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| Fifth Column |
| NYT: Combat Veterans Are Homicidal Maniacs |
| 2008-01-13 |
| At least 121 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have committed a killing or been charged in one in the United States after returning from combat, The New York Times reported Sunday. The newspaper said it also logged 349 homicides involving all active-duty military personnel and new veterans in the six years since military action began in Afghanistan, and later Iraq. That represents an 89-percent increase over the previous six-year period, the newspaper said. About three-quarters of those homicides involved Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, the newspaper said. The report did not illuminate the exact relationship between those cases and the 121 killings also mentioned in the report. The newspaper said its research involved searching local news reports, examining police, court and military records and interviewing defendants, their lawyers and families, victims' families and military and law enforcement officials. Defense Department representatives did not immediately respond to a telephone message early Sunday. The Times said the military agency declined to comment, saying it could not reproduce the paper's research. A military spokesman, Lt. Col. Les Melnyk, questioned the report's premise and research methods, the newspaper said. He said it aggregated crimes ranging from involuntary manslaughter to murder, and he suggested the apparent increase in homicides involving military personnel and veterans in the wartime period might reflect only "an increase in awareness of military service by reporters since 9/11." Neither the Pentagon nor the federal Justice Department track such killings, generally prosecuted in state civilian courts, according to the Times. The 121 killings ranged from shootings and stabbings to bathtub drownings and fatal car crashes resulting from drunken driving, the newspaper said. All but one of those implicated was male. About a third of the victims were girlfriends or relatives, including a 2-year-old girl slain by her 20-year-old father while he was recovering from wounds sustained in Iraq. A quarter of the victims were military personnel. One was stabbed and set afire by fellow soldiers a day after they all returned from Iraq. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #25 Super Hose and Old Spook both win, with doc coming in close behind. :-) |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-01-13 23:36 |
| #24 #16: Sinse, that would lower air quality for all of us. The facility could be used to produce blank newsprint that could be used by moving companies and cat lovers. Let them print Zimbob "Dollars", worth about the same page for page. Both worthless. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2008-01-13 21:14 |
| #23 Jeez, what an 'effing numerical travesty. So, to summarise recent newspaper themes, we have a military population of homicidal maniacs who commit murders at less than the rate of their civilian cohort; who are suicidal, but at less than the rate of their civilian cohort; and are stupid but have high school graduation rates and higher ed degrees at a greater rate than you know who. Damn the numbers! It's all about The Narrative. I wonder what the average SAT math score of journalism majors is. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2008-01-13 20:37 |
| #22 And that, my friends, is a smackdown. The NYT is my bitch. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-01-13 20:07 |
| #21 As of 2005, the homicide rate for Americans aged 18-24, the cohort into which most soldiers fall, was around 27 per 100,000. (The rate for men in that age range would be much higher, of course, since men commit around 88% of homicides. But since most soldiers are also men, I gave civilians the benefit of the doubt and considered gender a wash.) Next we need to know how many servicemen have returned from Iraq or Afghanistan. A definitive number is no doubt available, but the only hard figure I've seen is that as of last October, moe than 500,000 U.S. Army personnel had served in either Iraq or Afghanistan. Other sources peg the total number of personnel from all branches of the military who have served in the two theaters much higher, e.g. 750,000, 650,000 as of February 2007, or 1,280,000. For the sake of argument, let's say that 700,000 soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors have returned to the U.S. from service in Iraq or Afghanistan. Do the math: the 121 alleged instances of homicide identified by the Times, out of a population of 700,000, works out to a rate of 17 per 100,000--quite a bit lower than the overall national rate of around 27. But wait! The national rate of 27 homicides per 100,000 is an annual rate, whereas the Times' 121 alleged crimes were committed over a period of six years. Which means that, as far as the Times' research shows, the rate of homicides committed by military personnel who have returned from Iraq or Afghanistan is only a fraction of the homicide rate for other Americans aged 18 to 24. Somehow, the Times managed to publish nine pages of anecdotes about the violence wreaked by returning servicemen without ever mentioning this salient fact. (c/o powerline) |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-01-13 20:06 |
| #20 I'm a lean manufacturing professional. Elimiate the ink. It represents the muda of needless processing. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2008-01-13 18:52 |
| #19 super hose, i thought that was about all the New York Times was used for anyway |
| Posted by: sinse 2008-01-13 18:43 |
| #18 Did you know that half the people in the World have below average intelligence? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2008-01-13 18:15 |
| #17 So, how much did Soros pay them for this one? |
| Posted by: Gromomble Oppressor of the Iowans8916 2008-01-13 15:53 |
| #16 Sinse, that would lower air quality for all of us. The facility could be used to produce blank newsprint that coudl be used by moving companies and cat lovers. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2008-01-13 15:50 |
| #15 Dennis Kucinich and Sean Penn asked for some new material. Their stats were getting stale. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2008-01-13 15:30 |
| #14 hell they should burn the new york times down |
| Posted by: sinse 2008-01-13 15:17 |
| #13 ok my comment gets sinktrapped while there was one on here the other day using the "N" word repeatedly and it never got tossed |
| Posted by: sinse 2008-01-13 15:17 |
| #12 I know a female veteran of Iraq convicted of vehicular homicide while driving drunk, but she is the daughter of an alcoholic single parent and why she joined the Army! Everyone criticized her for throwing away the opportunities she was given by the military and her outstanding performance as a soldier in the Green Zone while there touted in her defense at the trial. |
| Posted by: Danielle 2008-01-13 14:53 |
| #11 I can't believe they make this stuff up. sure you can... I just can't believe they get paid to do it |
| Posted by: Frank G 2008-01-13 14:38 |
| #10 COmpared to D.C.? Detroit? L.A.? I can't believe they make this stuff up. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2008-01-13 14:36 |
| #9 OK, NYT, now run the numbers on products of single-parent households. |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2008-01-13 14:24 |
| #8 A long time ago I read a thread about radiation and death for astronauts that leave the protection of the Van Allen Belt. This is one of the 'we didn't walk on the moon it was all fake' kind of things. Then I learned two or four moonwalkers died of cancer, this seemed really high to me. Then it was pointed out that statistically this is exactly the same as the cancer average in the general population. Not saying that space travel to the moon doesn't risk radiation and cancer here, I'm just saying that one set of data without comparison is useless. I think Doc is making the same point for this one. Thanks Doc. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2008-01-13 13:39 |
| #7 Armed Liberal fisks the Slimes. 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. Read the whole thing. |
| Posted by: doc 2008-01-13 11:56 |
| #6 isn't there a a real good arsonist is New York somewhere that could burn their building down? |
| Posted by: sinse 2008-01-13 11:39 |
| #5 Note to the NYT staff and writers. Are you still breathing? If so, then they can't be that homicidal. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2008-01-13 11:23 |
| #4 Scurrilous. |
| Posted by: Grumenk Philalzabod0723 2008-01-13 11:20 |
| #3 |
| Posted by: doc 2008-01-13 11:01 |
| #2 OK, now they are recycling the "babykiller" crap from Vietnam. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2008-01-13 11:01 |
| #1 Well, they can't write about the success happening in Iraq. What else are they supposed to do? |
| Posted by: danking70 2008-01-13 10:59 |