Jeb, any sympathy shown towards the vets is designed to lay the blame for these “killings” on the “military” for sending these poor innocent guys into battle which made monsters out of them, and then not taking adequate measures to treat their mental difficulties. No one here is downplaying the existence of PTSD or the possibility that it might be a contributing factor in violence that a few vets commit. But the complete omission of any statistics that could provide a comparison with an equivalent portion of the general population is a flashing red light telling us that the NYT is pushing an agenda. Any cursory look at the real numbers tells the story that the worst case scenario for the military vets is still better than that of the equivalent civilian population. The only statistics they cite are the alleged increase in “killings” before and after 2001 — but they brush off the Pentagon’s criticism of their lumping manslaughter and murder statistics together, as well as the Pentagon spokesman’s valid point that it is quite likely that murders committed prior to 2001 would have been less likely to have been identified as having been committed by a “veteran” in news reports (in the same way as most military deaths due to training accidents etc. were completely ignored by the press until there was a war on). The Times admits it got its 121 number from reviewing press reports – therefore it is open to criticism on its methodology for coming up with the number 121 and the alleged 89% increase. If they wanted to do a fair report also, they would have included more specific information on the killings (note the one about the drag-racing car crash) or not included at all things like “alleged” killings in their stats. They are trying to win a Pulitzer on the back of our soldiers by pretending to be sympathetic to them while lambasting the military for placing these guys in the position to become murderers. It is disgusting, but par for the course for the Times.
