The New York Times on Sunday commenced a reporting series called “War Torn,” described as “A series of articles and multimedia about veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have committed killings, or been charged with them, after coming home.”
One can only speculate on what the Times plans for future installments.
Several statistically informed and militarily knowledgeable bloggers have already criticized the Times for faulty reporting and even faultier data analysis techniques.
So, basically, the reporters went trolling on Lexis-Nexis and other databases to find "murder" within the same paragraph as "veteran" or "soldier," and built a front-page story around that research. They compared the pre-war numbers to the post-war numbers and found that, voila!, there's a difference. And then it looks like they cherry-picked the best anecdotes out of that research (including the ones where they could get interviews and photos) to craft a narrative which fit the data.
The article makes no attempt to produce a statistically valid comparison of homicide rates among vets to rates among the general population. Nor does it rely at all on Pentagon data about post-deployment incidents of violence among veterans. It basically just generalizes from this small sample (121 out of 1.7 million Iraq and Afghanistan vets, not including civilians and contractors) to conclude that today's generation of veterans are coming home full of rage and ready to kill.
Marc Danziger of
Winds of Change documents how the lack of statistical context in the Times report evades some rather simple mathematical comparisons, and helpfully provides the email address of the Times Public Editor:
That means that the NY Times 121 murders represent about a 7.08/100,000 rate.
Now the numbers on deployed troops are probably high - fewer troops from 2001 - 2003; I'd love a better number if someone has it.
But for initial purposes, let's call the rate 10/100,000, about 40% higher than the calculated one.
Now, how does that compare with the population as a whole?
Turning to the DoJ statistics, we see that the US offender rate for homicide in the 18 - 24 yo range is 26.5/100,000.For 25 - 34, it's 13.5/100,000.
See the problem?
Damn, is it that hard for reporters and their editors to provide a little bit of context so we can make sense of the anecdotes? It's not in Part 1 of the article. And I'll bet it won't be in the future articles, either.
Because it's not part of the narrative of how our soldiers are either depraved or damaged.
The NY Times Public Editor can be reached at public@nytimes.com.
Danziger sparks a rather one-sided debate at Winds. There, Times apologists suggest that Danziger, Carter and other critics misrepresent what is intended as mere “anecdotal” reporting, and that the Times report is actually very sympathetic to soldiers experiencing post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other combat effects.
No doubt, in the same way the Times and others of their media ilk show sympathy for all other murders and malcontents who society has abused or neglected. Apparently, no one is responsible for their own bad behavior anywhere in Times World – unless you happen to be a member of the GOP that is.
But to address the notion that the Times report doesn’t make an argument that the Iraq War (uniquely) causes these soldiers to act out violently, consider the following.
Town by town across the country, headlines have been telling similar stories. Lakewood, Wash.: “Family Blames Iraq After Son Kills Wife.” Pierre, S.D.: “Soldier Charged With Murder Testifies About Postwar Stress.” Colorado Springs: “Iraq War Vets Suspected in Two Slayings, Crime Ring.”
Individually, these are stories of local crimes, gut-wrenching postscripts to the war for the military men, their victims and their communities. Taken together, they paint the patchwork picture of a quiet phenomenon, tracing a cross-country trail of death and heartbreak.
The New York Times found 121 cases in which veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in this country, or were charged with one, after their return from war. In many of those cases, combat trauma and the stress of deployment — along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems — appear to have set the stage for a tragedy that was part destruction, part self-destruction.
Three-quarters of these veterans were still in the military at the time of the killing. More than half the killings involved guns, and the rest were stabbings, beatings, strangulations and bathtub drownings. Twenty-five offenders faced murder, manslaughter or homicide charges for fatal car crashes resulting from drunken, reckless or suicidal driving.
“Town by town,” adding up to 121 cases nation wide? That’s town by town if you only count every 1,000th town or so, isn’t it? “Patchwork picture of a quiet phenomenon?” Aside from the triteness of either of the mixed metaphors, some patchwork where 1000 patches show no pattern whatever, but that 1,000 and first one, oh boy. Quiet, you could correctly call it. Darn near silent. “Cross-country trail of death and heartbreak?” That’s a vanishingly small number of trail markers on that trail, dwarfed by any mid-sized or larger town or city in America.
Note to the careful evasion in that third paragraph, about how “combat trauma and the stress of deployment — along with alcohol abuse, family discord and other attendant problems — appear to have set the stage” for the tragedies that the Times bemoans. So which is it, combat or substance or family or none of the above, which factor is most responsible? A combination? And do they “set the stage,” or only “appear to”? What kind of journalism is this? I thought the model was to describe facts, let the readers make value judgments.
And in that last paragraph, over 20% of the Times 121 cases are manslaughter or other charges stemming from fatal car crashes, “resulting from drunken, reckless or suicidal driving.” Talk about padding the numbers. How many of those cases involve alcohol or substance impaired driving – even if someone might consider such driving suicidal as well? How is this any different from the prevalence of such behavior among anyone in the age range of most of the soldiers involved? Doesn’t sound exclusive to military veterans, by a long shot.
Ack, I've gone on here long enough. More analysis of the "anecdotes" the Times puts up to buttress their propaganda, over at Dadmanly.
I see Blackfive noting the story, and linking to WoC and Intel Dump as well...
All done!
