Why do troops shoot prisoners?

international | anti-war / imperialism | other press Friday April 18, 2008 15:30 by Kurt Jurgens

A revealing incident from WW2

Today we witness the international media reporting on the fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.
Few of the journalists have ever served in the military and few of them can understand the overwhelming fear, terror and daily brutality that turns men into merciless killers.

In our nice sanitised view of war, soldier kill other soldiers and do not gun down prisoners with their hands up.

The intensely savage battle for Fallujah, an American soldier was filmed shooting an apparently unarmed and wounded insurgent.
In Haditha, a squad of American soldiers ran amok and cut down men women and children with automatic weapons and grenades.

Such behaviour is nothing new in war.

The following is an account of the notorious "Malmedy Massacre", an incident when unarmed American prisoners were gunned down by German troops during WW2.

It reveals the huge stress than men endure during combat that produces acts that are incomprehensible to civilians who have no experience of combat.

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