Usually Tim Bray makes a lot of sense, but his recent post Torture didn't make much sense to me.  This is what he wrote about those soldiers at Abu Ghraib who are being charged:

This recent New York Times piece got me mad enough to provoke this essay. It’s a lengthy cri de coeur about those poor soldiers on the scene at Abu Ghraib, understaffed, undertrained, overworked. Excuse me? They’re torturers! They’re sick out-of-control sadistic animals. Can we have a sense of proportion here?

Apparently, he believes in the saying you are what you do.  In contrast, I am more partial toward you are a battleground of good and evil and everyone is capable of committing inhumane acts under the right conditions.

We know that inhumane acts can be brought about in many ways, most notorious being brainwashing.  To brainwash a person, one must have control over the victim's surrounding through isolation or immersion.  Isn't a prison an ideal environment for brainwashing whether the victim is a prisoner or a guard?  Can one brainwash oneself?  Definitely.  If your peers are brainwashed, what's you chance of being infected?

Even if you have the iron will, a rare property in my opinion, you won't last long under interrogation because interrogation is an art of not only pain but an art of brainwashing.  To break you, they will first break your perception of the world, twisting it as if opening a jar, aligning it into a position that will give, turning allies into enemies and friends into betrayers.  Guess who those soldiers were interacting with on daily basis?  That's right, professional brainwashers.

I am not saying they are all angels corrupted by evil interrogators.  What I am saying is that they are not too different from you and I.  The problem is not just them, but all of us.

You know what you did, but you know not what you do.