Gitmo playlist

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The Gitmo playlist, [1] also called the torture playlist, [2] Guantanamo playlist and GTMO playlist, [3] was a loose collection of songs used to torture [4] inmates held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba during the War on Terror. No official playlist is known to exist, and songs were chosen by interrogators and guards. [5] [2] Interrogators generally opted to use heavy metal, country, and rap music, although music from children's TV shows was also used.

Contents

Music as an instrument of torture originated in psychological research from the 1950s, and the tactic was officially approved by several prominent US Army officials. Music was used to make detainees feel hopeless and make them cooperate with interrogators, and it was sometimes combined with other abusive practices like stress positions and temperature manipulation. Music has been used against several notable detainees, including Mohammed al-Qahtani, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, Shaker Aamer, and Ruhal Ahmed.

The ACLU, along with several journalists and musicology organizations, denounced the use of music at Guantanamo Bay and other American detention camps as torture. However, the reaction among the American public was often one of amusement. [6] Several artists, such as Tom Morello and Skinny Puppy, also denounced music torture, with some joining the National Security Archive in filing a Freedom of Information Act request regarding the playlist. The recording industry has stayed relatively silent on the issue, and several artists, such as Steve Asheim and James Hetfield, have come out in support of the practice.

Background

Based on psychological research from the 1950s, the Central Intelligence Agency developed an interrogation manual, KUBARK, which included the use of silence and continuous noise. The techniques in the manual were banned after the Vietnam War, but they continued to be taught to American personnel. [7] : 3  [8] : 5  Trainees of the interrogation preparation program, Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE), were subjected to looping, cacophonous sounds, including babies crying and a Yoko Ono album. [9] Guantanamo Bay prison personnel modeled standard operating procedure for interrogations after SERE techniques, and interrogators were trained by SERE instructors. [10] Loud music was employed in interrogations in other American detention centers during the War on Terror, including Abu Ghraib. [11] [7] : 2–3  Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez officially approved of the use of auditory stimuli or music during interrogations in April and September of 2003, respectively. [6]

Use

Most interrogators chose to use heavy metal, country, and rap music, and the lyrics were often culturally offensive to detainees. [12] : 6  [5] These songs were also often used by American soldiers to prepare themselves for dangerous missions. [13] Other music allegedly used included songs from AC/DC, Marilyn Manson, Rage Against the Machine, Britney Spears, the Bee Gees, Barney & Friends, and Sesame Street. [11] [14] [15] Music was used to make detainees believe that resistance was futile and further cooperation with interrogators. [7] : 17  [16] [17] CIA spokesperson George Little said music was played at levels far below that of a live concert and was never used as punishment, only for security. [14] Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said that music was used "both in a positive way and as a disincentive” but denied that it had been used to torture. [18]

Mohammed al-Qahtani, who was alleged to have attempted to participate in the September 11 attacks, was subjected to music, including songs in Arabic, during late night interrogations and medical treatment as a form of sleep deprivation. [19] Al-Qahtani claimed that listening to Arabic music was forbidden by Islam, which was then exploited by interrogators to humiliate him. [7] : 11–14  Mohamedou Ould Slahi, detained at Guantanamo Bay for his alleged ties to the millenium plot and the September 11 attacks, was shackled in a room lit entirely by strobe lights with the song "Bodies" blaring for hours during an interrogation. [20] [14] He was also subjected to the loud sounds of cats meowing and babies crying. [21] In an interview with ITV News, detainee Shaker Aamer said that rock music, including Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA", was played into cells during prayer time. [22] [23] Ruhal Ahmed was forced to squat in a dark, cold cell while heavy metal and Eminem music was played extremely loudly for hours and sometimes days at a time. Interrogators occasionally entered the cell to shout questions into his ear, but he was often alone in the room. [24] Ahmed told Reprieve, a human rights organization, in a 2008 interview "You lose the plot, and it's very scary to think that you might go crazy because of all the music, because of the loud noise and because after a while you don't hear the lyrics at all, all you hear is heavy banging." [25] [26]

Major Diana Haynie, a spokeswoman for Joint Task Force Guantanamo, said that the use of loud music on detainees ceased after the fall of 2003. [27] A 2005 Army report found instances of loud music being used in interrogations between July 2002 and October 2004. [16]

Reactions

The ACLU, along with journalists Andy Worthington and Kelsey McKinney, characterized the use of loud music as torture. [28] [5] [25] Suzanne Cusick argued that, while the use of loud music itself did not fall under the definition of torture from the United Nations Convention Against Torture, the intense psychological pain caused by its use warrants its classification as torture. [7] : 19 

In 2007, the Society for Ethnomusicology issued a position statement condemning the use of music for torture, and the Society for American Music, the American branch of the International Association for the Study of Music, and the American Musicology Society (AMS) issued similar statements in 2008. [8] : 2  However, the response to the AMS's statement was mixed, and Richard Taruskin criticized the statement as "breeding complacency." Philip V. Bohlman, the then-president of the Society for Ethnomusicology, received hate mail blaming him for deaths in the Iraq War. [29] However, the Royal Music Association and the British Forum for Ethnomusicology, both based in the UK, another country tied to the War on Terror, declined to issue similar statements. [8] : 2 

In the blogosphere, conversations about the playlist sometimes immediately accepted that its use qualified as torture and moved on from the topic of music. Communities that only accepted that it could be used as torture often referred to their own experiences of being forced to listen to music which they found distasteful (Cusick noted that the music cited were often associated with homosexuality and effeminacy). Several bloggers and the Chicago Tribune asked their readers to create their own playlists for interrogations. [30] [6] Art historian Branden W. Joseph argued that the ridicule of the inclusion of music from singer Christina Aguilera and the show Barney & Friends on the playlist allowed the American public to implicitly accept a form of torture, and he further argued that familiarity and even annoyance with the music used could lead some to believe that they could withstand music torture. [31] : 17–18 

Several artists were outraged by the use of their music. Tom Morello, member of Rage Against the Machine, said in response "The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me" and called for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison. [27] David Gray, whose song "Babylon" was used during interrogations, was shocked by the lack of public outcry and said "We are thinking below the level of the people we're supposed to oppose, and it goes against our entire history and everything we claim to represent. It's disgusting, really." [11] Skinny Puppy, after being told by Guantanamo prison guard Terry Holdbrooks that their music was blasted during interrogations, sent an invoice to the American government, inspiring the album Weapon . [32] Trent Reznor, member of Nine Inch Nails, called the use of his music to torture " insulting, demeaning and enraging" and threatened legal action, although he never followed up on this threat. [33] The National Security Archive, endorsed by artists including Morello, Reznor, R.E.M., Pearl Jam, and Jackson Browne, filed a Freedom of Information Act request, seeking the declassification of information related to the use of music in interrogations. [34] [35] [36]

The recording industry was reluctant to confront the issue, and when The Guardian reached out to several artists whose music was reportedly used in American detainment camps, most who did respond gave a "no comment". Steve Asheim, drummer of the death metal band Deicide, argued that the use of loud music did not constitute torture. Bob Singleton, creator of the Barney & Friends theme song "I Love You", laughed when learning of its use by interrogators and argued that, while irritating, it could not illicit a confession. [11]

In a 2008 interview on 3sat, James Hetfield, co-founder of Metallica, said that he felt honored that Metallica's music was used in Guantanamo Bay, but he worried that the band would become associated with a political message. [37] In a 2009 interview with Rachel Maddow, drummer Lars Ulrich said that the use of their music was "certainly not something that we, in any way, advocate or condone." [38] [37] Metallica clarified in 2013 that they had not spoken to the military on the use of their music. [39]

See also

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References

  1. ↑ "Gitmo playlist sought". The Los Angeles Times . October 23, 2009. p. 90.
  2. 1 2 Moskowitz, Gary (February 22, 2008). "Torture Playlist". Mother Jones . Retrieved September 20, 2024.
  3. ↑ "The GTMO Playlist: Music, Interrogation and the Public". Guantánamo Public Memory Project.
  4. ↑
  5. 1 2 3 McKinney, Kelsey (December 11, 2014). "How the CIA used music to "break" detainees". Vox . Retrieved September 22, 2024.
  6. 1 2 3 Bayoumi, Moustafa (December 26, 2005). "Disco Inferno". The Nation . Retrieved October 25, 2024.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 Cusick, Suzanne G. (2008). ""You are in a place that is out of the world . . . ": Music in the Detention Camps of the "Global War on Terror"" (PDF). Journal of the Society for American Music . 2 (1).
  8. 1 2 3 Papaeti, Anna. "On Music, Torture and Detention: Reflections on Issues of Research and Discipline". Transposition. doi:10.4000/transposition.5289 – via OpenEdition Journals.
  9. ↑ Mayer, Jane (July 3, 2005). "The Experiment". The New Yorker . Archived from the original on June 22, 2024. Retrieved September 20, 2024.
  10. ↑ "SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE INQUIRY INTO THE TREATMENT OF DETAINEES IN U.S. CUSTODY" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on January 3, 2009. Retrieved September 21, 2024.
  11. 1 2 3 4 Smith, Clive Stafford (June 18, 2008). "Welcome to 'the disco'". The Guardian . Archived from the original on September 1, 2024. Retrieved September 20, 2024.
  12. ↑ Cusick, Suzanne (2020). "Music as Torture / Music as Weapon". The Auditory Culture Reader.
  13. ↑ Ross, Alex (June 27, 2016). "When Music is Violence". The New Yorker . Retrieved October 25, 2024.
  14. 1 2 3 "Musicians turn up the volume on Gitmo debate". NBC News . October 21, 2009. Retrieved September 21, 2024.
  15. ↑ "Pentagon uses Music to Punish Prisoners". CNN . May 31, 2012. Archived from the original on September 26, 2024. Retrieved September 28, 2024.
  16. 1 2 "Investigation into FBI Allegations of Detainee Abuse at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba Detention Facility" (PDF). The Torture Database. June 9, 2005. p. 9. Retrieved September 21, 2024.
  17. ↑ "Futility Music". The New Yorker. August 12, 2008. Retrieved September 28, 2024.
  18. ↑ Wright, Austin (May 31, 2012). "Pentagon: Music used at Gitmo". Politico . Retrieved September 28, 2024.
  19. ↑ Zagorin, Adam; Duffy, Michael (June 20, 2005). "Inside the Interrogation of Detainee 063". Time. Retrieved September 21, 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  20. ↑ Tinti, Peter (February 26, 2015). "How Mohamedou Ould Slahi Became a Suspected Terrorist, Then a Best-Selling Author". Vice . Retrieved September 21, 2024.
  21. ↑ Saar, Erik (May 2, 2005). Inside the Wire. The Penguin Press. ISBN   9781594200663 , cited in Bayoumi, Moustafa (December 8, 2005). "Disco Inferno". The Nation . Retrieved October 19, 2024.
  22. ↑ Jamieson, Alastair (December 14, 2015). "Shaker Aamer: 'Guantanamo Is Built on How to Destroy a Human Being'". NBC News .
  23. ↑ Etchingham, Julie (December 14, 2015). "Shaker Aamer: A man on a mission to shut Guantanamo down, and make sure it never happens again". ITV News . Retrieved September 28, 2024.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  24. ↑ Rapp, Tobias (January 15, 2010). "Using Music as a Weapon at Guantanamo". Spiegel International . Retrieved October 26, 2024.
  25. 1 2 Worthington, Andy (December 15, 2008). "A History of Music Torture in the "War on Terror"" . Retrieved September 22, 2024.
  26. ↑ Barnes, Tom (April 22, 2014). "11 Popular Songs the CIA Used to Torture Prisoners in the War on Terror". Mic (media company) . Retrieved October 26, 2024.
  27. 1 2 "REM call for Guantanamo closure". BBC . October 22, 2009. Retrieved September 20, 2024.
  28. ↑ Khaki, Ateqah (October 22, 2009). "Tortured Tunes". ACLU . Retrieved September 22, 2024.
  29. ↑ Pellegrinelli, Lara (May 8, 2009). "Scholarly Discord: The Politics of Music in the War on Terrorism". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved October 19, 2024.
  30. ↑ Cusick, Suzanne G. (2006). "Music as torture / Music as weapon". Transcultural Music Review.
  31. ↑ Cusick, Suzanne G.; Joseph, Branden W. (2011). "Across an Invisible Line: A Conversation about Music and Torture" (PDF). Grey Room (62). doi:10.1162/GREY_a_00024.
  32. ↑ "Skinny Puppy: Music As Torture?". Fuse. Retrieved September 20, 2024.
  33. ↑ Tehranian, John (2013). "Guantanamo's Greatest Hits: The Semiotics of Sound and the Protection of Performer Rights under the Lanham Act". Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law. 16 (1): 20.
  34. ↑ "Musicians Seek Secret U.S. Documents on Music-Related Human Rights Abuses at Guantanamo". The National Security Archive. October 22, 2009. Retrieved September 20, 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  35. ↑ Heim, Joe (October 22, 2009). "Musicians seek Guantanamo records on detainee torture". Washington Post . Retrieved September 20, 2024.
  36. ↑ Itzkoff, Dave (October 22, 2009). "Musicians Want to Know if They Were on the Guantánamo Playlist". The New York Times .
  37. 1 2 "JAMES HETFIELD Is 'Honored' METALLICA's Music Was Used By U.S. Military To 'Help Us Stay Safe'". Blabbermouth. March 3, 2017. Retrieved September 21, 2024.
  38. ↑ "'The Rachel Maddow Show' for Monday, April 27". NBC News. April 28, 2009.
  39. ↑ "METALLICA: We Did Not Ask Military To Stop Using Our Music To Torture Prisoners". Blabbermouth. February 19, 2013. Retrieved September 21, 2024.
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