RE "who taught them the torture techniques" - NOBODY (read this)

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/05/08/MNGN76IG761.DTL

Zimbardo said the report on Abu Ghraib prepared by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba describes a prison that was the perfect petri dish in which the culture of guard violence could flourish.

It was a culture that Zimbardo said should have been well understood, based on decades of psychological research and his own famous -- some would say infamous -- Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971.

In that experiment, Zimbardo randomly divided 24 normal students into groups of guards and prisoners and placed them within a simulated prison.

Within days, all hell broke loose, as the faux guards turned to abuse to control the faux prisoners, stripping them, hooding them and ultimately forcing them to simulate sodomizing one another.

*******

Why human critters seem hardwired for this sickness is just beyond me, but it's pretty clear it requires no specialized training.

Enlightening.

She goes into the subject in excellent detail.

the tapes are pretty disturbing. and the most sadistic of the guards turned out to be a respected & seemingly decent fellow.