The NY Times has shown its true colors...

[Nimrod1193]

In a front page, above-the-fold article the New York Times reports this weekend about 121 killings committed by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. The article is entitled "Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles", and it portrays American combat veterans as ticking time-bombs who could snap at a moment's notice.

But let's look at those numbers, shall we?

According to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's website, 1,484,961 military personnel have served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. If you count all 121 killings as "murders", that produces a murder rate of .00815%.

The population of the state of New York is 19,306,183. There were 4,527 murders committed in New York between 2002 and 2006. This produces a murder rate of .02345%.

This means if you live in the state of New York, you are nearly three times more likely to commit murder than an Iraq/Afghanistan veteran. But that fact didn't seem to make it into the article.

This sort of propaganda used to be called by its proper name. Treason. Now it's called cutting-edge journalism.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/us/13vets.html

[PatriotGirl422]

This article is wrong on so many levels. I can't believe that they would write something like that. Nimrod, have you thought about sharing those statistics with the NYtimes? I'm sure we could come up with plenty more. It would make a good letter to the editor.
And this quote: "Mr. Sepi did not like to venture outside too late. But, plagued by nightmares about an Iraqi civilian killed by his unit, he often needed alcohol to fall asleep."
Come on, it looks like they're really trying way to hard here to be dramatic and negative.
People are always putting a magnifying glass on the military. I'm sure that there are way larger murder statistics for people in other occupations over the past 7 years, but they just don't notice it. I understand that some people may be a little messed up in the head after war, and it could cause some of them to snap and kill someone, but then again, there are many business owners, doctors, and other professionals who have their own stress at work and who commit suicide or kill loved ones.
It's just another anti-war propaganda story for college kids to talk about at their political meetings.

[thedrifter]

NYT misfires on veterans story
[Phillip Carter, Sunday January 13, 2008 at 11:08am ]

Sunday's New York Times features a lengthy front-page article titled "Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles" — what it bills as Part I of a "series of articles and multimedia about veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have committed killings, or been charged with them, after coming home."

Right..... Because we all know that all veterans are coming home crazy, shell-shocked, and ready to kill their friends and loved ones. Here's how the NY Times staff produced this sensational story:
The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war. In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment — along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems — appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction.

Three-quarters of these veterans were still in the military at the time of the killing. More than half the killings involved guns, and the rest were stabbings, beatings, strangulations and bathtub drownings. Twenty-five offenders faced murder, manslaughter or homicide charges for fatal car crashes resulting from drunken, reckless or suicidal driving.

* * *
The Pentagon does not keep track of such killings, most of which are prosecuted not by the military justice system but by civilian courts in state after state. Neither does the Justice Department.

To compile and analyze its list, The Times conducted a search of local news reports, examined police, court and military records and interviewed the defendants, their lawyers and families, the victims’ families and military and law enforcement officials.

This reporting most likely uncovered only the minimum number of such cases, given that not all killings, especially in big cities and on military bases, are reported publicly or in detail. Also, it was often not possible to determine the deployment history of other service members arrested on homicide charges.

The Times used the same methods to research homicides involving all active-duty military personnel and new veterans for the six years before and after the present wartime period began with the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

This showed an 89 percent increase during the present wartime period, to 349 cases from 184, about three-quarters of which involved Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. The increase occurred even though there have been fewer troops stationed in the United States in the last six years and the American homicide rate has been, on average, lower.

The Pentagon was given The Times’s roster of homicides. It declined to comment because, a spokesman, Lt. Col. Les Melnyk, said, the Department of Defense could not duplicate the newspaper’s research. Further, Colonel Melnyk questioned the validity of comparing prewar and wartime numbers based on news media reports, saying that the current increase might be explained by “an increase in awareness of military service by reporters since 9/11.” He also questioned the value of “lumping together different crimes such as involuntary manslaughter with first-degree homicide.”
So, basically, the reporters went trolling on Lexis-Nexis and other databases to find "murder" within the same paragraph as "veteran" or "soldier," and built a front-page story around that research. They compared the pre-war numbers to the post-war numbers and found that, voila!, there's a difference. And then it looks like they cherry-picked the best anecdotes out of that research (including the ones where they could get interviews and photos) to craft a narrative which fit the data.

The article makes no attempt to produce a statistically valid comparison of homicide rates among vets to rates among the general population. Nor does it rely at all on Pentagon data about post-deployment incidents of violence among veterans. It basically just generalizes from this small sample (121 out of 1.7 million Iraq and Afghanistan vets, not including civilians and contractors) to conclude that today's generation of veterans are coming home full of rage and ready to kill.

I've got a one-word verdict on this article and its research: bull****.

To be sure, the article contains many truths about the struggles veterans face when they come home. Combat sears the mind and body in ways we can only begin to understand. An increased propensity to violence has been noted among veterans of previous wars, and by commanders supervising troops coming home from this one. However, there's a long road from those observations to the conclusions in this article, and the evidence simply doesn't add up in this story.

To read more.......

http://www.intel-dump.com/posts/1200240519.shtml

Ellie

[003XXMarineDAD]

The old grey lady the NY times has been against the Troops for years and will continue to carry the water for water for the hate America crowd till we put a stop to it.

[yellowwing]

You got to be careful and read intelligently when any news piece throws around vague and ambiguous words like "about, "some", "appears", "taken together", "often times", "suggests", "a few", "many", well you get the idea.

Its a reporter using these words to sway an argument when there is no hard facts.

[greensideout]

The fact is---the stress of war has always been with those that have been there---not those that believe they know better and have not been there. Their comments mean little to the combat vet.

[LeonardLawrence]

Still have to read all the posts, so if this has been mentioned, please forgive.

Article is misleading, shameful and a slap to our veterans.

If you look statistically at the same age group as a whole, there are less killings than this sample.

Did I mention the article was shameful?

[thedrifter]

SMEARING SOLDIERS

By RALPH PETERS


January 15, 2008 -- THE New York Times is trashing our troops again. With no new "atrocities" to report from Iraq for many a month, the limping Gray Lady turned to the home front. Front and center, above the fold, on the front page of Sunday's Times, the week's feature story sought to convince Americans that combat experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan are turning troops into murderers when they come home.

Heart-wringing tales of madness and murder not only made the front page, but filled two entire centerfold pages and spilled onto a fourth.

The Times did get one basic fact right: Returning vets committed or are charged with 121 murders in the United States since our current wars began.

Had the Times' "journalists" and editors bothered to put those figures in context - which they carefully avoided doing - they would've found that the murder rate that leaves them so aghast means that our vets are five times less likely to commit a murder than their demographic peers.

The Times' public editor, Clark Hoyt, should crunch the numbers. I'm even willing to spot the Times a few percentage points (either way). But the hard statistics from the Justice Department tell a far different tale from the Times' anti-military propaganda.

A very conservative estimate of how many different service members have passed through Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait since 2003 is 350,000 (and no, that's not double-counting those with repeated tours of duty).

Now consider the Justice Department's numbers for murders committed by all Americans aged 18 to 34 - the key group for our men and women in uniform. To match the homicide rate of their peers, our troops would've had to come home and commit about 150 murders a year, for a total of 700 to 750 murders between 2003 and the end of 2007.

In other words, the Times unwittingly makes the case that military service reduces the likelihood of a young man or woman committing a murder by 80 percent.

Yes, the young Americans who join our military are (by self- selection) superior by far to the average stay-at-home. Still, these numbers are pretty impressive, when you consider that we're speaking of men and women trained in the tools of war, who've endured the acute stresses of fighting insurgencies and who are physically robust (rather unlike the stick-limbed weanies the Times prefers).

All in all, the Times' own data proves my long-time contention that we have the best behaved and most ethical military in history.

Now, since the folks at the Times are terribly busy and awfully important, let's make it easy for them to do the research themselves (you can do it, too - in five minutes).

Just Google "USA Murder Statistics." The top site to appear will be the Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics. Click on it, then go to "Demographic Trends." Click on "Age." For hard numbers on the key demographics, click on the colored graphs.

Run the numbers yourself, based upon the demographic percentages of murders per every 100,000 people. Then look at the actual murder counts.

Know what else you'll learn? In 2005 alone, 8,718 young Americans from the same age group were murdered in this country. That's well over twice as many as the number of troops killed in all our foreign missions since 2001. Maybe military service not only prevents you from committing crimes, but also keeps you alive?

Want more numbers? In the District of Columbia, our nation's capital, the murder rate for the 18-34 group was about 14 times higher than the rate of murders allegedly committed by returning vets.

And that actually understates the District's problem, since many DC-related murders spill across into Prince George's County (another Democratic Party stronghold).

In DC, an 18-34 population half the size of the total number of troops who've served in our wars overseas committed the lion's share of 992 murders between 2003 and 2007 - the years mourned by the Times as proving that our veterans are psychotic killers.

Aren't editors supposed to ask tough questions on feature stories? Are the Times' editors so determined to undermine the public's support for our troops that they'll violate the most-basic rules of journalism, such as putting numbers in context?

Answer that one for yourself.

Of course, all of this is part of the disgraceful left-wing campaign to pretend sympathy with soldiers - the Times column gushes crocodile tears - while portraying our troops as clichéd maniacs from the Oliver Stone fantasies that got lefties so self-righteously excited 20 years ago (See? We were right to dodge the draft . . .).

And it's not going to stop. Given the stakes in an election year, the duplicity will only intensify.

For an upcoming treat, we'll get the film "Stop-Loss," starring, as always, young punks who never served in uniform as soldiers. This left-wing diatribe argues that truly courageous troops would refuse to return to Iraq - at a time when soldiers and Marines continue to re-enlist at record rates, expecting to plunge back into the fight.

Those on the left will never accept that the finest young Americans are those who risk their lives defending freedom. Sen. John Kerry summed up the views of the left perfectly when he disparaged our troops as too stupid to do anything but sling hamburgers.

And The New York Times will never forgive our men and women in uniform for their infuriating successes in Iraq.

Ralph Peters' latest book is "Wars of Blood and Faith."

Ellie

[ese4mc]

between the n.y. times,l.a.times & wash. post--other then classified adds & obituaries they print what they want--perhaps they should all have a b---s--- page--that way they can eliminate the front page & deal only with the b---s--- page-- any one who reads it will say"" this is pure b---s---" for example osama really took his oath of office on the Bible or He really placed his hand over his heart & not the family jewels at the Pledge of Allegience with the clintons---thats about 800 tons worth of B---S---

[thedrifter]

The 'Wacko Vet Myth'
January 16, 2008; Page A12

Most journalists consider it bad form to mention the race or ethnicity of a criminal defendant without a compelling reason. But racial and ethnic groups are not the only ones who take offense at such stereotypes. As early as World War I, the American Legion passed a resolution urging reporters "to subordinate whatever slight news value there may be in playing up the ex-service member angle in stories of crime or offense against the peace." In 2006, Veterans of Foreign Wars magazine bemoaned the "wacko-vet myth."

We learned of these complaints from an article in Sunday's New York Times -- a front-page piece that perpetuates that very stereotype. "Clearly, committing homicide is an extreme manifestation of dysfunction for returning veterans," the paper explained. A platoon of Times reporters "found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war."

The Times didn't try to establish a causal relationship between war service and homicide. It didn't even try to establish a correlation. The 7,000-word article contained no statistics on the size of the veteran population, or on the prevalence of homicide either in the general population or among young men, who are disproportionately represented among active-duty and recently discharged service members.

Various commentators performed their own back-of-the-envelope calculations, including Ralph Peters of the New York Post, who estimates that if the Times figures are accurate, recent war vets are only about one-fifth as likely to be implicated in a homicide as the average 18- to 34-year-old.

The Times acknowledges that this is no scientific study. It says it probably undercounted the number of homicides by war veterans, since it based its count on news reports. It does claim to have found a large increase -- 89% -- in the number of homicides attributed to servicemen or recent vets since October 2001, compared with the previous six-year period.

But there's the real rub. The Times is purporting to test a media stereotype by measuring its prevalence in the media. As a Pentagon spokesman put it, that 89% spike could have resulted form "an increase in awareness of military service by reporters since 9/11." Or, to put it more bluntly, the Times hasn't necessarily proved that the stereotype is true -- only that it is a stereotype.

Ellie

[Sgt Leprechaun]

This was BS from the gitgo, and anyone with a lick of sense KNEW it.

Thank goodness these days for the internet to call out the scumbags at the NYT for this one.

And then they have the gall to say they "Support the troops". (Yeah.........the other sides....)

A typical propaganda piece designed to smear the troops.

[Big Jim]

There should limits and constraints on our "Freedom of speech" Amendment. One where that same freedom shouldn't allow to tarnish hard-earned military reputations or hurt anybody, like those cult idiots from Kansas who think they are within their rights when they picket funerals of slain military! People take things thing too far, and those are the people who never even fought for it or contributed to the good of America NOT ONCE in their miserable frikkin lives! That's the only way to stop these people from saying what they think they have a right to say...good or bad! The law treason or sedition should include this violation and include the proper punishment as well!! I'm sick of these loser idiots who never sweated or gave blood or any other effort abusing the priviliedges given them just because they are born an American. It should be a responsibility to support our military and actually have perform at least a civil service for a period in their lives. This will instill a pride and discipline in all people who work at the cause. I know it sounds grim but man, our own fellow Americans are doing something very wrong here!!!