a mature, civilized way to handle it. Good work, people of the internet.

He should be reported to his superiors. The address is most likely his parents' and I dread what the Internets will do to them.

AHHHHH, THE SWEET STENCH OF RIGHTEOUS OUTRAGE IN THE MORNING!!!

I just sent the link to my congress person. I hope that it stays up.

That boy is gonna go far in the corporate world. Right now several Fortune 500 firms are preparing offers.

I dread what the Internets will do to them.

Yes, this could get ugly. But it's not just about one guy, which is why I'd rather talk to my elected reps about it than to the guy.

I couldn't watch it either - I don't need to, I can imagine it. But what this makes me think about is the same topic I think about when reading coverage of Abu Ghraib, or hear about civilian killings or rapes or robberies, and that is this: This is war. Yes, on the one hand it's the independent actions of a few people. But on the other hand, these kinds of actions are one completely consistent element of war. Whenever we go into war, horrendous acts of callousness and cruelty will take place. The psychology of soldiering, the tension and unpredictability of daily life, the intoxication with power, the kinds of sudden realizations about the value of life and the nature of reality that people have when they have to kill for their county are conducive to recreational acts of cruelty. For a certain subset of people - arguably, for almost everybody given the right cocktail of conditions, a la Stanford experiment - anger, impatience, frustration, boredom, horror, fear, revenge, and shock will result in cruel acts. It has happened in every war we've ever fought, and will happen in every war we fight.

These aren't exceptions to the generally good outcomes of war. They are part of war. When we accept and vote for going to war, we accept these cruelties. They are part of the War Package. Not every soldier will react to war this way, but a fraction of soldiers always will.

I honestly don't know, with as many veterans as we have around who can testify to this, we still get surprised when we witness the depths of the cruelty people in our uniforms can become capable of.

I think I'd rather go look at that spider thread. Definitely not looking at this one. Fucker.

I'd be a lot more horrified about this if I wasn't quite so sure that this is less about animal cruelty and more about painting US soldiers as monsters.

Without the uniform, all we have here is "Young Adult Tortures Animal." Whilst shocking and reprehensible, it's not really that uncommon.

Without the uniform, all we have here is "Young Adult Tortures Animal." Whilst shocking and reprehensible, it's not really that uncommon.

Not uncommon, but rarely videotaped, and I think a video of that would have gotten nearly as much attention. Certainly, the fact that the people are soldiers brings up conversation about the war, but I think the fact that people are shocked and repulsed that soldiers would do this says something about people's generally decent opinion of our troops. Most people are disgusted by animal cruelty no matter the perpetrator. For example, Michael Vick.

Without the uniform, all we have here is "Young Adult Tortures Animal."

The uniform is definitely the noteworthy part. These guys do have codes of conduct and a hierarchy to operate under, and they're acting on behalf of the country while in uniform. There's a failure of training and/or supervision here.

I watched the first two seconds of it and then exited it.

The strangest part of that video? As soon as the puppy goes off the cliff, he hangs in mid-air for a moment, motionless. Then, he looks down, sees the ground below him, holds up a sign reading, "Yipe!" and then plummets.

What worries me at the moment is my failure to have any reaction to this at all. Maybe it's just too early in the day, but then again, ??? Intellectually, I'm horrified, but emotionally, nothing. Goddamnit, I must really be dead inside.

Oh man, I dunno why, but I was expecting a grainy, far-away view. Like the video we get of bombing raids from planes. Jebus.

I was doing some digging this, and found the following entry in the Wikipedia page on military slang and terms:

Mud Puppy — military policemen

I know it'll change how *I* act around here!

ColdChef, you hang round dead people too much, it's desensitised you.

Too many ways to fake this, especially the uniforms. I'll wait for confirmation of its authenticity.

We're killing the puppies there so we don't have to do it here.

I apologize for my insensitivity. Too many cartoons, I suppose.

*drops anvil on ColdChef*

*tears*

I refused to watch this when I came across it last night. I just won't, thank you very much.

I seem to be the only one that thinks it is staged. It may be the quality, but I think I'd expect a puppy that is launched in the air to be a flurry of legs and scrabbling, not remain almost motionless and tumble through the air...

I wonder if it was already dead, and the yelping was someone off camera.

Just a thought.

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Well, he knows he's been noticed, I guess.

Even if it was faked, even if it was a complete joke, it was a moronic thing to tape himself doing, smiling like killing a puppy is a big joke, with his face in the camera (or phone cam or whatever), with other people calling out his name.

He might answer that "I didn't think it would get posted to the internet." To this I would reply is "Integrity is what you do when you think no one is watching.

I am ashamed to be a citizen of a country that has soldiers doing this kind of stuff in the uniform of my country. I don't care that war might desensitize him, he's an asshole for doing it. I don't care that he's just trying to release some stress, he's old enough to know right from wrong.

For fuck's sake--I hope that's not how a dog yelps when he's flung over a cliff. I really don't want this video to be real, but if it is--I can't even fathom the kind of disgust to express right now.

Some people are really, REALLY sick.

I wonder if it was already dead, and the yelping was someone off camera.

Yeah, because it's alright for a dead puppy to be flung off a cliff, right?

There are other videos of U.S. soldiers in Iraq abusing and then killing dogs available on the Internet. Sadly it seems to be a job related stress thing.

oh, sure, you criticize. but you've never had a loved one die at the hands of a crazed suicide basset hound.

According to the Sun, it's Hawaii not Iraq.

"Major Chris Perrine of the Marine Corps Base Hawaii says it appears the man is based with a unit in the islands."

I didn't see the video cuz I'm on dialup for now, so allow me to ask those who saw it: Just how far over the cliff did they show? I am wondering if perhaps there wasn't a ledge just beyond the drop where someone could stand and catch the dog.

Perrine added that the majority of Marines conduct themselves honorably.

Yeah, because it's alright for a dead puppy to be flung off a cliff, right?

It's a shit sight more acceptable than killing an animal in such a way. Which, of course (and to preempt) doesn't at all make it in any way acceptable, per se. It's a sick joke as opposed to 'shoot-in-the-face-ably cruel', in my book.

I am wondering if perhaps there wasn't a ledge just beyond the drop where someone could stand and catch the dog.

Big cliff. Long way. Not a hope in hell.