‘Afghanistan: NATO’s night raids cause more harm than good, report says’

Surprise! Via Christian Science Monitor:

Despite a sharp rise in the number of night raids, there have been no benefits in the form of decreased insurgent attacks, and anger over the operations has continued to mount among Afghan civilians, found the report by the Open Society Foundations and The Liaison Office, a research and analysis group in Kabul.

“The dramatic increase in the number of night raids, and evidence that night raids or other operations may be more broadly targeting civilians to gather information and intelligence, appear to have overwhelmed Afghan tolerance of the practice,” wrote the authors of the report. “Afghan attitudes toward night raids are as hostile as ever, if not more so.”

Yahoo Censors OccupyWallSt.org?

I just signed up for Yahoo (johnnyblahlah or something like that) and gave it a go. Confirmed. When you try sending an email that includes occupywallst.org, Yahoo flips out. Changed the url to aol.com …. no problems! Hm…… haha, oh god. UPDATE: It seems to be working now. Multiple friends confirmed that their occupy wall street emails were being blocked, though. Whatever the problem/sinister motive was, it appears to be resolved now. We’ll see, though. UPDATE #2: People are still reporting that occupywallst.org is being blocked by Yahoo: “Fixed my ass! I just tried this at 1pm EST – Occupywallst.org was blocked twice. Rainbows and unicorns was not, neither was occupywally.org. WTF??” UPDATE #3: Yahoo admits it was blocking emails re: #occupywallstreet. Provide no real reason. ThinkProgress has the details.

New Math Shows Most Americans Are Murdered By Drugs and/or Their Cars: Never Forget?

This isn’t as exciting as “the evil towelheads hate me cuz I’m free,” but oh well:

Propelled by an increase in prescription narcotic overdoses, drug deaths now outnumber traffic fatalities in the United States, a Times analysis of government data has found.

Drugs exceeded motor vehicle accidents as a cause of death in 2009, killing at least 37,485 people nationwide, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This country is a big, sad pathetic joke.

‘they find the wealthy at play and a faceoff begins’

Occupy Wall Street, Please

1. What it’s about. 2. How you can help. 3. I have urgent medical-things that I need to take care of — but my plan is to be there in 1 week (hopefully sooner). Maybe even do some Original Reporting?

Thanks for nothing, Obama

‘Study concludes Gulf War syndrome involves real brain damage’

Via Raw Story:

[A] long-term study at the University of Texas in Dallas has used a new technique to measure blood flow in the brains of sufferers and has detected “marked abnormalities” in brain function that can probably be attributed to low levels of exposure to sarin nerve gas. This abnormal blood flow has persisted or even worsened over the eleven years of the study.

“The findings mark a significant advancement in our understanding of the syndrome, which was for years written off by the Defense Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs as a form of combat stress rather than an objectively diagnosable injury,” reports the Dallas Observer.

‘U.N. Finds Torture of Afghan Detainees’

Via WSJ:

The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan has suspended the transfer of detainees to several Afghan-run detention centers because of allegations by the United Nations of torture at the facilities.

The suspension took effect several days ago and affects detention centers run by Afghanistan’s intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security, and by the Afghan police, a coalition official said.

‘September 11 widow imagines ways other than war’

Via Reuters:

Andrea LeBlanc, whose husband died aboard one of the 9/11 hijacked planes, speaks out about alternatives to war — the path taken by the United States after the 2001 attacks.

The United States went to war in Afghanistan, whose Taliban leaders had harbored the al Qaeda network responsible for 9/11, the month after the September 11 attacks and then invaded Iraq in 2003. U.S. troops are still engaged in both wars.

LeBlanc, 67, said she is certain of one thing — her husband would not have wanted retaliation after the September 11 attacks.

“It depends what kind of culture we want and if we want kids to be thinking, caring, human beings, then they need to be given tools to imagine other ways,” LeBlanc, a retired veterinarian, said from her home in Lee, New Hampshire.

“Wars do not bring peace,” added LeBlanc, whose husband Robert LeBlanc taught cultural geography at the University of New Hampshire for 35 years. “So much of what’s happened has been at the expense of our own humanity.”

JPMorgan Chase and 9/11 Day

Glenn Greenwald recently curb-stomped the Never Forget Goons with this: “Everything about 9/11 Day — like all political rituals — was deeply politicized to its core. It was imbued with political meaning, political messaging, and controversial claims, both implicit and explicit. Almost every speech given that day made claims about the meaning and ‘legacy’ of 9/11, what caused it, and what the nature of the American response was … Everything about 9/11 — how it’s talked about, how it’s described, how it’s commemorated — is all designed to impart very specific political messages, and that’s been true since the day it happened.” The icing on the bullshit cake is that the 9/11 Day of Service and Remembrance (“a forward-looking tribute to honor the sacrifice of those who were lost and pay tribute to those who rose in service in response to the tragedy”) is sponsored by JPMorgan Chase — you know, the bank that collaborated with the Nazis, mismanaged (stole?) billions of dollars in Iraq, foreclosed on soldiers serving overseas, and currently operates gold mines in Afghanistan. JPMorgan Chase never forgets (all the money it made butt-raping the United States and the entire world after 9/11)!