Manufacturing war myths at the NY Times

Betsy's Page:

James Taranto links to this correction in the New York Times.

An article on Feb. 9 about the military's recruitment of Hispanics referred incompletely to the belief of some critics that Hispanics in the Iraq war and blacks in the Vietnam War accounted for a disproportionate number of casualties. Statistics do not support the belief. Hispanics, who are about 14 percent of the population, accounted for about 11 percent of the military deaths in Iraq through Dec. 3, 2005. About 12.5 percent of the military dead in Vietnam were African-Americans, who made up about 13. 5 percent of the general population during the war years. The error was pointed out in an e-mail in February; the correction was delayed for research after a lapse at The Times.

The story referenced was one on how the military is targeting to enlist Hispanics. The whole tone of that article was that there was something underhanded and unethical about targeting Hispanics. This is the line that sparked the correction.

Critics also say that Latinos often wind up as cannon fodder on the casualty-prone front lines. African-Americans saw the same thing happen during the 1970's and 1980's, an accusation that still reverberates. Hispanics make up only 4.7 percent of the military's officer corps.

The fact that a journalist would trumpet that myth from Vietnam without having done any research to assure its truth is typical. I'm not sure why it took two months for the New York Times to ascertain that this old distortion from Vietnam was false....

Or, if the New York Times is too lazy to read an entire book, they could check out some of these sites: Statistics about the Vietnam War or Vietnam War Myths where they would find clarification that explodes a lot of the propaganda that still lingers about who fought in the Vietnam War.

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She goes on to list several of them. Check it out.