The big mystery is, that even total "normal" people can become "beasts".
The problem is, that we are so far away from all that, that we think, we are immune to such things ... but we are not. Because humans are essentially the same today as yesterday. The only thing we could/should do is, remember what happened in the past. But we do the opposite: We make unnatural beasts of those people, that existed in the past -- some fairy-tale like creatures, that existed only in a nightmare of humanity.
But it was no nightmare and it can come back to us very quickly. Look into the nearer past -- what happened even in the "peaceful" Europe (e.g. Yugoslavia) -- humans can easily be beasts again and much easier, when we think, that it all was a fairy-tale.
It's not a mystery, it is a science: Flags, uniforms, medals, oaths, "unit cohesion," etc. are all designed to make a killer out of you or me if there is a need for it.
There are psychologists living and working in the US who designed torture programs.
Totally correct. By mystery, I wanted to say something different: Most people will not believe, how little is needed to make a beast out of "normal people".
Apropos science: the EU decided, that in the future, costs of the military will now be accounted for in the same category as investments into science, universities or infrastructure. Thus, countries of the EU can put more money into weapons without missing the EU targets for investments into the future. Sometimes politics can just be a totally dirty business.
The problem is, that we are so far away from all that, that we think, we are immune to such things ... but we are not. Because humans are essentially the same today as yesterday. The only thing we could/should do is, remember what happened in the past. But we do the opposite: We make unnatural beasts of those people, that existed in the past -- some fairy-tale like creatures, that existed only in a nightmare of humanity.
But it was no nightmare and it can come back to us very quickly. Look into the nearer past -- what happened even in the "peaceful" Europe (e.g. Yugoslavia) -- humans can easily be beasts again and much easier, when we think, that it all was a fairy-tale.