Update:
Our original story included a link to the Defense Department's denial of claims that any military service dogs were left behind, but Lead Stories now has more details to confirm that.
On Tuesday, we commented on a story from an organization called American Humane, which works to rescue military working dogs and place veterans with service dogs, about U.S. military dogs being left behind in Afghanistan. We didn’t know if it was true and said we’d try to find other sources confirming this. Tuesday evening on Tucker Carlson’s show, he said the SPCA had confirmed that the Biden administration has chosen to leave the dogs behind.
“In the end,” the SPCA said, “the dogs and their caretakers were explicitly NOT allowed to board military aircraft, and numerous private charter aircraft were not granted access to the airport, either.”
If this is true, about 200 of these very special dogs are presumably doomed by the decision to leave them behind. But the U.S. military is saying this claim is “erroneous.”
A spokesperson for U.S. Central Command, U.S. Army Lt. Col. Karen Roxberry, said in an email that the “priority mission was the evacuation of U.S. citizens, SIV [Special Immigrant Visas] and vulnerable Afghans,” but she also stated that reports about leaving dogs behind were in error. She said the photos circulating online (perhaps including those Tucker had on his show, showing dogs in carriers) were not of dogs under the care of the U.S. military but rather the Kabul Small Animal Rescue.
So what’s the story? And what dogs were in the custody of Kabul Small Animal Rescue, and what happens to them? Honestly, we can't say for sure. Those are probably shelter dogs and former pets of evacuees, and they likely face cruelty and extermination by the Taliban, who think of dogs as unclean and typically kill them. But the government insists all the military dogs were evacuated, that none were left behind.
Let's hope that’s true. I wish we could take our government at their word, but these are also the people who said no American would be left behind.
Permalink: https://www.mikehuckabee.com/2021/9/were-u-s-working-dogs-left-behind-depends-on-who-you-ask
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