@Bertram As for the Abu Ghraib stuff, I agree that the officers were not fit to command.
I have no doubt that the Zimbardo experiment was flawed, but I also have no doubt that his results were accurate - the experiment was not necessary.
People will even fake what they would really do, in a training situation
I think you’ll understand me when I say that ‘formal’ training can be reversed
In the UK about a year ago, the papers published photographs of the Commando (Royal Marines) conducting a re-training session. From what I could see there were two NCOs, one in medic’s greens, and the other dressed as a schoolgirl with a hockey stick (to those who don’t understand a hockey stick is more dangerous than a baseball bat).
They were making the new recruits fight each other in a muddy field, the ‘medic’ was using Karate kicks to force them on - and the ‘schoolgirl’ was acting as his minder.
My take was that it was two NCOs making darn sure that their chickens would follow orders regardless of what their ‘Rupert’ said.
Now that the Senate has reported in its 600 page summary of the secret torture report, and we basically have found out, due basically to former President Bush and former Vice President Cheney admitting that they authorized it and would do so again, is it perhaps time to condemn in writing the whole corrupt US Justice system right down to today that authorizes and encourages torture and will do nothing to prosecute it except for a few enlisted scapegoats?
My apologies for the resurrection of this zombie, but since there will never be indictments, perhaps we can get the civilized thing and do a bunch of tut-tut-tutting.
Tut tut tut.
Torture dehumanizes the people who do it and the people on whose “behalf” it is done.
[QUOTE=The Second Stone]
Now that the Senate has reported in its 600 page summary of the secret torture report, and we basically have found out, due basically to former President Bush and former Vice President Cheney admitting that they authorized it and would do so again, is it perhaps time to condemn in writing the whole corrupt US Justice system right down to today that authorizes and encourages torture and will do nothing to prosecute it except for a few enlisted scapegoats?
[/QUOTE]
Oh, only now do we know. We didn’t know before? I’m not seeing anything in any of the reports that wasn’t known almost a decade ago…known, and debated, in threads just like this one. I mean, did you think that the events at Abu Gahaib (the subject of this zombie thread by a banned poster) didn’t actually happen??? Or do you only believe now that the Senate report has pretty much said what everyone already knew for years?
There was lent of tut-tuting in this thread. If you wish to condemn the whole U.S. Justice system, own a new thread and explain exactly what you wish to do.