Not just another brick in the wall

Buried in his report earlier this year on Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba praised the actions of three men who tried to stop the mistreatment of Iraqi detainees. They are nowhere to be seen in the portraits of brutality that have touched off outrage around the world.

Although details of their actions are sketchy, it is known that one soldier, Lt. David O. Sutton, put an end to one incident and alerted his commanders. William J. Kimbro, a Navy dog handler, "refused to participate in improper interrogations despite significant pressure" from military intelligence, according to the report. And Specialist Joseph M. Darby gave military police the evidence that sounded the alarm.
...

"It is sometimes the case that they themselves have been scapegoated or turned on by the crowd,"said Dr. John Darley, a professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton. "If you go back into the lives of these people you can often find some incident that has made very vivid to them the pressures of conformity working on the others in the group."

People who break from the crowd to blow the whistle, history shows, are often the most psychologically distanced from the situation. In 1968, Hugh Thompson, a helicopter pilot, was flying over Vietnam as G.I.'s were killing civilians. The soldiers on the ground had been told that the vilage, My Lai, was a Vietcong stronghold. But from above Mr. Thompson could see there was no enemy fire. He landed his helicopter, rescued some villagers, and told his commanders about the massacre.