This is what those appalling euphemisms ''collateral damage'' and ''caught in the crossfire'' look like on the ground: the smouldering remains of a hospital, patients burnt alive in their beds, medical staff killed while treating others already maimed in a conflict seemingly beyond anyone's control.
The recent air strike on the hospital run by medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres in the Afghan city of Kunduz simply beggars belief.
It appears to have been carried out by US military forces as part of the international coalition and government forces targeting of Taliban insurgents, who overran the city a week ago.
But many are wondering how it was possible to get things so wrong - given the GPS co-ordinates of the hospital were reportedly given to the US and Afghan authorities several times so as to avoid such a scenario occurring, and given the US and Afghan authorities were reportedly informed even as the bombing was under way.
The incident has rightly caused outrage because it has involved medical staff and an international aid organisation, which, along with the United Nations, is calling it a ''war crime''.
Sadly, such events are the reality of conflict - and often of international military intervention - for ordinary civilians.
One more incident is unlikely to make a meaningful difference for those caught in the crossfire.
In part, that seems to be because so much time and energy at international level is dedicated to the blame game, and that has been particularly evident in recent days.
There have been claims and denials the Taliban were hiding in the hospital (as if that could somehow justify the strikes if it was proven to be the case).
There has been military posturing by Russia in Syria, heated disagreement with Western powers about the targets of that country's air strikes, and - unsurprisingly - more ''collateral damage'' there.
And for the past week at the United Nations the world's leaders - including New Zealand Prime Minister John Key - have continued to point fingers about the reasons for that organisation's failings to ease the conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere.
Those failures are mounting: unresolved conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians and their backers have contributed to various regional conflicts; those in turn have spurred the world's greatest refugee crisis since World War 2.
In the wake of the blunders, the failings, the atrocities on the ground, it seems less and less possible for that organisation - and many nations within it - to claim any moral high ground.
Of course there are no simple or quick fixes to the complicated and protracted conflicts.
But damage control in this latest incident is vital for the US and its international support partners.
The US must do more than conduct its own military inquiry, and launch a full, independent and transparent investigation.
Without political accountability, there cannot be diplomatic progress, and without honest, open communication in the corridors of power, there can be no chance of making meaningful progress on the ground.
The longer these conflicts draw out, the more generations become involved, and the harder it is to break the cycle of retribution.
And the more the international community is viewed as a problem not a solution in conflicts, the easier it will be for extremist groups to recruit and radicalise youth.
Friday's shooting in Sydney of a police staff member by a 15-year-old schoolboy is suspected to have been politically motivated, and has certainly once again brought the realities of terrorism closer to home.
In the wake of that shooting, the Muslim community is being urged to be the first line of defence against radicalisation, and Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told the country ''no one level of government or no one section of community can do it alone''.
She is right, but communities and countries do require leadership by example.
The United States would be well advised that honesty is the best policy if it is to have a hope in minimising the fallout from the appalling errors which have been made in Kunduz.
