GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba, Dec. 9, 2008
Blaring Music Used To Abuse War Prisoners
Musicians Band Together To Stop "Common" U.S. Military Practice In Iraq, Guantanamo
-
-
Photo
A prisoner at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Multiple sources have reported that harsh, blaring music has frequently been used there to psychologically abuse prisoners. Some musicians are now speaking out against the practice. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)
-
Photo
Interviews with prisoners and documents reveal that interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba sometimes played jarring music for 16 hours a day to mentally break down prisoners. (CBS/AP)
-
Photo
Angus Young of AC/DC performs at a 2004 concert. AC/DC is among the musical groups protesting the use of their music to create fear, disorient ... and prolong capture shock" for prisoners of the U.S. military in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere. (AP)
-
Photo
-
Play CBS Video
Video
Hearings For Accused GIs
Pre-trial hearings begin for Charles Graner and other U.S. soldiers accused of Iraqi prisoner abuse, Tom Fenton reports.
-
Video
Reservists Arrested For Abuse
A scandal of reported prisoner abuse in Iraq led to the arrest of seven Army Reserve MP's, some whom were caught on camera. Lawyers claim otherwise, Bob MacNamara reports.
-
Video
Hearings Resume For GIs
Pre-trial hearings for U.S. soldiers accused of Iraqi prisoner abuse are resuming in Germany, CBS News' Tom Fenton reports.
-
Interactive
Abuse At Abu Ghraib
Investigation timeline, the chain of command, POW rules, global mistreatment of prisoners and video reports.
-
Interactive
Military 101
Basic training to learn all about America's fighting force.
"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.
Quote
"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.There was a lot of Nine Inch Nails, including 'March of the Pigs.' I couldn't tell you how many times I heard Queen's 'We Will Rock You.' ... I had no blanket or sheet. If I had, I would probably have tried suicide.
Donald Vance, former military prisoner in Iraq"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.
"I wouldn't want my music to be a party to that," he told AP.
Bob Singleton, whose song "I Love You" is beloved by legions of preschool Barney fans, wrote in a newspaper opinion column that any music can become unbearable if played loudly for long stretches.
"It's absolutely ludicrous," he wrote in the Los Angeles Times. "A song that was designed to make little children feel safe and loved was somehow going to threaten the mental state of adults and drive them to the emotional breaking point?"
Morello, of Rage Against the Machine, has been especially forceful in denouncing the practice. During a recent concert in San Francisco, he proposed taking revenge on President George W. Bush.
"I suggest that they level Guantanamo Bay, but they keep one small cell and they put Bush in there ... and they blast some Rage Against the Machine," he said to whoops and cheers.
Some musicians, however, say they're proud that their music is used in interrogations. Those include bassist Stevie Benton, whose group Drowning Pool has performed in Iraq and recorded one of the interrogators' favorites, "Bodies."
"People assume we should be offended that somebody in the military thinks our song is annoying enough that played over and over it can psychologically break someone down," he told Spin magazine. "I take it as an honor to think that perhaps our song could be used to quell another 9/11 attack or something like that."
The band's record label told AP that Benton did not want to comment further. Instead, the band issued a statement reading: "Drowning Pool is committed to supporting the lives and rights of our troops stationed around the world."
Vance, in a telephone interview from Chicago, said the tactic can make innocent men go mad. According to a lawsuit he has filed, his jailers said he was being held because his employer was suspected of selling weapons to terrorists and insurgents. The U.S. military confirms Vance was jailed but won't elaborate because of the lawsuit.
He said he was locked in an overcooled 9-foot-by-9-foot cell that had a speaker with a metal grate over it. Two large speakers stood in the hallway outside. The music was almost constant, mostly hard rock, he said.
"There was a lot of Nine Inch Nails, including 'March of the Pigs,"' he said. "I couldn't tell you how many times I heard Queen's 'We Will Rock You."'
He wore only a jumpsuit and flip-flops and had no protection from the cold.
"I had no blanket or sheet. If I had, I would probably have tried suicide," he said. "I got to a few points toward the end where I thought, `How can I do this?' Actively plotting, `How can I get away with it so they don't stop it?"'
Asked to describe the experience, Vance said: "It sort of removes you from you. You can no longer formulate your own thoughts when you're in an environment like that."
He was released after 97 days. Two years later, he says, "I keep my home very quiet."
© MMVIII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- next
See all 150 CommentsGeez
I like it! Simple, easy to remember. And it saves lots of cash!
If we really want to make them crack, play Slim Whitman like in the movie Mars Attacks, at full volume, they''ll crack and talk. Heck, I''m ready to crack and make up some stuff and talk just thinking about hit.
Posted by AnitaY417 at 11:22 PM : Dec 09, 2008
I have a plan - call it diabolical if you will.
Make them watch ENDLESS RERUNS of "I Love Lucy."
THE SAME EPISODE. It doesn''t matter which one. One where it ends with Lucy wailing "Waaaaah!" while Desi''s band is playing the corny closing music.
Oh the horror... the horror...
Wow. What a flaming moron.
How is this supposed to help? They are already detained.
If anything, this will make them crazier.
Will that help us somehow?
If they are guilty of something, why not charge them and convict them?
Many of these guys were picked up for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. How would you feel if it happened to you? You don''t know, because you are not capable of empathy for other humans. You do not feel love or regret. You are a sociopath. I''m talking to all you in favor of torture in its various forms.
...and in the name of YOUR god, no less.
There God and your God are the same god, jehovah you ignorant ****-ant. Individuals dont represent a whole religion. You said its wrong for them to hurt people in the name of god, and its right for YOU to hurtpeople in the name of God..
THATS interesting.
Why dont you rename yourself Christ the Killer of Arabs?
"Its abusive to have your senses overloaded. Go ahead and crank your stereo as loud as it goes to the worst music you can think of. After a few hours you will be in tears."
Listen to yourself, your bleeding heart makes my eyes tear up...from laughter. Can you say pussification of America. I think it may have started with the person who typed that.
Posted by topblknavy at 11:35 PM : Dec 09, 2008
+
So don''t go there. No one wants American military in their homelands anyway.
Posted by Christ_Truth
***
At least the NIV bible does not capitalize words that are not supposed to be capitalized in English.
Aww come on, this stuff has been out for years on alternative news and media. In fact that''s probably the reason it is BREAKING here right now. The documentary Standard Operating Procedure released last month on DVD. That doc tells you the exact songs that the soldiers were playing from their own mouths.
The "War On Terror" is a hoax, More people have died from peanut allergies than have died from terrorism since 9/11. Thousands of "prisoners" have been "detained" over the years, with what, a dozen being charged - the rest falsely imprisoned and tortured for GP?
Is this how such an upstanding, moralistic country treats "suspects?" How do we expect to be treated around the globe if (or when) the tables get turned? The same way? Watch: "Taxi to the Dark Side, Gitmo: The New Rules of War, The Road to Guantanamo, Uncovered: The War on Iraq, Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers, The Power of Nightmares%u201D and the list goes on. These are just a taste of the %u201CBREAKING NEWS%u201D that goes on behind closed doors as our %u201Cwatchdog%u201D media turns a blind eye.
I have always been curious, and wondered, who the American people thought were torturing and murdering in our name."
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave
Posted by yellow651
***
These are people who fly planes full of innocent people into buildings full of innocent people. What sanity?
While I think this musical assault qualifies as rude, I do not see it as torture.
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave
When we finally put the NeoCons in Gitmo, the guilty will be punished.
These losers they rounded up to cover for the Bu$hCo 9/11 crimes did not do it...
It''s "You have nothing to fear unless the government is doing something wrong."
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave
Suicidal? Join the army of teens who also have listened to this tin noise some call music and have tried to check out, some succeeding.
Noise from the above-named groups would drive a pack of hyenas crazy.
Man certainly knows how to inflict pain on his fellow man. The military under Republican conservatives Bush and Cheney have turned it into a sick art.
The problem was that I was innocent."
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave
I will leave it to you good people to resolve this weighty issue.
Rock on...
Thomas Paine, Dissertation on First Principles of Government, December 23, 1791
"We became evil to fight evil, assuring its victory."
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave
This stuff isn''t played during recreation time, its purpose is to interrupt sleep patterns, which in turn can and will create chronic, possibly permanent, mental illness after prolonged exposure.
Again, is this how any of you want foreign rivals to treat our POWs? Ask any POW, this is bull s*it!
Yep, Nazi Germany had it all. And now, so does America."
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave
Posted by Centerfall94 at 01:38 AM : Dec 10, 2008
+ report abuse
******
I think you are right..we cannot preserve ourselves if we keep on allowing our enemies to kill us.
Posted by LordSunTzu at 01:46 AM : Dec 10, 2008
If you believe that treating prisoners this way "prevents our enemy from killing us", then you''re strangely deluded.
LordSunTzu
Sure. Hitler was a Jew, so I''m sure a black man could have sneaked by.
ST
"Human nature has traversed the highest spire and deepest abyss. So we may not always count upon its justice, only its knowledge of it."
SearingTruth
A Future of the Brave
Seriously, this is ***, most of the *** their complaining about, with the exception of prolonged waterboarding (although do DO get to try it), are things American serviceman have to go through surviving SERE school every year, and have been since before I enlisted in the 80''s. The difference is that the terrorist doesn''t know when, if ever, it''s going to end, and that is precisely the point because disorientation based interrogation tactics REQUIRE the detainee to operation in an arena of uncertainty until the interrogators hand him something that provides some measure of certainty, and that they control.
It''s all about getting them to the point where they''ll reach out to ANY friendly person and latch onto them for support. Once they do that, the friendly person can wring them dry.
Why does it seem like every conflict we''ve been involved in since the European Theater of World War II have our enemies ignored the Laws of Armed Combat, while we obeyed them? That''d be, well, ALL of them where our enemies managed to take US prisoners. So if they complain about alittle loud noise, turn up the volume!
Posted by clgl_fubar at 02:42 AM
We cannot preserve who we are or be proud of what we are when we treat others in this way, regardless of what an enemy might do to us. When we do, we cheapen and lessen ourselves - we become the enemy. The two things are mutually exclusive.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- next
See all 150 Comments