Crazed Veterans Spark Nationwide Crime Wave

Powerlineblog ^ | January 13, 2008 | John Hinderaker

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

...Suppose further that you are not a complete idiot.

Isn't that inconsistent with the premise, that I'm an editor at the New York Times?

[ArtyFO]

They would be more productive in documenting crimes by crazed illegal aliens.

[kittymyrib]

I hope they follow this hit piece on the military with a full count of all the murders and rapes committed by illegal aliens in our 50 states. It’s about time some hard-hitting newspaper tells the American people how many casualties we have suffered in this invasion of illegals.

[Brilliant]

Wasn’t it the Dems and the liberal media that wanted to bring them home?

[DoughtyOne]

This is a shameless ploy at laying the groundwork for demanding gun posession be denied to our troops upon returning to the United States. I don’t doubt there will be problems that can be found. We’re talking about a large group of people. Still, are their infractions far worse than the public at large? I seroiusly doubt it.

This is the way the major media players treated the Vietnam veterans upon return. They slandered them profusely, make their transition much more complex, and even convinced some employers that it was a terrible idea to put them to work.

Imagine if folks had treated the troops after WWII that way.

This is despicable, but then what did anyone expect in light of the source.

[Clintonfatigued]

If my memory is correct, there was similar yellow journalism near the end of the Vietnam War.

[driftdiver]

“They would be more productive in documenting crimes by crazed illegal aliens.”

That would not fit their agenda. But of course we all know the slimes has no agenda. /sarc

[geopyg]

Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

[Reagan79]

Because the media couldn’t make America lose the war - now they want to create wild fantasies of insane bands of war veterans going around America raping and pillaging in the fashion of Genghis Khan.

[DoughtyOne]

Yep. And evidently that wasn’t good enough.

Frankly, there have been times in our history when folks would have burned an institution to the ground that tried to pull this disgusting stuff.

The Times should be ashamed. This was approved by a senior editor and published in order to slander our men and women in the armed services. It is despicable.

[twntaipan]

The Times feeds the delusions of liberals 24/7.

[rodguy911]

I got this story earlier and actually e-mailed the times and told them how disgusting their story was.

[Brad from Tennessee]

E-Mail for Letters to the Editor, New York Times. They won’t print it but somebody there will read it:

letters@nytimes.com.

[BIGLOOK]

Shades of 'Hawaii 5-0'.

VN vet criminals were made serial.

[Army Air Corps]

The MSM never changes. They tried to portray damned near every Viet Nam vet as a drug crazed violent loon. Same tactic, different war. This time, however, we have the power of the Internet to fight the mendacity of these media Bolsheviks.

[Army Air Corps]

The Times should be ashamed.

The Times should be shamed...by every decent American. 'Tis time to flood their e-mail and post inboxes with some well penned rebuttals. Also, call to attention their intellectual dishonesty. Ridicule them. Shame the lying b@stards.

[BGHater]

‘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.’

The author expresses the obvious fact that the homicide rate for returning veterans is lower than the overall national rate.

However, he excludes several factors that we should consider.

All military members are selectively screened and have ‘higher’ standards than your typical murderer.

Service members have an High School equivalent in education, lower criminal background, and have been psychological screened to be determined fit to be in the military.

If the authors point is to initial support the military is clear, however adding the factors I suggested and if you get a problem, or symptom that we need to address, and that will benefit the military in the long run.

[DoughtyOne]

I agree.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

The author is trivially refuting the inference made by the NYT "reporter" that spending time in Iraq or Afghanistan causes homocidal behavour in otherwise normal people, quite successfully, imho.

[stylin19a]

I took awhile, but eventually the unemployment rate for VietVets was statistically meaningless.

In 1987, the unemployment rate of the population as a whole averaged 6.175 %
As of 1987, the unemployment rate of all Vietnam era veterans (in-country and not in-country) was 8%.

The same with homelessness,crime,addiction etc ( why gun ownership was even mentioned escapes me)

over time, the Viet Vets mainstreamed, so to speak.