The loss of a soldier's life, while regrettable is moral because a soldier consents to the risk by joining the military. To send non-consenting animals to their deaths is immoral. If soldier's are willing to kill for their country then they should be willing to die for their country... leave the animals out of it!

I'm sure if you ask the families of all of those who died in Iraq if they would rather have had a dead, say, dog, than their son or daughter, they'd take their children back.

The simple fact of the matter is that NO animal's life is worth more than a human being. None, never, I don't care what your little urban fantasy is, that's just the way things are.

Just as it was the pig's fate to become a part of the Parma prosciutto sandwich I had for lunch, it was the fate of the cavalry horse (in the days when they used them) to step in front of cannon fire.

It's all a matter of perspective. If you asked a little boy whether he would let some stranger die in a far-away place if it would bring Rover back, you might get a different answer.

Fate had nothing to do with the pig's placement on your sandwich, or the horses' placement in front of the cannon. Those were human decisions. We can (will) continue to use animals in war, food and medicine, but let's be honest, here. They will be used because we are stronger than they are, and decide to kill them, not because of some destiny of theirs.

Not to mention, speak for yourself. There are quite a few people who could keel over dead right now, and I would be just fine with it. I wouldn't even demand my dead cat back.

Freki

The original poster was talking about war. Adults go to war. Little Billy and his dead dog don't count in that discussion.

As for people dropping dead...remind me to tell you about my top ten list of "People Who Should Have Been Drowned at Birth" one day. Everyone has something similar, but my rules are different. You don't get to use a historical figure, famous person, or anyone else you are not acquainted with. They have to be people you know personally.

The pig was bred and raised to be food, as were thousands of generations of its family before him and thousands that will come after. It was indeed this particular pig's fate to become part of a sandwich, and this is not necessarily a negative thing.

sure didn't get a choice in the matter, though its been a while since the last one, at least in the US. Innocent civilians don't seem to fare any better.

I see your point with volunteers verses animals being put to war. Then again, can animals make consensual decisions to join a war? Hym? Well, pit bulls are fairly aggressive. They seem to want to attack on their own. Right?

Humans and Animals are equally territorial and confrontational, admitted; should two deer's antler butting cause the homocidal and selfish collatoral as human suicide bombing, "maybe" then we could volunteer them for our wars. Point being, the value of one life versus another, what's morally expendable, is relative only to those of the medievil mindset that life even need be expended. One would think these suicides would remove the individuals and ideals accountable for their justification, and stop senseless violence against the innocent, but people just breed too fast for Darwinism.

Suicide bombing serving as the driving force for military defence technology is hardly progress from even the most militant of views, outright undefendable on anyone's moral front. My urban fantasy involves those defence scientists doing something productive for the percentage of the human race who find war pointless. Weither this article's readers value life on a heiracy scale, or find the attempt to assign values to life unnecessary, defending animal's rights has always been two sided. So consider this: Enlisting the same animals used in wars thousands of years ago isn't really doing must justification to the supposed advance in technology war claims to bring.