The Collaborative Creation of Alternate Realities and the Use of Torture: An Analysis of Abu Ghraib

The abuses at Abu Ghraib, an American-run prison in Iraq, raise the question, how does torture happen in a society whose members for the most part believe that doing harm to others is wrong? Ronald Crelinsten (2003) offers the explanation that people create an alternate reality in which torture is justified. Three types of people, perpetrators, victims, and bystanders, participate in the maintenance of this alternate reality. My study is an instantiation of Crelinsten's framework. It focuses on the perpetrators at Abu Ghraib. I propose that two types of perpetrators participated in the abuses: the soldiers and personnel in the U.S. government bureaucracy. Although we cannot truly know whether or not an alternate reality existed, we can examine public definitions of the nature of the enemy made by government officials that suggest current international protocols of war do not apply to the enemy. By recognizing the definitions offered that could result in the creation of an alternate reality which includes torture, we can learn how to prevent its construction.