Is our troops, according to the New York Times.

Alcohol, strictly forbidden by the American military in Iraq and Afghanistan, is involved in a growing number of crimes committed by troops deployed to those countries. Alcohol- and drug-related charges were involved in more than a third of all Army criminal prosecutions of soldiers in the two war zones — 240 of the 665 cases resulting in convictions, according to records obtained by The New York Times through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Seventy-three of those 240 cases involve some of the most serious crimes committed, including murder, rape, armed robbery and assault. Sex crimes accounted for 12 of the convictions.

Sounds like a horrible problem! A downward spiral! A worsening trend!

Unless of course, you remove the sensationalism and stick to the numbers.

Bull Nav, our resident Swabbie over at OPFOR, hits the NYT’s with a healthy dose of perspective.

When you look at the chart, you find that over a 5 year period (2002-2006) there were a total of 665 criminal prosecutions, which works out to 133 per year. Now if we assume that 133 was the actual average for the last couple of years, and that we have had around 140,000 armed forces personnel in country per year, you find that only 0.095% of our total personnel there were prosecuted for crimes.

Yet the story didn’t read “Crime Rate Amongst US Troops Less Than National Average.” Wonder why.

Related: Ed Morrissey catches the Times running interference for CAIR.