Stray Dogs and Grievability in Iraq War Literature

This essay argues that the recurrent image of stray dogs in U.S. veterans’ Iraq War literature reveals a neo-colonialist ethos that buttresses and expands existing stereotypes of the Orient as a lawless place in need of Western order. Examining how the image of the cannibalistic, transgressive, enemy canine is grafted onto the already existing ideologeme of Iraq as an inferior Muslim, Arab country, the essay asks why the stray dog appears in these texts as a creature that is routinely shot at but cannot be grieved.