Native American Super-Tracker "Shadow Wolves" On Hunt For Bin Ladin?

I put the question mark there not because I doubt they've been deployed, but because I doubt they are "elite trackers." Have the old ways of American Indians survived so long in a society long past the hunter-gatherer phase? Were the old ways even as amazing as cultural lore would suggest?

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."

Michelle wants to know why they're only now being deployed. Perhaps just because it's much easier to track smugglers in a desert than a few dozen men over rocky mountain tracks.

Gotta give it up for the Green Lantern motto of the company:

"In brightest day, in darkest night, no evil shall escape my sight, for I am the Shadow Wolf."

More info and links at Michelle's.

posted by Ace at 03:33 PM

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