the cats of baghdad

[rm]

"This proposal you make, is it for four legs only, or also for two? Six months’ detention, British passport, free to stay, guaranteed home, this is excellent. I will take, and many other Iraqis, too."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/14/weekinreview/14burns.html

Comments

[sethg]

See also (from February 2004):

Afghanistan lost another symbol of perseverance in the face of adversity in recent weeks. Marjan, the proud, tragic lion in Kabul's zoo, who had come to symbolize the senseless violence of his country, died Jan. 25 of kidney failure and other ailments at the age of 23.

Marjan's tale of woe is well known: in 1993, he was crippled and blinded when a vengeful mujahedeen fighter hurled a hand grenade at him.

The previous day, Marjan had killed the man's brother, who had entered his den on a dare to touch the lion.

For eight years, Marjan limped around the den in perpetual darkness, becoming a macabre attraction at a zoo where most of the animals are sick or maimed. Yet he endured, outlasting the Taliban, whose justice minister tried to close down the zoo on the premise that putting animals in cages flouted Islamic teaching.