Summary “How People Turn Monstrous”

281 Words2 Pages
“How People Turn Monstrous” reveals the incident of eight soldiers and Staff [Sgt.] Ivan Frederick II mistreating Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib Prison with humiliating sexual behavior and physical abuse such as stripping them naked with bags over their heads and stomping on their hands and feet. Mark Buchanan believes they “only did what many of us would have done if placed in the same situation”(384). Buchanan provides us with a great resource such as the experiment at Stanford University by Philip Zimbardo. Few college students were put in a real life situation similar to Abu Ghraib. “ Some students played prisoners and others guards... the guards grew increasingly abusive”(384). As ordinary college students they sure acted monstrously because of the situation they were in not because they are monsters. This was more part of a social pattern than about the character of individuals. Just like how Frederick was in when he arrived at Abu Ghraib prison. As he recalls on his first day there, detainees were “naked, handcuffed to their door, some wearing female underclothes”(385). So there was already abusive behavior taking place toward the prisoners before Frederick arrived at Abu Ghraib. Even tho Fredrick has admitted to doing wrong, we can not blame him or the other guards for doing what they did because who knows if we would of acted any different if put in the same situation. The people really responsible for the abuse that should be bought to justice is “in the upper tiers of the military chain of command and its civilian leadership; they’re in the White House...today walking around free” while Frederick is living the prison
Open Document