Cowards

Some thoughts today about the continued hope, that as a species we learn to stop killing each other in the most cowardly ways. I watched a news clip the other day that is still bothering me.
It entailed a group of five young men taken to the town square some where in Nigeria; they were handcuffed behind their backs, told to lay face down. A soldier then walked over, and using a semi automatic rifle shot each one dead through the middle of the upper back.

Just writing about it has upset me all over again.

It brings to mind some questions about why we behave this way toward one another.
Were these politically motivated killings?
Were they meting out punishment to criminals?
Were they simply cleaning out members of a different tribal group (political)?
Were these young men themselves killers?

Whatever the reason, these young men were killed by cowards plain and simple. Ours is the only species on the planet to kill in a cowardly way, why is that?

I think that if we had to face our foe/opponent/enemy face to face and kill with our bare hands that we would develop much more tolerant ways toward each other, which would be a good thing both for the species and the planet.