In war, there are no atrocities - just tragic events

It is now an established scientific fact that every one of us is capable of torturing another human to death. Through incremental conditioning, the network of electrical conduits in your brain can be reorganised to create a completely amoral personality. The degree of conditioning that is required will depend on your existing morality threshold as established by both your genetic inheritance and your life experiences.

Those autocratic regimes which create torturers simply exploit the natural reflex in all of us to justify our behaviour. The potential torturer has to choose between saving himself or sacrificing a stranger. Once the bargain with the devil has been struck, each step towards absolute evil becomes easier than the last.

The self-survival incentive may not even be required. Devotion to one’s interpretation of duty may be enough. Research once reported by the Readers Digest revealed that those courageous Gentiles who hid Jews during World War ll were invariably those individuals who were never fully enmeshed in society but tended to stand outside looking in. The most willing supporters of a dictatorship once it is established are those who previously were slavishly respectful of rules and hierarchical structure.

In the 2008 movie The Reader, the accused is asked by the judge why, 20 years earlier, she did not unlock the door of a burning building within which there were prisoners. Her reply was that she was an SS guard and it was her responsibility to keep the prisoners always confined. Then she asked the judge what he would have done. The judge looked startled. The audience was then left with the question - was his reaction due to the horror of her amorality or the fact that he truly did not know the answer? The important message of the movie was that before her arrest the accused had been an ordinary hard working person.

Never has there been a more stark example of fear resetting the morality level of millions than was Joseph Stalin’s USSR. The state was “god” to whom everything had to be sacrificed (including the head of state’s own wife). It was a society in which a policeman or even a neighbour could identify you as an enemy of the state by just looking into your eyes.

All Stalin needed to create this hell on Earth was to gradually get enough supporters into a frame of mind in which they justified to themselves their failure to oppose the wishes of a fanatic. At another time and place they would not have behaved that way.

Ordinary men brutalised when placed in brutal circumstances

A soldier’s environment redefines for him the value of human life. From the sound of the first explosion, his adrenalin level jumps to another level and stays there. The sight of a mangled mate may enrage a young man who only months before was a gentle bookworm. He will remain aggressive until he moves into a peaceful environment where his life and the lives of those around him are once more of value.

How can a soldier who loves his mother and sisters rape a terrified woman? Why, in an environment of filth and misery and where he himself may be dead before the end of the day, is he able to become sexually aroused? It is due to him being actually crazy at the time.

It is only in recent years that old veterans of World War ll have ceased to describe on public radio the Japanese soldier as being an animal. Some well-intentioned people are obsessed about bringing the “truth” to the children of Japan. They have no idea how this perspective will affect those children.

We know that the Japanese soldier was more cruel a captor than our own soldiers. In the Japanese culture, a soldier who surrenders is an unworthy human being who has disgraced his family. Should Japan apologise for that centuries’ old tradition?

The more resentful of his situation a soldier of any nation feels, the less empathy he has for the enemy. The Japanese soldier was often hungry and sick. As the war progressed, he became aware that he was on the losing side. Propaganda coming down to him ensured that the Japanese in the ranks believed that a victorious enemy would take revenge against the Japanese population - including the soldier’s own family.

The Japanese government has every moral right to protect the nation’s children from a perspective which implies that there is something especially evil in the Japanese character. The only lesson which should be taught to all children in every country is that a military-backed dictatorship creates an environment in which normally good people can become bad people.

Spreading the responsibility

By definition, the word “atrocity” means a totally unacceptable act. If any event is inevitable, then it has to be acceptable as there is no other option. It follows that if atrocities are inevitable, then they have to be acceptable. It would seem that the looking for an opportunity to start a war is that which can never be acceptable.

However, no one person can initiate a war. There are principal players who could not do what they do without many supporting them. Radovan Karadzic was a principle player in a war which led to 8,000 Bosnian Muslims being executed in the one event. He has been before the Hague Tribunal since his capture in 2008.

The parents of children who have been terribly injured as a result of the sectarian violence unleashed in Iraq, after that country’s “liberation” caused the social structure to break down, would believe that the American ex-president should also be before the Hague Tribunal. When, against a background of flags, George W Bush declared war on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, his signature on that paper automatically condemned thousands to death or maiming or disfigurement and millions to lose their homes. That is what war does.

Karadzic is facing retribution because he is an easy target while Bush is not. After the theatrics of the legal process, Karadzic will be sentenced to life imprisonment while Bush will be left free to continue with his ranching and church going.

But, why shouldn’t Bush be left in peace with his family? Every American politician and general who encouraged Bush is as guilty as he is. And, so are Tony Blair and John Howard and their governments at the time who provided the international support for the invasion of Iraq that Bush craved.

If you voted for the Howard government because of its record of economic management, then you share in the responsibility for those Iraqi children who now have a mass of scar tissue for a face.

The self-serving war crimes industry

Some years ago in this country, three immigrant men who were well into their 80s were charged with war crimes. Two were actually dying. No convictions ensued and $45 million of taxpayers’ money was blown on the exercise. Those who jumped on the gravy train told us that it is never too late for justice to be served, but as the accused men had enjoyed 50 years of freedom since World War ll, it was obviously too late.

The accused were probably guilty, but their only interest in insisting on their innocence was to shield their families from shame and the feeling of loss when a loved one is proven to have an evil past. Our pursuit of justice was going to do little more than wreck innocent families.

How evil and how normal is Karadzic? When he was captured, he was a productive member of society. His charisma made those he associated with feel good about themselves in their peaceful environments. Because he was not a natural born psychopath, he was able to relate to the feelings of others and was able to become a new man in a new environment.

At the dizzy heights of national leadership, the consequences of a decision which is morally wrong is scaled up accordingly. Hate, of which he was not aware, drove Winston Churchill to order the burning of thousands of Dresden’s civilians after Germany was already clearly beaten. Mind games with Stalin led to Harry Truman ordering the burning of thousands of Hiroshima’s civilians after Japan was already clearly beaten.

As both men are still honoured: the mass of the people of those nations have a muddled perception of morality. So does the mass of the population of every nation. A war crimes trial of an easy target is a comfortable escape from the moral confusion.

The 13 years of searching for Karadzic must have been very costly. The months of hearing the case against him will cost several millions of dollars of the $200 million or so spent annually to run the war crimes tribunals. It’s good work if you can get it.

Of course there would be no court room theatre if Karadzic admitted to his guilt. The fact that this former medical doctor and prize-winning poet feels that he is innocent says a lot for the way relatively normal minds (as distinct from psychopathic minds) rationalise their behaviour.

Currently we have people conducting interviews in an attempt to identify those who committed war crimes during the brief Russian-Georgian war. This is an exercise performed in the name of humanity, but driven by the satisfaction it gives to those who occupy the moral high ground and who see the dollars beckoning.

Both the law and the general citizenry ignore the scientific description of brain structure and function and hang onto religious-based notions of free will, crime and punishment.