In 1971 researchers at Stanford University created a simulated prison in the basement of the campus psychology building. They randomly assigned 24 students to be either prison guards or prisoners for two weeks.posted by languagehat at 1:38 PM on May 6, 2004
Within days the "guards" had become swaggering and sadistic, to the point of placing bags over the prisoners' heads, forcing them to strip naked and encouraging them to perform sexual acts...
Dr. Philip G. Zimbardo, a leader of the Stanford prison study, said that while the rest of the world was shocked by the images from Iraq, "I was not surprised that it happened."
"I have exact, parallel pictures of prisoners with bags over their heads," from the 1971 study, he said.
At one point, he said, the guards in the fake prison ordered their prisoners to strip and used a rudimentary sex joke to humiliate them.
Professor Zimbardo ended the experiment the next day, more than a week earlier than planned.
Prisons, where the balance of power is so unequal, tend to be brutal and abusive places unless great effort is made to control the guards' base impulses, he said. At Stanford and in Iraq, he added: "It's not that we put bad apples in a good barrel. We put good apples in a bad barrel. The barrel corrupts anything that it touches."
The United States declares its strong solidarity with torture victims across the world. Torture anywhere is an affront to human dignity everywhere. We are committed to building a world where human rights are respected and protected by the rule of law ... The United States is committed to the world-wide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example ... Torture continues to be practiced around the world by rogue regimes whose cruel methods match their determination to crush the human spirit. Beating, burning, rape, and electric shock are some of the grisly tools such regimes use to terrorize ... No people, no matter where they reside, should have to live in fear.posted by meehawl at 4:11 PM on May 6, 2004
In the last eight months of 2001, US and British pilots have fired 1,100 missiles against 359 targets in Iraq.US-made weapons, rockets, gunships, jets and bombers have been bombarding Arabs with conventional and radiological munitions for two generations, either directly from US forces or proxied through friendly local puppet regimes and proxies. The US has effectively been at war with most of the Middle East for a long time - this current occupation should be seen as an exceptional event but merely the latest act in a long-running debacle where all sides are constrained, are forced, into historically familiar subject positions.
In October 1999 American officials were telling the Wall Street Journal they would soon be running out of targets.
"We're down to the last outhouse," they admitted.
By the end of the year, the Anglo-US airforces had flown more than 6,000 sorties, and dropped 1,800 bombs on Iraq.
By early 2001, the bombing of Iraq had lasted longer than the US invasion of Vietnam.
In Vietnam, the United States pursued its interests, as it perceived them, throughout; and as its perceptions changed, so did its allegiances, as any great power's would. The rest was rhetoric ... What political lessons can we learn from this tangle? First, great powers are fickle, and only care about themselves, not their small allies of opportunity, the Generals Thieu and Thé of the present and future. Then again, there is no such thing as a trustworthy surrogate: they have wills of their own, aims that may coincide with their protectors' only in the short term, and an alarming ability to drag great powers into their quarrels and to change sides when the dollars dry up.posted by meehawl at 5:39 PM on May 6, 2004
In 1920, the League of Nations awarded Britain the new mandate of Iraq as part of secret deals made during World War I. Just six months into British rule, Iraqi opposition was growing. After the unrest deteriorated into three months of death and anarchy, the British plucked an Arab nationalist fighter from exile in the United Kingdom and installed him as king. The monarchy lasted until 1958, when a military coup turned Iraq into a republic. To many Iraqis, today's U.S. occupation reads like an old play with modern characters: America as the new Britain, grenade-lobbing insurgents as the new opposition, and Ahmad Chalabi and other former exiles on the Governing Council as the new kings.posted by meehawl at 5:43 PM on May 6, 2004
During the war, 4,234 American soldiers were killed and 2,818 were wounded. Philippine military deaths are estimated at 20,000 while civilian deaths numbered in 250,000 to 1,000,000 Filipinos. U.S. attacks into the countryside often included scorched earth campaigns where entire villages were burned and destroyed, torture (water cure) and the concentration of civilians into "protected zones".To emulate the Philippines model of bringing democracy, that is, to kill a similar proportion of Iraqis during the current occupation, the US will have to slaughter around 3.5 million Iraqis within this first year, and another 2 million over the next decade. Better get a move on!
I guess my opinion would be biased, so I decided to offer you some of the responses I saw on the BBC Arabic which offers a comment section for Arab readers to post their opinions about the hot topics. There were about 30 comments today, since it's still fresh on the site. As usual, the comments from Iraqis-in general-contradicted those from other Arab countries, especially Palestine, Syria and Saudi Arabia. I also found that many of the commentators considered President Bush's speech an apology despite the fact that he didn't frankly apologize.Alaa:
I've selected some of the comments for translation and it's worth mentioning that about 40% of the total number of comments was positive (sorry, I mean they were supportive of the CIA propaganda). Here are the translated comments:
-"Thank you Sir for apologizing on the abuse of the Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison. Here you opened an important file; I think that those criminals who were responsible for the mass graves in my country (who are now in your jails' cells) should apologize for their massacres against the Iraqi people".
Imad Al-Sa'ad - Netherlands.
-"Who reads the reactions of Iraqis will see how surprised they're by the way the Americans can prove that years of Saddam's rule and of his anti-American propaganda can be washed out by time; here we have the president of the greatest nation on earth apologizes for what a small group of pervert soldiers did. And here, the American press proves that it's free to show the truth. We lived with similar pictures for years until they became the basics of every prison's daily life and we never heard an Arabic paper point them out. These are lessons from the western culture entering the hearts of Arabs, whether the Arab leaders liked or not".
Sa'eed - Diwaniyah/Iraq.
-"I think that President Bush should talk to us to fill the gap between us and I wish I could see the Arab leaders talk to us like GWB did"
Jihad Abu Shabab - Germany.
-"I'm very happy to see Iraqis condemning the abuse and defending the rights of the prisoners and this is the first time they do something like this, which was impossible for them to do under the dictator's regime. I think that our Arab brothers should mind their own business and take a look at their own prisons".
N - Jordan.
-"I think that president Bush was honest in what he said. Those abuses do not represent the American people. As a matter of fact, we can find cruel men with no morals in any country; that's why we should not judge a whole nation for the violations of a small group of people and I'm sure that these will get the punishment they deserve. Here I'd like to direct my question to the Arabic media "where were you when Saddam mass-executed my people and used all kinds of torture against us?".
Reemon A'adel Sami -Iraq
-"I think that President Bush's statement will find acceptance from some of the Arabs, while the majority will not be satisfied with his words whatever apologies they included just because he is BUSH and he is AMERICAN. I'm sure that the American officials are more upset by the event than the Iraqis themselves because this doesn't belong to their culture or their ethics as a civilized nation.
I think that the event took more space than it actually deserves and the media are creating a mountain from a grain. It's enough for us to remember Saddam's doings to comment on what recently happened".
Sameer-Jordan.
Hi Friends,It's funny. The left and John Kerry are now calling for the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld, because "if the buck doesn't stop with him, it moves on to the President." Metafilter, predictably, has already jumped to the Oval Office with the blame. In contrast to many spoiled Westerners, and unlike many Iraqis, I wouldn't expect or demand that a President be held responsible for the acts of a lowly few. It's not like President Bush himself ordered the abuse, and it's not like Bush or Rumsfeld violated the Geneva Convention with their own two hands. . . you know, like this guy did:
Just to say Hellow and to let you know that I am still around. This latest fiasco smells to me. It smells really bad. Abuses there seems to have been, but who took the photos, and the timing, isn't it too convenient? But you must know this: All this has not shaken my support for the liberation one little bit, nor my absolute conviction of the justice and nobility of the "Project". If some of you have seen fit to appologize to us about the behaviour of some of your "scum"; we must also appologize to you for the behaviour of so many of our "scum".
I recall a phrase we used in the field, MAM, for military-age male," Powell wrote. "If a helo spotted a peasant in black pajamas who looked remotely suspicious, a possible MAM, the pilot would circle and fire in front of him. If he moved, his movement was judged evidence of hostile intent, and the next burst was not in front, but at him.- Colin Powell in his autobiography, My American Journey
"Brutal? Maybe so. But an able battalion commander with whom I had served at Gelnhausen [West Germany], Lt. Col. Walter Pritchard, was killed by enemy sniper fire while observing MAMs from a helicopter. And Pritchard was only one of many. The kill-or-be-killed nature of combat tends to dull fine perceptions of right and wrong.
It is very interesting to watch them interrogate these people. I have made some really close friends. They usually don't allow others to watch them interrogate but since they like the way I run the prison they make an exception. . . We have a close bond with them since we help getting them to talk with the way we handle them. We have a very high rate with our style of getting them to break. They usually end up breaking within hours. . ."Notice how he's taking credit for how great a job he's doing. ". . . the way I run the prison. . . We have a very high rate with our style. . .
I am feeling so bad at how the Army has came down on me. They always said that shit rolls down hill and guess who is at the bottom? I have asked for help and warned of this and nobody would listen to me. I told the Battallion Commander that I didn't like the way it was going and his reply was don't worry about it I give you permission to do it. . ."3) Hand written journal, dated 14 January on page 1. The allegations of abuse were made 13 January and the investigation began 14 January. He's already gotten into trouble, and now he's trying to find a way to blame others. This is evident in the second email, as well.
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posted by troutfishing at 9:52 AM on May 6, 2004