In the dog days of winter, after the dogs of war have been unleashed and Karzai’s in the doghouse for biting the hand that feeds him, we should paws (I’m sorry) and ask, on a dog day afternoon, who let the dogs out?

British special forces, apparently.

The miltary working dog (MWD) was captured by the insurgency during a mission in late 2013, which resulted in at least one British soldier being killed in addition to the loss of the canine combatant. Also taken were grenades and assault rifles of the kind favored by American special operations forces and guys in Oregon with a lot of time on their hands now that Mom canceled their Xbox Live subscription.

You Keep Using That Word

According to the Washington Post, at one point in the video the Taliban go full Vizzini, declaring that “Allah gave victory to the mujahideen! Down with them, down with their spies!” What’s evident from that statement is that the Taliban are having just as much difficulty as the coalition in figuring out what winning looks like, and are at the point where they’re willing to declare victory because they managed to get their hands on a Belgian Malinois. Which, in the “winning” column is probably as significant as capturing a Belgian waffle from the ISAF HQ dining facility in terms of tactical accomplishment.

It’s About More Than Sprouts

But victories are all about symbols, and Belgium is certainly a bastion for things the Taliban might oppose: gay marriage has been legal since 2003, Belgians consume an average of 150 liters of beer per year per person, and the saxophone was invented there in 1840. So homsexuality, booze, and music are all things Belgium does well. But it’s also home to Waterloo, where a short Frenchman once got his comeuppance. Which in terms of symbolism, capturing a Belgian dog might mean a great deal.

We’re Here For the Harry Potter Prequel

We’ve come to expect this kind of public affairs buffoonery from ISAF, which is prone to turning dead Afghans into a good news story, so it’s actually refreshing to see that even the Taliban can be more than a little clumsy when it comes to trying to chalk one up using a furry foe and a couple of coalition weapons. This video probably says a lot more about the state of the Taliban than any RAND Seth Jones authored analytigasm ever could, that we’re up against a couple of guys who got lost on the way to a Hagrid casting call who think a purloined pooch is going to make some kind of statement about the might of the insurgency. And it does: that the insurgency, after 13 years of fighting, is finally going to the dogs.