Posted on 03/12/2007 10:55:51 AM PDT by aculeus
WASHINGTON: An elite group of Native American trackers is joining the hunt for terrorists crossing Afghanistan's borders.
The unit, the Shadow Wolves, was recruited from several tribes, including the Navajo, Sioux, Lakota and Apache. It is being sent to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to pass on ancestral sign-reading skills to local border units.
In recent years, members of the Shadow Wolves have mainly tracked smugglers along the US border with Mexico.
But the Taliban's resurgence in Afghanistan and the US military's failure to hunt down Osama bin Laden - still at large on his 50th birthday on Saturday - has prompted the Pentagon to requisition them.
US Defence Secretary Robert M.Gates said last month: "If I were Osama bin Laden, I'd keep looking over my shoulder."
The Pentagon has been alarmed at the ease with which Taliban and al-Qa'ida fighters have been slipping in and out of Afghanistan. Defence officials are convinced their movements can be curtailed by the Shadow Wolves.
The unit has earned international respect for its tracking skills in the Arizona desert. It was founded in the early 1970s to curb the flow of marijuana into the US from Mexico and has since tracked people-smugglers across hundreds of square kilometres of the Tohono O'odham tribal reservation, southwest of Tucson.
(Excerpt) Read more at theaustralian.news.com.au ...
And in over four years they have accomplished, what (pertaining to Bin Laden)?
I say, give the Indians a chance, can't hurt.
Thousands dead of his most loyal followers and him boxed into eking out a survival in the most rugged terrain on earth...cut off from being any operational support to his greater cause.
This article is much more fantasy then reality.....with a sliver of truth to what is actually happening (and even that is old news).
good points!
Coming soon to a theater near you.
Oh, there has been a whole bunch of criticism about this group. And no -- they will not be sprinkling "hoobie dust" on the trails (whatever that is). And they won't be scattering bones around. That only works in the movies.
But as the daughter of a full blood Cherokee who was also an expert hunter -- I can tell you that Osama is in big trouble. In fact, I'd be willing to say his days just got to be a lot shorter on this earth. I would also bet that my father is among many like him who have gone across the Great Divide who will be guiding the Shadow Wolves as they go about their task of training others on tracking.
It's true that we have multi-million equipment. But that equipment -- with the precious cargo of American soldiers -- is being blown apart by IEDs that probably didn't cost $15!
The truth be known I don't think the government wants to get Osama. All the mutt has to do is to stay in touch with MSM and he'll never get caught. Not only do we hamper our chances of eliminating this piece of garbage we are endangering our gallant fighting people who are after him.
That we haven't been able to do that to date...is a failure to some degree....Not a failure of our shooters on the hunt for him....but those with pay grades much above theirs...(even then the word failure is likely to harsh a term).
There are some very real and hard realities as to why the man is still living.....there area in which he (and others) have sought their sanctuary is simply as brutal and difficult of terrain as there is to operate out of...or to run sustained operations in.
Killing UBL will require the sweat, blood and work that we continue to do....along with a little bit of luck for our side...and little bit of Mr. Murphy on his....
Killing UBL (and Zawahiri) is of vital importance and is more important then many give credit to....
Lone Ranger: "Tonto, don't look now but we are surrounded by Indians"
Tonto: "What you mean, white man?"
I'm starting to think OBL is in Tehran.
I'm thinking of another orifice...sideways...
Very cool! And I bet the code talkers have little worry about their radio communictaions being intercepted.
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