Execution of Gaddafi's men is not shocking - it's war

EARLIER this week, at a seaside hotel in Sirte, journalists discovered the bullet-riddled bodies of 53 of Gaddafi's supporters - many of them with their hands tied behind their backs - apparently executed after capture by their opponents.

The UK deployed massive military force from air and sea precisely to stop such massacres. Have we bombed and strafed Gaddafi's thugs and killers merely to replace them with another group of thugs and killers - exchanged a bloodthirsty Tweedledum for a bloodthirsty Tweedledee?

Not on current evidence, although that is not to condone any killings in cold blood. It is what happens in war, exactly what we should expect and in this case easy enough to understand.

The rebel troops who carried out the atrocity were probably from Misrata, Libya's third city, relentlessly and indiscriminately shelled and sniped at for more than two months by Gaddafi's men. 'Misrata woz here' or its equivalent appears to have been daubed on the hotel's walls.

Misrata's fighters showed great aggression and energy in taking the battle to Gaddafi, motivated primarily by revenge. It is as if a group of survivors from Guernica got to have a crack at the Luftwaffe's Condor Legion.

Whatever the laws and customs of war, those unfortunate prisoners were naive to expect any mercy.

Perhaps those who express shock have been watching too many British PoW films of the 1950s where the knife-edge business of capture and the first few hours and days in captivity were never truthfully portrayed. Our soldiers and airmen seemed to proceed from the heat and chaos of battle to amateur dramatics and glider building in Colditz without passing Go.

In reality, British soldiers were often shot out of hand, particularly by SS units. Towards the end of the war, RAF bomber crews, forced to bail out over the cities they had just flattened, were often lynched by enraged German civilians.

Even where personal revenge is not a factor, being taken prisoner in or after battle has always been a chancy business. Sir Winston Churchill, himself taken prisoner during the Boer War, summed it up: "A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him."

George Macdonald Fraser, author of the much loved Flashman books, a private soldier in Burma in 1944-45, was even blunter. He went through a lot of tough fighting against the Japanese whose brutality he despised.

By then, the British Army was also well aware of the appalling mistreatment of its soldiers captured by the Japs at Hong Kong and Singapore earlier in the war. There was no quarter granted on either side. To anyone who criticised the practice of sometimes shooting prisoners, Fraser suggested: "Get yourself to the sharp end, against an enemy like the Japanese… and let me know how you get on."

So, however regrettable the massacre at Sirte, there is no need to panic yet. But we should keep up the pressure on Libya's interim leader, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, to rein in the young men who have fought so bravely against a tyrant. If they are not brought under control soon they will be a menace to the future of Libya.

As a matter of urgency he should mark their service with a victory parade and a Liberation medal. Those who want to continue under arms should be enlisted into the new Libyan Army and trained properly by the military advisers who have helped win them their victory over Gaddafi.

To those that want to return to civilian life, he should offer some other kind of reward – money to set up a business or education on the lines of the GI Bill. The London School of Economics would no doubt be happy to advise. ·