If anything, the fact that ordinary civilian students proved capable of such conduct on other civilians, even without the psychological stresses of a wartime combat zone and genuinely hostile prisoners, suggests that the risk of similar abuse in genuine wartime situations is much higher.
In Abu Ghraib, mixed units with different levels of training were operating in a hostile combat zone where they were subject to hostile action (i.e. mortar attacks) by the same forces from whom their prisoners were captured. Whereas at Guantanamo detention facilities guards worked in an environment of 1-to-1 prisoner-to-guard ratio, the Abu Ghraib facility sometimes required working in a 75-to-1 ratio of prisoners-to-guards (DOD, 2004). Zimbardo's study already demonstrated that anonymity is one conditions capable of "... stirring the crucible of human nature in negative directions." The other factors listed by Zimbardo include diffusion of responsibility, dehumanization, peers who model harmful behavior, bystanders who do nothing, and a settling of power differentials" (Zimbardo, 2004).
The Abu Ghraib environment combined all these factors in addition to genuine animosity, because the prisoners under guard had actually been engaged in hostile actions against U.S. forces, and because their guards were already subject to all the additional stresses and deprivations of wartime and separation from home. Furthermore, Zimbardo
2004) specifically referred to additional elements that...
Newdemocracyworld.org/War/Pogo.htm).Reported by John Spritzler, this is what Zimbardo and Milgram found: The usual points of reference in psychology are two classic studies that attempted to explore the capacity for evil residing in "normal" people. In 1971, Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo created a simulated prison and randomly assigned students to be either guards or prisoners. With astonishing speed, the "guards" indulged in forms of torture and humiliation not unlike those horrifying us
The second signing statement put forth the Bush view that "the new legislation is not enforceable in U.S. courts and that it terminates all pending habeas corpus actions by Guantanamo Bay detainees." POINT #4: CONCLUSION: MUSEUMS & the PUBLIC'S RIGHT to KNOW Several U.S. military personnel have been convicted and sent to prison for the abuses that took place in Abu Ghraib. But whether or not future museums will allow photos
These responsibilities notwithstanding, the American public was already being conditioned to view the war in Iraq as a battle against extremists, that is, against the Islamist radicals who had threatened the "American" way" of life on September 11, 2001. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson had already inflamed America's own Christian fundamentalists with talk that the terrible events of that day were to blame in part on "the gays and
My Lai Massacre The Milgram Experiment, Philip Zimbardo, and Understanding the My Lai Massacre In the twentieth century the United States military was engaged in numerous wars and the U.S. government depicted these wars as forces of good, freedom, and morality (Americans) fighting against forces of evil, tyranny, and barbarism (America's enemies). The realities of American military behavior in these wars, however, did not always justify such a simplistic characterization. American troops
, 2010). This point is also made by Yehuda, Flory, Pratchett, Buxbaum, Ising and Holsboer (2010), who report that early life stress can also increase the risk of developing PTSD and there may even be a genetic component involved that predisposes some people to developing PTSD. Studies of Vietnam combat veterans have shown that the type of exposure variables that were encountered (i.e., severe personal injury, perceived life threat, longer duration,
We must be cautious yet. The district is closed to us for a time. Deplorable! Upon the whole, the trade will suffer. […] Look how precarious the position is (Conrad 1902, p. 143). Otherwise, he notes, the ivory Kurtz collected is perfectly good. But in the face of months of strange rumors, the Company's refusal to check his activities earlier amounts to moral complicity; as Phil Zimbardo notes in a
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