Picture Says 1000 words

Through this documentary, we have seen the power of pictures and how they can say so much about one moment in the fabric of time. The pictures that were taken at Abu Ghraib say many things, some of them were true, and some of them were not. The famous scarecrow picture seems as though he has electrical cables attached to him. However, we find out through explanation that these were not even plugged in and were merely used to scare the prisoner. Some of the photos do say exactly what they seem to say: the prisoners were being sexually harassed and abused to obtain information that many of them didn't have. It is a lesson to all of us to be careful of what we are taking pictures of and to be careful of how people may perceive what is happening. A picture can say a lot of things, the truth isn't always one of them.

http://www.medialit.org/reading-room/power-images-creating-myths-our-time

Conformity Issues

While we view this standard operating procedure one of the things I keep thinking is that many of these people are found caught up in informational social influence and normative social influence. I am just learning about these things in my psychology class and now they are greatly applying in this situation. Informational social influence is the influence other people have on us because we ant to be right. Normative social influence is the influence other people have on us because we want them to like us. We see this taking place with many people who were involved in this procedure. Mostly the women are found doing things such as taking pictures and doing things they know are wrong but someone told them to do it so they do it anyways. A man also came in one day and claimed that because of the nice person he is he just did what they said cause he basically wanted to fit in with other U.S soldiers.

The following Youtube video shows both these types of conformity is a very much less harmful way but shows how people will do things just because others are or because they just want to fit in because they think it is the right thing to do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPsg6ldzUnc&feature=related

Abu Ghraib and the Stanford Prison Experiment Parallels

Upon watching Standard Operating Procedure it seemed to me as if Abu Ghraib was a real life example of both the Stanford Prison experiment and the Milgram experiment. Both experiments ultimately studied the effects of authority their results closely matched the events that occurred in Abu Ghraib. Both Abu Ghraib and the Stanford experiment took place in a prison setting where there were prisoners and officers with little to no presence of higher ups regulation. In both cases the officers succumbed to the power they had and in the simplest way of putting it, abused it. Similar to the officers in the Stanford Experiment the personalities of the officers at Abu Ghraib were most likely affected by situational attribution. In this case the situation the offers were in had a major impact on the way they acted and not necessarily their true inner selves. A lot of the actions of the Abu Ghraib officers could be explained by cognitive dissonance, which was another point brought up by the Stanford experiment. The uncomfortable situations that many of the officers might have faced caused them to shift their thinking process and accept that what they were doing was acceptable. This plays in line with the idea of the power of authority as lower ranking officers might have originally been uncomfortable with the tortures but after time they might have created a tolerance and forced them to believe that what they were doing was okay.

This website draws further parallelism between the Abu Ghraib events and the Stanford and Milgram experiments:

http://maletomalefeeling.com/abughraib.html

Remorse?

When we looked at the pictures in class of the prisoners of Abu Ghraib, what disturbed me the most were the pictures in which American soldiers posed with them. Lynnde England giving the thumbs-up sign next to the corpse and the man who had the prisoner's head pulled back like a deer were particularly horrifying because she could have been standing next to a prize-winning pie at the state fair, and he could have been celebrating his first deer hunt. It made me wonder whether they should be believed if they say the things they did were out of control, or even if they feel any remorse for the torture they inflicted on the prisoners.

I found this interesting article about England that was written two years after the Abu Ghraib scandal had been brought to light. After reading it, I still have mixed feelings about her, but I can't decide whether or not she feels true remorse for what she did. Sometimes it seems like she's still trying to play the victim--"I was only in the photos for a split second of time"--but it is also clear that she realizes her life will never be the same. Take a look and decide for yourself.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/06/29/national/main5121230.shtml

Responsibility and Chance

After watching half of the Abu Ghraib video, two things have really stuck out in my mind. The two subjects are responsibility and chance. It seems in the video, as if no one wants to take responsibility for what happened. The soldiers say "it was the MI" who were doing it, the MI say they were told to do those things. At the same time, I think it's impossible to blame them solely because what are the chances that all of the soldiers that were told to watch over Abu Ghraib were all evil people who enjoyed torturing people? It's very unlikely.

When thinking about both of those terms and how they intertwine, it makes me think there seems to be one problem; when you give people power without rules, humanity goes out the window and power takes its place. In the video, some of the guards said they saw what was going on and the commanders and people in power told them not to say anything and mind their own business. If there is an institution where someone has the power to make another "be quiet", anything can happen. The whole idea of this hierarchy and it being in a prison, reminds me of the Stanford Prison experiment.

http://www.prisonexp.org/

Abu Ghraib

Before being introduced to the pictures and interviews of Abu Ghraib, I truly had no idea of what to expect. On the first day of viewing the pictures of the event, I was completely caught off guard. There were soldiers taking pictures of Iraqi individuals and/or dead corpses. Personally, it looked like some type of setup, but in reality I found it quite disturbing that the American soldiers were responsible for torturing these people for several reasons. First of all, using the tactics they did to find responses to certain circumstances were irrelevant, such as putting hot sauce stained bags over their heads, placing leashes around their necks, etc. Where is the morality in this instance?

Being commanded to do your duty does not mean that what you have to do is always right. For the American soldiers, there is no excuses to the harm and humiliation they have caused to the Iraqi people. Furthermore, learning about this event has piqued my interest to explore more about the topic. Here is one of the links I checked out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9yxdKolSkg&feature=related

Standard Operating Procedure: Nazi Soldier Syndrome?

The video confessions of the Abu Ghraib soldiers was very similar to what the Nazi soldiers said. The Nazi soldiers always said that they did the things they did because they were just following orders. It was the same for the Abu Ghraib soldiers. They did it because everyone else, mainly the authority figures, did it or they were ordered to do it, like paying the music really loud to keep the prisoners awake. It was strange how it worked out. The new people followed along but some higher authority figure who was visiting noticed that something was wrong. Why do people do that? The website that I looked at says that this behavior results from the imbalance of power, and people are to willing to give themselves to a job.

However, the girl who wrote the letters knew how horrible eveything looked but she did not speak up. This showed that the soldiers had the urge to follow orders but also not to question them. When things are not questioned, the truth is not seen or found and people will continue to think or do wrong.

This also reminds me of the movie An American Crime that has this crazy mother who tells her children it is ok to abuse this girl they are supposed to be caring for. Then the neighborhood kids come to the house to abuse her too. They all responded in court that they did not know why they did those things or did not get help.

People seem to take authority figures as their dictator over their souls. Conscience is blocked and sympathy is lost. The only thing that matters is keeping their job and reputation with their bosses.

Really Good Website: It lookes at different scenerios of power influencing people's decisions including Abu Ghraib soldiers.
http://www.kon.org/urc/v6/patros.html