THE TRUTH OF WAR [and] 20 YEARS AFTER

Greetings folks. I had originally wanted to put out a little more uplifting piece this week, since spring/early summer is fully underway here in the sub-arctic, and it's hard not to feel the new life and energy in the air after our long winter. I had several ideas in mind, and was wracking my brain about putting them together. But, as often happens, answers to questions we have often arrive at unexpected times, and right in front of our eyes. When I was scanning my usual news-sites today, I came across the article below, which I felt was worthy of sharing and commentary. It's very powerful, and brought tears to my eyes, I have to admit.

Published on Monday, June 1, 2009 by TruthDig.com

War Is Sin

by Chris Hedges

The crisis faced by combat veterans returning from war is not simply a profound struggle with trauma and alienation. It is often, for those who can slice through the suffering to self-awareness, an existential crisis. War exposes the lies we tell ourselves about ourselves. It rips open the hypocrisy of our religions and secular institutions. Those who return from war have learned something which is often incomprehensible to those who have stayed home. We are not a virtuous nation. God and fate have not blessed us above others. Victory is not assured. War is neither glorious nor noble. And we carry within us the capacity for evil we ascribe to those we fight.

Those who return to speak this truth, such as members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, are our contemporary prophets. But like all prophets they are condemned and ignored for their courage. They struggle, in a culture awash in lies, to tell what few have the fortitude to digest. They know that what we are taught in school, in worship, by the press, through the entertainment industry and at home, that the melding of the state's rhetoric with the rhetoric of religion, is empty and false.

The words these prophets speak are painful. We, as a nation, prefer to listen to those who speak from the patriotic script. We prefer to hear ourselves exalted. If veterans speak of terrible wounds visible and invisible, of lies told to make them kill, of evil committed in our name, we fill our ears with wax. Not our boys, we say, not them, bred in our homes, endowed with goodness and decency. For if it is easy for them to murder, what about us? And so it is simpler and more comfortable not to hear. We do not listen to the angry words that cascade forth from their lips, wishing only that they would calm down, be reasonable, get some help, and go away. We, the deformed, brand our prophets as madmen. We cast them into the desert. And this is why so many veterans are estranged and enraged. This is why so many succumb to suicide or addictions.

War comes wrapped in patriotic slogans, calls for sacrifice, honor and heroism and promises of glory. It comes wrapped in the claims of divine providence. It is what a grateful nation asks of its children. It is what is right and just. It is waged to make the nation and the world a better place, to cleanse evil. War is touted as the ultimate test of manhood, where the young can find out what they are made of. War, from a distance, seems noble. It gives us comrades and power and a chance to play a small bit in the great drama of history. It promises to give us an identity as a warrior, a patriot, as long as we go along with the myth, the one the war-makers need to wage wars and the defense contractors need to increase their profits.

But up close war is a soulless void. War is about barbarity, perversion and pain, an unchecked orgy of death. Human decency and tenderness are crushed. Those who make war work overtime to reduce love to smut, and all human beings become objects, pawns to use or kill. The noise, the stench, the fear, the scenes of eviscerated bodies and bloated corpses, the cries of the wounded, all combine to spin those in combat into another universe. In this moral void, naively blessed by secular and religious institutions at home, the hypocrisy of our social conventions, our strict adherence to moral precepts, come unglued. War, for all its horror, has the power to strip away the trivial and the banal, the empty chatter and foolish obsessions that fill our days. It lets us see, although the cost is tremendous.

The Rev. William P. Mahedy, who was a Catholic chaplain in Vietnam, tells of a soldier, a former altar boy, in his book "Out of the Night: The Spiritual Journey of Vietnam Vets," who says to him: "Hey, Chaplain ... how come it's a sin to hop into bed with a mama-san but it's okay to blow away gooks out in the bush?"

"Consider the question that he and I were forced to confront on that day in a jungle clearing," Mahedy writes. "How is it that a Christian can, with a clear conscience, spend a year in a war zone killing people and yet place his soul in jeopardy by spending a few minutes with a prostitute? If the New Testament prohibitions of sexual misconduct are to be stringently interpreted, why, then, are Jesus' injunctions against violence not binding in the same way? In other words, what does the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill' really mean?"

Military chaplains, a majority of whom are evangelical Christians, defend the life of the unborn, tout America as a Christian nation and eagerly bless the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as holy crusades. The hollowness of their morality, the staggering disconnect between the values they claim to promote, is ripped open in war.

There is a difference between killing someone who is trying to kill you and taking the life of someone who does not have the power to harm you. The first is killing. The second is murder. But in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the enemy is elusive and rarely seen, murder occurs far more often than killing. Families are massacred in airstrikes. Children are gunned down in blistering suppressing fire laid down in neighborhoods after an improvised explosive device goes off near a convoy. Artillery shells obliterate homes. And no one stops to look. The dead and maimed are left behind.

The utter failure of nearly all our religious institutions-whose texts are unequivocal about murder-to address the essence of war has rendered them useless. These institutions have little or nothing to say in wartime because the god they worship is a false god, one that promises victory to those who obey the law and believe in the manifest destiny of the nation.
We all have the capacity to commit evil. It takes little to unleash it. For those of us who have been to war this is the awful knowledge that is hardest to digest, the knowledge that the line between the victims and the victimizers is razor-thin, that human beings find a perverse delight in destruction and death, and that few can resist the pull. At best, most of us become silent accomplices.

Wars may have to be fought to ensure survival, but they are always tragic. They always bring to the surface the worst elements of any society, those who have a penchant for violence and a lust for absolute power. They turn the moral order upside down. It was the criminal class that first organized the defense of Sarajevo. When these goons were not manning roadblocks to hold off the besieging Bosnian Serb army they were looting, raping and killing the Serb residents in the city. And those politicians who speak of war as an instrument of power, those who wage war but do not know its reality, those powerful statesmen-the Henry Kissingers, Robert McNamaras, Donald Rumsfelds, the Dick Cheneys-those who treat war as part of the great game of nations, are as amoral as the religious stooges who assist them. And when the wars are over what they have to say to us in their thick memoirs about war is also hollow, vacant and useless.
"In theological terms, war is sin," writes Mahedy. "This has nothing to do with whether a particular war is justified or whether isolated incidents in a soldier's war were right or wrong. The point is that war as a human enterprise is a matter of sin. It is a form of hatred for one's fellow human beings. It produces alienation from others and nihilism, and it ultimately represents a turning away from God."

The young soldiers and Marines do not plan or organize the war. They do not seek to justify it or explain its causes. They are taught to believe. The symbols of the nation and religion are interwoven. The will of God becomes the will of the nation. This trust is forever shattered for many in war. Soldiers in combat see the myth used to send them to war implode. They see that war is not clean or neat or noble, but venal and frightening. They see into war's essence, which is death.

War is always about betrayal. It is about betrayal of the young by the old, of cynics by idealists, and of soldiers and Marines by politicians. Society's institutions, including our religious institutions, which mold us into compliant citizens, are unmasked. This betrayal is so deep that many never find their way back to faith in the nation or in any god. They nurse a self-destructive anger and resentment, understandable and justified, but also crippling. Ask a combat veteran struggling to piece his or her life together about God and watch the raw vitriol and pain pour out. They have seen into the corrupt heart of America, into the emptiness of its most sacred institutions, into our staggering hypocrisy, and those of us who refuse to heed their words become complicit in the evil they denounce.

© 2009 TruthDig.com

Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com. Hedges graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He is the author of many books, including: War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning, What Every Person Should Know About War, and American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America. His most recent book, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle, will be out in July, but is available for pre-order.

Mr. Hedges knows whereof he speaks, having been a foreign correspondent for the New York Times, and has seen the horrors of war first-hand. And talked with hundreds of soldiers about their experiences. Living here in "The Belly of the Beast" as my Mother calls the U.S. (because of our empire and horrible warring history), and especially Fairbanks, because of it's large army and air force bases, really has opened my eyes, since my arrival here in 2001. Fairbanks is the most conservative place I've ever lived; other than the area around the University of Alaska, culturally speaking, it is not much different than living in Great Falls, Montana, or Amarillo Texas. The majority of the churches seem to be of the more fundamentalist Christian type, one of which in particular occasionally displays venomous, polarizing statements on its light-board next to the busy Steese Highway, for all the passing drivers to see. Part of this also stems from the fact that many thousands of people from Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana came to Alaska in the 1970s to help build the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, and work in the rapidly expanding oil industry.

Their culture came with them, to the detriment of Alaska as a whole (that could be a great future topic, the change in Alaska state politics from the 1960s, to the present. There were some surprisingly diverse and progressive Alaska politicians up until the 1970s, who could never be elected now). Those of you who have spent time in those places would know exactly what I mean by that. One of the best illustrations of this is that in the Fairbanks North Star Borough (population around 90,000), there is no natural food store! Even tiny Valdez, Alaska, population 2000 or so, has one! Enough said. [fortunately in the past year serious effort is going in to start a natural foods coop here, eds.]

Many of the bars downtown have banned G.I.'s from their establishments. Because some of the soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan went wild, more or less, causing a large amount of fighting and property damage in them. Which is sad, since many of them are probably in great emotional and physical trauma, from what they experienced there. There are some support groups available locally for these returning vets, and it's vital that progressive people and groups interact with them, so that they can help teach people about THE TRUTH OF WAR. That will help in the efforts to make the U.S. a less militarized, and non-imperialistic country. Because if we don't, more 9/11 type attacks will occur in this country, and/or other countries may choose to cut their economic and other ties with ours.

Why do you think North Korea, at great expense and sacrifice to their population and land, develops nuclear weapons and long-range missile technology? Because they know that is the only way their integrity as a country and political system can be maintained. Not that their system is ideal, by any means, there is great repression and suffering there, to be sure. But all smaller countries know now, after the criminal Iraq invasion especially, that the only way to protect themselves from foreign, and U.S., aggression, is through the possession of nuclear weapons, and the ability to deliver them.


20 YEARS AFTER

One of the joys of living in Alaska is showing relatives and family from the lower 48 the beauty of this land, and experiencing that with/through them. When my mother and sister came up from Oregon and California last week, we drove down to Valdez, so they could see that amazing area around Prince William Sound, and all the country between it and Fairbanks.

Of course, we all remember what happened there in March, 1989:
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill

"Introduction:

On March 24, 1989, the tanker Exxon Valdez, en route from Valdez, Alaska to Los Angeles, California, ran aground on Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska. The vessel was traveling outside normal shipping lanes in an attempt to avoid ice. Within six hours of the grounding, the Exxon Valdez spilled approximately 10.9 million gallons of its 53 million gallon cargo of Prudhoe Bay crude oil. Eight of the eleven tanks on board were damaged. The oil would eventually impact over 1,100 miles of non-continuous coastline in Alaska, making the Exxon Valdez the largest oil spill to date in U.S. waters.

The response to the Exxon Valdez involved more personnel and equipment over a longer period of time than did any other spill in U.S. history. Logistical problems in providing fuel, meals, berthing, response equipment, waste management and other resources were one of the largest challenges to response management. At the height of the response, more than 11,000 personnel, 1,400 vessels and 85 aircraft were involved in the cleanup.

Shoreline cleanup began in April of 1989 and continued until September of 1989 for the first year of the response. The response effort continued in 1990 and 1991 with cleanup in the summer months, and limited shoreline monitoring in the winter months. Fate and effects monitoring by state and Federal agencies are ongoing.

The images that the world saw on television and descriptions they heard on the radio that spring were of heavily oiled shorelines, dead and dying wildlife, and thousands of workers mobilized to clean beaches. These images reflected what many people felt was a severe environmental insult to a relatively pristine, ecologically important area that was home to many species of wildlife endangered elsewhere. In the weeks and months that followed, the oil spread over a wide area in Prince William Sound and beyond, resulting in an unprecedented response and cleanup—in fact, the largest oil spill cleanup ever mobilized. Many local, state, federal, and private agencies and groups took part in the effort. Even today, scientists continue to study the affected shorelines to understand how an ecosystem like Prince William Sound responds to, and recovers from, an incident like the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

How much oil remains?
Based on the areas that were studied in the aftermath of the spill, scientists made estimates of the ultimate fate of the oil. A 2001 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) study surveyed 96 sites along 8,000 miles of coastline.

A pit dug on a Prince William Sound beach in 2001 revealing oil in the sediments. (Source: NOAA)
The survey distinguished between surface and buried oil. Buried or subsurface oil is of greater concern than surface oil. Subsurface oil can remain dormant for many years before being dispersed and is more liquid, still toxic, and may become biologically available. A disturbance event such as burrowing animals or a severe storm reworks the beach and can reintroduce unweathered oil into the water. Results of the summer shoreline survey showed that the oil remaining on the surface of beaches in Prince William Sound is weathered and mostly hardened into an asphalt-like layer. The toxic components of this type of surface oil are not as readily available to biota, although some softer forms do cause sheens in tide pools.

The survey indicates a total area of approximately 20 acres of shoreline in Prince William Sound are still contaminated with oil. Oil was found at 58 percent of the 91 sites assessed and is estimated to have the linear equivalent of 5.8 km of contaminated shoreline.
In addition to the estimated area of remaining oiled beach, several other important points were evident:
Surface oil was determined to be not a good indicator of subsurface oil.

Twenty subsurface pits were classified as heavily oiled. Oil saturated all of the interstitial spaces and was extremely repugnant. These “worst case” pits exhibited an oil mixture that resembled oil encountered in 1989 a few weeks after the spill—highly odiferous, lightly weathered, and very fluid.

Subsurface oil was also found at a lower tide height than expected (between 0 and 6 feet), in contrast to the surface oil, which was found mostly at the highest levels of the beach. This is significant, because the pits with the most oil were found low in the intertidal zone, closest to the zone of biological production, and indicate that the survey estimates are conservative at best.

Ecosystem response to the spill
Recovery is a very difficult term to define and measure for a complex ecosystem such as Prince William Sound. If you ask a fisherman from Kodiak Island, a villager from the town of Valdez, an Exxon engineer, or a NOAA biologist, you are likely to receive such different answers that you may wonder if they heard the same question. In particular, disagreements exist between Exxon and government-funded scientists, and unknowns persist, especially in understanding how multiple processes combine to drive observed dynamics.

Despite this, there are some things known with a high degree of certainty: oil persisted beyond a decade in surprising amounts and in toxic forms, was sufficiently bioavailable to induce chronic biological exposures, and had long-term impacts at the population level. Three major pathways of long-term impacts emerge: (1) chronic persistence of oil, biological exposures, and population impacts to species closely associated with shallow sediments; (2) delayed population impacts of sublethal doses compromising health, growth, and reproduction; and (3) indirect effects of trophic and interaction cascades, all of which transmit impacts well beyond the acute-phase mortality.

Acute Mortality
Marine mammals and seabirds are at great risk from floating oil because they have routine contact with the sea surface. Oiling of fur or feathers causes loss of insulating capacity and can lead to death from hypothermia, smothering, drowning, and ingestion of toxic hydrocabons. Scientists estimate mass mortalities of 1000 to 2800 sea otters, 302 harbor seals, and unprecedented numbers of seabird deaths estimated at 250,000 in the days immediately after the oil spill. Mass mortality also occurred among macroalgae and benthic invertebrates on oiled shores from a combination of chemical toxicity, smothering, and physical displacement from the habitat by pressurized wash-water applied after the spill.

Long-term impacts
The persistent nature of oil in sediments produce chronic, long-term exposure risks from some species. For example, chronic exposures for years after the spill to oil persisting in sedimentary refuges were evident from biomarkers in fish, sea otters, and seaducks intimately associated with sediments for egg laying or foraging. These chronic exposures enhanced mortality for years.

Clean-up attempts can be more damaging than the oil itself, with impacts recurring as long as clean-up (including both chemical and physical methods) continues. Because of the pervasiveness of strong biological interactions in rocky intertidal and kelp forest communities, cascades of delayed, indirect impacts (especially of trophic cascades and biogenic habitat loss) expand the scope of injury well beyond the initial direct losses and thereby also delay recoveries.
Oil that penetrates deeply into beaches can remain relatively fresh for years and can later come back to the surface and affect nearby animals. In addition, oil degrades at varying rates depending on environment, with subsurface sediments physically protected from disturbance, oxygenation, and photolysis retaining contamination by only partially weathered oil for years.
Rocky rubble shores should be of high priority for protection and cleanup because oil tends to penetrate deep and weather very slowly in these habitats, prolonging the harmful effects of the oil when it leaches out.

Oil effects to sea birds and mammals also are substantial (independent of means of insulation) over the long-term through interactions between natural environmental stressors and compromised health of exposed animals, through chronic toxic exposure from ingesting contaminated prey or during foraging around persistent sedimentary pools of oil, and through disruption of vital social functions (caregiving or reproduction) in socially organized species.
Long-term exposure of fish embryos to weathered oil at parts per billion (ppb) concentrations has population consequences through indirect effects on growth, deformities, and behavior with long-term consequences on mortality and reproduction.

The Exxon Valdez also triggered major improvements in oil spill prevention and response planning.

The U.S. Coast Guard now monitors fully-laden tankers via satellite as they pass through Valdez Narrows, cruise by Bligh Island, and exit Prince William Sound at Hinchinbrook Entrance. In 1989, the Coast Guard watched the tankers only through Valdez Narrows and Valdez Arm.
Two escort vessels accompany each tanker while passing through the entire Sound. They not only watch over the tankers, but are capable of assisting them in the event of an emergency, such as a loss of power or loss of rudder control. Fifteen years ago, there was only one escort vessel through Valdez Narrows.

Specially trained marine pilots, with considerable experience in Prince William Sound, board tankers from their new pilot station at Bligh Reef and are aboard the ship for 25 miles out of the 70-mile transit through the Sound. Weather criteria for safe navigation are firmly established.
Congress enacted legislation requiring that all tankers in Prince William Sound be double-hulled by the year 2015. It is estimated that if the Exxon Valdez had had a double-hull structure, the amount of the spill would have been reduced by more than half. There are presently three double-hulled and twelve double-bottomed tankers moving oil through Prince William Sound. Two more Endeavor class tankers are under construction by ConocoPhillips, their expected induction into service is 2004 and 2005.

Contingency planning for oil spills in Prince William Sound must now include a scenario for a spill of 12.6 million gallons. Drills are held in the Sound each year.
The combined ability of skimming systems to remove oil from the water is now 10 times greater than it was in 1989, with equipment in place capable of recovering over 300,000 barrels of oil in 72 hours.

Even if oil could have been skimmed up in 1989, there was no place to put the oil-water mix. Today, seven barges are available with a capacity to hold 818,000 barrels of recovered oil.
There are now 40 miles of containment boom in Prince William Sound, seven times the amount available at the time of the Exxon Valdez spill.
Dispersants are now stockpiled for use and systems are in place to apply them from helicopters, airplanes, and boats. "

My sister and I took a day-long glacier cruise from Valdez aboard the LuLuBelle, a 70 foot touring boat, one of the goals of which is to reach the face of the 3rd largest glacier in Alaska, the Columbia Glacier. As with most here, it has receded quite a bit in the past few decades.

Here is one of the countless small islands in the Valdez Arm of Prince William Sound on that cool, grey, rainy wednesday, of last week.

Most of the shoreline around the Valdez Arm and the main Prince William Sound areas we saw rises nearly vertically thousands of feet directly out of the water, with little or no beach. In some cases, just sheer cliffs rise straight out of the water, and at one point our boat even nudged in to a cave-like entrance with an arch overhead.

The sea lion population is doing quite well there apparently. Though the locals are not too crazy about them.

They eat a prodigious amount of salmon, and our boat captain told us the stories of how they have swam north from California to the Ballard Locks in Seattle's Lake Washington, and up the Columbia River Gorge, and decimated salmon stocks there. But they are protected in Alaskan waters, so they are mostly left alone.

They sure were entertaining to watch though, cavorting around the boat, but their fishy breath was incredible, almost nauseating!

Heading toward Columbia glacier, we only saw one humpback whale, and it wasn't very active, just slowly searching the base of the cliffs for fish.

So we proceeded on toward the Columbia Glacier rendezvous. But, unfortunately, there were too many icebergs in front that have calved off. There were no leads wide enough that the boat could get through to approach the glacier's face in the tidewater. We could only get to within about five miles of it, and since it was rainy and foggy, couldn't even see it. But the icebergs themselves were just as beautiful.

The deep blue ones are deep, compressed ice from the bottoms of the glacier, not containing very many air bubbles. The whiter the ice, the shallower in the glacier it was, and hence, less compressed.

It was also much colder nearer to the glacier. It had been about 43 degrees F out in Prince William Sound, and when we reached our turn-around point, at the iceberg front, it was down to near 32 F, and some snowflakes were mixing in with the rain.

It was disappointing not being able to see Columbia Glacier, but the ride back through Prince William Sound made up for it.

Two humpback whales gave us a show we'll never forget. The sight and sound of their breath, and splashing as they reared up and breached, then slammed back down into the water was an experience not to be missed!

Hard not to believe some great intelligence drives these amazing creatures, and to wonder in awe at their lives in the sea. Migrating thousands of miles through the seasons, in search of the fish they eat, and for birthing areas. How do they sleep? Obviously they must stay afloat while they do.

It was a full eight hour 80 mile or so cruise, and all 15 of us on the boat will never forget it. A multi-day kayak trip will have to be undertaken someday by the A.P.R. staff, to fully experience and appreciate this beautiful wilderness, which fortunately seems to have recovered much of it's former abundance, as the above article mentioned.

Of course, while in Valdez, I had to continue my marathon training, for the Anchorage one on 6/20. My friend Erik told me about Mineral Canyon, a dirt road goes up it for several miles.

It is a beautiful steep, glacially carved canyon, 4000-5000 feet deep, as you can see, and only about a quarter-mile wide.

Wednesday morning, before the 2 pm boat tour, I took off from our hotel near the harbor, and ran up into the canyon. About 3 miles in, an old avalanche blocked the road, which I had to scramble over. It probably came down a month or two ago, was melting, but still brick hard. Not something to be in the path of!

I just went a mile past that, then turned back, I only could take 90 min. for this run, my sister and mother were waiting for me. Just a half-mile back, I had to stop. A black bear had taken up residence by the side of the road and was munching greens. I stayed back 100 feet or so, and talked to it. I told it how beautiful it was, and asked permission to pass. I never felt any threat, and just waited a few minutes. Sure enough, it finished up munching it's greens, and ambled back into the woods. I ran past the area and thanked it.

The next morning, I ran back up Mineral Canyon, but this time, just before the old avalanche, I felt chills run up my neck and head, something just didn't feel right. I turned right around and headed back. I don't ignore those feelings, and am still here! I don't know what, if anything, would have happened, had I continued on, but feel it is extremely important to listen to these feelings/intuition we all get from time to time, and act on them. Cheers.

THE EMPIRE HAS NO CLOTHES

With over 700 military installations in over 110 countries, and an annual defense budget six times greater than the next largest spender, China, the most populous country on Earth (and one that has been savagely invaded and repressed in the previous 250 years by Europe and Japan), the U.S.A., is by any definition, an empire. Especially when one considers the previous 100 years of U.S. direct and indirect invasions and subversions of governments in countries all over the World. However, things are beginning to unravel. The global economic crisis started as a direct result of the American financial industry's greed when it was de-regulated over the past 25 years is one factor that will end U.S. global economic and military hegemony.

Another is the illegal, and immoral invasion and occupation of the sovereign nation of Iraq, which has already cost the U.S. more than 1.5 trillion dollars since it was launched in May, 2003, and the lives of at least 1 million people there. As well, the war in Afghanistan, supposedly launched in 2001 in response to the criminal terrorist attacks in New York City in Sept. 2001, is rapidly also turning, as all occupations have there, into a miasma of civilian casualties, escalating military actions, including aerial bombardment, and incursions into Pakistan. Similar to what occurred in Laos and Cambodia, countries with the misfortune to have been adjacent to Vietnam during the war there. http://counterpunch.org/whitney05152009.html

I'd like to show you two articles, and then A.P.R. will give you our analysis:

http://www.truthout.org/042609A

TORTURE USED TO LINK SADDAM WITH 9/11

"When I testified last year before the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties about Bush interrogation policies, Congressman Trent Franks (R-Arizona) stated that former CIA Director Michael Hayden had confirmed that the Bush administration only waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashirit for one minute each. I told Franks that I didn't believe that. Sure enough, one of the newly released torture memos reveals that Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times and Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times. One of Stephen Bradbury's 2005 memos asserted that "enhanced techniques" on Zubaydah yielded the identification of Mohammed and an alleged radioactive bomb plot by Jose Padilla. But FBI supervisory special agent Ali Soufan, who interrogated Zubaydah from March to June 2002, wrote in The New York Times that Zubaydah produced that information under traditional interrogation methods, before the harsh tec hniques were ever used.

Why, then, the relentless waterboarding of these two men? It turns out that high Bush officials put heavy pressure on Pentagon interrogators to get Mohammed and Zubaydah to reveal a link between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 hijackers, in order to justify Bush's illegal and unnecessary invasion of Iraq in 2003. That link was never established.

President Obama released the four memos in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the ACLU. They describe unimaginably brutal techniques and provide "legal" justification for clearly illegal acts of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. In the face of monumental pressure from the CIA to keep them secret, Obama demonstrated great courage in deciding to make the grotesque memos public. At the same time, however, in an attempt to pacify the intelligence establishment, Obama said, "it is our intention to assure those who carried out their duties relying in good faith upon legal advice from the Department of Justice that they will not be subject to prosecution."

In startlingly clinical and dispassionate terms, the authors of the newly released torture memos describe and then rationalize why the devastating techniques the CIA sought to employ on human beings do not violate the Torture Statute (18 U.S.C. sec. 2340).
The memos justify 10 techniques, including banging heads into walls 30 times in a row, prolonged nudity, repeated slapping, dietary manipulation, and dousing with cold water as low as 41 degrees. They allow shackling in a standing position for 180 hours, sleep deprivation for 11 days, confinement of people in small dark boxes with insects for hours, and waterboarding to create the perception they are drowning. Moreover, the memos permit many of these techniques to be used in combination for a 30-day period. They find that none of these techniques constitute torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

Waterboarding, admittedly the most serious of the methods, is designed, according to Jay Bybee, to induce the perception of "suffocation and incipient panic, i.e. the perception of drowning." But although Bybee finds that "the use of the waterboard constitutes a threat of imminent death," he accepts the CIA's claim that it does "not anticipate that any prolonged mental harm would result from the use of the waterboard." One of Bradbury's memos requires that a physician be on duty during waterboarding to perform a tracheotomy in case the victim doesn't recover after being returned to an upright position.

As psychologist Jeffrey Kaye points out, the CIA and the Justice Department "ignored a wealth of other published information" that indicates dissociative symptoms, changes greater than those in patients undergoing heart surgery, and drops in testosterone to castration levels after acute stress associated with techniques that the memos sanction.

The Torture Statute punishes conduct, or conspiracy to engage in conduct, specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering. "Severe mental pain or suffering" means the prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from either the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering, or from the threat of imminent death.
Bybee asserts that "if a defendant acts with the good faith belief that his actions will not cause such suffering, he has not acted with specific intent." He makes the novel claim that the presence of personnel with medical training who can stop the interrogation if medically necessary "indicates that it is not your intent to cause severe physical pain."

Now a federal judge with a lifetime appointment, Bybee concludes that waterboarding does not constitute torture under the Torture Statute. However, he writes, "we cannot predict with confidence whether a court would agree with this conclusion."

Bybee's memo explains why the 10 techniques could be used on Abu Zubaydah, who was considered to be a top al-Qaeda operative. "Zubaydah does not have any pre-existing mental conditions or problems that would make him likely to suffer prolonged mental harm from [the CIA's] proposed interrogation methods," the CIA told Bybee. But Zubaydah was a low-ranking al-Qaeda operative, according to leading FBI counterterrorism expert Dan Coleman, who advised a top FBI official, "This guy is insane, certifiable, split personality." This was reported by Ron Suskind in his book, "The One Percent Doctrine."

The CIA's request to confine Zubaydah in a cramped box with an insect was granted by Bybee, who told the CIA it could place a harmless insect in the box and tell Zubaydah that it will sting him but it won't kill him. Even though the CIA knew that Zubaydah had an irrational fear of insects, Bybee found there would be no threat of severe physical pain or suffering if it followed this procedure.

Obama's intent to immunize those who violated our laws banning torture and cruel treatment violates the president's constitutional duty to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed."
US law prohibits torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and requires that those who subject people to such treatment be prosecuted. The Convention against Torture compels us to refer all torture cases for prosecution or extradite the suspect to a country that will undertake a criminal investigation.

Obama has made a political calculation to seek amnesty for the CIA torturers. However, good-faith reliance on superior orders was rejected as a defense at Nuremberg and in Lieutenant Calley's Vietnam-era trial for the My Lai Massacre. The Torture Convention provides unequivocally, "An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification for torture."

There is evidence that the CIA was using the illegal techniques as early as April 2002, three to four months before the August memo was written. That would eliminate "good-faith" reliance on Justice Department advice as a "defense" to prosecution.

The Senate Intelligence Committee revealed that Condoleezza Rice approved waterboarding on July 17, 2002, "subject to a determination of legality by the OLC." She got it two weeks later from Bybee and John Yoo. Rice, Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales and George Tenet reassured the CIA in spring 2003 that the abusive methods were legal.

Obama told The Associated Press's Jennifer Loven in the Oval Office: "With respect to those who formulated those legal decisions, I would say that is going to be more of a decision for the Attorney General within the parameters of various laws, and I don't want to prejudge that." If Holder continues to carry out Obama's political agenda by resisting investigations and prosecution, Congress can, and should, authorize the appointment of a special independent prosecutor to do what the law requires.

The president must fulfill his constitutional duty to ensure that the laws are faithfully executed. Obama said that "nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past." He is wrong. There is more to gain from upholding the rule of law. It will make future leaders think twice before they authorize the cruel, illegal treatment of other human beings."

And then there's this one...

http://www.truthout.org/051509J

WHY THE CAGED BIRD SANG

Friday 15 May 2009
by: William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t Columnist

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has been publicly defending torture. (Photo: AP)

"It's impossible to say to yourself how did we get there? Who are we? Who are these people that sent us there?
- Seymour Hersh

Dick Cheney has been doing a lot of talking lately. From his most recent barrage of public statements, we have gleaned that he loves Rush Limbaugh, doesn't much care for Colin Powell, believes President Obama is about to sell the Sixth Fleet to the Taliban for pennies on the dollar and thinks torture is a nifty and effective tool that saves lives and defends freedom. Really, this isn't anything we haven't heard before from our growly, snarly, face-blasting former vice president. But it does beg the question: What the hell is he up to? NPR's Ron Elving posited the question in a Wednesday article titled "
What is Dick Cheney Trying to Accomplish?"

"The man whom many consider the most powerful veep in history had already been far more vocal and visible than most of his predecessors in retirement," wrote Elving. "This week in particular, the former No. 2 has been out there almost daily, doing talk shows and giving a formal address to the American Enterprise Institute on the importance of interrogation techniques widely considered to be torture. Along the way, he is also unburdening himself of opinions on everything else, from tax policy to the fate of the GOP to the choice of a commanding general in Afghanistan. Once known for his reticence and low profile, the man from Wyoming is suddenly his party's most prominent national figure and audible voice. He is having his catharsis, and having it abundantly."

As for his motives, Elving states his belief that Cheney's sudden whirlwind tour of every television, radio and newspaper in America has a three-pronged purpose: 1) He is a genuine, dyed-in-the-wool, neocon, true believer, who insists on defending the use of torture because he believes it actually works; 2) He is defending the legacy of the administration he basically ran single-handedly for eight years; and 3) He is now liberated from the constraints of White House PR concerns and can speak as freely as he likes.

Mr. Cheney is not the only one who has been out in the public eye defending the practices of the former administration. His daughter, Liz Cheney, went off like an old barrel of TNT on the cable news shows, going so far as to invoke 9/11 (like father, like daughter) and accuse Obama of supporting terrorism for even considering the release of photographic evidence of the American use of torture against detainees. "I have heard from families of service members, from families of 9/11 victims," she said, "when did it become so fashionable for us to side with the terrorists?"
The Cheney clan is not known for their restraint when it comes to launching a verbal carpet-bombing campaign, but even for them, this is flame-thrower language. Ron Elving's explanation is almost certainly accurate, but only to a point. His analysis leaves off the one central and defining motive behind Cheney's thunderous defense of himself and the activities of his administration.

He was scared, I think.
He was scared the real stuff is going to come out.
He was scared of the universal damnation that will come down upon him if the truth comes out.
Finally, I believe he was scared of going to prison.

But why? The American public has been aware of our use of torture for some time now. The Obama administration has made it all too clear that they have strong reservations about prosecuting the architects of the Bush administration's torture policy, and that any meaningful actions along those lines are highly unlikely to be taken.
Why, then?

It is because Cheney knew, when he began his media assault, that the worst of the horrors inflicted upon detainees at his specific command are not yet widely known. If the real stuff comes into full public light, he feared the general outrage will be so furious and all-encompassing that the Obama administration will have no choice but to reverse itself and seek prosecutions of those Bush-era officials who specifically demanded those barbaric acts be inflicted upon prisoners.

This is not about waterboarding, as gruesome as that practice is. It is not about putting prisoners in confined spaces, or about pushing them, or slapping them, or putting bugs on them or demeaning them and their religious faith.

It is about
this, from July of 2004:
After Donald Rumsfeld testified on the Hill about Abu Ghraib in May, there was talk of more photos and video in the Pentagon's custody more horrific than anything made public so far. "If these are released to the public, obviously it's going to make matters worse," Rumsfeld said. Since then, The Washington Post has disclosed some new details and images of abuse at the prison. But if Seymour Hersh is right, it all gets much worse. Hersh gave a speech last week to the ACLU making the charge that children were sodomized in front of women in the prison, and the Pentagon has tape of it.

Hersh: "Debating about it, ummm ... Some of the worst things that happened you don't know about, okay? Videos, um, there are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib ... The women were passing messages out saying 'Please come and kill me, because of what's happened' and basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror. It's going to come out."

[Seymour Myron Hersh (born April 8, 1937) is a United States Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist and author based in Washington, D.C. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine on military and security matters.

His work first gained worldwide recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai Massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. His 2004 reports on the US military's mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison gained much attention.]

Dick Cheney wanted everyone talking about waterboarding, close confinement, and all the rest of the torture techniques outlined in the recently-released "Torture Memos." Talking about waterboarding is still safe territory for him and everyone else who served his cruel intentions in the Bush administration. They're taking some heat, sure, but the story has been out there for a while and he's not wearing prison stripes yet.

I know why this caged bird sang. He was terrified of the very real cage that could be waiting to swing open and swallow him up if the true nature of his torture directives became widely known. If the entire country comprehends the awful fact that women and boys were forcibly raped upon his specific orders, Dick Cheney's bets would all be off.

That was then, however, and this is now. Dick Cheney is breathing a little easier today, and why shouldn't he? President Obama appears to have pretty much let Cheney, along with all the other enables of torture, off the hook.

"President Obama is seeking to block the release of photographs depicting American military personnel abusing captives in Iraq and Afghanistan, an administration official said Wednesday," reports The New York Times. "The president's decision marks a sharp reversal from a decision made last month by the Pentagon, which reached a deal with the American Civil Liberties Union to release photographs showing incidents at Abu Ghraib and a half-dozen other prisons. 'Last week, the president met with his legal team and told them that he did not feel comfortable with the release of the D.O.D. photos because he believes their release would endanger our troops,' said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity. 'And because he believes that the national security implications of such a release have not been fully presented to the court.'"
To me, this means two things.

The pictures are really, really, really bad, just as Sy Hersh said they would be.

There will be no punishment, no justice, for acts of barbarous torture undertaken at the specific behest of men like Dick Cheney. The Obama administration has chosen the easier path, chosen to ignore the manifest harm done to this nation and the world by refusing to seek that necessary justice.

The caged bird sang to stay out of a cage. Now he's free as a bird, and ours is a badly damaged and disgraced country because of it."

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: "War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know" and "The Greatest Sedition Is Silence." His newest book, "House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation," is now available from PoliPointPress.

Ok folks, let's stop and think about this. We've already seen that the reasons for the Iraq War were fabricated

http://downingstreetmemo.com/ .

That waging aggressive warfare is a violation of the Nuremberg Principles, established after World War II to establish what are war crimes, to try and prevent aggressive warfare from ever being waged again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_Principles

That torture violates U.S. and international law, and has been proven to generate more harm than good, since the victim will say anything to stop it. So now, the criminals that fabricated a war that destroyed an entire country, broke the law continually, torturing people to try and forge a link justifying the illegal war they started. This is no different than what was occurring in Stalinist Russia in the 1920s-1950s. We so far, just don't have violent political repression to maintain those in power. There hasn't been a need, since most of the American public are blinded by our consumerist culture.

Is this why the news media soft-pedals this?

Perhaps if we refresh our history a little, some light can be shed on this perplexing problem. The population of indigenous people in what is now the U.S. and Canada in 1492 has been estimated at between 2 million and 12 million. By 1892, their population was down to 237,000. Continued expansions, broken treaties, and occasional massacres brought the genocide of indigenous people throughout the Americas. Because they were different, and in the way. And Christian America's destiny was to rule the continent, and serve as the "shining light on the hill", bringing freedom, free-enterprise, and democracy for all. What do we call that? American Exceptionalism. You still find that mind-set, most markedly in the Republican Party, but even among the Democrats. Behind it are darker motives, greed mainly, of the Military Industrial Complex, Fossil Fuel Industries, etc... Add in politicians only interested in maintaining their power and privileges, and you end up with the perpetuation of actions and policies not much different than what was seen 150 years ago.

If the Obama administration were to conduct a full and open reckoning and investigation of the actions of the U.S. government since 2001, it would shine a light on past occurrences of similar natures. And show that the empire we live in, while seemingly benevolent to those of us living here, has been responsible for the deaths and impoverishment of millions of people World-wide over the past 150 years, not even counting the indigenous people of the continent.

Don't think though that we here at A.P.R. view the U.S. as an inherently evil, or dangerous country. We all know that the bulk of the population would be aghast if they truly knew and understood what has been happening, in our names, in our lifetimes. And, the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, and U.S. Constitution are truly enlightened, but unfortunately, never fully practiced. It is in the nature of all big countries, to have expanded at the expense of other groups of people and countries.

Look at how China violently annexed Tibet, in 1959. Russia forcibly took and converted Siberia over the past 500 years, persecuting many of the tribal people there, who have similar cultures to the indigenous people here. Brazil violently repressed their indigenous populations over the centuries, and was the last major country to outlaw slavery, in 1888!

If we as a people in this country, wish to be viewed as we are, basically honest, caring and concerned (most of us anyway), and if we are to prevent things like this from occurring again, then there must be unrelenting pressure to force criminal investigations and trials of people like Richard Cheney, our ex-Vice President. Who were responsible for fabricating a war killing over a million people, and then responsible for torturing people to justify it. Are we a nation of laws that apply to all, or only to those not rich or powerful?

THE KESUGI RIDGE EXPERIENCE

One of my favorite fast-packing places is the Kesugi Ridge Trail, in Denali State Park. It is about 200 miles southwest of Fairbanks, on the east side of the Parks highway, south of Cantwell, heading toward Talkeetna and the Matanuska-Susitna valleys.

It is a 27.3 mile trail that quickly ascends at either end, 1500 to 2500 feet above the Chulitna River valley. You therefore remain above tree-line (which is only at 2500 ft. msl) most of the time, in an open expansive tundra setting, with far-reaching views of the Alaska Range and Denali on the west side, and if you climb to the top of Kesugi Ridge, or go through the two bi-secting drainages of it, to the east the vast Talkeetna mountains. Both roadless and unpopulated.

A strange thing happened on 03 July, 2007 when I did a fast-pack there. That one did quite pan out as expected. Which is why I have no pictures from that trip. I've only told a few people about it, and in a somewhat edited, abbreviated form. So I felt it would be good to tell the whole story, exactly as it happened in my experience. I call it my near-death experience number 4 (NDE#4), as I have had five, in the past 19 years.

My first was the 2/28/1990 Mt. Hood alpine ski incident, whereby I flew off a ledge on a sheet-ice snow-day, hit a tree in mid-air, and ended up 40 ft. below in a grove of mountain hemlocks. To be found two hours later by some other skiers at the end of the day who decided to investigate after hearing a slight moaning sound. My only memory is waking up on the ski patrol backboard, then the long ambulance ride back to Portland, reconstructive surgery to pull out my dented face, involving metal plates around my left eye, etc..

Number two was a rafting incident on the Clark Fork river in the Alberton Gorge, near Missoula, MT five months later. A Univ. of MT outdoor program raft trip went awry when the novice rafters in my boat stopped paddling as we neared a huge standing wave, and we all were thrown into the 50 deg. F rapids for half an hour, before others could pull us out quite a ways downriver. I certainly would not be here were it not for the life jacket. As it was, we had no helmets, or dry suits, just shorts/t-shirts/sandals.

Number three was a motorcycle incident in Missoula in April, 1992, where I had to drop my Honda CB700SC Nighthawk and run, as a car driving in reverse almost over-ran me. It almost hit me on foot! A panicked visiting Chinese professor who sideswiped a car on the other side of the street jammed it in reverse, not thinking. Number four, you'll read about shortly.

Number five was 28 January, 2008, when my beautiful adopted sled dog Kiana was killed by a hit/run speeding large truck, when we were running on Chena Ridge Road, about two miles from the A.P.R. Research Centre. She got away from me briefly, when Mattie pulled me, and out into the traffic lane. The brown/beige mid 1990s extra-cab Ford 4WD truck must have been going 70+ mph, went right through her, killing her instantly. It brushed my shoulder, I had just gotten out of the way in time. The truck never slowed or stopped. It had to have seen us, I was wearing bright reflective red, and Kiana had alot of white on her. I had adopted Kiana from the Fairbanks pound in August, 2007. She had no name, was injured, and very aggressive with other dogs when I found her. But in a few months of focused attention, she became a sweet and loyal companion.

So, back to my 2007 Kesugi Ridge fast-pack. I did get some nice pictures on the Kesugi Ridge trail when I first hiked there in August 2006, on the way to run my annual Whitehorse, Yukon marathon. I drove there with my two amazing canid companions, at the time, to do just an easy 3-day/2 night pack trip, since I was in the tapering mode of my marathon training, the week before the run.

This was Nimbus, a kind and gentle soul living in the body of a Wolf/Mackenzie River Husky mix. When I adopted him from the Fairbanks pound in May, 2006, he was wary and exceedingly scared of men. He had been physically abused, it was clear. All that was said was that he had been turned in for "not working out" as a sled dog. He wouldn't eat food from my hand unless I threw it to him, and then looked away, for the first few weeks. It took about two months to fully domesticate and bond with him. But when we did, he brought great joy to me and my other, older sled dog, Frost, a classic Alaskan racing husky, a veteran of seven years on a recreational team, many of which were as the lead. She sometimes ran over 100 miles a day at 12 mph along the frozen rivers and trails.

Nimbus was amazingly timid and gentle. He loved to run, and with his amazing size, presence, and plume of a tail, was a breathtaking sight. When we ran, even on the warmest of days, up to 20 miles, he never would stop for water! I tried to encourage him, but he just didn't want to! When smaller dogs would rush us from driveways on our neighborhood runs, he always would run away, instead of shredding them! He never barked in or around the house, he just squeaked when he wanted something. I never had to worry about him harming anything. And Frost really liked him.

They both really loved that trip, Nimbus even had to howl a few times to show his approval.

Because it was such a beautiful place. The first day of that trip, we had to hike in the rain to set up camp at the base of Indian Mountain, about five steep, switchbacked miles up from the Little Coal Creek trailhead, the northern end of the Ridge trail. But the next morning, opening the tent, Denali came into view as skies cleared.

We spent the day hiking about 8 miles south from camp, then up and around different parts of the ridge, enjoying the open tundra expanse and sweeping views, before going back to our camp. No bear worries up high either, the salmon were running down on the lower streams and rivers, keeping them happy down there.

After the previous cold, wet day, relaxing in the warm early August sun was a treat. That area south of the crest of the Alaska Range (which is about 40 miles north) is very wet, frontal systems from the Gulf of Alaska are not blocked much as they push inland and ascend there, squeezing out often days of rain and fog in late summer and early fall.

After our three days of therapy there, we drove to Whitehorse, via Valdez, as none of us had ever been there. That was quite beautiful.

It was Nimbus' last multi-day wilderness outing. He died at the age of three in November, 2006, in a freak accident. He at least had six good months in his short life, and brought great happiness to us overall, in spite of some occasionally difficult moments.

Frost succumbed to cancer in May, 2007, at the age of 12, after a month-long fight. She was a true, loyal, and devoted companion for the three years after I adopted her at the age of nine. With a quiet, poised, and timid presence, which belied her great athleticism.

For the first time in many years, I was dogless in the spring and summer of 2007, before adopting Kiana. It was strange, and I knew that couldn't last, though it was easier, just being able to take off and go anwhere, at any time, with no worries.

In late June of 2007, I was dispatched to forecast weather on the Caribou Hills fire, on the Kenai Peninsula, south of Anchorage. Inland from the little town of Ninilchik, the fire burned 55,300 acres and a few houses, but mostly on the first three days after it's start, by a man sharpening tools outside his cabin. By the time I got there 8 days later, the weather had turned cool and cloudy, and the fire behavior was low, and suppression was quick. But I had ten beautiful days there, the suppression team worked out of the Ninilchik Jr./Sr. High School, on the bluff above Cook inlet. This was our view out the back, looking toward Mt. Redoubt. I sure didn't mind camping out on top of that bluff, falling asleep to the sound of the waves 100 ft. below. And late evening treasure-combing on the beach.

But I had wanted to do one my fast-packs on the Kesugi Ridge trail that summer, it was going to be right on my way home, as I headed back from the fire, perfect. I would hike/run the 27.3 miles of trail in 6-7 hours I reckoned, then ride my mountain bike, stashed earlier at Byer's Lake, the southern trail terminus, back to my car at the Little Coal Creek trailhead. About seventeen miles. Nothing I wasn't used to, or really expected to be out of ordinary experience.

I checked the weather the last full day I was at Ninilchik, July 1st, before packing up my gear that night for the drive home early the next day. The numerical forecast models all indicated that the surface thermal low, the axis of greatest instability, where thunderstorms tend to form, would be north of the crest of the Alaska Range, over the interior, which is most common in summer.

When I got to the Little Coal Creek trailhead at 1030 am on the morning of 03 July, 2007, it was foggy and sprinkling, and I decided to wait and see if it would dry out and clear up. By noon the fog was lifting, and I decided to get on my way. I was wearing shorts, and a long polypro top, that was it, because it was about 50 degrees. I didn't have a whole lot of food to bring, one lunch meal and two cliff bars, and I had another stashed in my bike bag, at Byers Lake, for the two hour ride back. I also had just two 1/2 litre bottles of water and a Rock Star energy drink (I don't really like those, but occasionally will have one only on a long day's outing, running/hiking, biking, or skiing). I was in my running shoes, with my metal trekking poles for stability. My pack only weighed then about 14-15 lbs. At the last minute, I threw my best wind/water proof Mountain Hardwear shell in my pack, a very wise decision. I really thought I could do more running than walking, so that I could do the trail in 6-7 hours, and two hours on the bike, making for a 8-9 hour day.

The first four miles up from Little Coal Creek are steep and switchbacked, so I walked those, into the fog. When I got up to where the trail tops out and starts to parallel the ridge on it's southwesterly course to Byers Lake, the fog lifted into a low stratus deck, and I could see more. I thought, great, with low stratus, the atmosphere will be stable, shouldn't run into any heavy weather. And, the first 13 miles or so, it just stayed cloudy, with the ceiling gradually lifting. I ran a little, but there were alot of rocky sections, so I ended mostly just walking at a brisk pace. I had lunch about 4 hours in, around mile 13.

There are two drainages slicing the ridge you have to walk down and up through, the second one is steeper and has very tall grass and saplings all around. Prime bear country, and you could not see far ahead of you. So I made alot of noise there. By the time I came back up onto the tundra from the second drainage, the sky behind me was very dark, and I heard rumbles of thunder. I was 16 miles in, going back was not an option, the storms movement was to the south, toward me. In fact, the sky was very dark, with a slight greenish tinge. That was very alarming, as that means deep convection, with hail, and lots of lightning.

I started to get a little panicked, as there is no shelter above tree-line. My options were to go down the ridge, and then bushwack through the thick spruce/alder forest to the Parks Highway, or keep going. I kept going. At mile 18, by the side of one of the many tiny lakes around the trail, I ran into a woman I used to know when I was in the Chena Goldstream Fire/Rescue a few years before, she was a medic, while I was a firefighter/medic. Her name was Heike, she is German. At this point it was raining lightly, the wind was picking up, and thunder was fairly frequent.

I stopped to chat with her. She had rigged up a little tarp shelter with some rocks and line, and was getting in to her sleeping bag, to get out of the weather. She was on a 3-day hike of the trail. When I told her my plans, her response was "you're crazy". Because the weather was really closing in now, the lightning was much more frequent. I slammed down my Rock Star energy drink and the last Cliff Bar. She didn't have room for me in her shelter, and I just wanted to keep going anyway. I didn't see Heike again for many months. When we finally met up, she said she was terrified she'd find my dead body on the trail the next day!

About a half-hour after leaving her, the storm closed in, with heavy rain, small hail, and a strong tail wind, maybe 40 mph. But the worst was the frequent lightning, all around and above. I saw many ground strikes within a mile. I thought of ditching my metal poles, but I needed those for stability, so as not to roll my ankle in my short running shoes, on the rough, rocky trail. At this point, my adrenaline kicked in. I had my shell on, hood down, so my head and torso were warm and dry, but my hands and legs were freezing, it was probably about 40F. I was in full panic mode. Lightning strikes were occurring all around me, so I just kept moving as fast as I could. I didn't run though, as it was quite rocky, and I didn't want to stumble and injure myself.

After about 30 minutes of this, probably around mile 19-20, the lightning was essentially continuous, with ground strikes very nearby. You can see in the above pictures, how exposed it is. Rain and small hail were still heavy, and my shell, shorts, legs, and hands were drenched. This is where something happened, which I'm still trying to get a grasp of.

I decided I was going to die. I knew it. There was nothing I could do. I'll never forget that feeling of release though, I just let go, and instantly I was transformed, I lost the panic feeling. I think I was still moving, but I don't remember. All I remember after this was communicating with my maternal Grandmother who passed away in 1996, and with my Aunt Rita, who was a great influence on me as a child. She passed away in 2002. I also saw my canid companions Coyote, Nahanni, Nimbus, and Frost, who had passed away between 2003 and the previous May. It felt like I was in a different place, and I don't know how much time passed, or if I was still moving. Many people who have had near-death experiences have reported being in a tunnel, heading toward a bright light, or something along those lines. I do seem to remember feeling and seeing like I was moving toward some light, and I could sense the presence of my ancestors and dogs there waiting for me. And I told them I was coming over. I lost all sense of what was going on in the physical world.

I think about an hour later, I just came to, for lack of a better description. That's when I can remember what was happening on the trail again. The lightning was fading out, but it was still raining and windy. My legs and hands were freezing, I was hungry, and thirsty, as I didn't bring enough water, but I was able to continue.

I finally reached the section of trail that drops down to Byer's Lake about 8 hours in, at mile 24. I had never been on this section. What I didn't realize is that it had been cut up a cliff face, essentially, so was very steep and rocky, with hazardous drop-offs. Since the rocks were wet and slippery, it took me 90 minutes to descend that face, as I had to take a step, stop, test the footing, take a step, etc.. The rain let up briefly the last two miles through the woods to Byers Lake. But when I got back to my bike, in the parking lot, 10 hours after my start, tired, hungry, thirsty, and slightly manic from the panic and strange experience, the rain started up again, harder than ever! At this point, I actually asked a couple people in the campground if I could get a ride back to my car, since I was tired, cold, sore from the adrenaline/strike, and hungry/thirsty. They turned me down, even after I offered to pay! I think they were loaded, there was lots of beer around. So, I got on the bike, and headed up the Parks Highway, in the rain. I did have a cliff bar in the bike bag, so I wolfed that down, but had no water to go with it.

The ride back 17 miles to my car took two hours. Level the first 8 or so, three uphill miles, then some downhill, and finally uphill the last couple to the Little Coal Creek trailhead. The rain finally stopped about ten miles in on my ride, which lifted my spirits a little. When I finally reached my car at 1230 am, I was pretty tired, but very sore, hungry, and thirsty. I changed into dry clothes, drank about a gallon of water, and loaded up for the four hour drive home.

When I started my drive back, my hands were shaking, and it finally sank in, I was alive and had made it. But in very bad shape. I had deep gashes on both of my hips from my pack. In my panic state, I just didn't take notice that was happening, and adjust the straps. Those took weeks to heal, and my clothes stuck to them once, which was very painful. My knees were very sore from the cliff face descent, and I think the adrenaline must have done something, as my whole body felt off, sore in a way, which I had never felt before. It seems clear now, in retrospect, that I was struck by lightning, either a direct hit, or charge from a very nearby strike. I read an article about lightning safety recently by the NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School), written by medical experts and physicists. Often times people who are struck will not have burns, especially if they are wet. I was drenched from the heavy rain at the time.

I stopped at a little pizza joint near Denali NP, which was still open, all they could give me was a sandwich, the kitchen was closed. But it was the best one I've ever had. I also had a beer, to calm my shaking hands. I told the people there my story, and they were interested, and congratulated me for making it. The rest of the way back home, as my favorite Thievery Corporation CDs were playing, I spent wondering, what had happened? I got home at 400 am, and fell right into bed, getting up at 1 pm. I had to work at 3pm that day, the 4th of July.

I really do feel as though I had crossed-over, into the "Mundo Otro" (other World), the place we end up when we let go our physical body, or at night, in our dreams. So, I have no fear of death, not that I am looking forward to it either though! It also made me realize how fortunate I am, to live in a place like Alaska, with an interesting career, and friends and family that I deeply care about. And that I should do something to make a difference in this World. Which gradually led to my decision to start the A.P.R., and provide information which we hope will make a difference to help bring about a more sane, just, and sustainable society, in this country, and the World at large. To also show that there are many progressive, caring, globally-oriented people in Alaska, not just Sarah and Todd Palins! There's alot of work to be done!

I didn't feel right for several months after this incident, my knees were sore for weeks, my running was off, I had to quit our Sept. Equinox marathon at mile 22 from hip pain. I visited an accupuncturist, Paula Kunkle, who is very well thought-of in the local holistic health community, and very hard to get in to see. This was about three days after the experience. I told her what happened. She said I was "not all there". That part of me had actually left, to the Next World, and that she needed to ground me, and bring that back. Which involved several sessions of needling :), which I think did help.

Finally, I want to leave you with this image.

It is the daily lightning ground-strike accumulation from 03 July, 2007. It turned out to be the heaviest day of the year! And, well south of where the models forecast, south of the crest of the Alaska range. Which is highly unusual. Note the strikes, even over Denali, that is very unusual. The vast expanse of ice and snow on and well around it usually serves to keep the atmosphere more stable in that vicinity, since it is colder at the surface there.

Since I hadn't planned to do this outing when I had left for the Caribou Hills fire, two weeks before, I didn't have as much gear with me. Now, when I do a summer fast-pack, I always bring my bivvy sack for emergency shelter (a small tent-like affair that fits just a sleeping bag and pad with a little headroom), +15F down sleeping bag (only weighs 1.8 lbs), hat, gloves, and pants, if I will be in shorts. And more food/water. If I think there could be thunderstorms, I wait for another day. Cheers.