From DawnWatch:
(Note -- An earlier version of this alert, received by about a quarter of my subscribers, did not include a link to the full article in the Guardian. My apologies.)I am late sending this out but I did not want to entirely miss the opportunity to share a wonderful opinion piece by Peter Singer published in the UK Guardian on Thursday, January 19 and headed, "Dolphins have no part in this dispute with Iran." The subheading is, "For the US Navy to put dolphins in harm's way in the Persian Gulf is a form of speciesist enslavement we should be ending."
The whole article is a must-read and is on line at
http://tinyurl.com/7ml6y4nHere are a couple of my favorite paragraphs:
"Various civilizations have, at times, enslaved human beings and forced them to fight for their oppressors. That despicable practice is now rightly condemned, as far as human beings are concerned, but the enslavement of other species continues, in many areas of human life, and the use of slaves in war continues in the United States Navy.
"It might be argued that as long as billions of animals are confined in factory farms to produce meat, eggs and milk, the use of a few dolphins in military action is trivial. Obviously, the amount of suffering we inflict on factory-farmed animals every day dwarfs whatever might happen to the dolphins.
"Nevertheless, just when we are starting to realize how gravely we are wronging animals... we ought not to be finding new ways to exploit them."
I am pleased to report that there are hundreds of comments below this piece. Some new supportive comments, however, would be useful. And please consider an appreciative letter to the editor, which will keep the topic alive on the editorial page. The Guardian takes letters at
letters@guardian.co.uk
Yours and the animals',
Karen Dawn
(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at
http://www.DawnWatch.com. You may forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts only if you do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this parenthesized tag line.)
Please go to
http://tinyurl.com/254ulkx to check out Karen Dawn's book, "Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way we Treat Animals," which in 2008 was chosen by the Washington Post as one of the "Best Books of The Year!"