"Taliban Trains 'Monkey Terrorists' to Attack U.S. Troops" blared a June 28 headline on China's People's Daily Online website. Among the bizarre allegations in the story, which was attributed to a "report by British media" and purportedly "confirmed by a senior U.S. military source," were these:
Afghanistan's Taliban warlords have developed a bizarre way to deal with foreign forces: they have trained monkeys who love to eat bananas and peanuts to be killers.Taliban forces have taught monkeys how to use the Kalashnikov, Bren light machine gun and trench mortars. They also teach them how to identify and attack soldiers wearing U.S. military uniforms.
Ironically, the idea of training monkeys to fight was first invented by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA in the Vietnam War initiated a program that used the peanuts and bananas as prizes to train some "monkey soldiers" to kill Vietnamese in the jungle, according to a report by British media on June 27, 2010.
Stars and Stripes reporter Jeff "The Rumor Doctor" Schogol investigated the claims and found them wanting. "We have absolutely nothing that leads us to believe that this tale could be even remotely based in reality," NATO spokesman Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale told Schogol. A primate expert cast doubt on grainy images purportedly showing a monkey firing a machine gun by pointing out that the animal is an African baboon, not any kind of monkey indigenous to the Middle East.
Another primate expert consulted for a video report on CNN dismissed the entire scenario in one word: "Absurd."
I have yet to see evidence of any kind, credible or incredible, that the CIA trained monkeys to do battle during the Vietnam War.
Read more:
• Taliban Trains 'Monkey Terrorists' to Attack U.S. Troops
• Video: Taliban Terrorist Monkeys (in Chinese)
• NY Post: Jihad Monkey!
• Are Taliban Training Monkeys to Kill U.S. Troops?
• Video: Taliban Training Monkeys to Fight?
Comments
Threat is serious:
Intercepted Taliban communication on Monkey army.
http://warintel.blogspot.com/2010/07/talibans-monkey-army-intercept.html
Gerald
Anthropologist
Never, never, never under-estimate the enemy.
Well …. I don’t find it too far-fetched. Monkeys have been trained to throw molotov cocktails in many parts of the world. I witnessed it myself as a teenager.
crazy what is possible. Real madness!
Oh please. Look at it this way. What’s cheaper, training a man to fire a weapon, or a monkey?
I think Gerald must have sprained his tongue from putting into his cheek so hard. I have to admit, though, it’s nice to have something to laugh at; there’s little enough humor left.
What a laugh, monkeys have the concertration span of
nearly zero unless it is food.
Passive using may be possible.