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Musicians: Did You Use Our Songs To Torture Gitmo Prisoners?
Rachel Slajda | October 22, 2009, 10:40AM
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A group of big-name musicians -- including Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, Bonnie Raitt, Rosanne Cash and dozens of others -- is demanding the White House release information about which songs were played at high volume to punish or interrogate prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
According to the Washington Post, the musicians announced today they support a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by the National Security Archive, a research institute.
The government has been blasting detainees with music since 2002. But the current administration says they ended the practice when President Obama took office.
Human rights groups call the practice torture.
Prisoners have reported most often hearing rap, heavy metal and country, specifically naming "We Are the Champions" by Queen and "March of the Pigs" by Nine Inch Nails.
Another former prisoner, Binyam Mohamed, told Human Rights Watch that he had been forced to listen to the rapper Eminem's song "The Real Slim Shady" for 20 days.
"Music should never be used as torture," said Cash. "It's beyond the pale. It's hard to even think about."
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budfox
October 22, 2009 11:02 AM
Hold My Hand- Hootie & The Blowfish, that would be my vote for most torture worthy song
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Pete Bilderback
October 22, 2009 11:06 AM
Wow, I knew Bush and Cheney lacked anything resembling a human conscience, but I never in my wildest dreams imagined they would go so far as to force anyone to listen to "We Are The Champions."
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VivaAmerica!
October 22, 2009 11:11 AM
Yeah, this will be a real priority.
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chthonic
October 22, 2009 11:27 AM
It's not funny in the slightest; and your (so far) collectively glib comments are, at best, suboptimal. At their worst, your glib comments reflect a copious ignorance of the results of sleep deprivation as a tool in the torturer's kit.
Sleep deprivation, over time, can actually drive a person completely insane. Read it again: clinically, completely, insane.
Between sanity and insanity, there is (according to the likes of Cheney, Yoo, Addington, and that sort of ilk) a chance that "intelligence" can be extracted from the tortured person.
What happens to the tortured person after the "intelligence" is extracted is of no consequence to the torturer nor his handlers.
It would be nice if, before reacting to glandular squirts interpreted as thought, individuals in groups actually reflected on what they were about to do.
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The Old Grouch
October 22, 2009 11:40 AM in reply to chthonic
As a once-upon-a-time subject in a clinical sleep deprivation study, I have to concur. After a couple, maybe three days, subjects enter a state resembling some forms of psychosis - disorientation, hallucinations, and more.
And we were thoroughly and closely monitored.
That also ought to tell you a lot about the quality and "intelligence value" of any supposed information gathered thereby.
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Matt Jones
October 22, 2009 12:17 PM in reply to The Old Grouch
Well, most anybody would have be psychotic, deluded and/or hallucinating to believe there was a link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, so sleep deprivation appears to work great for what Cheney wanted it to do.
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Pete Bilderback
October 22, 2009 12:15 PM in reply to chthonic
I apologize, you are right that my comment was too glib considering the seriousness of the subject. I did not intend to minimize the very real fact that playing music, any music, at very high volumes is torture, especially when sleep deprivation is part of the picture. I absolutely condemn the practice. It's barbaric, it should be beneath the United States, and I'm glad the Obama administration has apparently put an end to the practice.
But for the record I'd also like to say I really, really hate that Queen song.
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skyweaver
October 22, 2009 11:28 AM
I get the whole tendency to joke about this, but I sympathize. As an artist you want your music to uplift people. The idea that any music I'd made had been used to help dehumanize others would offend me deeply.
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Pete Bilderback
October 22, 2009 12:18 PM in reply to skyweaver
Absolutely. Jokes aside, none of these artists set out to create music in order to torture people. In fact it's the exact opposite of what they set out to do. If I were a musician whose music was used in this way, I would be outraged beyond words.
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midnight rambler
October 22, 2009 1:41 PM in reply to Pete Bilderback
Jokes aside, I'm not so sure that Trent Reznor's music wasn't intended to torture people. It certainly had that effect on me, and it's easy to see why it's a prime candidate for what was actually used.
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chthonic
October 22, 2009 2:03 PM in reply to midnight rambler
Which is probably why Johnny Cash covered Trent Reznor's Hurt. Never mind writing raps about busting caps on...I mean, writing songs about shooting people in Reno.
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chthonic
October 22, 2009 2:40 PM in reply to chthonic
Johnny Cash covers Trent Reznor:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmVAWKfJ4Go
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chthonic
October 22, 2009 11:43 AM
In my experience, saying that the use of glibness to fend off feelings of discomfort is to use a cliche.
Better, IMO, to simply acknowledge the outrage one feels at this. And sometimes, to wake people up to the reality of that outrage, a conk in the head is required.
Music is a FUNDAMENTAL language for our entire species.
I've seen lectures by people who, I suspect, know the brain; and they seem to imply that the best way to visualize how our brains work (that is, at the level of inter-neuron information flow) is to think about that flow as a kind of music.
Breaking that flow is a crime against humanity; whether that humanity is in a single body or spread across many.
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midnight rambler
October 22, 2009 1:49 PM in reply to chthonic
Actually, I think the glibness comes more from cynicism due to the fact that this is coming up years after it's been known, and when there have been much worse crimes committed there. It's hard to keep getting outraged all the time.
The musicians mentioned don't help either, given that many people, including myself, would consider it torture (yes, in a glib, semi-rhetorical sense) to be forced to listen to Nine Inch Nails or Eminem for three minutes.
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chthonic
October 22, 2009 2:14 PM in reply to midnight rambler
You forgot to read for comprehension.
You think the glibness comes from "cynicism"; but the thing is, for any person with a conscience....feeling cynicism when confronted by this is uncomfortable. After that, your post demonstrates your preference to continue sitting on cynicism rather than acid.
You've just encountered the Big Red Hand of Duh.
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midnight rambler
October 22, 2009 7:34 PM in reply to chthonic
Maybe because your posts are difficult to comprehend? Are you saying I prefer sitting on cynicism to sitting on acid? Taking LSD? Acid in the sense of nasty rhetoric (which would seem to be the same as cynicism)? None makes sense.
You think the glibness comes from "cynicism"; but the thing is, for any person with a conscience....feeling cynicism when confronted by this is uncomfortable.
Funny, I think I have a conscience, but it doesn't make me uncomfortable to feel cynicism about this. I've experienced enough small-scale sleep deprivation as a result of fuckwits blasting NIN and similar music to know how unpleasant it is and be outraged that it was done at Gitmo. And if I was a musician I would probably be upset if they were using my music. But I can't help but see this (the request for exactly what songs were used) as slightly silly.
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chthonic
October 22, 2009 9:34 PM in reply to midnight rambler
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_of_Acid
So much for Music Appreciation Day.
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writergal
October 22, 2009 11:53 AM
At the risk of being uninformed,ingnorant,glib and snarking on crimes against humanity (God knows I wouldn't want to be) I nominate John Ashcroft's barbershop quartet as hallucination inducing.
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EH
October 22, 2009 12:12 PM
Why now? Why not years ago?
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archie
October 22, 2009 2:02 PM
I have to say in semi-sincerity that I feel the pain that these gitmo-detained braddas have been going through. I'm only half joking (maybe only one third) when I say allelieujah!!! (sp?) Somebody's finally pointing out what I've been experiencing for years. The fact that there's such a rich tradition of American-music-that's-so-bad-it-can-be-used-as-a-weapon is actually not very funny. Not funny at all. I mean, I grew up being subjected to all manner of terrible music on the radio, (good music too...) and all over the mass media, not to mention advertising jingles etc. Only as an adult did I really get that this stuff is toxic and that you kind of have to go out of your way to protect yourself from exposure to it. What's really kind of humorous is the thought that these stars of popular-but-often-completely-crappy American music are suddenly up in arms about the American military using them as unwitting instruments of torture. Did they wake up one day to think, "Hey, maybe it's MY music they're using to torture those poor souls! Lord knows it's baaad enough!!!" Note that even the militarians aren't so stupid as to try using really GREAT music to torture. (I think that's probably why these musicians were embarrassed to speak up earlier..)
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chthonic
October 22, 2009 2:22 PM in reply to archie
Try to not miss the point.
It's not about music; it's not about rap or industrial being used to torture; it's not about how classical music, or baroque music, or medieval polyphony could not be used to torture.
It's about sleep deprivation to break (in it's most literal sense) a person.
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archie
October 22, 2009 8:39 PM in reply to chthonic
yeah, but we're talking about "we are the champignons" here.
What do you think would happen if they played Ravel: "Daphnis et Chloe" for those heathen detainees? I'll tell you what would happen. They'd defect and become westerners just for the chance to hear more!
reverse psychology, old man!
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JeffB
October 22, 2009 2:13 PM
Does gov. have the right to use Artists' copyrighted material / music to torture prisoners?
http://www.youpolls.com/details.asp?pid=6342
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chthonic
October 22, 2009 2:17 PM in reply to JeffB
That's my question in my blog for the day. What about the RIAA, or the DMCA, or perhaps both?
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sicily726
October 23, 2009 7:45 PM in reply to JeffB
How about, "Does the gov. have the right to torture?" Period?
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