The My Lai Massacre: A Military Crime Of Obedience

Just because an order is coming from an authority figure does not mean that it is legal and has to be followed. In “The My Lai Massacre A Military Crime of Obedience” Herbert C. Kelman and V. Lee Hamilton examine the power of obedience to enforce people to act against their own belief and moral code. Similarly with “Opinions and social pressure” article by Solomon E. Asch who asserts in his article that individuals can be influenced by groups to deny the evidence of their own senses. Comparing those two articles gives the reader a better understanding of the Few Good Men movie on how can someone attempt such crimes like killing someone who was unarmed while ignoring their own beliefs and moral code.
A Few Good Men is a film about obedience

In this article Herbert C. Kelman and V. Lee Hamilton examine the power of obedience to enforce people to act against their own beliefs and moral codes. The article has the same plot as the movie were fellow marines killing people unarmed and without any reason but following orders. In “The My Lai” article, Kelman and Hamilton explain that the soldiers who participated in this massacre and other massacres like the holocaust because of three social processes that transfer the soldiers and make them commit such horrible crimes of obedience. According to Kelman and Hamilton these three social processes are: authorization, routinization, and dehumanization. Authorization is when the order is being divided up between the officer and no one has the full responsibility of the order. Through routinization the order comes so organized and confident from the authority figure that people become involved in the action without considering its complication and without making decisions or even asking moral questions. In dehumanization the soldiers do not interact with each others as humans and interact with themselves and other people that they are targeting as subjects (Kelman and Hamilton 139). In another article written by Solomon E. Asch “Opinions and Social Pressure” it says that individuals can be highly influenced by groups to deny the evidence of their own senses. The studies provides a powerful

Applying this theory into the movie, Col. Jessup ordering the code red and later ordering Lt. Col. Matthew Andrew Markinson that Private santiago is not to be transferred and be killed is authorization and then later Lt. Col. Matthew Andrew Markinson ordering Dawson and Downey to kill private santiago because he ignored the chain of command is routinization and then the action of the two marines killing Private Santiago is dehumanization. In the movie the two marines were always referring to the people of higher position as sir and it's understandable that they do that because of respect but in the movie, Lt. Sam Weinberg told Kaffe that if Downey did not look that strict he would seem like he actually have a family and this is an example of dehumanization. The Soldiers who commit crime of obedience are dehumanized. They look like objects to the rest of the world and the victims that they are harming. In one of the court scene CPI. Barens said “well I guess I just follow the crown at chow time, sir” This is exactly what Solomon Asch was talked about in his article. People choose to go with other people's judgment even if it is as clear as it can be wrong. There is a huge similarity if not the same exact point made in the “The My Lai” and Few Good Men movie. In the article The Core of