One of the strongest opponents of our actions in Iraq is Congressman Charlie Rangel of New York. But now, the congressman has taken it up a notch.
In an April 15 speech at the National Press Club, Cong. Rangel called the Iraqi war a "death tax" on America's poor and minorities. Cong. Rangel has often claimed that those being sent to Iraq are disproportionately drawn from poor and minority groups. But this time he said he had some figures to back up that claim: “We have done some research with the Department of Defense. And we have found that 26 percent of those killed in action are either African-American or Hispanics.”
The problem is that the congressman’s own figures prove that his premise is wrong. As opinionjournal.com notes, “Hispanics make up 12.5% of the population and non-Hispanic blacks 12.1%, for a total of 24.6%. If about a quarter of the soldiers killed in Iraq belonged to one of these groups, that means blacks and Hispanics are dying at almost precisely proportionate numbers to their share of the population.”
And that’s the Asman Observer.
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