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.
[copied and pasted text removed]
Comments (6 of 6)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6"Such behaviour is nothing new in war"
It could be suggested that they were "only following orders", but surely then the political leaders who give the orders and send people out to kill and be killed have a lot to answer for. The issue surely is whether war itself is acceptable or not.
Reminds of the scene in Saving Private Ryan when the Americans have overcome the beach defences and two Germans come out of their trenches with their hands up trying to surrender and two GI's pretend they don't understand and shoot them down.
If I was in the same position after witnessing my buddies shot to pieces I would be in a blind rage and I would feel cheated when that the enemy could escape his just deserts by putting up his hands.
I remember reading that British and German soldiers often took no prisoners because enemy who were captured would get out of the rat infested misery of the trenches and enjoy the softer conditions in the prisoner of war camps.
If their friends and comrades had died soldiers wanted to inflict their own personal vengence on the enemy and the bleeding hearts back home could stuff the Geneva conventions.
Officers encourage this practice for two important reasons 1. If men are more willing to kill they will fight better 2. Too many POW's means that personnel must be diverted from the frontline to look after them.
In book Band of Brothers, Major Winters and his men killed or captured a company of German SS.
A group of about a dozen or so were being led away by a private who had a reputation for being trigger happy.
Winters took him aside, confiscated his ammo and grenades and left him with a single bullet in his rifle.
He also made sure that the rear commander told him if the prisoners arrived and how many they were.
That if the private shot a prisoner he would be jumped by the others.
Boys will be boys.
During the Pacific War, U.S. Marines used to behead the dead bodies of Japanese soldiers, boil the flesh off them and use the skulls as unit mascots while others collected ears and strung them together on boot laces.
In Europe, GI's collected watches, money, belt buckles, Lugers, steel helmets, war ribbons and Hitler youth daggers from dead Krauts.
Here is an account of an atrocity perpetrated against Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians in Colorado in November 1864-
"Chivington himself appeared at a Denver theater several days later, toting a chain of 100 scalps and the genitalia a Cheyenne woman. Some reports suggested that Chivington also brought a fetus"
http://axisofevelknievel.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archiv....html
All these war atrocity stories bear out the moral that war brings out the savage beast in men. That is all the more reason for people to campaign against war and to work for equitable trading relations between nations. Third world development is another name for peace.
An article in today's London Independent about the testimony from Israel's Shovrim Shtika group . The report details the horrific IDF treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank city of Hebron. Shovrim Shtika - Breaking the Silence- is an Israeli NGO consisting of serving Israeli soldiers and veterans which gathers and collates evidence of IDF maltreatment of Palestinians .
"We were right next to this, but did nothing. We were indifferent, you know. OK. Only after the fact you start thinking. Not right away. We were doing such things every day ... It had become a habit..."
http://www.independent.co.uk/
Indymedia Ireland is a media collective. We are independent volunteer citizen journalists producing and distributing the authentic voices of the people. Indymedia Ireland is an open news project where anyone can post their own news, comment, videos or photos about Ireland or related matters.