Soldiers on a Rampage?

Not so long ago, the New York Times ran a risible story claiming that US soldiers returning from war are committing a staggering amount of murders. The basic gist of the story was to bemoan the psychological trauma inflicted on the troops while in Iraq and Afghanistan. Blaming the "problem" on mental trauma is a sly way for the Times to shield itself from accusations that it is indicting the troops, ultimately, they can't help it. This "crisis" is all Bush's fault for sending them there in the first place. Make no mistake about it, this is not so much about the soldiers, per se as it is about the media's attempt to find a way to further vilify President Bush. The premise and conclusion of the Times story are offensive at so many levels. Mark Steyn once again rises to the challenge and debunks this ludicrous story. Here's an excerpt and the link to the entire piece.

Our war has one of the lowest fatality rates of any war ever, and, when they get so low that even Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid temporarily give up the quagmire bleating, the Times invents bogus stories to suggest that the few veterans lucky enough to make it out of Iraq alive are ticking timebombs ready to explode across every Main Street in the land.

A few days before the Times series began, The National Journal published the latest debunking of a notorious survey: in 2006, the medical journal The Lancet reported that the Iraq war had killed over 650,000 civilians, over 90 percent victims of the US military. That’s 500 civilians a day. Which is quite a smell test. The figure was over ten times the estimates even of hardcore antiwar left-wing groups. Who are these 500 daily victims? Why aren’t there mass riots by Iraqi civilians protesting the daily bloodbath?

Because it’s fake. It didn’t happen.

Yet it’s indestructible. I picked up a local paper in New Hampshire the other day, and a lady psychotherapist was twittering about our “mentally wounded” troops returning home after killing gazillions and bazillions of Iraqi civilians. In 1933, the debaters at Oxford were horrified by the real cost of war. In 2008, the editors of the Times, our college professors and Hollywood celebrities, are horrified by a fiction. Faced with an historically low cost of war, they retreat into fantasy. Who’s really suffering from mental trauma? Who needs the psychotherapy here? -Mark Steyn, Emphasis added

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZWNkZmEwYjVhMTNkNGFmNDY1NWFjMTk4Y2ZkZTgzYzQ=