Personally, I think the Iraqi Abuse might be because of fear: Those troops that did what they did, did it because the fear of being killed turned into insanity. It's not surprising, if you analyse the situation:

First you put an American in an Arab Country... a very UNSTABLE arab country...

Then along comes a group of assassins, thugs, and miscillanious butt-holes that wanna kill everybody.

The American's friends are getting killed around him, and somehow he survives.

Every morning, he wakes up only to go out and see more of his friends getting killed.

Add a very hot temperature

Some very confused Iraqis

I don't give a rat's ass about your princeables, Something *will* snap! Now, questions are popping up in this now frightened American's head: What are those bastards planning? Who are they after next? Why the hell are they doing this? Where are these scum-buckets hiding? The American wants these questions answered by any means nescessary. So NOW his mind is coming up with all these ways to get the info, really clouding the poor guy's thoughts. Eventually, that's all he thinks about is "how to get this info out of these bastards." So NOW, he's gone nuts, he's carrying out these nasty ideas, and that is what lead to the abuse scandal.

I could, however, be wrong.

Well, I'm sure fear and nervousness had something to do with it. Personally, I think it's the training...you're de-humanified (if i can just invent a word [img]tongue.gif[/img] ). Your enemy becomes less than human. You see it all over the world, in all militaries.

American troops did far far worse things in Vietnam, worse than anything seen in this war from either side (including those contractors at the bridge) so I'm quite relieved really, because I think it could've been a lot worse. There's also a ton of psychological studies involving power and the abuse of it, things like prison experiments etc involving members of the public and the abuse that happens. I'll dig you up a link if you're interested.

[ 05-21-2004, 02:37 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

Weren't the guards at Abu Ghraib (sp?) MP's?

Some were civilian contractors, some were MP's and some were regular infantry I believe. The culture at Abu Ghraib (sp is better than how i was going to do it! :D ) apparently changed when the guys from Military Intelligence got actively involved, so you can probably add them to the list as well.

[ 05-21-2004, 04:47 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]

I expect that once we're through prosecuting the army MPs, someone will say "Hey, wait a minute" -- and then we'll start investigating the intelligence community, beginning with the ones in the background of the photos.

Presumably so. It's quite strange though, i was looking at the one that Lyndie England is using in her defence (the one with the numbered people on) and I must say that I couldn't see any difference in uniform to mark them out!