Electronic Rock Blendrix
The Blood-Spangled Banner (Original Mix)

In 2010, an Army analyst named Chelsea Manning disclosed a large batch of classified military documents and multimedia files to the WikiLeaks organization, with the intent of informing the world about some of the US military's ethically and legally questionable activities in Iraq and Afghanistan.

One video clip in particular was so profoundly appalling that it quickly became known as the "Collateral Murder" video. In the clip, US military helicopter gunners can be seen targeting, shooting at, and killing unarmed civilians on the ground, all while laughing, congratulating one another, and mocking their defenseless victims writhing in agony on the ground below. This track features samples from the radio chatter between the gunners in that video.

I made this track not to glorify violence, nor to specifically call for the punishment of any of the soldiers involved in the incident, but to emphasize the utmost importance that must be placed on respecting the sanctity of human life, even in armed conflict situations. The US military has a long history of engaging in deliberate psychological desensitization of its soldiers, and the result is that many times, even the most level-headed, compassionate people can be transformed into ruthless, automated killing machines that often fail to properly analyze (and frequently overestimate) the threat level of the situation at hand before applying lethal force.

I hope that the exposure of this incident, and the discussions that have happened because of it have given the US military's senior leadership cause to re-evaluate the moral and ethical foundations of their training programs. I hope that reforms will be made that lead to a new era of military strategy, emphasizing compassion and swift neutralization of conflict through precise targeting of known threats, rather than the wholesale massacre of anyone within a given area where hostile activities have been reported.