The Stanford prison experiment (SPE) was a psychological experiment performed during August 1971. It was a two-week simulation of a prison environment that examined the effects of situational variables on participants' reactions and behaviors. Stanford University psychology professor Philip Zimbardo managed the research team who administered the study.
Philip George Zimbardo was an American psychologist and a professor at Stanford University. He was an internationally known educator,researcher,author and media personality in psychology who authored more than 500 articles,chapters,textbooks,and trade books covering a wide range of topics,including time perspective,cognitive dissonance,the psychology of evil,persuasion,cults,deindividuation,shyness,and heroism. He became known for his 1971 Stanford prison experiment,which was later criticized. He authored various widely-used,introductory psychology textbooks for college students,and other notable works,including Shyness,The Lucifer Effect,and The Time Paradox. He was the founder and president of the Heroic Imagination Project,a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting heroism in everyday life by training people how to resist bullying,bystanding,and negative conformity. He pioneered The Stanford Shyness Clinic in the 1970s and offered the earliest comprehensive treatment program for shyness. He was the recipient of numerous honorary degrees and many awards and honors for service,teaching,research,writing,and educational media,including the Carl Sagan Award for Public Understanding of Science for his Discovering Psychology video series. He served as Western Psychological Association president in 1983 and 2001,and American Psychological Association president in 2002.
Charles A. Graner Jr. is an American former soldier and corrections officer who was court-martialed for prisoner abuse after the 2003–2004 Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. Along with other soldiers of his Army Reserve unit,the 372nd Military Police Company,Graner was accused of allowing and inflicting sexual,physical,and psychological abuse on Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib prison,a notorious prison in Baghdad during the United States' occupation of Iraq.
Megan Ambuhl is a former United States Army Reserve soldier who was convicted of dereliction of duty for her role in the prisoner abuse that occurred at Abu Ghraib prison,a notorious prison in Baghdad during the United States' occupation of Iraq.
During the early stages of the Iraq War,members of the United States Army and the Central Intelligence Agency committed a series of human rights violations and war crimes against detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. These abuses included physical abuse,sexual humiliation,physical and psychological torture,and rape,as well as the killing of Manadel al-Jamadi and the desecration of his body. The abuses came to public attention with the publication of photographs by CBS News in April 2004,causing shock and outrage and receiving widespread condemnation within the United States and internationally.
About six months after the United States invasion of Iraq of 2003,rumors of Iraq prison abuse scandals started to emerge.
Steven Anthony Stefanowicz was involved,as a private contractor for CACI International,in the interrogations at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
Geoffrey D. Miller is a retired United States Army major general who commanded the US detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay,Cuba,and Iraq. Detention facilities in Iraq under his command included Abu Ghraib prison,Camp Cropper,and Camp Bucca. He is noted for having trained soldiers in using torture,or "enhanced interrogation techniques" in US euphemism,and for carrying out the "First Special Interrogation Plan," signed by the Secretary of Defense,against a Guantanamo detainee.
Charles William Gittins is an American lawyer,who has worked for a number of noteworthy defendants in military courts martial.
Thomas M. Pappas is a former United States Army colonel who is a civilian intelligence officer with the Army's Training and Doctrine Command at Fort Eustis,Virginia.
Aidan Delgado is an American attorney,author,and war veteran. His 2007 book The Sutras of Abu Ghraib detailed his experiences during his deployment in Iraq. He graduated from Georgetown Law in 2011.
Samuel Provance is a former U.S. Army military intelligence sergeant,known for disobeying an order from his commanders in the 302nd Military Intelligence Battalion by discussing with the media his experiences at the Abu Ghraib Prison,where he was assigned from September 2003 to February 2004. After being disciplined for his actions,he eventually brought his case to the United States Government in February 2006,resulting in a congressional subpoena of the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The main points of his testimony are that military intelligence soldiers and contracted civilian interrogators had abused detainees,that they directed the military police to abuse detainees,the extent of this knowledge at the prison,and the subsequent cover-up of these practices when investigated.
The Haditha massacre was a series of killings on November 19,2005,in which a group of United States marines killed 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians. The killings occurred in the city of Haditha in Iraq's western province of Al Anbar. Among the dead were men,women,elderly people and children as young as three years old,who were shot multiple times at close range. The massacre took place after an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded near a convoy,killing a lance corporal and severely injuring two other marines. In response the marines executed five men from a nearby taxicab and 19 others inside four nearby homes.
The Hamdania incident refers to the alleged kidnapping and subsequent murder of an Iraqi man by United States Marines on April 26,2006,in Al Hamdania,a small village west of Baghdad near Abu Ghraib. An investigation by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service resulted in charges of murder,kidnapping,housebreaking,larceny,Obstruction of Justice and conspiracy associated with the alleged coverup of the incident. They were forced to drop many charges on the defendants. The defendants are seven Marines and a Navy Corpsman. As of February 2007,five of the defendants have negotiated pleas to lesser charges of kidnapping and conspiracy,or less,and have agreed to testify in these trials. Additional Marines from the same battalion faced lesser charges of assault related to the use of physical force during interrogations of suspected insurgents. Those charges were dropped.
Frank D. Wuterich is a former United States Marine Corps Staff Sergeant and mass murderer who pleaded guilty to negligent dereliction of duty as a result of his actions during the Haditha massacre where he murdered multiple innocent civilians. As a result of the plea agreement,he was reduced in rank to Private. He was given a general discharge in February 2012.
The Anbar campaign consisted of fighting between the United States military,together with Iraqi security forces,and Sunni insurgents in the western Iraqi governorate of Al Anbar. The Iraq War lasted from 2003 to 2011,but the majority of the fighting and counterinsurgency campaign in Anbar took place between April 2004 and September 2007. Although the fighting initially featured heavy urban warfare primarily between insurgents and U.S. Marines,insurgents in later years focused on ambushing the American and Iraqi security forces with improvised explosive devices (IEDs),large scale attacks on combat outposts,and car bombings. Almost 9,000 Iraqis and 1,335 Americans were killed in the campaign,many in the Euphrates River Valley and the Sunni Triangle around the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi.
The United States Armed Forces and its members have violated the law of war after the signing of the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 and the signing of the Geneva Conventions. The United States prosecutes offenders through the War Crimes Act of 1996 as well as through articles in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The United States signed the 1999 Rome Statute but it never ratified the treaty,taking the position that the International Criminal Court (ICC) lacks fundamental checks and balances. The American Service-Members' Protection Act of 2002 further limited US involvement with the ICC. The ICC reserves the right of states to prosecute war crimes,and the ICC can only proceed with prosecution of crimes when states do not have willingness or effective and reliable processes to investigate for themselves. The United States says that it has investigated many of the accusations alleged by the ICC prosecutors as having occurred in Afghanistan,and thus does not accept ICC jurisdiction over its nationals.
Josh White is an American journalist. White writes for the Washington Post,but has been published in various publications,including the Los Angeles Times and The Guardian. He is also invited to serve as a commentator on Radio and Television. White has focussed on stories related to the United States prosecution of the War in Afghanistan and the War in Iraq.
A number of incidents stemming from the September 11 attacks have raised questions about legality.
The Lucifer Effect:Understanding How Good People Turn Evil is a 2007 book which includes professor Philip Zimbardo's first detailed,written account of the events surrounding the 1971 Stanford prison experiment (SPE) –a prison simulation study which had to be discontinued after only six days due to several distressing outcomes and mental breaks of the participants. The book includes over 30 years of subsequent research into the psychological and social factors which result in immoral acts being committed by otherwise moral people. It also examines the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib in 2003,which has similarities to the Stanford experiment. The title takes its name from the biblical story of the favored angel of God,Lucifer,his fall from grace,and his assumption of the role of Satan,the embodiment of evil. The book was briefly on The New York Times Non-Fiction Best Seller and won the American Psychological Association's 2008 William James Book Award.
United States Army 