To further show the damage the New York Times smear has done to members of the US military all you have to do is read how international media outlets are reporting the murder case of Marine Lance Corporal Maria Lauterbach:
Lauterbach’s mother reported her daughter missing December 19 - five days after she last spoke with her. By that time, she had been placed on "unauthorized absence" status by the Marine Corps.
The case comes as the New York Times reports on a study that says at least 121 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have been implicated in a killing in the US since returning from combat.
More than half the 121 killings in which Iraq and Afghanistan veterans were implicated involved guns, and the rest included stabbings, beatings, strangulations and bathtub drowning, the study claimed. All but one of those implicated was male.
About a third of the victims were girlfriends or relatives, including a two-year-old girl killed by her 20-year-old father while he was recovering from wounds sustained in Iraq. [Sydney Morning Herald]
The most read newspaper in Australia ends its article with what is clearly false information that has nothing to do with the killing of Lauterbach because the person who killed her Corporal Cesar Armando Laurean never served in Iraq in the first place:
"She was raped," Steiner said. "The Marines, unfortunately, did not protect her, and now she’s dead."
Originally from Dayton, Ohio, Lauterbach was reported missing Dec. 19 by her mother, who last spoke with her daughter on Dec. 14, authorities said. Her cell phone was found Dec. 20 near the main gate at Camp Lejeune, and she missed a Dec. 26 prenatal care appointment.
Lauterbach, who joined the Marines in 2006, and Laurean were personnel clerks in the 2nd Marine Logistics Group of the II Marine Expeditionary Force, based at Camp Lejeune. Neither had been sent to Iraq or Afghanistan. [CBS3 News]
Of course the claim the Marines did not protect her is false and a subject I could write a whole another posting on considering the way the media is reporting it, but the fact that both did not serve in Iraq or Afghanistan is interesting because why isn’t the media reporting this? I had to go to the website of the local North Carolina CBS affiliate to track down the information that Laurean had never served in Iraq or Afghanistan and if he did he wouldn’t have seen combat anyway because like Lauterbach he is a personnel clerk. I have yet to see on a television news report or in a major newspaper the fact that Laurean never served in Iraq and was a paper pushing personnel clerk, not an infantry grunt as I have seen some media outlets describe him as.
The Telegraph in the U.K. is spreading the same NY Times disinformation as well furthering showing how this incompetent reporting and disinformation is quickly becoming the international conventional wisdom which I feel confident is what the New York Times hoped to do when they first reported the story.
International media outlets aren’t the only ones passing off disinformation, so is America’s very own CBS News:
Earlier in the Iraq war, revelations that there had been more than 100 sexual assault cases in Kuwait, Iraq and the rest of the Persian gulf coupled with complaints from female service members that the male-dominated chain of command did not take their allegations seriously, brought charges from Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, that victims of a sexual assault in the military face far more obstacles in getting the help that she or he needs, reports Martin. [CBS News]
The alleged rape of Lauterbach did not happen overseas so why include this paragraph which has already been widely debunked? All you have to do is read my GI Crime archive to see how readily the military tries sexual assault cases.
However, watch as this tragic case is continued to be misreported and becomes part of the conventional wisdom one that GIs returning from overseas deployment are crazed and unstable. If anything if the Lauterbach murder case totally debunks the NY Times claims, but I don’t expect any media outlets to point it out. Thus the conventional wisdom is continuing to be formed.
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3:30 am on January 19th, 2008 1
This story just keeps getting worse and worse, doesn’t it? It is a sad but true axiom that a lie spreads around the world before truth has its boots on. Or something like that.
As I read the comments to your first post on this subject I couldn’t get my mind around how any right thinking person could not see the Times piece for what it was: a hatchet job on the men and women who proudly serve our nation. Then I read this, and it all made sense:
“To a darkly humorous degree, all this reflects the Freudian terrors leftists feel when confronted with men who don’t have concave chests.” Ralph Peters, NY Post
The Times and its defenders feel the need to demonize our troops because they represent the best of America and these young people of valor have earned the respect that the leftists covet but are incapable of achieving.
It’s all rather pathetic.
9:27 pm on January 19th, 2008 2
I have no problem with the media covering the murder case or even the PTSD problems, my issues with the media is how they sensationalize and leave out important facts such as neither of these two ever served a day in a combat zone and were admin clerks.