Abu Ghraib Abuse in Light Term Paper

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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.

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Furthermore, Zimbardo

2004) specifically referred to additional elements that exacerbated the Abu Ghraib situation in comparison to his 1971 experiment, in the form of secrecy, lack of accountability, absence of a visible chain of command, conflicting orders from civilian interrogators and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) authorities, lack of rules enforced for prohibited acts, encouragement for breaking the will of detainees, and the failure of bystanders to respond appropriately to the abuses they witnessed, all of which significantly compounded the problem in Iraq.

Ultimately, the abuses revealed at Au Ghraib teach us very little that was not already established by analysis of Zimbardo's much earlier experiment, except, perhaps, that military environments represent tremendously increased potential for prisoner abuse.

Conversely, the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment already provided lessons that would have enabled military authorities to avoid the atrocities at Abu Ghraib, had they simply applied those established principles to the training and supervision of personnel assigned to Abu Ghraib.......

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"Abu Ghraib Abuse In Light" (2007, October 15) Retrieved May 20, 2025, from
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https://www.aceyourpaper.com/essays/abu-ghraib-abuse-light-35140
   

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