Military Deaths, MSM And Biased Reporting: The "Wacko Vet Myth" Edition
By Steve Foley Posted in Liberals — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Yesterday I posted Military Deaths, MSM And Biased Reporting while still researching the story from the front page of Sunday's NYT about the murder rate of returning soldiers. Their dishonesty and clear agenda is presented and exposed below.
These are some rather eye-opening facts: Since the start of the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, the sacrifice has been enormous. In the time period from the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 through now, we have lost over 3000 military personnel to enemy action and accidents. As tragic as the loss of any member of the US Armed Forces is, consider the following statistics: The annual fatalities of military members while actively serving in the armed forces from 1980 through 2006:
1980 .......... 2,392
1981 ......... 2,380
1984 .......... 1,999
1988 .......... 1,819
1989 .......... 1,636
1990 ......... 1,508
1991 .......... 1,787
1992 .......... 1,293
1993 .......... 1,213
1994 .......... 1,075
1995 ...........2,465
1996 ......... 2,318 Clinton years @14,000 deaths
1997 .......... 817
1998 ......... 2,252
1999 .......... 1,984
2000 .......... 1,983
2001 .......... 890
2002 .......... 1,007
2003 ....... ... 1,410
2004 .......... 1,887
2005 ......... 919
2006.......... 920
If you are confused when you look at these figures...so was I.
Do these figures mean that the loss from the two latest conflicts in the Middle East are LESS than the loss of military personnel during Mr. Clinton 's presidency; when America wasn't even involved in a war?
More confusing is the fact that in 1980, during the reign of President ( Nobel Peace Prize) Jimmy Carter, there were 2,392 US military fatalities!
These figures reinforce the fact that our Media & Politicians will pick and choose the facts and figures they use to present or further push their story or agenda.
Why do so many of them march in lock-step to twist the truth and where are they getting their marching-orders for their agenda? One can only speculate.
Our MSM and many Politicians are so invested in slant that they have maintained the false position that these brave men and women, who are losing their lives in Iraq, are mostly minorities! Wrong AGAIN -- just one more media lie! The latest census, of Americans, shows the following distribution of American citizens, by Race:
European descent (White) ..... 69.12%
Hispanic ................................ 12.5%
Black..................................... 12.3%
Asian ...................................... 3.7%
Native American .................... 1.0%
Other .................................... 2.6%
Now... here are the fatalities by Race; over the past three years in Iraqi Freedom:
European descent (white) ...74.31%
Hispanic ............................. 10.74%
Black ................................... 9.67%
Asian ................................. . 1.81%
Native American .................. 1.09%
Other ................................... .33%
You do the Math! These figures don't lie... but, Media-liars figure then distort these numbers to try and sway public opinion! These statistics are published by Congressional Research Service(PDF)
Now ask yourself these two questions:
1) "Why does the mainstream Print and TV Media never print statistics like these?"
2) "Why does the mainstream media hate the web as much as they do?"
Case in point -- Last Sunday January 13, 2008 the New York Times ran a story entitled Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles in which they tried to make the case that returning vets are more likely to commit homicides after rotating back to the United States. They said:
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.
But here's where they run into a problem -- I made a call to the Justice Department and they told me their statistics show that American veterans ages 18 to 34 commit about 150 murders a year. American civilians ages 18 to 34 on average committed almost 750 murders in the same time-frame. (they didn't have an exact figure for me but ranged it from 700 to 750) Verifying what Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters has been saying:
As Peters noted, "to match the homicide rate of their [nonmilitary] 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" - six times the number the Times cited.
That estimate is borne out by University of Pennsylvania political scientist John DiIulio, who notes on the Weekly Standard's Web site that 749,932 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan had been discharged by the end of 2007. Apply that to the 121 killings cited by the Times, and the homicide rate works out to 16.1 per 100,000 - over the entire six-year period.
By way of imperfect comparison, the US Bureau of Justice Statistics' most recent numbers demonstrate that the same rate among males ages 18-24 was 26.5 - 65 percent higher - for a single year, 2005.
The shady NYT piece in an effort to, as Ralph Peters says is "part of the disgraceful left-wing campaign" to portray "our troops as clichéd maniacs." in effect, with further investigation on the part of Veterans and the right blogesphere, they've shown that military service reduces the the likelihood of this age group to commit murder by something like 80%!
Like I said above -- the agenda driven media is, to use their favorite coinage, "Cherry Picking" data to further their narrative and push their world view and in that process doing the reader and the field of journalism a grave disservice. How can liberals support the troops on one hand and spit on them in another all while maintaining a straight face?
