Posted on 01/14/2008 4:15:04 AM PST by Impeach98
January 14, 2008 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Mary Pearson: (916) 441–6197 or Email: mary@moveamericaforward.org
SACRAMENTO- Move America Forward (website: www.MoveAmericaForward.org), the nation’s largest grassroots pro-troop organization, today announced that after vetting the numbers cited by The New York Times in their Sunday, January 13, 2008 story, “Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles,” it became clear that the Times had engaged in demonstrably erroneous and false reporting.
It took seven New York Times researchers to find 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in the United States, or were charged with one, upon returning home to this country.
The Times made the false conclusion that: “Taken together, they paint the patchwork of a quiet phenomenon, tracing a cross-country trail of death and heartbreak.”
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.
Given a census-estimated population of the United States of 300,000,000 persons in this country as of October 2006, and FBI-compiled statistics of 17,399 homicide offenders for 2006, the murder rate of the general population was 5.80 offenders per 100,000 on average – and a rate of approximately 7.67 per 100,000 for men.
Since all but one of the veterans cited by the Times who committed a killing in the U.S. was male, the comparable rate is approximately 7.67 incidents of murder per 100,000 people among the general male population, compared to just 1.34 incidents per 100,000 returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans (of both genders).
“It’s obvious that the New York Times has an agenda of undermining the missions of our troops in the War on Terror, so much so that they are willing to resort to demonstrably false statistics to support their anti-troop bias,” said Melanie Morgan, Chairman of Move America Forward.
“The slander of our troops and veterans by the New York Times is unfortunately all too familiar. We heard this kind of nonsense about our returning veterans from Vietnam. It’s the same insult, different war.
“Perhaps the shameful staff of The New York Times has run out of war-time secrets to publish for America’s enemies to read, because now they’ve resorted to an all-out smear campaign of America’s finest men and women, who have served this country bravely and with distinction,” Morgan said.
In place of hard data to support their premise, The New York Times was instead forced to devote almost the entire portion of 6,321 word hit-piece to anecdotes of wrongdoing by individual veterans.
The New York Times even went so far as to trace back the phenomenon of murderous veterans to Greek mythology to back up their assertions of their report.
“The real mythology is the reporting by The New York Times,” Move America Forward’s Melanie Morgan concluded.
NOTE TO REPORTERS/BLOGGERS: Melanie Morgan and a delegation of staffers from Move America Forward have just returned from a 10-day trip interviewing U.S. troops in Iraq and Kuwait.
To schedule an interview with Melanie Morgan or the other members who traveled to Kuwait and Iraq including: Gold Star Mom Debbie Lee (mother of first Navy Seal killed in Iraq), MAF Communications Director, Danny Gonzalez, and MAF Deputy Executive Director, Mary Pearson, contact Ryan Gill of Move America Forward at: (916) 441-6197 or via email at: mary@MoveAmericaForward.org
>> You can link to this report, which is published at the Move America Forward website, at this location: http://www.moveamericaforward.org/index.php/MAF/MAFNews
*** Note that the central statistical measure is how many instances of alleged killings take place per 100,000 Iraq/Afghanistan war veterans who returned home. The New York Times might argue that our statistics are incorrect since the 1.5+ million Iraq/Afghanistan veterans have not been home during the entire 6 years of the war (especially since in the early onset of Operation Enduring Freedom troops were just arriving into the war zone).
However, Salon.com reports that as of January 31, 2005 there were 1,048,884 Americans who had fought in Iraq or Afghanistan. One can then calculate statistics from that point onward. Let’s give the New York Times the leeway of saying their alleged 121 incidents of killings by veterans occured during just the three years that elapsed since that time to the present. The murder rate per 100,000 people would still be approximately 3.5 incidents of murder per 100,000 returning Iraq/Afghanistan veterans.
Great read, thanks much, BufordP! Hinderaker did good work with that!
Thanks so much for posting this!!! Bookmarked.
Big Bump
Well Hollywood writers are on strike, somebody has too keep up their liberal theme. At least their next anti-America/military film will have an official sounding source.
Figures don't lie, but liars figure.
pong
Probably none. I don't think they play for that team, if you get my drift.
"Has anyone determined how many wife-beaters are on staff at NYT?"
Since we had endless thoughts about how many different ways one could have fun questioning whether "121 New York Times employees" were guilty of an array of sins.
Chief among them that is without dispute would obviously be contempt for the United States military and all those who serve this nation.
How about some real news. Let’s send these reporters to Houston and investigate the murder rate by Katrina evacuees.
Unfortunately it has now passed into the general bosy of things which bozos assume everybody knows to be true. It will show up in Time and Newsweak and be discussed with furrowed brow on NPR and on the liberal news shows.
THe Slimes may or may not post a "Correction of page D19 in two or three weeks, bit no good will come of it.
I now prophesy: Just as the abuse of the right to keep and bear arms has led to great infringements of that natural right, so the abuse of the freedom of the press, which already has led to McCain-Finegold (sp?), will lead to further encroachments upon the free exercise of that and related rights.
Ping a ling
Really quite shameful of the press.
Where once journalists would consider putting aside journalistic agendas if it meant bettering the cause of our troops during a time of war, we now have "journalists" who use their profession to attempt to deliberately undermine the missions of our troops who are on the frontlines of battle.
bump
Walter Duranty will never be dead as long as the NYT lives.
Maybe they used that phony typewriter from the Rathergate memos to write this phony story!
First of all one suspects this study by the New York Times has about as much accuracy as the Lancet “body count” study that George Soros funded. And for the same reasons.
But also one has to wonder why The Times would do such a study? Why now?
We all know why. The Timesmen loathe and despise the US military. And since things are going so well with the surge in Iraq that they can’t complain about the war, they have to try another tack.
So why not do a “study” to show how fighting such a unjust and immoral war has turned American troops into murderers at home?
After all, who is going to question their research? They are the New York Times?
And in typical NYT fashion, this typically verbose and meandering article manages to work in all of the Democrat talking points, even the desperate need for free universal health insurance:
Hey! Nobody told the NYT that math would be required.
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I doubt if the principles of percentages are even being taught in American government schools. Raw numbers can be used to feed propaganda so easily when the targets of the propaganda have no idea of math.
On a side note the murder RATE in Baltimore is nine times the average of the country. If it was an ecoli attack of nine times the national rate of ecoli, everyone would be absolutely hysterical. Since it is mostly drug-related crime of young black men, most of the deaths not even make the papers.
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