Flaws in the Ointment
I've composed a 1000-word essay in response to a question regarding my interpretation of the conduct of the Abu Ghraib prison guards and interrogators, but I don't know that it's really worthwhile posting it. I don't want to insult the American military, for whom I generally have an admiring opinion of their skills and dedication, and despite recent events, or because of them, I know that the U.S. is going to be in Iraq long after the June 30 "hand-over." Anything I say regarding the matter can only be addressed by long-term solutions, although, yes, sure, short-term handling is certainly called for. I'll put it up here anyway, but it's pretty much irrelevant, so you're more than welcome to ignore it.

Alienation and Nation-Building
It’s true, as has been pointed out in the comments regarding an aside in a previous post, that I have known a number of people in the military, including one near immediate family member, an in-law of an immediate family member, some work peers and others, and none of them can in any regard be considered sociopathic, but that’s rather beside the point, at least statistically. I have known in addition to the aforementioned, people who joined up in part or wholly for the benefits: meals, housing, uniforms, child care, education, supplemental income: to rise above their immediate circumstances. I’ve seen enough of this to identify it as a common feature of the volunteer armed forces. I don’t dispute that there are a large number of serving individuals who are pursuing a full career in the military, with expectations similar to that of any office job, including advancement in status and pay, but they are mostly going to be the product of the Academies and many are more likely to do their 20 years and move on. These individuals, in addition to their military training, will have received a more thorough and well-rounded education than many of their fellows in uniform. Of the officers I’ve known, in addition to Academy graduates, the majority have been individuals who served during wartime and left immediately upon discharge. I see career military personnel, then, as the least likely members of the armed services to commit atrocities.

The bulk of the military are not officers and are not careerists, however, they are NCOs and below who are serving because it is the quickest, in some ways easiest way out of poverty or an abusive situation they can aspire to. Such a background is going to produce psychologically damaged individuals who military training is not designed to root out, but must still address to achieve effectiveness, but also who are specifically targeted by most recruiting drives and advertising. Rather than eliminate sociopaths, I would argue that military discipline layers control over personalities by breaking down individualism and building up group loyalty, but this does not re-engineer the previously ingrained personality problems some individuals will bring with them into military service. In some cases, training also enhances aspects of character that outside the military would be flaws, rewarding expertise in weapons and combat methodologies by the same rebuilding of personality techniques used to create organizational loyalty. These individuals are taught therefore to value the military as their family, and their own abilities as key contributing factors towards the success of that organization. They are taught that they are different from and better than those who are not part of the Army or Marine Corps or Navy or Air Force. Within these branches, special groupings are devised to further enhance the sense of elitism and entitlement membership in the military confers. Non-military are undisciplined, self-indulgent, untrustworthy. Elite status confers authority. The higher up in the chain of command, the more authority you command. But even down to the lowest ranking soldier, some degree of authority is afforded. The psychology of many is suspect, so when they exercise authority, they cannot be trusted. This isn’t the Stanford experiment, and William Saletan’s article in Slate.com points out the differences, but also shows the influence military culture has on the events in Iraq. For my part, in respect to my thesis, I don’t believe the Abu Ghraib torturers are soldiers programmed by the military to reject authority or act out sociopathic tendencies, neither do I believe soliders generally are so trained. I think the troops committing war crimes in Iraq actually crave authority; in fact desire to be empowered to mete out discipline by accepting the authority of those ranked above them, but which they then to pass on the way abused children are programmed to commit child abuse because they have started out psychologically damaged, and such troops comprise a significant enough number of the military overall that the Abu Ghraib events were inevitable.

Military discipline is meant to restrain this, but doesn’t, at least not in every case. There are always a few who will take “souvenirs” or beat or shoot prisoners, and some of them will get away with it and some will be caught and punished. But in this case, right now, we have added to the problem by three nearly concurrent factors, beyond even the failure of the military’s decline from forming cohesiveness to small, alienated elitist groups as a result of its increasing dependence on volunteers who are largely sourced from increasingly alienated segments of the general population to maintain basic staffing levels. First, the Bush government under Donald Rumsfield has pursued the reorganization of the military according to principles alienating to the career officers, among them the increased reliance on increasingly complex technology well underway in the 1970s and ‘80s, and this has been exacerbated by the lead-on inevitable alienation of the soldiers who rely on those officers and command structures, causing a breakdown in the operational norms affording them or otherwise imposing necessary self-control. Second, the troops in Iraq are simultaneously engaged in war and peace; fighting daily battles even while engaged in rebuilding Iraq alongside non-military contractors, so the mission of the military is confused from the outset. Third, and perhaps most importantly, the Bush government is enacting revenge fantasies. We are there to punish, and as often happens to begin with, the actions taken in response to orders have exceeded the orders themselves.

Until the evidence came to light – and there’s an argument to be made that it existed in the first place because of the same kind of perverted sensibilities present in the rank-and-file military that gave rise to the abuse in the first place – it was done with the tacit approval of the chain of command. Our military personnel in Iraq have been instructed that they cannot distinguish between civilians and combatants: all are potentially terrorists, members of Al Qaeda or Saddam loyalists. There’s a great deal of truth in this, but military discipline and procedure is meant to have processes to contend with the problem. Still, the enemy are not uniformed soldiers, so they are not to be afforded the same rights as soldiers. As a result, violent fantasies get played out, indulged, and the now equally alienated careerists turn their eyes away until they can no longer do so. They’ll have to clean up the mess, but they couldn’t have prevented it, not wholly, although it might have been mitigated somewhat, if they hadn’t let the leash slip.