On the Planet of the Apes, orangutans were quite capable of using such weapons, but such barbaric behavior was subcontracted to the gorillas.

Nevertheless,your blog raises an important question concerning the origin of HIV/AIDS. It could be postulated that an ape with high intelligence became sexually attracted to a male and there was an exchange of bodily fluids, resulting in the first transmission of this deadly virus across species. Conversely, the male could have sex with an infected animal.

Meanwhile back to the monkeys. There is a hill on the island of St. Kitts in the British West Indies, appropriately named Monkey Hill. The Kittticians routinely ate these creatures, without realizing that they were doing violence to another sentient being. Half a century later, I visited Grenada where it is illegal to kill these animals who lived in a preserve on that beautiful island in the Caribbean.

It is not too far-fetched to visualize that an animal could be infected with a virus and enter the United States across the Southern border and initiate the spread of terror. Why kill Americans in Afghanistan, when you can inflict more damage in the Homeland?

Cattle can be used to generate anthrax spores, which can be subsequently weaponized, or they can be infected with foot and mouth disease, or mad cow disease.

I make these points only to indicate that the use of animals in war is no laughing matter. Further, the CIA should recruit loyal and unemployed American-Muslims or Muslim-Americans so that human intelligence, rather than electronic intelligence, can be deployed in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Remember, there are nuclear weapons in Pakistan and I don't think we want them to fall into the hands of Islamic Apes.

seeing how the fools use low tech, we would be silly to think that because it is impossible for the animals to discern a target that animals would be useless, a packed pack animal sent into a village or a monkeys paw taped to a trigger would not be cool, all I say is one day they will face adversaries as dumb and godless as them, sacrificing someones grandmother in the name of anything is of course godless and I see the eyes of the devil in that monkey, maybe we just found the creature low enough to fight em at their own level of morality...I say spare the lives of our american brothers and sisters, send in the mcaws!!!!!...(sorry peta, still for a few bananas, a heck of a lot of collateral damage and an even worse ammo to kill ratio, these monkeys could have Osama's head for breakfast in 2.1785 years!!!...literally!!)....NOW that would serve them right for blasting 5000 year old budda statues with mortor fire cause they saw it as a threat!!...some irony is what is needed when dealing with idiots of that caliber and armed monkees could just toss their cookies right!!!!

According to scientists you are an evolved monkey. Also, before spreading AIDS to his friends, some Canadian dude apparently had sex with a monkey. Therefore monkey-man marraiges should be legal.

"if" al queda exists, then why would they need monkeys. Bait the Americans into a war, let them spend billions of dollars, loose thousands of soldiers, use them to change the middle east to their own liking and meanwhile spirit the three or four remaining members to the U.S.A. to sleep with the Americans women and live in their houses and have just a plain old fashion good time.

lol what a joke, monkeys are not native to afghanistan if you have any proof provide VIDEO of it not pathetic pictures with monkeys holding fake guns with a possibility of photoshop

Actually the rhesus monkey is indigenous to Afghanistan as well as to many parts of Asia. Having lived in Asia, I know they can get into everything and touch everything you have...not saying the above photo is not a fake, but these monkeys have a keen sense of observation and can mimic humans...

Some monkeys are trained as service animals for quadriplegics. Maybe monkey machine-gunners are not as far-fetched as you think

http://www.monkeyhelpers.org/

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I think these are the evil monkeys that live in my closet.

I think that the first time a weapon fired the monkey would freak out and try to run away anyways, and probably tear up anyone who stood in their way. As a former M-60 machine gunner (Pig-Man Lives!!!) in the US Army I can tell you that it would be a hopeless task for a monkey, even if it was a smaller weapon firing on automatic- even single shot for that matter. They might get one to squeeze a trigger once but they'd never touch another gun afterwards.

I hate the very idea of involving animals in our warfare, horses, dogs, dolphins or monkeys. Warfare amongst humans is shameless enough. Bringing animals into the fray is an abuse of their sense of loyalty, connection, and friendship with humanity. I had a teacher in college who trained service monkeys for the disabled. It always made me think of gymnastically talented baby with exceptional coordination, but it would freak out if someone dropped a book or made some loud sudden noise. It was a smart little bugger though !

Looks like the relatives of those on capital hill are being trained to attack our own soldiers.

These monkeys are obviously Obama supporters.

The more likely explanation is that this is a joint CIA/NSA/ARMY psychological operation ("psyop") that might be more stellar in every respect than the greatest such "psyop" so far at the dawn of the early-21st century, which happened circa 2004 in the Abu Ghraib prison and soon resulted in complete and total victory for our great nation and our allies against the mutants in Iraq, where to be specific this "psyop" changed the definition and perception of the word "terrorist", which until that time had been so heavily infused with such an extraordinarily deep and primitive level of "abject fear" that it was a bit mind-boggling . . .

Mind boggling!

And because every successful "psyop" is as remarkably subtle as it is extraordinarily obvious, it requires an unique perspective to recognize and to understand the true beauty of the Abu Ghraib prison "psyop", which if I had been the Speaker of the House of Representatives or the Senate Majority Leader would have earned the key player in the "psyop"--Pvt. Lynndie England--a Congressional Medal of Honor, for sure . . .

For sure!

Specifically, the Abu Ghraib prison "psyop" made it abundantly clear not only to all our warriors but also to the entire world that so-called "terrorists" more than anything are terrified of ladies underpants . . .

The fact that so-called "terrorists" have no respect for human life and dignity--their own or anyone else's--was quite troubling until the Abu Gharaib prison "psyop", but once it became common knowledge that these so-called "terrorists" actually are terrified by ladies underpants, this was the game-changer and war-winner all in one, since from the deep and rich historical records of the outstanding gentlemen of the U. S. Marines and the fine ladies of the U. S. Navy "Waves" and their modern counterparts, it is an established fact that sooner or later putting these two groups together eventually results (a) in the Marines proudly wearing ladies underpants on their heads, typically after consuming huge quantities of happy beverages and toasting everything from the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli and (b) an abundance of giggles and smiles being enjoyed by the ladies and everyone else, except of course their respective Drill Instructors and Petty Officers, which also is the case with the other branches of our military, really . . .

Really!

Stated another way, the fact of the matter is that none of our warriors are the least bit afraid of ladies underpants, which also is the case here in the sound isolation studio, where more than anything we especially like Angela Gossow's underpants and have composed and recorded a song and made a YouTube music video that expresses our enduring fondness for them, which is fabulous . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecAFV-6rQ7Q

Fabulous!

Until the Abu Ghraib prison "psyop" revealed the fact that our enemies are so individually insecure of their manhood that they are terrified of ladies underpants--which in retrospect should have been obvious, since a key part of their twisted religion instructs them that women must be covered completely in full-body and head garments so that there is not even the tiniest possibility of their underpants and naughty bits being exposed--it was a bit stressing to contemplate the possibility of being confronted by a so-called "terrorist", although having had a bit of martial arts training over the years all I need to do is to switch instantly into the mode of thinking that is called "Mind like the Moon" (colloquially, "Tsuki no kokoro" in romanticized Japanese), where like the Moon on a cloudless night, the Mind shines equally on everything within its path, since all distractions ("clouds") have been cleared from the Mind . . .

And now that I know without doubt that our enemies are terrified by ladies underpants, it is abundantly clear that more than anything they are a bunch of Woozies, where the key bit of information is that, as explained by L. Frank Baum in "The Patchwork Girl of Oz", in order to concoct the antidote required to free someone from the constraints of the Liquid of Petrifaction (which turns a person into marble), one needs among other things to extract three hairs from the tail of a Woozy, which in the grand scheme of everything is exactly what the Abu Ghraib prison "psyop" accomplished via analogy, metaphor, or simile, for sure . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woozy_%28Oz%29

For sure!

Hence, the most plausible explanation for the current bit of monkey business is that it is a CIA/NSA/ARMY "psyop" with the goal being to plant the thought firmly in the hearts and minds of our enemies and the world that in fact quite the opposite is the case, where to be specific it is the monkeys that are training the Taliban and their cohorts, perhaps by continually taunting them with ladies underpants, really . . .

Really!

Excellent article Alan! Illegal Alien Rupert Murdoch and his lying tabloid the New Dork Post abused this nonsensical story to scare it's clueless rightwing readers into believing President Obama isn't keeping them safe. Only a total idiot, namely republicans, would ever believe that monkeys could fire weapons at the US soldiers only while not spraying the bullets around like they do feces. Had they tried to claim the Taliban were using them as suicide bombers that might have been believable considering that the Soviets used dogs to carry mines under German tanks in WW2.

Definitely see a lot of monkey's uncles, the evangelical christian lunatic fringe here trying to lie that they're not related to monkeys but all we have to do is look at their clueless rants to know they still haven't evolved fully from being Neanderthalus Replicanus as they fling their verbal feces all about!

In WWII the US experimented with bats armed with incendiary devices to be released over Japan - but the program was cancelled when the training facility in California was burned down. Seriously. Look it up.

Clearly these are Obama-trained socialist monkeys who are being reared to attack free-market, Christian Americans fetuses and other honest, hardworking Americans who have been stripped of their Constitutional rights and guns.

...and, after all, "Planet of the Apes" is the gold standard for evolutionary theory...just sayin', Ron.

UnchainedMelody is right. Bats were used to carry tiny incendiary pencils that would ignite when the bat's head was down but not in flight. The idea was to drop them by the thousands over Japanese cities (which were notoriously inflamable) so they would seek the eaves of the houses and cause fires. There was no humanitarian outcry when the information wes released, years later, of course, because nobody liked bats (at that time; people's attitudes have changed only slightly with the recognition that bats are useful insect eaters). Unchained is also right that the progrm was discontinued when in an experimental drop the bats burned down an unintended target. However, I believe that the cancellation was due to the advent of a more effective weapon (Fat Man and Little Boy) that would be more effective at incinerating those cities.

Another animal program that was pursued was to use dolphins to attch explosives to the bottoms of ships. I believe this was during the Korean War (or Police Action, as it was known), but correct me if I am wrong. The devices were to be magnetic and released by the dolphin (or remotely?) allowing the dolphin to swim away unharmed, to carry another bomb. (Unlike bats, dolphins have always been considered adorable. Thanks, Flipper).

Muller, the best illustration of the pile of @!$%# you turned our new intelligence service into.

Ça on peut dire que c'est de l'apparat.

so, we're talking about suicide monkey bombers... right?

I was offered a monkey at a FOB in Afg by some kids outside the wire... good thing I didn't take him! He could have shot us all!!!

Say!

I saw that monkey! It was a GOP add and she was standing up... not crouching. Obvious CGI work there.

Wait... No...

It's another superior well thought out plan from Gov. Jindal... he's exploring ways to retain military contractors in La to take the place of Northrup-Grumman who're going to shutter the Avondale facility. With Military-Monkey contracts he'll ensure that the La economy will be able to sustain itself as TARP bailout money (and the opportunities to take both credit for using that cash and potshots at those who created the program) dries up.

That is one mean looking Fing monkey! reminds me of my DI at Quantico!

That monkey looks like Pelosi behind a rifle! no cannot be! her behind a weapon? maybe if she were holding Obama's gun!