U.S. Abandons Animals in Lebanon Chaos

Images of kittens sniffing amid rubble. Dogs seen running frantically down the streets. Distraught Americans told that they must leave their animal companions behind to starve and die in the destruction.

These scenes—reminiscent of cruel and illegal decisions made in the wake of Hurricane Katrina—are reality once more. While the French government has made provisions for animal evacuations, the U.S. is doing the opposite. U.S. officials evacuating citizens from Lebanon have failed to heed the lesson of the Gulf Coast and are refusing Americans' attempts to evacuate with their animal companions.

PETA Calls On U.S. Commander, South African Embassy Official to Facilitate Evacuation of Animals

PETA has sent an urgent letter to Brig. Gen. Carl Jensen—the military commander in charge of U.S. evacuation operations in Lebanon—begging him to instruct his officers to help evacuees take their animals with them to safety and bringing international attention to the government’s failure to serve all Americans trapped in Lebanon.

PETA also dashed off a letter to Siyabonga Ponco, chargé d’affaires of the South African Embassy in Cairo, urging him to permit South African nationals who are being evacuated to take their companion animals with them rather than forcing them to abandon their animals in the rubble to starve. The plea stemmed from an e-mail message that Ponco sent to PETA in which he suggested that evacuees with animals should “not demand more than they could be given”—implying that a request to help South African citizens take their beloved cats, dogs, and birds with them would be asking too much.

How You Can Help Today

Please immediately urge President George W. Bush not to break the law by encouraging abandonment of companion animals and to ensure the safety of all Americans in Lebanon by ordering that citizens be allowed to evacuate with their animal companions:

The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W.
Washington, DC 20500
202-456-2461 (fax)
comments@whitehouse.gov