Just a Gwai Lo fun within prescribed limits [?]

The following was written and linked to at the time that the Abu Ghraib photos came out in the first quarter of 2004. Though I continue to stand by my support for the Americans invading Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein (supported it what I knew then and still support the decision knowing what I know now), Bush at the time that the photos were published, I was appalled and thought Bush should have fired Rumsfeld.

Tim Bray: “Don't torture people.” I was—and still am—also in the minority of Canadians in favour of the invasion into Iraq, and the photos of torture coming out—with more evidently to come—made me wonder how stupid do you have to be to belong to the best-armed army in history? The actions of the GIs disgust me, not merely because their actions are disgusting (they are), but because they are counter-productive. The photos plainly show that the me—”and startlingly, women—thought of the Iraqi prisoners as inhuman.

William Saletan, explaining why the Stanford Prison Experiment does not explain the torture at Abu Ghraib: “science, particularly social science, isn't all scientific. Every experimenter begins by drawing a box. Inside the box are the factors he decides to control or measure. The rest—including him—are left out, either because he can't control or measure them, or because he doesn't think they're important. The box-drawing process is seldom scientific and often cultural or political. Consequently, excluded factors often turn out to be more important than included ones.”

In the Stanford Prison Experiment, factors including (but not limited to) personality, race, and the ability of prisoners to determine whether or not they stayed in the prison and who decided on the punishments all differed from Abu Ghraib.