News and Politics | December 10, 2008 | 39 comments

Music used in prisons to 'break' inmates

source: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,464686,00.html

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Hyphy_D
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — Blaring from a speaker behind a metal grate in his tiny cell in Iraq, the blistering rock from Nine Inch Nails hit Prisoner No. 200343 like a sonic bludgeon.

"Stains like the blood on your teeth," Trent Reznor snarled over distorted guitars. "Bite. Chew."

The auditory assault went on for days, then weeks, then months at the U.S. military detention center in Iraq. Twenty hours a day. AC/DC. Queen. Pantera. The prisoner, military contractor Donald Vance of Chicago, told The Associated Press he was soon suicidal.

The tactic has been common in the U.S. war on terror, with forces systematically using loud music on hundreds of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, then the U.S. military commander in Iraq, authorized it on Sept. 14, 2003, "to create fear, disorient ... and prolong capture shock."
Now the detainees aren't the only ones complaining. Musicians are banding together to demand the U.S. military stop using their songs as weapons.
A campaign being launched Wednesday has brought together groups including Massive Attack and musicians such as Tom Morello, who played with Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave and is now on a solo tour. It will feature minutes of silence during concerts and festivals, said Chloe Davies of the British law group Reprieve, which represents dozens of Guantanamo Bay detainees and is organizing the campaign.

At least Vance, who says he was jailed for reporting illegal arms sales, was used to rock music. For many detainees who grew up in Afghanistan — where music was prohibited under Taliban rule — interrogations by U.S. forces marked their first exposure to the pounding rhythms, played at top volume.

The experience was overwhelming for many. Binyam Mohammed, now a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, said men held with him at the CIA's "Dark Prison" in Afghanistan wound up screaming and smashing their heads against walls, unable to endure more

"There was loud music, (Eminem's) 'Slim Shady' and Dr. Dre for 20 days. I heard this nonstop over and over," he told his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith. "The CIA worked on people, including me, day and night for the months before I left. Plenty lost their minds."

Rear Adm. David Thomas, the commander of Guantanamo's detention center, said the music treatment is not currently used at Guantanamo but added that he could not rule out its use in the future.

"I couldn't speculate and I wouldn't speculate but I can tell you it doesn't happen here at Guantanamo and it hasn't happened since I've been here," Thomas, who has been at Guantanamo for a half-year, told AP.

The spokeswoman for Guantanamo's detention center, Navy Cmdr. Pauline Storum, wouldn't give details of when and how music has been used at the prison.

FBI agents stationed at Guantanamo Bay reported numerous instances in which music was blasted at detainees, saying they were "told such tactics were common there."

According to an FBI memo, one interrogator at Guantanamo Bay bragged he needed only four days to "break" someone by alternating 16 hours of music and lights with four hours of silence and darkness.

Ruhal Ahmed, a Briton who was captured in Afghanistan, describes excruciating sessions at Guantanamo Bay. He said his hands were shackled to his feet, which were shackled to the floor, forcing him into a painful squat for periods of up to two days.

"You're in agony," Ahmed, who was released without charge in 2004, told Reprieve. He said the agony was compounded when music was introduced, because "before you could actually concentrate on something else, try to make yourself focus on some other things in your life that you did before and take that pain away.

"It makes you feel like you are going mad," he said.

Not all of the music is hard rock. Christopher Cerf, who wrote music for "Sesame Street," said he was horrified to learn songs from the children's TV show were used in interrogations.
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39 comments // Music used in prisons to 'break' inmates

  • Shaddai
  • helloimcat
  • brutaljosh2010
    • 0
      brutaljosh2010  

    • thats so awesome. i makes me think of a clockwork orange. but anyway they should play some like whitechale and suicide silence and chelsea grin and some brutal shit like that.

    • 3 years ago
  • gem7007
  • wayseeker
    • 0
      wayseeker  

    • Sorry younger guys but a rather ancient person has something to say. Every since they began playing the overbearingly loud electric guitar and singers began to shout the lyrics instead of singing them I have found music to be torture. So naturally I think this type of torture is too extreme for anyone whose not already deaf.

    • 3 years ago
  • Saladin
    • 0
      Saladin  

    • Another thing we should keep in mind is that some of these people don't know a lick of English and so for all they know the songs are satanic.

      Some of them might not even have ever heard heavy metal before.

      After weeks of sleep dep, playing foreign music at full blast would fuck you up.

      I was thinking about posting a song as an example of the kind of music that could seriously scar you, but I think I'll spare the curious a sleepless night.

    • 3 years ago
  • cponder72
    • 0
      cponder72  

    • Psychological warfare... We used the same tactics to get Manuel Noriega out of the catholic church where he was hiding when we ran him out of power, by blaring heavy metal thru pa systems..

    • 3 years ago
  • junsumoney
    • 0
      junsumoney  

    • I think people are forgetting that the music is really loud and right inside their cells. I don't know how I could appreciate any music when it's actually damaging my ears.

    • 3 years ago
  • Castaway
  • Tayllerand
    • 0
      Tayllerand  

    • If the goverment wants to use music with me , I will like to hear DEPECHE MODE songs :
      Personal Jesus
      Policy of truth
      Strange Love
      Never let me down again.
      the best band ever .

    • 3 years ago
  • Reddi
  • necrotized
  • tcrane
    • 0
      tcrane  

    • What three songs would you be tortured by?

      "Wake Up Little Susie," The Everly Brothers.
      "Seasons in the Sun," Terry Jacks.
      "Handlebars," Flobots.

    • 3 years ago
  • necrotized
    • 0
      necrotized  

    • Three points:

      1) Are the artists that are used for torture being compensated? How does this not break that FBI nag warning on all of my DVDs and CDs about how playing the music publicly or to anyone who hasn't purchased a copy is infringement even without monetary gain? WHERE ARE THE RIAA LAWYERS WHEN YOU NEED THEM?

      2) How sad is it that music we enjoy and purchase, popular songs, are actually a form of torture? Can we now, FINALLY label that bloody 'Nooma Nooma' song as a form of torture and ban it?

      3) How do the artists feel about being used as a form of torture? How many of them were approached by the CIA saying, "We'd like to use this song you wrote in order to cause other people to be forced to give information on pain of having to hear it"?

    • 3 years ago
  • idealist
    • 0
      idealist  

    • damnit. now there gonna be even crazyer if there randomly realesed, can you imagine a suicide bomber packing dynomite into his vest and singing "sunny days" from sesame street. thats just a sick and twisted reality.

    • 3 years ago
  • lagunabeach
  • Penguino
  • oblivious
  • diabolical44
  • Reddi
  • abbym0308
  • EverChanging
    • 0
      EverChanging  

    • These people were not born terrorists. It was something they learned. They learned to hate. Shouldn't we be trying to reverse their hate and contempt for us by showing them that Americans are civilized and compassionate. What if they get released back to their countries? That is just adding fuel to the fire. We are better than this.

      But that is just my opinion

    • 3 years ago
  • necrotized
    • 0
      necrotized  
    • EverChanging:

      While I don't agree with torture, I think it's safe to suggest that some, maybe most of the people detained are actually there for a reason.

      I'm not saying torture is ok in any form, but some of these people are hardened terrorists. It's not like they rounded up a bunch of people at a produce market just to fill the spaces.

      Without some form of coercion, what's to get them to talk? To give information that may actually be vital?

      Again, I'm against torture, and I don't think everyone in Guantanamo should be there; just suggesting that if some form of coercion is necessary for people who are truly terrible individuals, wouldn't it be kinder to force them to listen to Cher on high volume, vs letting some private throw them all naked in a pile while being barked at by vicious dogs?

    • 3 years ago
  • necrotized
    • 0
      necrotized  
    • EverChanging:

      While I don't agree with torture, I think it's safe to suggest that some, maybe most of the people detained are actually there for a reason.

      I'm not saying torture is ok in any form, but some of these people are hardened terrorists. It's not like they rounded up a bunch of people at a produce market just to fill the spaces.

      Without some form of coercion, what's to get them to talk? To give information that may actually be vital?

      Again, I'm against torture, and I don't think everyone in Guantanamo should be there; just suggesting that if some form of coercion is necessary for people who are truly terrible individuals, wouldn't it be kinder to force them to listen to Cher on high volume, vs letting some private throw them all naked in a pile while being barked at by vicious dogs?

    • 3 years ago
  • abbym0308
  • oblivious
  • Eco_Chic
    • 0
      Eco_Chic  

    • hahahaha this is hilarious!!!! using music as a weapong. they should put on some grind-core. waking the cadaver, suffokate. good music.

    • 3 years ago
  • diabolical44
  • Lazybones
  • TootieBootie
  • ScratchyPants
  • jjeziorski
    • 0
      jjeziorski  

    • If they blasted teen pop 24/7, they'd all be slitting their wrists within hours - not months.

      Play enough Fergie or Aguilera around me, and I'LL confess to a crime I didn't commit!

    • 3 years ago
  • mendokusai
  • unimatrix0
  • christinalee
  • bigloutech
  • Hyphy_D
  • Hyphy_D
    • 0
      Hyphy_D  

    • Here is a list of some of the songs they used..
      • "Enter Sandman," Metallica.

      • "Bodies," Drowning Pool.

      • "Shoot to Thrill," AC/DC.

      • "Hell's Bells," AC/DC.

      • "I Love You," from the "Barney and Friends" children's TV show.

      • "Born in the USA," Bruce Springsteen.

      • "Babylon," David Gray.

      • "White America," Eminem.

      • "Sesame Street," theme song from the children's TV show.

      Other bands and artists whose music has been frequently played at U.S. detention sites: Aerosmith, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Don McLean, Lil' Kim, Limp Bizkit, Meat Loaf, Rage Against the Machine, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Tupac Shakur.

      I have herd worst in bars....

    • 3 years ago
  • justwannafindmytrue
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