'You can't be a sweet cucumber in a vinegar barrel': Abu Ghraib

[muriel_volestrangler]

A talk with Philip Zimbardo, the man who did the Stanford Prison Experiment, and who also gave evidence for one of the Abu Ghraib defendants.

One of the distressing things I have to think about is whether or not the results of my research, which I've written about extensively, have been incorporated by the Pentagon in its various programs. I hate to think that my research actually contributed to creating this evil, rather than simply helping to explain it. But the situation we have now is that the Army, the Pentagon, and the administration are trying to disown any influence on the specific guards seen in those" trophy pictures." One of the many investigations (the Schlessinger report) into these abuses explicitly states that the Stanford Prison Experiment should have served as a forewarning to those running Abu Ghraib Prison of the potential dangers of excesses by guards in such settings.
...
I was recently engaged as an expert witness for the defense of one of the Abu Ghraib night shift guards in his court martial trial. As such, I had access to all of the horror images that various soldiers took of their infamous deeds in action, along with most of the reports of the official investigations, spending a day with the defendant and his wife, arranging to have various psychological assessments made, and checking on his background and army reserve record.

In addition to realizing the relevance of my earlier research to understanding some of the forces acting on him and the other night shift soldiers, it became apparent that he was also totally abused by the situation that the military had thrust upon him. Image the cumulative stress of working 12 hour night shifts, 7 days a week, with not a day off for 40 days! Also regularly missing breakfast and lunch because he slept through them having finished his tour of duty at 4AM and sleeping in a small cell in another part of the prison that he rarely left. When he complained about children mixed with adult inmates or mentally ill or those with contagious TB among the prisoners, he was reprimanded, but rewarded for helping to get confessions by softening up the inmates. Not once was there any official supervision on his night shift that he could rely on. There were insufficient guards, 8 for 1000 inmates and none had been adequately trained for this tough job. His psychological testing and my interview revealed a young man who had not a single symptom of pathology that he brought into that prison; the situation was the pathological ingredient that infected his reason and judgment. Indeed, in many ways, this soldier is an American icon - good husband, father, worker, patriotic, religious, with many friends and a long history of having lived a most normal, moral small town life.

Despite my detailed trial testimony about all situational and systemic forces influencing his distorted group mentality, the judge threw the book at him, giving him 8 years in prison and many other penalties. He refused to acknowledge what many of the official investigations clearly revealed, that the abuses at Abu Ghraib could have prevented or would not have occurred were it not for "a failure or lack of leadership." Some reports list the officers and agencies responsible by name, but they are likely never to be considered bad apples, but only the custodians of a barrel that had some defects. The judge, and juries, in recent military jury trials, minimized the powerful situational and systemic factors that engulfed these young men and women. Their actions were assumed to be products of free will, rational choice and personal accountability. I argue not so when deindividuation, group mind and the host of stress, exhaustion, sleep deprivation and other psychological states are at play. They become transformed, just as the good angel, Lucifer, was transformed into the devil. Situations matter much more than most people realize or can acknowledge.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/zimbardo05/zimbardo05_index.html

[donsu]

1. thanks for posting - I had wondered about this

nt