EVS Sets Daily News Columnist Straight
On Sunday September 3rd New York Daily News columnist Albor Ruiz ran a column claiming that minorities were bearing a disproportionate share of the casualties in Iraq.
His sources (a pacifist organization and a single Spanish-language newspaper reporter) were as dubious as his motivation. Ruiz is willing to misrepresent facts and divide Americans along racial lines in order to undermine our war effort in Iraq.
EVS Founder Kieran Michael Lalor submitted a well-sourced response correcting Ruiz’s distortions and spoke directly with the editorial page editor. Still, the Daily News refused to run this EVS response.
Daily News Propaganda Piece
LEFTIST ANTI-WAR PROPAGANDIST MASQUERADING AS A COLUMNIST AT THE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
September 8, 2006
By Kieran Michael Lalor
Columnist Albor Ruiz recently revived the well-worn anti-war talking point that poor minorities are shouldering more than their share of the burden in Iraq (“Minorities Paying Heavy Toll In Iraq” Sunday September 3, 2006). His timing is curious considering the last two New Yorkers killed in Iraq, a law student and a State Trooper serving in the Marine Reserve, were of Irish descent. Even more curious is that Ruiz ran a column with an obviously bogus analysis.
According to the nonpartisan Center for American Progress, casualties in Iraq closely reflect the U.S. population. In fact, it is white servicemen who are dying in disproportionate numbers. Consider, non-Hispanic whites make up 70% of the total U.S. population but more than 72% of military personnel killed in Iraq are white.
It is worth noting that the CPA is not a right-wing or neoconservative institution. The Washington D.C. based think tank describes itself as “progressive” and purports to be dedicated “to promoting a strong, just and free America that ensures opportunity for all.” If you don’t trust the CPA’s findings, consider Berkley researcher Brian Gifford. According to Gifford, who authored a study called Combat Casualties and Race, “You periodically hear these arguments since Vietnam that minority Americans—blacks in particular—are used as cannon fodder in America’s wars. What you find from this data is that this myth is not true.”
Ruiz based his column on a study by a Spanish-language newspaper and cites to a pacifist organization’s analysis of recruiting station geography to bolster his claim that recruiters prey on minorities. He thunders, “In Manhattan, three of six centers are in Hispanic and black areas.” But the majority of Manhattan is non-white so if half the borough’s recruitment centers are in minority neighborhoods it is an indication that people of color are not being over-recruited.
Comically, Ruiz is upset that the Upper Eastside is not pulling its weight militarily. Does the 5th Avenue crowd enlist in lower numbers because they are white and rich or because they are disproportionately anti-war and pro-Ned Lamont? My money is on the latter.
Ruiz characterizes the military as young and uneducated. However, only 85% of military-age Americans have a high school diploma but 95% of service members are high school grads.
Ruiz paints a disturbing picture of boy soldiers dying in Iraq. Yet the average age of enlisted personnel killed is twenty-five. Given that a standard enlistment is four years, a 25 year-old either enlisted or reenlisted after his 21st birthday. This dispels the fiction that naïve teenagers duped by recruiters are bearing the brunt of the burden.
Ruiz, like most race-hustlers, blurs the line between legal and illegal immigrants when referring to immigration enforcement proponents as the “rabid anti-immigrant crowd.” He claims this group ignores immigrant military contributions. But the only institution in America that still refuses to hire illegals, is the U.S. military. Because of the exhaustive screening process required to join the military, illegal immigrants absolutely cannot enlist. Thus, the 12 million illegals in the country are shouldering zero-percent of the military load while one-hundred-percent enjoying the security and unparalleled prosperity our Armed Forces makes possible.
I believe in the popular Marine Corps adage that there are no white, black or brown Marines; just Marines that are different shades of green. Thus, I point out Mr. Ruiz’s shameless misrepresentations not to degrade the service of minorities or to praise the contributions of whites. I exposed these distortions because such claims are divisive, destructive and damaging to our military and our nation at a time when unity is vital to prevailing in the current fight to preserve our way of life.
If Albor Ruiz opposes the liberation and stabilization of Iraq, he should do so on the merits of the conflict and not by parroting inaccurate anti-war propaganda. That Ruiz and the American Left have to resort to erroneous statistics and race-bating to oppose the Iraq theater of the war on terror, is a poignant indication of their pathetically brittle platform of capitulation and appeasement.
-Kieran Michael Lalor, a Marine Corps veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, is the Founder & Executive Director of EternalVigilanceSociety.org
|
