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I've heard that one enough times- I think Rush Limbaugh was the first high-profile media commentator to put it out there- to feel the need to respond.
Context is everything, in that regard. Fraternity hazing- including the fraternity of military units- is well-known for ritual initiations that involve stress, shock, duress, and tactics that involve various degrees of public humiliation.
The difference is that in a fraternity hazing, the candidate has volunteered for the procedure- and that part of that volunteering necessarily involves placing a high level of trust in ones companions, including those making the most stressful demands, that they'll limit the level and duration of the abuse to a reasonably tolerable amount.
An unwilling captive or prisoner has no such mental set in place. Quite the opposite, in fact.
It's also worth noting that at least some of the more extreme "hazing" tactics formerly employed by various fraternities have been either forbidden or voluntarily abandoned nowadays, due to various incidents of permanent harm or even death that resulted from their use.
On an issue related to a previous comment of mine in this thread: I understand the need for Security Housing Units in the American prison system, and support their existence (although there better be sound and defensible reasons for putting someone into that level of confinement, especially long-term or permanently.) But that doesn't mean that I think the correctional authorities have the right to turn SHU inmates into lab rats.
