Tuesday, January 15, 2008

New York Times Misreports AGAIN

Last week, the NYT ran a story about 126 troops from the Afghan and Iraq conflicts who went on to commit murder. 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. Of course, liberals jumped all over this fairytale like pigs at a trough. Ah, but now we get the REST of the story.

The Times documentation of 121 potential killings out of more than 1.5 million veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq) and Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), divided by 6 years of conflict results in a murder rate of just 1.34 incidents per 100,000 veterans per year.***

That murder rate is far lower than the murder rate for the general population, demonstrating that the experiences of military service – including having served in Iraq and Afghanistan – actually made it less likely for returning veterans to commit murder once they returned home, than the general population.

Is it any wonder that the Time's stock is going down the toilet?

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