Smiling in Abu Graib Prison

There's an amazing article in the NYT about a photograph... and about war, and torture, and facial expressions, and responsibility. The article is called "The Most Curious Thing," by Errol Morris (click here), and it takes as its starting point and centerpiece the (in)famous photograph of a young soldier leaning over a dead Iraqi man in Abu Graib prison, smiling broadly at the camera, and giving a "thumbs-up" signal. As it turns out, the dead man had been tortured before he died, and there was a clumsy effort to cover up the torture, the details of his death, and to shift and disperse and minimize the responsibility for the whole affair. And, as it turns out, the soldier in the photograph made an effort to document the injuries that were plainly visible on the man's body, because it was obvious to her that he had not died a natural death (and it was also obvious that the whole situation was being energetically hushed up).

Errol Morris was intrigued by the whole situation; in particular, he found it terribly difficult to reconcile the image of the smiling young woman with the thumbs-up signal, together with the idea that this soldier was "really a good person," a person who took no pleasure in the torture of another human being (even a suspected member of enemy forces), and who took steps to document the evidence of torture. He got interested in the science of facial expressions, and even consulted with the very renowned Paul Ekman. Here's what he says about his decision to talk with Ekman:

"I contacted Paul Ekman, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of California, San Francisco. Ekman is an expert on facial expressions and has written many books, including 'Emotions Revealed, Unmasking the Face' and 'Telling Lies.' I asked him to help explain Harman’s smile.

(Oliver Sacks has written, 'No one in the world has studied facial expressions as deeply as Paul Ekman. In "Emotions Revealed" he presents — clearly, vividly, and in the most accessible way — his fascinating observations about the covert expressions of emotions we all encounter hundreds of times daily, but so often misunderstand or fail to see. There has not been a book of such range and insight since Darwin’s famous "Expression of the Emotions" more than a century ago.' His work is also prominently featured in Malcolm Gladwell’s 'Blink.')"

After reviewing the famous "soldier smiling with thumbs-up" photo, and other photos of this same soldier, Ekman concluded that the soldier's smile was did not reflect any genuine feeling of pleasure, but rather that it was the posed smile that everyone produces on demand, in social settings when a smile is in order, for photos, etc. This was consistent with what the soldier, herself, had said about her actual feelings, at the time the picture was taken.

Here's what Morris quotes the soldier (Harman) as saying about the situation:

SABRINA HARMAN: When we got to the prison, Captain Brinson had a meeting in the main office with all of us. [22] He said there was a prisoner who had died in the shower, and he died of a heart attack. And he told us that he was on ice, and he was in the shower in tier 1B. That was pretty much it for that. And then we went upstairs. Sergeant Frederick got the key and we just checked him out and took photos of him. Kind of realized right away that there was no way he died of a heart attack because of all the cuts and blood coming out of his nose.

[MORRIS]: I asked Sabrina whether she thought from the beginning that it was a homicide.

SABRINA HARMAN: It took a while. Like, you started undoing the bandages and looking closely. Like, you see his knees were bruised; his thighs were bruised [around] his genitals. He had restraint marks on his wrists. What else? You had to look close. They did a really good job cleaning him up. I mean, he had ice all over his body, so unless you removed things, you couldn’t really see the actual physical damage that they had done.

Morris details, insofar as is possible, the chain of events and the various organizations (military and otherwise) who played a part in this terrible mess. I especially appreciated the section in which he clearly sets out the time-honored method that government officials (among others!) use to shift blame, to "fuzz up" a situation in such a way that nobody can ever get to the bottom of it. Great article!

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