mong the hundreds of photos taken by American Military Police Reserves at Abu Ghraib documenting their abuse of prisoners is one that the media ignored but that I found fascinating. It is of a male guard on the night shift in Tier 1-A, where the primary violence occurred. He is standing inside a prison cell next to an attractive female soldier. He is wearing a Harley Davidson biker cap, and his face is a fully painted in an intricate silver and black design. That facial mask is fashioned in the style of an infamous Detroit hard-core metal/rap band, "Insane Clown Posse." Unique about this group is that their live performances are notorious for featuring fires, chainsaws and simulated violence. Their music is full of murder fantasies, necrophilia, sadistic violence against women, and worse in their "carnival of carnage." There is no evidence that this self-induced anonymity was anything more than a Halloween caper, but it speaks to the breakdown in military discipline among guards in that unit while on tier duty. One can also imagine the reaction of Iraqi detainees at the sight of one of their captors in such a frightening mask. Curiously, some features of this mask are comparable to that depicted by novelist William Golding’s Lord of the Flies in the painted mask on Jack Merridew. all to hell where we are that would be a great revenge against God.”

©2006-2009, Philip G. Zimbardo