Patriots, when historians speak of the secret war in Laos, more often than not they're referring to the CIA's covert operations in Laos from 1955 through 1975.

But for those of us living in the here and now, there's another clandestine conflict brewing in Laos. No, Lao commies aren't on the move or stacking up nukes. This time we find ourselves confronted by the possibility that sqrats, long thought to be the fruit of deranged minds, or at least an extinct link in the evolutionary chain of skwerlien monstrosities, are a real and present danger...

Rat-Squirrel Not Extinct After All
By Lauran Neergaard, Associated Press Writer - Thu Mar 9, 6:57 PM ET

It has the face of a rat and the tail of a skinny squirrel — and scientists say this creature discovered living in central Laos is pretty special: It's a species believed to have been extinct for 11 million years.

The long-whiskered rodent made international headlines last spring when biologists declared they'd discovered a brand new species, nicknamed the Laotian rock rat.

It turns out the little guy isn't new after all, but a rare kind of survivor: a member of a family until now known only from fossils.

Nor is it a rat. This species, called Diatomyidae, looks more like small squirrels or tree shrews, said paleontologist Mary Dawson of Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

Dawson, with colleagues in France and China, report the creature's new identity in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

The resemblance is "absolutely striking," Dawson said. As soon as her team spotted reports about the rodent's discovery, "we thought, 'My goodness, this is not a new family. We've known it from the fossil record.'"

They set out to prove that through meticulous comparisons between the bones of today's specimens and fossils found in China and elsewhere in Asia.

To reappear after 11 million years is more exciting than if the rodent really had been a new species, said George Schaller, a naturalist with the Wildlife Conservation Society, which unveiled the creature's existence last year. Indeed, such reappearances are so rare that paleontologists dub them "the Lazarus effect."

"It shows you it's well worth looking around in this world, still, to see what's out there," Schaller said.

The nocturnal rodent lives in Laotian forests largely unexplored by outsiders, because of the geographic remoteness and history of political turmoil.



Schaller calls the area "an absolute wonderland," because biologists who have ventured in have found unique animals, like a type of wild ox called the saola, barking deer, and never-before-seen bats. Dawson describes it as a prehistoric zoo, teeming with information about past and present biodiversity.

All the attention to the ancient rodent will be "wonderful for conservation," Schaller said. "This way, Laos will be proud of that region for all these new animals, which will help conservation in that some of the forests, I hope, will be preserved."

Locals call the rodent kha-nyou. Scientists haven't yet a bagged a breathing one, only the bodies of those recently caught by hunters or for sale at meat markets, where researchers with the New York-based conservation society first spotted the creature.

Now the challenge is to trap some live ones, and calculate how many still exist to tell whether the species is endangered, Dawson said.

Patriots, we don't have too much to say about this. Obviously, these "scientists" and "researchers" have been puffing a little too hard on the ol' opium pipe. Come on, a "prehistoric zoo" in an "absolute wonderland" with deer that bark. What's next? A lizard that can walk on water or a duck-billed mammal with webbed feet?

Still, this latest find rekindles the question: Are Sqrats Real? Or are they but the drug-induced nightmares of hippie scientists and urban-dwelling, delusional skwerlhuggers? For that answer, we ask that you be the judge...

"Show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy." ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

FOOTNOTE:

During the so-called secret war in Laos, the CIA financed and supplied an indigenous Hmong army led by General Vang Pao in an effort to counter the communist North Vietnamese and Pathet Lao forces overtaking Laos.

Support for the Hmong army was provided by the CIA-owned Air America and a cadre of CIA officers. It was the largest paramilitary operations ever undertaken by the CIA. The whole affair was trivialized in the movie Air America.

The secret war produced its share of scoundrels, heroes, and scoundrel-heroes. One stands out, a smoke jumper from Montana, Jerry "Hog" Daniels.

Jerry rose through CIA ranks to become advisor to the commander of the Hmong army, General Vang Pao. He fought alongside the Hmong from 1965 until the fall of the Hmong stronghold at Long Tieng in May 1975.

When the CIA pulled out of Laos in 1975, the remnants of the Hmong army and tens of thousands of the Hmong people made a desperate and tortured run for the refugee camps in Thailand.

Jerry's duty was to his country, but his commitment was to the Hmong people. He might have continued a promising career with the CIA or in the State Department away from Southeast Asia, but his commitment took him to the refugee camps were he coordinated Hmong resettlement to the United States.

On April 29, 1982, Jerry Daniels was found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in his Bangkok apartment; a suspicious death to be sure. His remains were flown to the States in a sealed coffin. Soon rumors circulated that the coffin was sealed because Jerry wasn't in it; he was really still alive and roaming the hills of Laos seeking revenge on anyone who would do the Hmong harm.

Rumors aside, General Vang Pao had relocated from Laos to Orange County, California before Jerry died. He asked Jerry's family for and was granted permission to bury him in the Hmong tradition - a solemn and fitting tribute to the American who didn't abandon them in their time of need.