DesertFox
04-05-2006, 08:27 PM
Mackubin Thomas Owens
NRO
4 Oct 02
As I was channel-surfing late one evening last week, I was stopped in my tracks by the spectacle of Phil Donahue "interviewing" fellow master of pomposity Chris Matthews about the latter's views on a war with Iraq. Matthews was waxing indignant about how President Bush's Iraq policy had been hijacked by neoconservatives who had never served in uniform. (Of course, neither did Matthews.) He then claimed that in the event of a war with Iraq, racial minorities would suffer disproportionate casualties, since minorities make up nearly 30 percent of the military. Donahue heartily agreed.
This old saw also has found its way back into politics. A case in point is the Texas senatorial race. In a September 13 speech in San Antonio, the Democratic candidate, former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk, accused his Republican opponent, John Coryn, Texas Attorney-General, of being more favorably disposed toward war with Iraq because the children of the latter's wealthy friends would not be "in the front lines." "Look who would be doing the fighting," said Kirk. "They're disproportionately ethnic, they're disproportionately minority...I would be curious to see if we would go to war without any thought of loss if the first half-million kids to go came from families who made one million dollars."
The contention that in America's wars, minorities bear a disproportionate burden of the fighting and dying has long been a staple of Left-wing rhetoric since the Vietnam War. Even as late as the Gulf War in 1991, Jesse Jackson, addressing a largely black audience, claimed that "when that war breaks out, our youth will burn first."
But as Will Rogers once said, "it's not the things we don't know that get us into trouble. It's the things we know that just ain't true." The claim of disproportionate minority casualties wasn't true during the Vietnam War, where the record indicates that 86 percent of those who died during the war were white and 12.5 percent were black, from an age group in which blacks comprised 13.1 percent of the population. It is even less true today.
More (http://www.nationalreview.com/owens/owens100402.asp)
NRO
4 Oct 02
As I was channel-surfing late one evening last week, I was stopped in my tracks by the spectacle of Phil Donahue "interviewing" fellow master of pomposity Chris Matthews about the latter's views on a war with Iraq. Matthews was waxing indignant about how President Bush's Iraq policy had been hijacked by neoconservatives who had never served in uniform. (Of course, neither did Matthews.) He then claimed that in the event of a war with Iraq, racial minorities would suffer disproportionate casualties, since minorities make up nearly 30 percent of the military. Donahue heartily agreed.
This old saw also has found its way back into politics. A case in point is the Texas senatorial race. In a September 13 speech in San Antonio, the Democratic candidate, former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk, accused his Republican opponent, John Coryn, Texas Attorney-General, of being more favorably disposed toward war with Iraq because the children of the latter's wealthy friends would not be "in the front lines." "Look who would be doing the fighting," said Kirk. "They're disproportionately ethnic, they're disproportionately minority...I would be curious to see if we would go to war without any thought of loss if the first half-million kids to go came from families who made one million dollars."
The contention that in America's wars, minorities bear a disproportionate burden of the fighting and dying has long been a staple of Left-wing rhetoric since the Vietnam War. Even as late as the Gulf War in 1991, Jesse Jackson, addressing a largely black audience, claimed that "when that war breaks out, our youth will burn first."
But as Will Rogers once said, "it's not the things we don't know that get us into trouble. It's the things we know that just ain't true." The claim of disproportionate minority casualties wasn't true during the Vietnam War, where the record indicates that 86 percent of those who died during the war were white and 12.5 percent were black, from an age group in which blacks comprised 13.1 percent of the population. It is even less true today.
More (http://www.nationalreview.com/owens/owens100402.asp)