Respect for authority has been brainwashed into people, from the first day in kindergarten onward. The war on terrorism makes this more so, since it has exposed the uneducated masses for the first time to the whole world and they are scared – just like educated people are scared of deep space travel – and they focus obsessively on authority (politicians, CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies ~ the death of McDonald’s CEO today caused the markets to plummet; how bizarre). In the case of the legal justice system, the judge has far more power even in jury trials, to affect the verdict. Jurors follow his every clue, ignoring even the most obvious evidence, wanting only to do what the authority figure wants. Terrorists being tried by military tribunals get a fairer hearing than a citizen tried by his peers in open court.
I would attribute the indiscretions done by American troops against terrorist detainees in Iraq to be caused by our shallow culture.