President Trumps tweet picturing and praising the “wonderful dog (name not declassified) that did such a GREAT JOB in capturing and killing the Leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi!” was a brilliant bit of psychological warfare, in addition to good domestic politics, tugging at the hearts of Americans who love their canine friends.

We have declassified a picture of the wonderful dog (name not declassified) that did such a GREAT JOB in capturing and killing the Leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi! pic.twitter.com/PDMx9nZWvw — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 28, 2019

Muslims, you see, are taught that dogs are unclean. Have al Baghdadi taken down by an “unclean” animal is an extra dose of humiliation, somewhat akin to the perhaps apocryphal story of General "Black Jack" Pershing ordering Muslim terrorists he was fighting in the Philippines in the late 19th century buried with pig carcasses in order to prevent their entry into heaven.

The Prophet Mohammed hated dogs, perhaps because his earlier career as a caravan raider he would have been frustrated by dogs warning of the intruders coming to attack and steal. I wrote about this almost 5 years ago, after observing the reactions of a group of young Muslim women to the two cute dogs I was walking – a mixture of attraction and horror. Here is just sample of the dog-hatred in Islamic scripture: