(4 of 5)
How much was ordered by higher-ups and how much was free-lance sadism will presumably become clearer when the accused men and women of the 372nd face the criminal-justice system. The equivalent of a grand jury that is under way will probably lead in coming weeks to courts-martial that could result in punitive discharges or imprisonment. Frederick, who was in charge of the others and thus appears to be most culpable, is likely to be tried first. He and five others facing charges remain on duty in Iraq, although the unit has been transferred out of Abu Ghraib. England has been sent to Fort Bragg in North Carolina.
Some observers in the military believe the nudity and sexual humiliations staged at Abu Ghraib are not all that different from the crude hazing and horseplay that are commonplace among servicemen. In his 2003 book Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles, author and former Marine Anthony Swofford describes how his unit staged a "field f___," a simulated mass rape of one Marine by others, to let off steam and entertain a visiting journalist. Says Swofford of the scenes at Abu Ghraib: "We can be assured that somewhere on American military bases throughout the world, some people are treating their peers the same way."
On the other hand, some experts on torture deeply doubt that members of an MP company from a small town could have come up with something like the pose seen in one of the most infamous images from Abu Ghraib--one in which a hooded prisoner stands on a box with electrical wires connected to his arms and genitals. The photo could have been a textbook illustration of a classic torture method known as crucifixion, says Darius Rejali, an associate professor of political science at Reed College and author of Torture and Modernity. This kind of standing torture was used by the Gestapo and by Stalin, he says, although the wires and the threat of electrocution if you fell were a Brazilian police innovation. "You don't learn this sort of thing in West Virginia," says Rejali. "Somebody had to tell these soldiers what the parameters were for their behavior."
Psychologists who have studied torture and prisoner abuse say it is remarkably easy for people to lapse into sadistic behavior when they have complete power over other human beings, especially if they feel the behavior has been sanctioned by an authority figure. In a classic series of studies conducted at Yale in the 1960s, psychologist Stanley Milgram showed that psychologically healthy volunteers did not hesitate to administer what they thought were electric shocks to another human being when instructed to do so by a researcher. Two-thirds followed instructions and kept raising the voltage--right up to levels marked DANGER: SEVERE SHOCK and XXX. Milgram found that compliance was greatest when participants couldn't see the face of their subject (although they could hear an actor's fake screams) and when they took their instructions from an official-looking scientist in a white lab coat.