Ungrateful
Do They Really Hate Us?
Sometimes you have to wonder if the liberal media really hates the US Military (which would include their families), and do they really mean it when they turn our sacrifices into something wrong? Or is it that their bias, and political motives are more important than those men and women who have sworn to give their life in defense of this great nation.
Our lives are not a game.
Pigs….
Smearing Soldiers
The Gray Lady’s Killer-GI Lie
By Ralph Peters
THE New York Times is trashing our troops again. With no new “atrocities” to report from Iraq for many a month, the limping Gray Lady turned to the home front. Front and center, above the fold, on the front page of Sunday’s Times, the week’s feature story sought to convince Americans that combat experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan are turning troops into murderers when they come home.
Heart-wringing tales of madness and murder not only made the front page, but filled two entire centerfold pages and spilled onto a fourth.
The Times did get one basic fact right: Returning vets committed or are charged with 121 murders in the United States since our current wars began.
Had the Times’ “journalists” and editors bothered to put those figures in context - which they carefully avoided doing - they would’ve found that the murder rate that leaves them so aghast means that our vets are five times less likely to commit a murder than their demographic peers.
The Times’ public editor, Clark Hoyt, should crunch the numbers. I’m even willing to spot the Times a few percentage points (either way). But the hard statistics from the Justice Department tell a far different tale from the Times’ anti-military propaganda.
A very conservative estimate of how many different service members have passed through Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait since 2003 is 350,000 (and no, that’s not double-counting those with repeated tours of duty).
Now consider the Justice Department’s numbers for murders committed by all Americans aged 18 to 34 - the key group for our men and women in uniform. To match the homicide rate of their 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.
In other words, the Times unwittingly makes the case that military service reduces the likelihood of a young man or woman committing a murder by 80 percent.
Yes, the young Americans who join our military are (by self- selection) superior by far to the average stay-at-home. Still, these numbers are pretty impressive, when you consider that we’re speaking of men and women trained in the tools of war, who’ve endured the acute stresses of fighting insurgencies and who are physically robust (rather unlike the stick-limbed weanies the Times prefers).
All in all, the Times’ own data proves my long-time contention that we have the best behaved and most ethical military in history.
Now, since the folks at the Times are terribly busy and awfully important, let’s make it easy for them to do the research themselves (you can do it, too - in five minutes).
Just Google “USA Murder Statistics.” The top site to appear will be the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics. Click on it, then go to “Demographic Trends.” Click on “Age.” For hard numbers on the key demographics, click on the colored graphs.
Run the numbers yourself, based upon the demographic percentages of murders per every 100,000 people. Then look at the actual murder counts.
Know what else you’ll learn? In 2005 alone, 8,718 young Americans from the same age group were murdered in this country. That’s well over twice as many as the number of troops killed in all our foreign missions since 2001. Maybe military service not only prevents you from committing crimes, but also keeps you alive?
Want more numbers? In the District of Columbia, our nation’s capital, the murder rate for the 18-34 group was about 14 times higher than the rate of murders allegedly committed by returning vets.
And that actually understates the District’s problem, since many DC-related murders spill across into Prince George’s County (another Democratic Party stronghold).
In DC, an 18-34 population half the size of the total number of troops who’ve served in our wars overseas committed the lion’s share of 992 murders between 2003 and 2007 - the years mourned by the Times as proving that our veterans are psychotic killers.
Aren’t editors supposed to ask tough questions on feature stories? Are the Times’ editors so determined to undermine the public’s support for our troops that they’ll violate the most-basic rules of journalism, such as putting numbers in context?
Answer that one for yourself.
Of course, all of this is part of the disgraceful left-wing campaign to pretend sympathy with soldiers - the Times column gushes crocodile tears - while portraying our troops as clichéd maniacs from the Oliver Stone fantasies that got lefties so self-righteously excited 20 years ago (See? We were right to dodge the draft . . .).
And it’s not going to stop. Given the stakes in an election year, the duplicity will only intensify.
For an upcoming treat, we’ll get the film “Stop-Loss,” starring, as always, young punks who never served in uniform as soldiers. This left-wing diatribe argues that truly courageous troops would refuse to return to Iraq - at a time when soldiers and Marines continue to re-enlist at record rates, expecting to plunge back into the fight.
Those on the left will never accept that the finest young Americans are those who risk their lives defending freedom. Sen. John Kerry summed up the views of the left perfectly when he disparaged our troops as too stupid to do anything but sling hamburgers.
And The New York Times will never forgive our men and women in uniform for their infuriating successes in Iraq.
Ralph Peters’ latest book is “Wars of Blood and Faith.”
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The NYT is filled with evil people spewing and inciting doubt and fear about our warriors.
They are not ashamed because their agenda is to destroy the America of our forefathers and turn it into a place only Neville Chamberlain could love.
January 15th, 2008 at 7:57 amIt was an all out assault to slander and demoralize everything and everyone who believed in what we were doing. It was a tactic used with malice for political gains using a guerrilla warfare state of mind…
The shame is they gave no consideration for their actions at how they may harm or hurt real people…even though many untruths were at the base of their motivation
January 15th, 2008 at 7:58 amDoes ANYONE at the DOJ know the definition of TREASON?
January 15th, 2008 at 8:43 amGood question, Jarhead. We get worse shit spewed out of the House and Senate all the time. WTF?
January 15th, 2008 at 8:52 amThis is related to gun control issues that the dems are so vehemently trying to shove down our throats. Also, I’ve heard reports of the government attempting to take guns away from veterans who are diagnosed with PTSD. Now, a veteran is going to be faced with, “Do I give up my guns so I can obtain medical treatment for my PTSD?” OR “Do I give up medical treatment so I can keep my guns in case shit hits the fan?” That, in my opinion, is a way for the government to further fuck our veterans out of medical treatment they so deserve and a back door approach to gun control.
January 15th, 2008 at 9:08 amGet used to it. They think they’re the hyper-intelligensia, and so above it all, but we know them as nothing more than gutter snipes. Silly, totally self-absorbed nobodies that ain’t been no where and don’t do anything twits.
January 15th, 2008 at 9:10 amThe latest kick for the NYT is to report, every day, that “there is a recession” and as the LA Times reports “it’s different and worst than prior recessions.” The NYT also ginned up this story about soldiers who return home to kill to defame our military. Vanessa and jim above hit the nail on the head.
January 15th, 2008 at 9:30 am@John . . . even though they are “totally self-absorbed nobodies that ain’t been no where and don’t do anything twits”, they have been and are capable of swaying public opinion by writing their bull. Which is scarey enough in and of itself. We can only hope that people are intelligent enough to not fall for their trumped up rhetorical bullshit.
January 15th, 2008 at 9:44 am@ Jarhead . . . apparently NOT when you look back at all the Pelosi crap that came down the pike a few months back. . . I still say that woman needs to be tarred, feathered and hung. Hell, let’s throw Harry Reid in there too while we’re at it.
January 15th, 2008 at 9:46 amExcerpt from Move America Forward Press Release -
“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.
Entire Press Release From Move America Forward - http://www.moveamericaforward.org/index.php/MAF/MAFNews
January 15th, 2008 at 10:38 amI knew this would happen sooner or later-I just knew it.
I wish I could understand the reasoning behind the hatred of the military-what have they ever done to them? 
January 15th, 2008 at 11:11 amRead the Gun Owners of America website about HR 2640 and write to your Congressmen and the President:
http://www.gunowners.org/a010808.htm
http://www.americanpatrol.com/REFERENCE/FindYourReps.html
http://www.outsourcecongress.org/outsource/congress/schstaffers.html
The actions of the NY Times continue to be a travesty and also appears to be part of Congress’s shameful action of passing HR 2640 by unanimous consent on December 19th, 2007 - after most Congressmen were returning home and party leadership had said that all the major votes were over for the year. Thanks to our Congressional leadership, if the President signs this bill it will disenfranchise up to 140,000 of our military veterans of their 2nd Amendment rights in spite of the fact that veterans are actually at least 5 times less likely than the public at large to commit murder.
HR 2640 accomplishes this through section 101 (c) (1) (C) which makes a veteran diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder a “prohibited person” (i.e. unable to lawfully own a gun) based solely on a medical finding by a psychiatrist or psychologist, provided that they
1) had “an opportunity for a hearing by a court, board, commission or other lawful authority”; and
2) that thay had notice that they would be made a “prohibited person” as a result of the agency action.
Presumably, the “lawful authority” could be the psychiatrist himself, and the hearing apparently doesn’t have to occur. The “lawful authority” doesn’t need to be unbiased. The veteran is also not necessarily entitled to legal representation during this process. What HR 2640 does is to statutorily lock in huge numbers of law-abiding Americans who will now be denied the right to legally defend themselves, then, under Section 105 of the bill, “graciously” allows these disarmed Americans to spend thousands of dollars for a effectively false chance to regain their gun rights.
Section 105 provides a process for some Americans diagnosed with so-called mental disabilities to get their rights restored in the state where they live. But then, in subsection (a)(2), the bill stipulates that such relief may occur only if “the person will not be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety and that the GRANTING OF THE RELIEF WOULD NOT BE CONTRARY TO THE PUBLIC INTEREST.” We all know what this means - most states will not make any effort to restore the rights of these veterans once they have ever been identified as a danger to society, claiming that granting relief would be “contrary to the public interest” since that is certainly the easiest route, effectively leaving no recourse to almost all of those affected by this bill.
We should not put our brave veterans in a no-win situation - having to choose between the right to needed VA disability benefits or losing their 2nd Amendment rights and their ability to lawfully defend themselves and others.
Feel free to use my text.
January 15th, 2008 at 11:15 amoh my goodness…why can’t people realize that our troops are out there sacraficing their family time to fight for freedom so that we can be with our families…or well sorta…my brother is over there fighting now. He may not agree with everything but however he’s fighting to protect his family and everyone’s family. If we weren’t over there fighting they’d be here…they were here in 9/11/01. Did New York forget? Have they forgotten? How tragic to loose so so many lives. Kids lost their mothers, their fathers that day did they have a choice? NO. Did wives have a say that they could lose their husbands or mothers loose their babies? Or Fathers loose their children caz some dumb person decided to attack america. Now who deffends our country? The press…what was said in that article hurts alot. I love my troops. I’d join if it weren’t for medical reasons of a dumb car accident. But since I cannot join I will support them with my whole heart. They are making america a safe place to live…well they’re trying. Would you want to keep going if people were saying lots of dumb lies and hated you? Heck i’d get out of there and be like no way man. But they realize there are some people like you who care, who love them and support them. So please spread the word and support our men and women, our brothers and sisters, our friends and family. Ben i miss you and support you and love you. I’ll be praying for you as well. As for all of you soldiers of AMERICA where united we stand. One nation under GOD, indivisable for JUSTICE FOR ALL!!! The pledge of alliegance…With God on our side who can be against us? Amen?! Amen!! God bless~your sister in Christ~Miss Jo
January 15th, 2008 at 7:48 pm