Up to the facts, this is talk.
Thank you for joining me.
My next guest is, well, if you've watched or listened to this show, you'll know that I'm particularly keen to have him on whenever he is available. He's just a fount of information, really makes you think and that is what this show is all about.
And by the way, the numbers on the screen, if you want to talk about anything we're discussing, 0344 499 1000, you can text the word talk to 87222 or XET Talk TV.
There is so much conflict in the world. We could talk about what's going on between Israel, WhatsApp and Gaza. We can talk about all, you know, Ethiopia. We can talk all over the world.
The reason I bring this up is that the Sunday Times has done a brilliant piece of journalism about the SAS murders that happened in Afghanistan. British special forces are accused of holding killing contests and planting weapons on their Afghan victims.
Now, previously classified files show how one of their own is trying to bring them to justice.
I do really, if you can access, if you can have a look online at that Times report or actually buying the newspaper, I really recommend that you do it.
The reason we turn to Sam Vaknin, is because I want to talk about the psychology, and especially when it comes to Israel and Gaza, many other places where ordinary people, I mean, ordinary people sign up or are conscripted, what makes one person put on a uniform?
And we're not programmed to kill. I mean, what makes somebody cross a line to commit what we know as war crimes. And what makes somebody else decide to actually speak out against that behavior, because with that becomes threat, you are no longer one of us, you're one of them. It's an interesting dynamic.
So as I said, right at the top of this, Sam Vaknin is a professor of clinical psychology, also a geopolitical analyst, and joins me now.
Sam, thank you so much for your time.
It is an interesting one, isn't it?
Because let's talk about somebody puts on a uniform.
And you may well know, there might be a difference from those who choose it as a career.
But most people who do choose it as a career, I'm sure it's not to kill. They never think they'll be drafted into war until they are.
And those who are conscripted to do it.
What happens to make an ordinary person cross a line and maybe keep crossing a line to commit what we rightfully call a war crime and what makes somebody else say you know what this is wrong, I cannot stomach it, I cannot do it, I will do something about it.
They're two very different mindsets.
Yes, good to see you again, Trisha.
And thank you for having me.
The first thing to understand is that there is a transition from one environment to another.
Do you know when we are online, for example, we are much more aggressive than in real life. When we are on a vacation, when we go on a holiday, we behave very differently. We are much more disinhibited. We do crazy things, which we wouldn't consider doing while we're embedded in our daily life.
And this is war. War is the equivalent of a three-dimensional video game, a kind of permissive environment, where everything is possible because nothing is real.
War is a very disorienting experience and the environment is so distant, so alien, that one has the bizarre sensation that one has been transported into another planet and that all bets are off and all rules can be broken with impunity and immunity.
So this environmental dislocation is very important.
Next thing.
When you are at war, you are forced to choose between evils.
War is among the few human experiences where there is no choice between good and evil. There's always a choice between two evils.
And depending on your upbringing and you may wish to choose the lesser evil, but it's always evil.
Take for example the following dilemma. Should you participate in killing civilians, or should you snitch on your colleagues and buddies who've had your back during the war, who've saved your life maybe?
So this is a dilemma that creates moral ambivalence and creates enormous dissonance. And it's very difficult to reconcile and to reach a conclusion and a decision under this enormous stress and so on.
Now, I've had a first-hand experience in all this, so I'm a bit unusually involved in what I'm saying.
Everything is fuzzy, everything is ambiguous, everything is equivocal and ambivalent. There's not clear definition of what is right and what is wrong. There's a sense of loss of control.
Yes, Trisha, you wanted to ask.
I was going to say, Sam, you said, depending on your upbringing, And people don't think that when you put on a uniform, or conscripted, when you go into war, behind you, with you, comes your upbringing, how you were parented, your belief systems. Just if you would talk a little bit about that. How does that impact on you?
Because I'm thinking, as with Israel, for instance, the Orthodox Jews not wanting to be conscripted because at the core of their soul, their being, their upbringing there, and Judaism is not just something you go to synagogue and that's it. It's day-to-day practices and what have you. And that runs counter to going into to war.
So how that's one example but how does your upbringing have a bearing on whether you choose the more evil evil or the less evil evil if I can put it that way?
Well, the fact of the matter is that only very few soldiers commit war crimes, fortunately for all of us. It's an outlier. It's an exception. These are rogue units and rogue soldiers.
And this is a strong indicator that upbringing personality structure, personal experience, autobiography, exposure to varying cultures and societies and so on so forth, do have a bearing on whether you end up committing a war crime or not.
So if you, for example, grew up in an environment which led to the internalization of moral edicts, social mores, and inhibitions, you are far less likely to commit a war crime than if you were raised in an environment which was lax, morally speaking, or even antisocial.
And if you were exposed to a variety of cultures and societies and in the regions of the world and languages and so on so forth, you're again less likely to commit war crimes than if we're raised up in a homogenous, ethnically or otherwise homogeneous group with its own in-group and out-group dynamics.
So this is very critical, absolutely.
And it also means that you could educate soldiers to not commit war crimes.
If this is indeed a priority of the fighting forces, then we could reach a situation where war crimes would become obsolete.
They are definitely a function of social conditioning, education, inhibition, and other psychological processes which could be inculcated and could be acquired.
It's very important to understand. This doesn't happen out of context in the blue, out of the blue, you know.
Yeah, so it's not enough just to give a soldier training and assume they are all on the same level and send them into war. You've got to give them that background training and not assume that they've had those sorts of things that you're talking about, inculcated in them in their childhood.
Sam, we've got to end it there. I mean, whenever I meet, while we talk, I'm always like, gosh, I can spend so much time. It's just so wonderful to have you on the show. And I know everybody in the control room, you always start so many discussions for very good reason. We're very, very lucky.
As I said, we've got such a brilliant calibre of guests on this show, Sam Vaknin, Professor of Clinical Psychology and Geopolitical Analysts. Such a brilliant calibre of guests on this show. Sam Vaknin, professor of clinical psychology and geopolitical analysts there talking about what makes somebody commit a war crime. We'll be back with more in a moment.