Hunting Trip

There are probably more relaxing ways to spend your vacation.

A 52-year-old Californian construction worker named Gary Brooks Faulkner packed a gun, a 40-inch sword, night goggles, and Christian literature on his solo mission to Pakistan to hunt Osama bin Laden.

These kind of news stories (which we don't hear often enough considering there is a still a $25 million reward for OBL's capture) hold a special place in my heart. Some of my first blog posts in 2001 were about bin Laden...

It still baffles me that our CIA and special forces with all their high-tech equipment haven't found the 9/11 mastermind in the nine years since the terrorist attacks.

And yet this lone construction worker with a criminal record was probably on the right track:

Faulkner might not have been that far from his prey. He was trying to enter Nuristan, a region the U.S. military decided to abandon last year as being too remote and indefensible, and widely considered a Taliban stronghold. Rumors of bin Laden’s presence in this area abound: As recently as last year, U.S. officials were speculating Osama might be hiding in the mountains of Chitral or just across the border in Nuristan.

So I have this feeling that, despite not succeeding on this terrorist assassin mission, Faulkner will still enjoy a bit of hero status at home. And maybe more crazies with 40-inch swords will give the OBL hunt a try.

For nine years I've had this strange feeling that our government isn't even trying.