Military Intelligence? A Psychiatrist Analyzes the Abu Ghraib Mindset
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Summary
[Paul Newhouse]: I'm sure that it does, but I'm not sure anyone's ever made a study of that. We tend to think of World War II as the "good war," but there was just as much ambivalence about what we were doing. It's not like the movies... I've talked to guys who fought on these Pacific atolls and thought they were in hell -- knew they were in hell -- and thought that the rest of the country didn't give a damn about them. I think that's a characteristic of all wars.
PN: That's bullshit. I'm sorry. That's bullshit. Yeah, the Germans said that too, as we all know, and that's no excuse. The military doesn't buy that excuse. You're not allowed to follow an illegal order. People who were with Lieutenant Calley [at My Lai] said the same thing... I feel very badly for these kids who are accused, because I feel that in many ways they're the victims of bad leadership and a bad situation and I don't believe for a moment that these are bad people.PN: I think you cashier everyone involved in that situation and you fire some of them, and heads will have to roll. I think people have to figure out a way to take care of prisoners decently and treating them humanely, maybe not luxuriously, and maybe not even pleasantly, but humanely. And interrogations -- I'm not an expert in how to get information out of people, but my guess is that torturing and abusing people is not an effective way. It can be done for one of two purposes: it's either sadistic or it's stupid. Presuming that we're not interested in being sadistic, it's just stupid.See the full content of this document
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Military Intelligence? A Psychiatrist Analyzes the Abu Ghraib Mindset
How does the kid next door become a grinning, posing, poster child for international law-breaking, military-prison human rights violations, humiliation and torture? Given the right circumstances, would your enlisted loved one behave like Jeremy Sivits or Lynndie England? Would you?
As the fallout from the Abu Ghraib scandal continues to be felt around the world, we consulted a local psychiatrist with military expe...See the full content of this document
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