300,000+ returning vets have brain injuries, psychological wounds

An estimated 320,000 vets from Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered traumatic brain injuries and 300,000 are experiencing major depression or post-traumatic stress, according to a new study by the RAND Corporation.

Only about half of both groups sought help for their injuries. Worries about medication side effects, possible damage to their careers and a belief that family and friends could help them were among the reasons given for not seeking help, according to The Associated Press.

Additionally, about 20 percent of U.S. suicides in 2005 were by active and former service members, a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found. There was a 40 percent increase in the military’s average suicide rate between 2003 and 2006, according to Bloomberg News.

“They’re taking risks, taking alcohol and taking their own lives because they want to extinguish their pain,’’ psychologist Charles Figley told Bloomberg in a telephone interview.

Carter met with Hamas with support of Israeli Deputy PM

As former President Jimmy Carter met with senior leaders of Hamas, officials in Washington and Tel Aviv distanced themselves from the meeting as part of long-standing policy not to negotiate with the political group, reported Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert did not meet with Carter during his trip because he wanted to avoid the impression that he was negotiating with Hamas.

Despite the official criticism, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Eli Yishai asked Carter to meet with Hamas leaders to discuss terms of a prisoner swap, according to Haaretz. Carter told the newspaper that his staff briefed U.S. officials prior to the meetings and no one had objected to them until they became public knowledge.

A Haaretz poll in February found that 64 percent of Israelis want their government to hold direct negotiations with the Hamas government in Gaza. A growing number of Israeli public officials, including senior officers in the Israel Defense Forces, have echoed this sentiment.

In February, Efraim Halevy, the former director of Israel’s intelligence service Mossad said they should hold talks with the Hamas government because it is in Israel’s “strategic interest to recognize the ‘reality on the ground,’” according to Radio Netherlands Worldwide.

Former Secret Service Agents, Police Spied on Environmental Groups

A private security firm organized and staffed by former Secret Service members and police spied on environmental groups like Greenpeace from the late 1990s to at least 2000, according to an investigative report by Mother Jones.

Documents obtained by Mother Jones showed that security firm Beckett Brown International sought and collected confidential documents and information — including Social Security numbers, bank statements and credit card numbers — and provided reports for corporations and their public relations firms that were involved in environmental controversies.

One client was public relations firm Nichols-Dezenhall, which worked for Condea Vista, a chemical manufacturing firm that leaked up to 47 million pounds of a suspected carcinogen into the Calcasieu River in Louisiana in 1994.

Another public relations firm that worked for Dow Chemical and Kraft Foods discussed how to handle bad PR by environmental groups of their genetically modified taco shells, which, in internal conversations, they referred to as “glow-in-the-dark tacos.”

Beckett Brown International, later renamed S2i, dissolved in 2001, but officials went on to work in other firms that operate actively today.

“I would say, unfortunately, it’s not unusual. I’m sure this goes on all the time,” said James Ridgeway, author of the study, in an interview.

[Reach columnist Aditya Ganapathiraju at news@thedaily.washington.edu.]