New York Times Exposed As BS Artist

From: Move America Forward
Subject: New York Times 'Killer Vet' Story Exposed as Erroneous by
Pro-Troop Group
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 08:53:50 -0800

January 14, 2008 - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Mary Pearson: (916) 441-6197 or Email:
mary@MoveAmericaForward.org

EXCLUSIVE:

New York Times 'Killer Vet' Story
Exposed as Erroneous by Pro-Troop Group

SACRAMENTO- Move America Forward (website:
www.MoveAmericaForward.org), the nation's largest grassroots pro-troop organization, today
announced that after vetting the numbers cited by The New York Times in their
Sunday, January 13, 2008 story, "Across America, Deadly Echoes of
Foreign Battles," it became clear that the Times had engaged in demonstrably
erroneous and false reporting.

It took seven New York Times researchers to find 121 cases in which
veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan committed a killing in the United
States, or were charged with one, upon returning home to this country.

The Times made the false conclusion that: "Taken together, they paint
the patchwork of a quiet phenomenon, tracing a cross-country trail of
death and heartbreak."

The Times documentation of 121 potential killings out of more than 1.5
million veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom (Iraq) and Operation
Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), divided by 6 years of conflict results in a
murder rate of just 1.34 incidents per 100,000 veterans per year.

That murder rate is far lower than the murder rate for the general
population, demonstrating that the experiences of military service -
including having served in Iraq and Afghanistan - actually made it less
likely for returning veterans to commit murder once they returned home,
than the general population.

Given a census-estimated population of the United States of 300,000,000
persons in this country as of October 2006, and FBI-compiled
statistics of 17,399 homicide offenders for 2006, the murder rate of the
general population was 5.80 offenders per 100,000 on average - and a rate of
approximately 7.67 per 100,000 for men.

Since all but one of the veterans cited by the Times who committed a
killing in the U.S. was male, the comparable rate is approximately 7.67
incidents of murder per 100,000 people among the general male
population, compared to just 1.34 incidents per 100,000 returning Iraq and
Afghanistan veterans (of both genders).

"It's obvious that the New York Times has an agenda of undermining the
missions of our troops in the War on Terror, so much so that they are
willing to resort to demonstrably false statistics to support their
anti-troop bias," said Melanie Morgan, Chairman of Move America Forward.

"The slander of our troops and veterans by the New York Times is
unfortunately all too familiar. We heard this kind of nonsense about our
returning veterans from Vietnam. It's the same insult, different war.

"Perhaps the shameful staff of The New York Times has run out of
war-time secrets to publish for America's enemies to read, because now
they've resorted to an all-out smear campaign of America's finest men and
women, who have served this country bravely and with distinction," Morgan
said.

In place of hard data to support their premise, The New York Times was
instead forced to devote almost the entire portion of 6,321 word
hit-piece to anecdotes of wrongdoing by individual veterans.

The New York Times even went so far as to trace back the phenomenon of
murderous veterans to Greek mythology to back up their assertions of
their report.

"The real mythology is the reporting by The New York Times," Move
America Forward's Melanie Morgan concluded.

________________________________________________

NOTE TO REPORTERS: Melanie Morgan and a delegation of staffers from
Move America Forward have just returned from a 10-day trip interviewing
U.S. troops in Iraq and Kuwait.