Although the off-hand tone of the article is inappropriate. Short of physical capture, pigeons cannot be bugged, and as a low-tech counter to American electronic superiority they should not be discounted. In one account of wargames simulating an American force attacking a Middle Eastern, the American general "playing" the Middle Eastern force used human couriers for all communications, thus preventing the Americans from listening in as they had assumed they would be able to. The article was in Army Times, even if I can't get their damn' search function working.
The Arabs were the first recorded pigeon-breeders, even if today the birds are bred for sport rather than war. It would be unwise in the extreme to discount the abilities of pigeons. Perhaps our only option is to deploy a corps of falconers. A running Darwinian battle 'twixt pigeons and hawks, as the technologies on both sides cancel each other out, is a pleasingly Frederick Turner-ish notion. The ancient and the modern, side by side in co-operation and competition.
Any knowledge I have of pigeons is from Aloft, by Steve Bodio. Of whom Peculiar spoke here, and I here.
Original pigeon-y link via Mr. Sullivan.
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