Blackwater Defends Themselves from New York Times' Viscious Dog

The AP headline is, of course, much different than the headline I have here, instead going with their continued villianization of a security firm that protects the lives of most dignitaries and congressmen and congresswomen who visit Iraq. Their version appears as: "New York Times in Iraq: 'Blackwater Shot Our Dog.'" Here's the account of the attack:

Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell said the dog had attacked one of Blackwater's bomb-sniffer dogs while a security team was sweeping the compound for explosives.

"The K-9 handler made several unsuccessful attempts to get the dog to retreat, including placing himself between the dogs. When those efforts failed, the K-9 handler unfortunately was forced to use a pistol to protect the company's K-9 and himself," she said in an e-mail to Reuters.

I love dogs, I really do. In fact, I called for stiff punishments of Michael Vick and his dog murdering friends along the same lines as PETA, something that happens about as often as universal planetary alignment. In this case, however, the situation is a bit different. If the NY Times' dog attacks a highly trained bomb sniffing dog, something critical in Iraq in order to save human lives, the guard had little choice other than to shoot the dog if he felt that the dog was going to kill or seriously injure the K-9 officer. You may be thinking that the bomb sniffing dog should have been able to maul the NY Times' dog, but it may not have been trained for police service other than to smell out IEDs that kill, injure, and maim. If the NY Times dog latched onto the bomb sniffing dog and the guard couldn't pull them apart, he did the right thing if that dog can save human lives. Of course, you can expect to hear more stories like this in the near future, and you can almost sense a MSM headline along the lines of "Blackwater Fails to Give Reporters Lobster Dinner" and other nonsense coming in the near future.

-Caomhin