War isn’t a purgatory where sins are perfectly judged in the convenience of eternity. War is hell. Decisions are made quickly, and indiscriminate bullets rip through the flesh of saints and sinners alike.This uncomfortable fact was recently illustrated by anonymous whistleblowers who released a video recording from the crosshairs of an Army helicopter. In July 2007, two Apache helicopters “surged” into one of the most dangerous sections of eastern Baghdad.In the video, the pilots see a handful of men gathering in a courtyard. The soldiers see what they believe to be an RPG being aimed at them and open fire on the unaware group.Perhaps the Apache screens aren’t as detailed as the YouTube video I watched from my armchair, but, to my eyes, the alleged RPG looked exactly like what it really was — a camera.Two of the victims, Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh, were journalists employed by Reuters.Noor-Eldeen and several other targets instantly exploded in a rain of .50 cal machine gun fire. Chmagh fell to the ground wounded and tried to crawl to safety.Shortly after, an unnamed civilian pulled up to the scene and tried to help the wounded Chmagh into his van.”We have individuals going to the scene, looks like possibly picking up bodies and weapons,” one of the soldiers reported. After seeking permission to fire, the Americans destroyed the good Samaritan’s van.”Look at that,” A proud gunner exclaimed. “Right through the windshield!”Turns out the good Samaritan had been taking his two daughters to a tutoring session. They were sitting in the passenger seat.In the soldiers’ defense, weapons were found on some of the bodies, but it’s common for Iraqi civilians to be armed. None of the individuals took aggressive stances, and we’ll probably never know how many, if any, were enemy combatants.But the journalists were certainly not the enemy. They were just journalists doing what journalists do — taking the extra step to ensure the truth is told.Innocent blood was spilled, and ink has since been spilled criticizing the engagement.But to blame the Apaches’ gunmen is to dangerously miss the point.The soldiers weren’t acting out of line when they gunned down the helpless journalists and children. They were just soldiers doing what soldiers do — using lethal force on those they’re ordered to kill.Every action taken had the full support of their superiors. The pilots were completely justified, according to the military’s formal investigation. The only reason this story got any attention was because two of the victims happened to be journalists. If not for that coincidence, the dead would have been filed under “insurgents killed,” and not a single American would have seen the infamous video.This wasn’t the frenzied, riotous accident of the Boston Massacre. This was well executed by the numbers operation — another all too common data point in our empire’s bloody history.General Stanley McChrystal, the current commander of our troops in Afghanistan, holds virtual town hall meetings every two weeks with soldiers in Afghanistan. Last month he responded to a question about increasing violence at the checkpoints by saying:”To my knowledge, in the nine-plus months I’ve been here, not a single case where we have engaged in an escalation of force incident and hurt someone has it turned out that the vehicle had a suicide bomb or weapons in it and, in many cases, had families in it.”By all means, watch the leaked video at http://collateralmurder.com, but don’t look for American soldiers committing war crimes. Watch the video of U.S. soldiers doing their job in the country we invaded funded by the taxes you just reluctantly filed.Watch the video to see the callous disregard for innocent life found in young boys high on testosterone, adrenaline and patriotism.Watch the video to witness a handful of civilian deaths in a war that has snuffed hundreds of thousands of innocent souls out of existence.Watch the video to see why they hate us.And maybe, once we really understand the human costs of war, we won’t start them so carelessly.Daniel Morgan is a 22-year-old economics major from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_dmorgan.—-Contact Daniel Morgan at [email protected]