This whole incident has me thinking of an old friend of mine that fought in the Pacific Theatre in WWII. He told me stories of how brutal we (Americans) were towards the Japanese. Stories of disabling Japanese merchant ships and then using them for target practice (with all hands on deck); machine gunning enemy soldiers in the water; mercilessly shelling Tokyo for three days straight with no regard for where in particular their shells landed. He had no apologies for what he or America did in that war. He just said that 'that's the nature of war'.
Now we have to ask ourselves if the nature of war has changed that much? Is it possible to 'kill them with love'? Will that show weakness and just prolong the war? I don't know the answer yet, but I sure as hell hope we aren't going down the wrong path.
Yeah, stuf like that happens in war. There is a reason why John included it among the four horsemen of the apocalypse. It is man at his worse.