What Makes Normal People Commit War Crimes? - Pacific Standard: The Science of Society: "Richardot found five distinct formulations of orders, each which provides, to some extent, a psychological cushion for subordinates to justify their actions. Regimes that are legally in power, like the United States military, tend to use ambiguous or partial orders, so authorities can avoid legal problems. Illegal regimes, on the other hand, rely on orders with code words, giving subordinates the illusion of choice, and fragmenting the orders to dispel individual blame...
Most of the time, soldiers who commit atrocities are not sadists or ‘bad apples’…. These soldiers are ‘normal people’ but they have been trained to obey orders with no discussion…. I do not excuse those who perpetuated atrocities. I just mean that, when these people are charged, one has to remember all the strategies authorities use to push them to violence. At the bottom of the military hierarchy, people do not always have all the resources to refuse immoral orders, especially when everything is done to make them think these are legal."
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