War, Genocide, & Punishment

Reading Reflection #3
This week’s blog about war, genocide, and punishment is a tough topic, it is hard for me to fathom the undeniable atrocities committed by individuals in times of war and waging genocide. Looking first at the Nuremberg Trials in which leaders of the Nazi Regime where prosecuted for their crimes against humanity. The prosecution brought forth first documentary evidence in reference to the first of four counts of war crimes. This evidence was used to establish the criminality of the Nazi Regime as a whole. Then the prosecution brought to light the physical evidence exemplifying the horrible terror the Jews must have endured. The physical evidence included sadistic and disgusting atrocities performed on the corpses of Jews, things like a shrunken human head used as a paperweight and human skins tattooed then used as lampshades. This physical evidence was used to establish the criminal acts committed by the individuals. In all, 18 out of the 22 Nazi leaders indicted were convicted on one or more counts of war crimes. Punishments ranged from lengthy prison sentences to death by hanging. In Ismael Beah’s narrative “A Long Way Gone,” he takes the reader through the horrors of war and the life of being a child soldier. His graphic account of children soldiers in war is eye-opening and very saddening. Remarkably, Beah was able to survive and escape the drugs, death, terrible position he was put in. The last book that I took a look at was “Left to Tell” by Immaculee Ilibagiza. Immaculee tells her account of surviving the Rwandan genocide of 1994. When looking at these topics it is excruciatingly painful to imagine how people can commit these acts. These issues provoke some questions in my mind. Are the people who actually commit these acts truly these sadistic horrible people that the evidence leads us to believe, or do the ideals of one powerful leader influence the group to commit acts they normally wouldn’t? When we look at the issue of the group from a social psychological standpoint, it makes me ponder Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Experiments (1965, 1974). In these controversial experiments Milgram had a “teacher” who was told to administer electrical shocks to the “student” if a question was answered incorrectly. The level of voltage ranged from a minor shock to a lethal range; of course no shocks were actually administered. The study showed that in the presence of authority, seemingly good people will do things out of character for them. I guess it’s hard for me to believe that so many people are so innately evil to commit these viscous acts. I think the power of the group and obedience to authority played a significant role, and still does, in these acts of war. I was shocked to read Beah’s account of being a soldier with a gun, killing people at the tender and innocent age of twelve. It is heartbreaking, to say the least, that children are out fighting wars and being killed in the world we live in today. I can’t even begin to imagine what war, death, and genocide would have on a person’s psyche.