How Good People Turned Evil; New Images From Abu Ghraib
By Nicole Belle Friday Feb 29, 2008 1:03pmWarning: Disturbing content, not safe for work
Psychologist Philip Zimbardo has seen good people turn evil, and he thinks he knows why.
Zimbardo will speak Thursday afternoon at the TED conference, where he plans to illustrate his points by showing a three-minute video, obtained by Wired.com, that features many previously unseen photographs from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (disturbing content).
In March 2006, Salon.com published 279 photos and 19 videos from Abu Ghraib, one of the most extensive documentations to date of abuse in the notorious prison. Zimbardo claims, however, that many images in his video -- which he obtained while serving as an expert witness for an Abu Ghraib defendant -- have never before been published.
The Abu Ghraib prison made international headlines in 2004 when photographs of military personnel abusing Iraqi prisoners were published around the world. Seven soldiers were convicted in courts martial and two, including Specialist Lynndie England, were sentenced to prison.
Zimbardo conducted a now-famous experiment at Stanford University in 1971, involving students who posed as prisoners and guards. Five days into the experiment, Zimbardo halted the study when the student guards began abusing the prisoners, forcing them to strip naked and simulate sex acts.
His book, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, explores how a "perfect storm" of conditions can make ordinary people commit horrendous acts.
Dr. Zimbardo's interview with Wired and the video may be viewed here. Are these the freedoms--freedom to dehumanize, freedom to debase, freedom to torture and kill--that Muslims supposedly hate us for?
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Despicable! A stain on the soul of America.
Those silly Muslims just don't understand - It's OK If You're A Republican! (IOKIYAR). The only crime the Abu Ghraib defendants committed was taking those pictures - otherwise, we'd just have another Bush League "US Troops would NEVER do that - why do you hate the troops so much as to repeat such vile lies" rather than the "few bad apples" that just coincidentally happened to start using the same tactics as Gitmo interrogators right after the Gitmo commander was sent off to Iraq to head up interrogations...
This is not my country anymore. The second photo of the cherubic perky American girl next door smilingly giving a thumbs up over a corpse is just disgusting.
Funny story, actually. He didn't immediately halt it when the "guards" became abusive towards the "prisoners". One afternoon, his wife came to visit him at his laboratory and saw what was transpiring. It was actually her that browbeat him into calling off the experiment.
just a few marines blowing off steam?...
Yeah we definitely need to do some serious deep, soul searching.
That stuff is such fun to do,' the brothers chime in at the mention of their penchant for blood-letting. 'Even Javier would come in by the end of the movie, rub his hands together and say, "OK, who am I killing today?"' adds Joel. 'It's fun to figure out,' says Ethan. 'It's fun working out how to choreograph it, how to shoot it, how to engage audiences watching it.'[
And did you all catch the fun story from the Salt Lake Tribune about the motivational sales company in Provo that waterboarded a guy as part of their team-building exercise?
Torturing for Sales
h/t TPM
Torture is going mainstream.
From the article:
I didn't know this from the traditional media or white house press conferences. The article goes on to say how these were reservists and faced pressure from others for not being "real military." (While working 12 hour shifts for forty days in a row!)
This was the Stanford study on steroids. Rumsfeld through these people into Auschwitz. He should be tried.
I mean, Rumsfeld threw these people into Auschwitz.
I've seen it myself. Take some 18+ kids and send them far from home, where people from home will never know what they are up to, surround them with people who have no inherent interest in their welfare, put them in situations or environments that present opportunity for consequence free behavior and watch out.
I'm not going to watch it.
If I wanted to see that kind of stuff I'd look on xtube.
It's depressingly easy to make humans hate other humans. And it's even more depressingly how easy it is for somebody to play to that impulse. In those two sentences are summed up much bloodshed, horror, and tragedy from the days of our evolution as a species from Homo rhodesiensus to the 21st Century in Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa, Asia, and South America, Oceania, and what will sadly be all too likely to start up again in Europe.
Human Beings have been killing each other off since day one. Mostly over food and women.
bob dobbs @ 3:
Understood, but is that really enough to make it "not your country anymore"?
I get sick when I see these photos, but we do no good by thinking this was anything but a small minority of our soldiers.
RHM
The "fallen angels". It's been a long fall from grace.
It may be a small minority of soldiers, but at the same time, something is clearly creating a situation in which this is not deemed "bad". If this person wound up with photos of this, how many are there we've never seen? This is seemingly increasingly like a typical day at work for these prisons.
Other than the exception of people with mental illnesses I don't believe there are any "good" people. We're just "people". Our choices and actions make us 'good' or 'bad' in the eyes of others. Everyone is CAPABLE of what happened at Abu Ghraib. Everyone. And I doubt it would take much to make it seem easy and even acceptable especially when you begin with individuals who have already been broken down and taught to obey, follow orders and kill.
If they want to blame anyone for abu ghraib they need to start at the top first.
Like that's ever going to happen.
I have never caught the "religious" mental disorder. I have always felt there was just to way way much hypocrisy in the written words and most definitely in peoples actions. But I understand the mentality that produces people who are extreme. I was in the military about 45 years ago. Do you think that they only take 18 year old that are willing to fight, die, and kill? No. Through a process of physical and mental exhaustion the mold and shape Young minds. After boot camp young people are ready to kill, kill, and kill some more. Then you put them in-charge of prisoners. Just what do you expect? The responsibility goes up the chain of command all the way to the White House. A few bad apples my ass! And don't get on your high horse and tell me that you are better than any of these young people. Given similar circumstances I doubt that more than 1/2 of 1% of you would do anything different. The people in-charge of the people in-charge of the people in-charge are responsible.
Tony @ 16:
Remember that the only reason we even know about this behavior is because a U.S. soldier came forward.
Why would you say it seems like a "typical" day?
RHM
They were ever "good"?
Or just lazy go along get along types?
They were marching with the down-trodden?
Working at soup kitchens?
What?
Good and evil distributes itself on a bell curve,as far as I have seen.
Remember 9/11
MargeAggedon @ 17:
Nope. No way I would succumb to that level of barbarism. I'd face the firing squad before I would stoop to that level.
the point of what he is saying is that any of us, perhaps most of us, himself included [if you read the entire story from Wired] can undergo this kind of transformation in the "right" or special circumstances. read the story, it's very telling for understanding human behavior.
what he wants is for us all to understand this, and to create understanding of what protects and prevents this behavior in humans. but then that would mean applying it to suicide bombers as well...hmmmm.
it would be the worst kind of tragedy for Abu Grhaib to have happened, and for the rest of us not to learn something from it.
Samo Umer @ 21:
What about it?
I wonder if Rush would still consider these photos evidence of fraternity-like pranks?
I posted a link to the site wired,com the other day. I'm glad C&L picked it up. This is more like the Spanish Inquisition. Disgusting.
Old Billy @ 8:
I don't buy the "poor reservists" crap for a minute. Remember, many of these MP's were cops in civilian life. Though the extent of what happened in Abu Graib is possibly more severe, these pieces of s&!# learned much of their technique in the USA. Google "john burge torture". The only difference between Abu Ghraib and the "widespread and systematic" torture employed by the Chicago Police Department is that Chicago cops didn't (don't) take pictures.
L.A. Confidential @ 22:
I believe you may be sincere but everyone is capable... whether or not you'd succumb is something you could only know if you had been through it already.
L.A. Confidential @ 24:
I'll assume Samo's suggesting the eye for an eye approach.
Rather then what we should have done which was weed out these terror operations quietly, efficiently, thoroughly, and without bankrupting the country in the process and destroying our reputation for the next 100 years in the eyes of those that used to admire and respect us.
MargeAggedon @ 28:
I wouldn't. I'd rather die then lie.
L.A. Confidential @ 29:
I think Samo may be reminding us that when we have had a bad day at work it is important to kick the dog when we get home. But I'm still not sure if we should tie the dog up first. Samo? Could you help me out?
US: Vets Break Silence on War Crimes
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 28 (IPS) - U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are planning to descend on Washington from Mar. 13-16 to testify about war crimes they committed or personally witnessed in those countries.
"The war in Iraq is not covered to its potential because of how dangerous it is for reporters to cover it," said Liam Madden, a former Marine and member of the group Iraq Veterans Against the War. "That's left a lot of misconceptions in the minds of the American public about what the true nature of military occupation looks like."
Iraq Veterans Against the War argues that well-publicised incidents of U.S. brutality like the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the massacre of an entire family of Iraqis in the town of Haditha are not the isolated incidents perpetrated by "a few bad apples", as many politicians and military leaders have claimed. They are part of a pattern, the group says, of "an increasingly bloody occupation".
who said they were good?
L.A. Confidential @ 32:
This sounds like John Kerry/Winter Soldier stuff.
I'm just curious as to how many of the experts on military subculture (on this board) have actually served? Not because it's a requirement to criticize (not at all), but because there seems to be a disconnect. Those who have served know the drill, how things work, how orders flow up and down the chain of command. And, most importantly, we know that orders to commit systematic war crimes simply do not exist.
Every sub-culture has a minority that tarnish the image of the others (police, firemen, investment bankers etc.), stop condemning 2 million soldiers for the actions of a small percentage.
RHM
I like how Hannah Arendt in 1963 referred to the "banality of evil."
Of course bane refers to fatal injury or ruin,
Quck somebody, toss me a banana.
MargeAggedon @ 28:
Bullshit. You're just trying to explain away your sociopathic urges.
The people in that video are monsters. And It's people like you that say 'that's OK'.
Your thinking is one of the ways that fascism gains power.
34 RHM
Me and most of my buds in the Air Force were high.
Ask the Navy about sub-culture.
RHM @ 34:
I agree. Not every person put into those horrible situations commit horrible acts. Remember it was soldier who came forward with those pictures in the first place. Otherwise no one would have been the wiser. AND that soldier who came forward had his life threatened, his career ended and his family torn apart. He was was destroyed for doing the right thing under hellish conditions. How many of you would have had the balls to do the same? And I disagree that every one is capable of doing this. Speaking from personal experience, some people wind up tearing themselves apart rather than hurting someone else.
MargeAggedon @ 17:
You're quite right, just look at the experiments of the late Stanley Milgram.
The most unaccountable administration in our history likes to say they're all for personal accountability in others.
Methinks that's because they don't want to admit we're all both the spider and the fly in a outstretched social web.
Somewhere along the lines without any deliberate attempt we hurt someone or something if only by proxy.
A nice juicy hamburger is good for me but evil for the cow it came from (credit Arch-Druid Isaac Bonewitz for that one.)
People like Hitler and Goebbels had accountants who simply by balancing books and knowing nothink! made the the evils of the superiors possible.
That's why I always thought William Godwin's definition of virtue as having a virtuous purpose and a virtuous result was total bovine excreta.
Samo Umer @ 21:
What's 9/11 got to do with Iraq? NOTHING.
That's not to say we shouldn't punish those who cross the line, but we should trace it up and not merely look for fall-guys
I look better in winter colors.
The secret of life is it is constantly devouring itself, like an ouroboros,
Or a very flexible onanist.
Samo Umer @ 21:
I prefer to remember 7-11
That's where I get my Slurpees.
(On 9-11 we were attacked primarily by Saudis [our allies], not Iraqis.)
Zimbardo did an interview with Terrri Gros on Fresh Air last May:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9940824
ysbaddaden@42 Don't forget that there's still a large percentage of folks that still think that Saddam practically flew the planes himself. It's a shame that nobody really ever made a big stink and the few that did got labeled as lefty loons.
RHM @ 34:
RHM, I'll chime in as one of those military personnel that understands exactly what you're talking about. Soldiers have the same trouble as police officers. There are always going to be a small percentage of cops that want to be bullies with a badge and there are always going to be a small percentage of soldiers that think they can torture, kill, etc. A lot of soldiers haven't even touched a weapon on the job outside of basic.
I agree with RHM that people need to think for a moment before trashing the military in general for the actions of a few. Interrogators are their own odd little subculture and they're generally not exactly everyone's favorite people to be around. And as far as the prison guards being sadistic, as it's been said before there are a lot of factors that are unrelated to military service. See the Stanford Experiment for an example.
What transpired at Abu Ghraib is the emblem of the Bush Years. It is the consequence of policy chaos, bad leadership, mission confusion, a fetish for secrecy, the militarization of politics, of having quite literally a small gang of radicals empowered to plunge democratic countries into war irrespective of the will of the people.
Leadership matters. The Bush administration's authoritarian desregard for law, science, reason or any reference point outside of its own auto-erotic self-regard continues to produce, here in the real world, one shocking catastrophe after another.
This is Bush's war and he bears responsibility for everything that happens. He frequently asks us to forego any critical analysis and to instead let history judge his actions. Let me suggest instead that when Bush is finally laid to rest that we not give him a headstone but rather cast a giant bronze statue of Lynndie England, cigarette dangling from her mouth, jauntily giving a thumbs up and pointing down at the mouldering clown. That way history will know what we thought as well.
Roark77 @ 44:
That happened to me. The rationale for the lead-up to war didn't smell right to me and what I knew of the Middle East, from my stay in the Air Force. I actually had to attend a day long classified meeting on the subject, on what I think was their second attempt to draw me into intelligence.
As a civilian and some booshhead would try to rail me, I would try to explain the difference between Shia, Sunni, Wahhabi, Sharia law, Baathist, Taliban, and Hezbollah I was suddenly one of the "Why do you blame America First," crowd and told I should support the troops. When I would explain that I was in the military, instead of working like it used to, they would suddenly become defensive that I was implying an impugning of their right to speech.
Bottomline..no one knows what themselves or someone else would do if put into an abu ghraid type situation after being brainwashed in boot camp. Is it enough to say that you'd never allow yourself to enter the military and be brainwashed, therefore this would never happen to you? Who know. All I know is that you can't know what you would do until you perform the experiment of letting it happen to you. I would say though that the military is a bit of a self-selected group. People with above average independence and self-awareness are less likely to join the military. So, people in the military to begin with, especially after bootcamp, are relatively primed for this.
Don't jump all over me. I know there are tons of exceptional people who join the military, however we are forced to think in generalities.
47 seth
They need to draft hookers, so everyone can sew their wildoats.
I think the military still practices that no sex before a game routine to make people more aggressive.
You don't create a monster and then complains when he stomps on a few buildings.
Can't comment or would be considered anti-military, antiAmerican or antiHillary or some other such nonsense. Most 20 year olds can't even wipe their noses nowadays without help, but are "mature" enough to be military? As for the rest of these whackos they prove why I detest the military.......Get trained, visit foreign places, kill somebody.....that's it in a nutshell.
ysbaddaden @ 48:
There's enough bed hopping going on in basic to keep some people more then busy.
And basic isn't easy but it's not what they show in Full Metal Jacket anymore. I found it a lot more like living in a college dorm then the stuff they always showed in the movies. But you guys are right about the average recruit, they're typically right out of high school (or with a GED these days) and often getting waivers for minor criminal problems.
ConcernedCanuck @ 49:
You wouldn't be anti-military or anti-American to question or criticize the system that's in place. You make an interesting point about the maturity of our 18-20 year old soldiers but it's also interesting how the US seems to have more difficulty then various countries that require mandatory military service at the age of 18. Several countries (Israel, Germany, most Scandinavian countries, some of the Asian nations, etc) have mandatory service at the age of 18 but they seem to avoid a lot of the very public problems that plague the US.
Roark77 @ 51:
Those militaries do a fraction of the work we ask ours to do. The comparison is laughable.
Like wondering why American baseball players do steroids while in Papua New Guinea they aren't so serious about the sport.
RHM
After all these years have passed the insanity, the obscene inhumanity, and shock have not worn off while viewing these pictures. And I only view them as a witness. To be a witness against this type of planned torture against another human being must be endured. But one person knew it was wrong and gave the pictures to someone who could make it stop and punish the guilty. Unfortunately, the Bushies wiggled out of justice. Maybe someday they will be punished.
I'm sure Michael Savage has these photos on his bedroom wall. Im ashamed to call myself an American after seeing Lyndie England (I Want To Lynch Her!) smiling over a rotting dead corpse. SMILING! These people are heartless. Heartless and disgusting.
You have got to wonder what kind of rotten thing inside someone would get them to do something so awful to another human. We all can have outbursts of hate. But those are flashes and pass quickly. But this took time, over and over again hurting, humiliating someone that was unable to defend themselves. What kind of American does this? I am ashamed of my country because of these hateful acts and because my country voted for Bush twice.
Dude @ 54:
Really? Lyndie England makes you ashamed to be American? Then being an American doesn't mean much to you if that's all it takes.
RHM
I will never forget what Rumsfeld said when responding to some pundit about the photos at Abu Graib."We have stopped allowing cameras."
Thanks, Mr. Compassion
The people who created Abu Ghraib knew what they were doing. The man or woman on the ground was merely following the lead of their commanding officers. This was not the case of a few bad apples but an intentional strategy. The objective of the torture was not information but fear, read The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein or watch No End in Sight or Taxi to the Dark Side. Abu Ghraib was a prison used by Saddam Hussein to do the same things we did. His guards were trained by our government just as we trained the Shah of Iran's prison guards and many other countries. The objective was to "Shock" the people of Iraq into doing what we wanted. It's called US foreign policy plain and simple. We are frogs being slowly cooked.
fiver @ 31:
The mere fact all of you take my post seriously demonstrates how severe, hopeless the situation really is. After all this time, the prime intellectual force of the US still busy chasing cast shadows. Now, taking into consideration this is forum here - is a gathering place for people of dire leftist, communist, defeatist, terrorist leanings gives a new profound meaning to the word helpless. Up the ante. You are not the opposition to "Bush", you're his left hand he has no use for.
@Roark77
." But you guys are right about the average recruit, they’re typically right out of high school (or with a GED these days) and often getting waivers for minor criminal problems."
Yes the military takes those (some but obviously not all) who often get waivers for minor criminal problems and mold them into men with serious criminal problems.It is very sad what has happened to our educational system in this country.And we continue to ignore the most prevalent problem, the decline of the family system.That is where criminality begins.
I remember very well learning about the Stanford Prison Experiment when I was in college studying for my psychology degree -- and I have to say that as well as a few other things which I read about in my social psychology course (such as Stanley Milgram's studies on obedience to authority) positively curled my hair and made me something of a cynic where human nature is concerned. Ever since then, I've held the belief that much of our so-called civilized behavior is not much more than a thin veneer behind which we hide (from ourselves as well as each other) the fact that we still compete with and even prey upon each other just as other animals do -- we simply do it socially, financially, and psychologically rather than physically. At least to my way of thinking, both Milgram's and Zimbardo's studies suggest that a majority of people are actually not especially ethical or altruistic but instead somewhat amoral with a strong inclination to be both self-serving and self-rationalizing.
Frankly, I'm inclined to disagree somewhat with Zimbardo's suggestion that people who are capable of committing the sort of heinous acts which took place during his Prison Experiment and at Abu Ghraib can legitimately be considered good people. I simply can't swallow the idea that genuinely good (meaning ethical) people, those whose respect for the dignity and humanity of other people is sincere and not just lip service, would agree to do such things without threat of force. Admittedly, I also tend to believe that nobody knows for certain how they will react in a certain situation until they're actually in it -- but I simply cannot comprehend how someone could respond in such a way without some underlying core of amorality in which the overriding principle is expediency and self-interest.
What the USA has become under Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld. Is there any reason we (the world) should respect you? If you've got one, I'd like to hear it.
Samo Umer @ 21:
Samo Umer @ 21:
In 1812 the USA attacked Canada and killed its citizens. Can I start torturing Americans now?
I was a guard at the SPE. I did plenty of evil acts - in the spirit of furthering the stated experimental goals - that i have had years to reflect upon, regret and learn from. By the way i was a long-haired, leftist acid-head pacifist back in 1971 and nothing much has changes. The Stanford prisoners were never stripped naked and subjected to sex abuse, as a reading of the Lucifer Effect makes clear. There was one incident that very slightly bordered upon that, but far from anything that occurred at Abu Ghraib. It was simply not permitted under the ground rules of our prison
Samo Umer @ 59:
The mere fact all of you take my post seriously demonstrates how severe, hopeless the situation really is. After all this time, the prime intellectual force of the US still busy chasing cast shadows. Now, taking into consideration this is forum here - is a gathering place for people of dire leftist, communist, defeatist, terrorist leanings gives a new profound meaning to the word helpless. Up the ante. You are not the opposition to "Bush", you're his left hand he has no use for.
Concern troll.
Samo Umer @ 59:
"The mere fact all of you take my post seriously demonstrates how severe, hopeless the situation really is. After all this time, the prime intellectual force of the US still busy chasing cast shadows. Now, taking into consideration this is forum here - is a gathering place for people of dire leftist, communist, defeatist, terrorist leanings gives a new profound meaning to the word helpless. Up the ante. You are not the opposition to "Bush", you're his left hand he has no use for."
Concern troll.
every one of these bastards needs to be on trial for war crimes at the hague.
to hell with american courts if you want justice.
His book, The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, explores how a “perfect storm” of conditions can make ordinary people commit horrendous acts
So let me get this straight. One of gods favorite angels -Lucifer- "falls out of grace" then becomes Satan! WHAT? That seems to raise a lot of questions:
Was there a hell before satan?
If so, who ran the place and why was there a hell to begin with?
Where did the sinners go before there was a hell?
If there was no hell before satan where did the sinners go and who/how was hell created?
Why did the almighty and all powerful god let all this shit happen? Maybe Lucifer had compromising photos of god... maybe?
How can anybody believe this crap? This all knowing god created us in his image and then says repent or your going to hell. This is the same god that created Hitler and let him kill 6 million people! What a prick!
Spaghetti Monster @ 68:
OH please don't get your noodles in a bunch. In this case Lucifer has no religious conatation. It is more like yelling Jesus while cumming.
Strawberrybitch @ 38:
If it were an isolated incident then why, as you describe, was he the only one standing up for what is right and why did the majority try and tear his life apart.
Spaghetti Monster @ 68:
Just for the record, the Bible says that Lucifer was the most beautiful of all of the angels and decided that he could be as God. His rebellion led him and the angels who sided with him to be cast into hell. This pre-dates the creation of man, so the question about where did sinners go is not relevant as man did not exist then.
It doesn't take a "perfect storm" of circumstances and events to make people do horrific acts. Sometimes, people will do horrible things for $20.00, or a pair of sneakers, or because they got cut off on the freeway, or just for fun.
There is no such thing as "good" people. Just look at the girl next to the corpse, with the thumbs up and the smile on her face, and you will know the truth of that. She wasn't "good" and then became "evil". She is no different than anyone else.
That sounds interesting. Does he talk about how the intense brainwashing and abuse that the military puts people through on their way in MIGHT HAVE A TINY PART TO PLAY IN THIS?
bob dobbs @ 3:
That picture killed me inside. I've never seen anything like it, ever.
Coward people perform cowardly acts.
Those aren't even ther worst ones... But these should still be on the front page of every newspaper and magazine in America.
telecom @ 45:
Amen, fucking brilliant.
@X
That wasn't Zimbardo's wife -- if was a postdoc (or grad student -- I don't remember) who worked for him. He happened to be banging her at the time.
The guy isn't exactly Mr. Ethics himself.
ysbaddaden @ 35:
What???
"the banality of evil was a phrase first heard when the atrocities in Nazi concentration camps became known. It refers to how ordinary the perpetrators of the atrocities were. They could have been selling hats in their civilian lives. All of a sudden, they were given license to do terrible things to helpless people and they revelled in their unaccustomed power.
But they were still just ordinary, unremarkable nonentities, without the uniform and the sudden power of life and death over other helpless human beings.
One of the "guards" at Abu Ghraib was working at a KFC a couple of weeks before he was one of the guards pictured in the pictures we all saw.
Strangely, there are some people who, far from being shocked and dismayed at the indignities inflicted on the Iraqi detainees, seemed to think that the pictures being published was the offence. If no one had seen the pictures, all the stories coming out of the prison would have meant nothing.
Darby, the soldier who passed the pictures to The New Yorker should be hailed for his courage.
Instead, he and his wife and family had to move from the town in which he had grown up and still lived after being accused of being a traitor to America.How screwed up is that???
(_(_) @ 40:
9/11 taught the US plenty.
If you don't rationalize something, you can't get away with doing the irrational. That's how every atrocity is justified, from the crusades, to the inquisition, to Nazism, to Stalinism, to religious fundamentalism.
As for torture and war crimes, why do you think Rumsfeld and co. threatened "allies" with war if they tried to prosecute anyone who committed war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2985744.stm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/08/AR200608...
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0827-07.htm
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0905-32.htm
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=6264
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2003/06/mil-030612-d...
Dumb Donald:
Belgium needs to realize that there are consequences to [prosecuting US soldiers who commit war crimes]. This law calls into serious question whether NATO can continue to hold meetings in Belgium and whether senior U.S. officials, military and civilian, will be able to continue to visit international organizations in Belgium. I would submit that that could be the case for other NATO Allies, as well.
"A few bad apples?" No. Crimes against humanity were always part of the plan, and ordered from the top down.
The first act that Obama needs to do, as soon as he is sworn in is rejoin the ICC. These are war crimes.
If you are interested in gaining a deeper insight into how and why people do these things, Bob altemeyer's book, The Authoritarians, is available on-line at his University of Manitoba web site:
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
This is required reading, and it was the principal source of information for the book that John Dean wrote. It is very hard to put down; I did pretty much nothing else except read for two days after I started reading it.
Samo Umer @ 21:
So let's spread the pain huh? Do you take delight in this kind of sadomaschism?(sic) There is absolutely no reason for this. Does this truely bring comfort for our loss? We've opened the gates of hell and we are falling fast. I am not exagerating. We are being looted of our treasure (billions and billions down a rat hole and into the pockets of the war racketeers and cursed investors) and our young people. Not only are the abused prisoners casualties of war, but look at these soldiers: morally bankrupt! The so-called "terrorist" don't have to do a thing - they can sit back and watch us slowly choke ourselves to death.
MargeAggedon @ 17:
Then the so-called "terroist" have won. We need to get the hell out Iraq.We have beat the hell out of people who had nothing to do with our "misery".Just because we have a capability doesn't mean we have to act on it! We can choose. The reason we honor people like MLKing and Ghandi is because they had every reason to strike out and cause some damage, but chose not to - they chose the higher ground even if it cost them their life. Even George Washington chose not to make himself King of the United States and he was certainly capable of doing it! He laid down his arms and despots all over the world said he was crazy. We are called to exercise moral courage - just like the young soldier who revealed this abomination in the first place. He and his family are paying that price right now. Why aren't we standing up for him?To say "everybody is capable" is a coward's justification and an insult to all those who have chosen to do the right thing.
FdeBear @ 81:
You forget that about a year ago it came out that contractors and subcontractors of the rebuilding of Iraq were paying off local militia groups to leave them alone, thus financing further terrorism.
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