"Rocket Cats" and War

An interesting article from the Associated Press.  Some medieval dudes--it HAD to have been men--envisioned the use of cats and birds in warfare:

[image credit AP]

 

 

In an article entitled 16th-century Manual Shows 'Rocket Cat' Weaponry, we learn the following:

 

You're a 16th-century German prince plotting to crush a peasant rebellion, or perhaps you're leading an army against the Ottoman Empire or looking to settle the score with a rival nobleman. What's a guy looking for a tactical edge to do?

 

Bring on the rocket cats!

Fanciful illustrations from a circa-1530 manual on artillery and siege warfare seem to show jetpacks strapped to the backs of cats and doves, with the German-language text helpfully advising military commanders to use them to "set fire to a castle or city which you can't get at otherwise."

 

I've often written in these pages about the stupidity of war, but to use our feline friends to assist our aggression is over the top.  I keep going back to what an elder statesman of the blogging world, Dancan Black, once said about war (link here):

Wars Are Bad

And if for some reason the people who run the United States feel the need to start one, it means they've failed. It means they should all resign in shame and let someone else clean up their mess. This country has immense power - military, economic, political - and if you can't use the latter two, along with the implicit threat of the first one, to make war unnecessary then you've fucked up and it's time to go home.

The words "war" and "cats" should never be found in the same sentence.  For that matter, along the same theme, neither should the words "war" and "people."