In impossible situations, times of war and emergency, are animals more or less deserving of rescue than humans? Claire Hamlett examines the different opinions expressed during the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan.

Yesterday, an Instagram post by Madison Cawthorn, a Republican member of the US House of Representatives, sparked outrage. Cawthorn captioned a picture of dogs left in crates beside a wrecked helicopter: “Contract service dogs left behind in Kabul. I have a service/defense dog and he is my best friend. I can’t imagine leaving him behind anywhere. These people are scum.”

Though Cawthorn was actually incorrect - the dogs were not linked to the US military, but were reportedly under the care of Kabul Small Animal Rescue (KSAR), which had been trying to evacuate the animals but were not allowed to load them onto military aircraft - the episode is one of many since the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan to highlight how animal lives are valued in a crisis where resources are limited, political handling is questionable and human lives are at stake.

In the case of US military dogs, it would indeed be wrong if they had been abandoned to fend for themselves in Kabul after serving in dangerous roles to keep soldiers safe. But does that mean they are equal in value to human beings? It turns out that military dogs were not only evacuated from Kabul with their handlers, but they seemingly rode in seats on their flight out that some argued could and should have been occupied by humans, including Afghans who assisted NATO forces during the war who would now be in danger of reprisals from the Taliban.

The debate was only inflamed further when a woman called into LBC Radio and said that animals - and not just service animals, but animals from shelters - were more deserving of safe passage out of Kabul than Afghans who had not helped foreign forces in the war.

It’s hard to know for sure whether the military dogs really did take places that could have been used by Afghans. The US and UK had initially agreed to take fewer refugees than Germany and France, which calls into question whether animals were actually prioritised over humans, or whether those seats would not have been filled by Afghans anyway. Certainly, the best outcome would have been to make space for both.

Choosing between humans and animals also became the core issue in the high-profile case of British ex-marine Pen Farthing, founder of animal charity Nowzad, as he sought to secure safe passage out of Kabul for his staff and animals. UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace enraged supporters of Farthing by saying he would prioritise people over pets in evacuations from Kabul, as they pointed out that rescue animals would go in the cargo hold and would not be taking up space that could be used by people on planes.

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But as Tory MP Tom Tugendhat pointed out on LBC, and Wallace later noted, the space on the aircraft was actually not the main issue. Farthing and 170 dogs and cats did eventually make it out of Kabul while his staff were barred by the Taliban from leaving, but he did so with the help of military personnel. Tugenhadt said, “The difficulty is getting people into and out of the airport and we've just used a lot of troops to get in 200 dogs, meanwhile my interpreter's family are likely to be killed.” Wallace said that he found it “upsetting” that military resources had been diverted from helping people to flee when troops helped Farthing to load the animals in crates onto his privately chartered plane. A defence source said the help given by the Ministry of Defence to evacuate animals meant “this is the first British Government explicitly committed to the idea of non-white people as equivalent to animals since the abolition of slavery.”

Farthing’s supporters dispute these claims, while James Kirkup, after having written a piece in the Spectator condemning the use of military resources to help Pen Farthing, noted that an MoD source had taken issue with his claims, essentially saying that “if UK resource had not been used on Farthing, it would not have made any difference to the number of Afghans the UK could remove from Kabul.”

Nonetheless, the whole episode has revealed quite starkly the extent and limits of people’s belief in the value of animal lives. In contrast to Cawthorn and the woman who called into LBC, for example, Kirstie Allsop proclaimed on Twitter that she adores her dog but would swap their life for a human life “and I mean any human life, not just my family and friends.”

The ethical parameters of the situation also extend beyond the direct question of animal life or human life. Wallace complained that some of Farthing's supporters had "taken up too much time of my senior commanders dealing with this issue when they should be focused on dealing with the humanitarian crisis,” while Kirkup doubled down on his position to say “Our leaders, commanders and decision-makers shouldn’t have had to spend a single minute of their time considering the plight of some cats and dogs.”

Is it right that no decision-makers should have spared a thought for the animals? One of the main purposes of Nowzad has been to help soldiers who have bonded with dogs and cats while serving in Afghanistan to adopt them and take them home. The Nowzad staff who were blocked from leaving the country by the Taliban committed themselves to caring for the animals in their shelter. The animals themselves are also victims of war and political upheaval not of their own making. Why don’t they deserve at least some consideration?

The view that nobody should have to waste time thinking about them when there are human lives at stake contrasts sharply with the positive shift that has come about in the last few years for government agencies, the public and the media to focus more attention on nonhuman victims of crises. The millions of wild animals that were killed in the Australian bushfires of 2019 and 2020, for example, or stories of animals stranded by hurricanes being rescued by volunteers have received significant attention because more and more people realise that their lives and how they are impacted by human beings matter too. While the UK has legally recognised animals as sentient beings, there clearly remains a gap between what that means in theory and in practice.

Claire Hamlett is a freelance journalist, writer and regular contributor at Surge. Based in Oxford, UK, Claire tells stories that challenge systemic exploitation of and disregard for animals and the environment and that point to a better way of doing things.

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