Would You Condone Torture in War?

Feb. 14, 2007 — -- A new study suggests that abuse of prisoners of war is widely condoned by many veterans, and possibly by many in the military today. Even rape of a prisoner was judged acceptable by more than half of the 351 participants in the study.

"It's pretty shocking," says William C. Holmes, a physician and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the Philadelphia VA Medical Center. Holmes is the lead author of the study, published in the current issue of Military Medicine.

Participants in the study were all veterans of past wars -- mostly Vietnam -- and while their tolerance of prisoner abuse is surprisingly high, the numbers would probably be considerably lower among all veterans and all military personnel. Most participants suffer from depression or post-traumatic stress disorder, or both, and that is believed to have boosted their tolerance of abuse.

They have, as Holmes puts it, "substantial psychiatric burdens."

However, the overall composition of the group matches a large segment of today's military. Most are high school graduates, on the lower end of the economic scale, and predominantly male.

The researchers drew their material for the project from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in 2004, including three graphic scenarios ranging from detainee exposure to the sodomizing of one prisoner with a broom handle. Participants were asked whether they found each case of abuse acceptable, or acceptable with some reservations, or completely unacceptable. The researchers termed that "zero tolerance."

Not surprisingly, as the severity of abuse increased, so did the level of zero tolerance.

Only 16 percent ranked exposure and deprivation as completely unacceptable, and 31 percent rejected sexual humiliation. But only 48 percent -- not even half -- found rape unacceptable.

That was surprising to Holmes because the circumstances, drawn from an actual incident at Abu Ghraib, are shocking. The prisoner was forced to strip naked and lie face down on the floor while military dogs stood nearby. Then the soldier forced the broom handle into the rectum of the prisoner, who, according to the description, "screams and contorts in pain."