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.