Defamation of War Veterans...Again

I know that I haven't done much on politics or the war in Iraq recently but I just caught this on Powerline and coupled with a recent conversation with Mark from Baghdad, I thought it was fitting to pass on.  The gist of this piece is that it analyzes the claims in a story that the New York Times ran on Sunday regarding violent returning Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.  Basically the make generalizations (sprinkled with some specifics) regarding some 121 cases nationwide of war veterans being involved in either homicide or manslaughter since the 2001.

The truly damning portion of the piece is excerpted below, but I encourage you to follow the above link and read the entire piece.  I hope it will be blatantly obvious why papers like The Times are losing readership at a startling rate

"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."