“Family Blames Iraq After Son Kills Wife” … “Soldier Charged With Murder Testifies About Postwar Stress” … “Iraq War Vets Suspected in Two Slayings, Crime Ring.”… 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.

Murderers.

Drunks.

Wife beaters.

Scum.

That’s how the New York Times portrays the men and women returning from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Those of us old enough to remember Vietnam will recognize the insulting, sorry chant.

The NY Times had previously gone out of its way to avoid taking an editorial stance recalling the days of anti-Vietnam protests. Oh, they ran articles claiming a parallel between the wars in Iraq and Vietnam but that, they say, was something the President himself proclaimed. They were not making a comparison themselves; they were just reporting all the news that’s fit to print, you know.

Until now.

Now, the Grey Lady has resurrected the ghostly voices who called Vietnam vets “baby killers”. Now, the NY Times wants to portray soldiers who answered the call of duty as somehow responsible for the war they fight.

The very same war that, just 6 years ago, all of the shocked and horrified, righteously outraged NY Times-reading, left-leaning, rainbow flag-waving Manhattanites virtually demanded we wage against Muslims overseas — preferably those in highly repressive states — to “pay them back” for 9/11.

So here we are, quite nearly four years later.

Now, the NY Times is tired of the war. (It’s not all “democracy, whiskey and sexy anymore, which is so dull when you’re trying to write headlines that make people want to buy a printed paper instead of getting their news online.) Now they want something that sparks outrage, anger… purchases.

Know what? I’m tired of the war, too. I’m tired of worrying whether the man-power shortage is so great that my M.I. husband might get called over there. I’m tired of worrying about whether Charlotte’s or Karen’s daughters will come home in one piece. I’m tired of wondering when (not if, but when) my friend Tony Baker will be back in the desert… by his own choice… and if he’ll make it home this time.

But here are two things I’m not tired of: my freedoms, which are more numerous and more lenient than any citizen of any other country on this planet, and the safety with which we all live every single blessed day because the war is being fought there where the people who want to kill us live, instead of here where we value freedom so much we even let newspapers publish things that just stir up rage.

When I read the NY Times articles vilifying our returning Vets I am disgusted. I am appalled. I am convinced by their own words that they want to torture logic and reason so they can relive the post-Vietnam experience. Why? Possibly because, like any middle aged grey lady, they want to relieve the “glory days”. Possibly that kind of anti-military fodder attracts readership, many of whom are as appalled as I am by their stance but want to read it with their own eyes and so their bean counters presume those purchases show agreement with what they print.

And possibly it’s because they’re just too lazy to do the math that bloggers like the folks at Winds of Change have done.

[T]he 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?

Instapundit did. So did Bruce Kesler.

I do. And I suck at math.

But at least I’m skilled enough to know that the $1.25 it costs each day to pick up the NY Times renders it the most expensive toilet paper I’ve ever heard of.

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