Simply Murder.

Why does the Bush Administration continue to allow our soldiers to be treated like this?

Compare these definitions of Murder and Manslaughter by Negligence with what this newly published Pentagon study reveals and decide for yourself which felony applies.

Because any way you cut it, this Administration is sure as shit guilty of homicide, either by murder or by utterly depraved negligence.

Here are the definitions:

Criminal Homicide - Manslaughter by Negligence: The killing of another person through gross negligence.

Criminal Homicide - Murder and Non-Negligent Manslaughter: The willful (non-negligent) killing of one human being by another.

And here is the article from the NYT…

January 7, 2006
Pentagon Study Links Fatalities to Light Armor
By MICHAEL MOSS

A secret Pentagon study has found that as many as 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to the upper body could have survived if they had had extra body armor. Such armor has been available since 2003, but until recently the Pentagon has largely declined to supply it to troops despite calls from the field for additional protection, according to military officials.

The ceramic plates in vests now worn by the majority of troops in Iraq cover only some of the chest and back. In at least 74 of the 93 fatal wounds that were analyzed in the Pentagon study of marines from March 2003 through June 2005, bullets and shrapnel struck the marines' shoulders, sides or areas of the torso where the plates do not reach.

Thirty-one of the deadly wounds struck the chest or back so close to the plates that simply enlarging the existing shields "would have had the potential to alter the fatal outcome," according to the study, which was obtained by The New York Times.
For the first time, the study by the military's medical examiner shows the cost in lost lives from inadequate armor, even as the Pentagon continues to publicly defend its protection of the troops.

Officials have said they are shipping the best armor to Iraq as quickly as possible. At the same time, they have maintained that it is impossible to shield forces from the increasingly powerful improvised explosive devices used by insurgents in Iraq. Yet the Pentagon's own study reveals the equally lethal threat of bullets.
The vulnerability of the military's body armor has been known since the start of the war, and is part of a series of problems that have surrounded the protection of American troops. Still, the Marine Corps did not begin buying additional plates to cover the sides of their troops until last September, when it ordered 28,800 sets, Marine officials acknowledge.

…
Military officials said they had originally decided against using the extra plates because they were concerned they added too much weight to the vests or constricted the movement of soldiers. Marine Corps officials said the findings of the Pentagon study caused field commanders to override those concerns in the interest of greater protection.

"As the information became more prevalent and aware to everybody that in fact these were casualty sites that they needed to be worried about, then people were much more willing to accept that weight on their body," said Maj. Wendell Leimbach, a body armor specialist with Marine Corps Systems Command, the corps procurement unit.
The Pentagon has been collecting the data on wounds since the beginning of the war in March 2003 in part to determine the effectiveness of body armor. The military's medical examiner, Dr. Craig T. Mallak, told a military panel in 2003 that the information "screams to be published." But it would take nearly two years.

…
The production of a new armored truck called the Cougar, which military officials said had so far withstood every insurgent attack, has fallen three months behind schedule. The small company making the truck has been beset by a host of production and legal problems.

…
Body armor has gone through a succession of problems in Iraq. First, there were prolonged shortages of the plates that make the vests bulletproof. Last year, the Pentagon began replacing the plates with a stronger model that is more resistant to certain insurgent attacks.

Almost from the beginning, some soldiers asked for additional protection to stop bullets from slicing through their sides. In the fall of 2003, when troops began hanging their crotch protectors under their arms, the Army's Rapid Equipping Force shipped several hundred plates to protect their sides and shoulders. Individual soldiers and units continued to buy their own sets.

…
"Our preliminary research suggests that as many as 42 percent of the Marine casualties who died from isolated torso injuries could have been prevented with improved protection in the areas surrounding the plated areas of the vest," the study concludes. An additional 23 percent might have been saved with side plates that extend below the arms, while 15 percent more could have benefited from shoulder plates, the report says.

In all, 526 marines have been killed in combat in Iraq. A total of 1,706 American troops have died in combat there. The findings and other research by military pathologists suggests that an analysis of all combat deaths in Iraq, including those of Army troops, would show that 300 or more lives might have been saved with improved body armor.
…

When you sign your military contract, you sign away a lot of rights that you enjoyed as a civilian. And in a democracy that is right and proper and, at least in theory, well-understood.

And although it goes without saying – given the job description of “soldier” -- one of the burdens you agree to take up is to stand between civilians like me and the enemies of my nation. This exchange – this willingness to interpose your mortal flesh between me and danger – deserves nothing but praise.

Period.

But what I own to you – what the nation owes to you – is the best protection available in your dangerous trade, and a generous measure of support to you and yours who shoulder the burden. And because sometimes I must ask you to make that ultimately sacrifice, you are also owed my solemn compact with you that I’ll never ask this of you lightly.

A promise – from American to American; civilian to soldier – that I will never, ever put you down on the firing line recklessly or thoughtlessly.

And it is because Progressives honors the soldier’s service and the soldier’s sacrifice that we are furious with the Bush Administration. Because we think the feudal, royalist attitude of the Bushies towards people that labor for a living to simultaneously feed their children and bear up their nation is sickening.

They go to war…casually. Recklessly. Only taking the counsel of ass-lickers and sycophants at the cost of American lives and American treasure.

Twelve dead Americans in a West Virgina coal mine, their families, friends and community will attest to the price we will continue to pay for a government -- a Republican government -- that doesn’t believe that protecting Americans who walk onto some God-forsaken battlefield or go down into the Earth to do hard, dangerous work is the business of government.

When we can save them.

When we have the technology to save them. And yet time and again this Administration deliberately decides to deny them the protection they need and deserve -- to leave them to the tender mercies of luck and fate -- because they can save a couple of bucks.

So tell me, what is that but murder?

Just murder.