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

and crime. The movie starts with two marines later known as Lance Corporal Harold Dawson and PFC Landon Downy killing Private William Santiago. In the Movie Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee, a Navy lawyer who is in charge of Dawson and Downey’s Case tries to get the two marines to have a six month sentence instead of twelve years and when he successfully get the six month sentence, the two marines refused to plead guilty because according to them they did nothing wrong but follow the orders and codes. Later in the movie, Kaffee, Lieutenant Commander Jo Galloway, and Lieutenant Sam Weinberg found that these two marians were following the orders of Colonel Nathan R. Jessup who ordered them to put Private Santiago on “Code Red” because he was an underachiever, and he ignored the chain of commands and also wrote letters to people above Colonel Jessup asking them for a transfer from the Guantanamo Marine Base in Cuba to anywhere else in return for important information about the illegal shooting. After the case was taken to trial and proceeded to the courtroom, Colonel. Jessup finally admitted that he ordered the Code Red and he was the reason why Private Santiago was killed.
Similar to the movie “The My Lai Massacre: A Military Crime of Obedience” article.

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

evidences of which people can ignore their own judgment because of other people’s judgment even though other people’s judgment was clearly wrong. Solomon asked the subjects of the experiment to simply look at two pictures, one had only one line and the other had three lines that only one of the three lines is identical to the other line . The subjects were told to choose which line from the three lines look like the one line in picture one. The subject was placed into a room that had four other people who were told to pick the wrong answer to see if the subject will go with the wrong answer because everyone was picking it or will choose the answer that is right (Solomon 143). In most cases the subject went with the answer that was definitely wrong simply because the rest of the group chose the wrong answer (Solomon 144). Both “The My Lai” article and the “opinions and social pressure” argues that as people tend to follow orders because everyone else is following them and do not raise any moral question to think whether the action that was taken is right or wrong.
Connecting the two articles with the movie to have better understanding of how did the two marines Lance Corporal Harold Dawson and PFC Landon Downy killed their fellow marine Private William Santiago just because he could not run as fast as the rest of his squad.
Kelman and Hamilton contends that the crimes of obedience in military happen easily because of the three social processes which are authorization, routinization and dehumanization.

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

Lieutenant Calley’s defense was orders from a superior and he also said “That all orders were to be assumed legal,...” he also continued and explained that if a soldier did not follow and order he will face death penalty “ You could be court-martialed for refusing an order and refusing an order in the face of the enemy, you could be sent to death, sir.”. This point was mentioned in the movie to when this dialogue happened between Lt. Weinberg and Kaffe. Lt. Weinberg “An illegal order.”
Kaffee responding “You think Dawson and Downey knew it was an illegal order?”
Lt. Weinberg arguing “It doesn't matter what they knew. Any decent human being would have refused.”
Kaffee making the same point that Col. Cally is making which is questioning orders from superiority can lead to death by saying “They're not permitted to question orders.” The soldiers follow orders even though they are not illegal due to two reasons; one, they are in the social process of dehumanization and two, if they questioned the order they might die. So it is easier for them to just follow whatever order they have been given.
The two articles might discuss two different issues but at the end they all connect to the movie to give a better understanding of how the two marine Lance Corporal Harold Dawson and PFC Landon Downy killed private William Santiago. “The My Lai” article explains it through the theory of authorization, routinization, and dehumanization and also the writers of the article explained that this theory was used in almost every massacre despite the size or the culture of the country that the massacre happened in it. In the “opinion and social pressure” article Asch simply explains that even though it is clearly and obviously wrong thing people still choose due to the pressure surrounding them and the people around they choosing the wrong answer. Few good men contain all of the qualities that both articles argue that people are greatly influenced people maybe their superior in the article of “ The My Lai” or just a regular human being like in the article of “opinions and social pressure”.