This is an ugly story. The New York Times generates a blatantly slanted story attempting to paint war veterans as damaged, defective murderers just waiting to be unleashed on an unwitting America. They cherry pick the stories of some 121 "killings" committed by "combat veterans" - although they really do not explain the criteria they used for making those choices. They then spin this into a tale of damaged, traumatized people rampaging across the country. There is no context at all, just the stark telling of 121 killings - all blamed on military service. Armed Liberal tries to give some of the context that the Times is unable to manage.
And we're presented with a litany of tragedy.
But as usual, I keep asking the simple question - well, what does it mean? How do these 121 murderers compare with the base rate of murderers in the population?
And the answer appears to be damn well.
The only reference I could find for the number of troops who have served in combat areas was at GlobalSecurity.com, citing a Salon article:
Three and a half years have passed since U.S. bombs started falling in Afghanistan, and ever since then, the U.S. military has been engaged in combat overseas. What most Americans are probably unaware of, however, is just how many American soldiers have been deployed. Well over 1 million U.S. troops have fought in the wars since Sept. 11, 2001, according to Pentagon data released to Salon. As of Jan. 31, 2005, the exact figure was 1,048,884, approximately one-third the number of troops ever stationed in or around Vietnam during 15 years of that conflict.
From the October 1, 2001 start of the Afghanistan war, that's about 26,000 troops/month. To date (Jan 2008) that would give about 1.99 million.
That means that the NY Times 121 murders represent about a 7.08/100,000 rate.
Now the numbers on deployed troops are probably high - fewer troops from 2001 - 2003; I'd love a better number if someone has it.
But for initial purposes, let's call the rate 10/100,000, about 40% higher than the calculated one.
Now, how does that compare with the population as a whole?
Turning to the DoJ statistics, we see that the US offender rate for homicide in the 18 - 24 yo range is 26.5/100,000.For 25 - 34, it's 13.5/100,000.
I'll point out that there are some 1.4 million active duty military personnel and about 1.3 million more in the reserves and National Guard. There are also some 26.4 million veterans of the US armed forces in this country. Bruce Kesler, who has had to deal with the smearing media since Vietnam says this:
Yet, the New York Times could not find words to put the 121 cases of physical violence by vets in full perspective. For example, these 121 are a tiny fraction of a fraction of a percent of the hundreds of thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. This post does some quick calculations to come up with a smaller rate of homicides than among the civilian population.
The NYT’s does offer this: “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 October 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.”
To which the Pentagon offers this:” 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.” I'm sure the Pentagon had more to say, much of it unpublishable for polite company.
In short, the NYT’s has no serious methodology but a serious agenda.
Amen. This is trying to tag returning veterans with a "defective" label, just as they did to returning Vietnam veterans. Yes, the killings are tragic, but it is just wrong to try and forward an agenda by exploiting those killings this way. And it is criminal to try to smear all service members and veterans in this way. (Oh, the NYT hatchet job is here, by the way.)