The Abu Ghraib jail atrocities of Iraqis are detailed in Zimbardo’s book “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil.” Many people have asserted that some of the “bad apples” on duty were the ones who tortured Iraqi inmates at Abu Ghraib. Although, in my perspective, it was “rotten barrel” rather than “bad apples” that contributed to the heinous deeds of common Americans (Zimbardo 315). The images in Zimbardo’s book some of which were well-known due to media reports of the prison, showed army reserve guards mistreating and humiliating Iraqi prisoners, and naked inmates being stacked in pyramids or crawling on the ground with leashes. There were also pictures of detainees in Zimbardo’s book wearing a black mask with electrodes on his fingertips, terrified detainees being threatened with attack dogs, horribly disguised guards pointing weapons at their genitalia; and much worse. It is important to understand that those responsible for the crimes at Abu Ghraib did not have sadistic tendencies when they joined the military because that was not a characteristic of their lifestyle, and they were not serial killers or torturers.
Despite people’s use of the term “bad apples,” which is a dispositional account that merely blames the individual for wrongdoing, it is clear that they were influenced by their circumstance, the bad barrel, leading them to behave the way they did. Looking at Joe Darby, who exposed the dark deeds of the Abu Ghraib prison to the public, it is clear that when he enlisted in the army, he had no intention of participating in the heinous acts that him and his friends did. This suggests they were pushed into that situation by the barrel of war. Joe claims in the book, “I couldn’t stop thinking about it. After about three days, I made a decision to turn the pictures in” (Zimbardo 328). This demonstrates that the corrupt system caused him and the other American soldiers to do despicable acts in Abu Ghraib.
Zimbardo illustrates various ideas and how they can be applied to bring about evil. This is demonstrated in Chip Frederick, who, despite outperforming expectations on practically all performance metrics, turned out to be a completely different person after spending time at Abu Ghrib (Zimbardo 319). The unjust conditions at the prison, which Saddam Hussein had used as a torture camp before the war, provided the catalyst for Frederick and his fellow guards’ character changes (Zimbardo 322). Being forced to work 12-hour shifts seven nights a week for forty days without a break, in extreme filth, and while being constantly bombarded by the enemy resembles the definition of hell. The book states, “Frederick was in charge of 1,000 prisoner, 12 reservist guards, 60 Iraqi police guards who were smuggling weapons and drugs to the Iraqi prisoners (Zimbardo 331). No one ever supervised the soldiers, and they had no training. Frederick rarely left the prison, Tier 1A became his total reference group, and we know what that means. Such unbearable conditions can cause an officer to change and act the way they did, a fault that is not entirely their own.
The horrific nature of what occurred at Abu Ghraib does not absolve Frederick and the other guards of culpability for their deeds, but the military leadership, which implicitly supported torture and turned a blind eye to what was happening at the Abu Ghraib prison, deserves the majority of the blame, demonstrating that bad governance was a critical contributor to their actions. It is, therefore, clear that the military leadership and the Bush administration were responsible for developing the bad barrel that corrupted American soldiers who were once upstanding citizens. As a juror, I believe the emotionally-driven plunge into brutality at Abu Ghraib is an unavoidable result of the rotten barrel of war, even though military leaders almost always blame these kinds of atrocities on bad characters in the military.
Work Cited
Zimbardo, Philip G. The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. Random House, 2007.