Music was used to torture[1] detainees held by the United States during thewar on terror. Usually, interrogates opted to useheavy metal,country, andrap music, although music fromchildren's TV shows was also used. The practice was widespread and officially approved, being used inGuantanamo Bay detention camp,Camp Cropper, and several other American detainee camps.
Music as an instrument of torture originated in psychological research from the 1950s, and the tactic was officially approved by several prominentUS 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 likestress positions and temperature manipulation. Music has been used against several notable detainees, includingMohammed al-Qahtani,Mohamedou Ould Slahi,Shaker Aamer,Ruhal Ahmed,Shafiq Rasul,Binyam Mohamed,Donald Vance,Abu Zubaydah, andMoazzam Begg.
TheACLU, along with several journalists andmusicology organizations, denounced the use of music to torture. According toMoustafa Bayoumi, the reaction among the American public was often one of amusement.[2] Several artists, such asTom Morello andSkinny Puppy, also denounced music torture, with some joining theNational Security Archive in filing aFreedom of Information Act request regarding the music used at Guantanamo Bay. The recording industry has stayed relatively silent on the issue, and several artists, such asSteve Asheim andJames Hetfield, have come out in support of the practice.
Based on psychological research from the 1950s, theCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA) developed an interrogation manual,KUBARK, which included the use of silence and continuous noise. The techniques in the manual were banned after theVietnam War, but they continued to be taught to American personnel.[3]: 3 [4]: 5 Trainees of the interrogation preparation program,Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE), were subjected to looping, cacophonous sounds such as babies crying and aYoko Ono album.[5] Guantanamo Bay prison personnel modeledstandard operating procedure for interrogations after SERE techniques and interrogators were trained by SERE instructors.[6]: xx Secretary of DefenseDonald Rumsfeld and Lieutenant GeneralRicardo Sanchez officially approved of the use of auditory stimuli or music during interrogations in April and September 2003, respectively.[2]
Music torture was already subject to legal challenges prior to the war on terror. In 1978, theEuropean Court of Human Rights found that the use of the "five techniques", which included exposure to noise, againstIRA prisoners constituted inhuman and degrading treatment but stopped short of calling it torture.[4] In 1997, the United NationsCommittee Against Torture found that the use of, among other techniques, exposure to loud music for extended periods and prolonged sleep deprivation by Israeli interrogators constituted torture.[7]
Most interrogators chose to useheavy metal,country, andrap music, as the lyrics were often culturally offensive to detainees.[8][9] These songs were also often used by American soldiers to prepare themselves for dangerous missions.[10] Other music used included songs fromAC/DC,Marilyn Manson,Rage Against the Machine,Britney Spears, theBee Gees,Barney & Friends, andSesame Street.[11][12][13][14] Music was used to make detainees believe that resistance was futile and to further cooperation with interrogators.[3]: 17 [15][16]CIA spokespersonGeorge Little said music was played at levels far below that of a live concert and was never used as punishment, only for security.[12]Pentagon spokesmanJohn Kirby said that music was used "both in a positive way and as a disincentive" but denied that it had been used to torture.[17]
InCamp Nama inBaghdad, interrogators used a "black room" outfitted with four speakers, and detainees were forced intostress positions while the speakers made noise. When several interrogators raised concerns that the detainees were being abused, representatives from theJudge Advocate General Corps reassured them that their interrogations techniques were entirely legal. At Forward Operating Base Tiger nearal-Qaim, new detainees, following a period of intense sleep deprivation, were interrogated, and when interrogators received an undesirable answer, the lights in the room were replaced with astrobe light, and heavy metal (and in one instance, music fromBarney & Friends) was played for two hours while interrogators shouted questions at detainees. The music was loud enough that soldiers thirty feet away had to shout at each other.Tony Lagouranis wrote in his memoirFear Up Harsh about "the disco", an interrogation room inMosul where heavy metal was frequently played.[3]: 8–11
Music torture was used against several detainees at Guantanamo Bay.Mohammed al-Qahtani, who was alleged to have attempted to participate in theSeptember 11 attacks, was subjected to music, including songs in Arabic, during late night interrogations and medical treatment as a form of sleep deprivation.[18] Al-Qahtani claimed that listening to Arabic music was forbidden by Islam, which was then exploited by interrogators to humiliate him.[3]: 11–14 Mohamedou Ould Slahi, detained at Guantanamo Bay for his alleged ties to themillennium plot and the September 11 attacks, was shackled in a room lit entirely by strobe lights with the song "Bodies" byDrowning Pool blaring for hours during an interrogation.[19][12] He was also subjected to the loud sounds of cats meowing and babies crying.[20] In an interview withITV News, detaineeShaker Aamer said that rock music, includingBruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA", was played into cells during prayer time.[21][22]Ruhal Ahmed was forced to squat in a dark, cold cell inCamp Delta while heavy metal andEminem 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.[23] Ahmed toldReprieve, 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."[24][25]Shafiq Rasul was left alone in a small booth withEminem's "Kim" playing from a nearby stereo on repeat for several hours, though he was relatively unaffected, as he had previously listened to Eminem's music. Interrogators later placed him inside a small room lit only by a strobe light, tied him up in a stress position, and played heavy metal for several hours per day for three weeks straight. Afterwards, Rasulfalsely confessed to meeting withOsama bin Laden.[26] Major Diana Haynie, a spokeswoman forJoint 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.[15]
DetaineeBinyam Mohamed, while being held in Morocco, was forced to listen to songs fromMeat Loaf,Aerosmith, and2Pac continuously, even while sleeping and praying.[28][29] He also heard others screaming and banging their heads against walls and doors.[30] AtCamp Cropper, whistleblower and detaineeDonald Vance said thatheavy metal andcountry music was played most of the time throughout the hallways.[31] Vance was locked in a small, cold cell with a speaker playinghard rock,Nine Inch Nails, orQueen's "We Will Rock You" nearly constantly. He said of the experience "You can no longer formulate your own thoughts when you're in an environment like that."[32]Abu Zubaydah was bombarded by extremely loud music in a small wooden box to inducelearned helplessness at a CIAblack site in Thailand by two psychologists associated with SERE training.[33]: 230–231 Unidentified American agents seized Algerian aid workerLaid Saidi and brought him to adark prison where he, along with several other detainees, were kept in total darkness while loud rap or heavy metal music was played for weeks at a time.[3]: 1–2 [34]Moazzam Begg, while being held atBagram Airfield, recalled several other detainees being held in small isolation cells while music loud enough to be heard throughout the building was played.[3]: 5–7
Mother Jones dubbed the collection of music used the "torture playlist",[35] although no official playlist is known to exist.[9] The collection of music used at Guantanamo Bay was called the "Gitmo playlist",[36] "Guantanamo playlist" and "GTMO playlist".[37] Several bloggers and theChicago Tribune asked their readers to create their own playlists for interrogations.[8][2]
TheACLU, along with journalistsAndy Worthington andKelsey McKinney, characterized the use of loud music astorture.[38][9][24] MusicologistSuzanne Cusick argued that, while the use of loud music itself did not fall under the definition of torture from theUnited Nations Convention Against Torture, the intense psychological pain caused by its use warrants its classification as torture.[3]: 19 Several commentators noted that music as torture was a rebuttal to theromantic idealization of music.[4]: 3 [10][39]: 12
In theblogosphere, conversations about music torture sometimes immediately accepted that music was used to torture and moved on from the topic of music. Communities that only accepted that itcould be used as torture often referred to their own experiences of being forced to listen to music which they found distasteful (Cusick noted that music cited was often associated withhomosexuality andeffeminacy).[8] Art historianBranden W. Joseph argued that the ridicule of the use of music from singerChristina Aguilera and the showBarney & Friends 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.[39]: 17–18 Melissa Kagen, writing inThe Appendix argued that the relatively light-hearted reactions of those first learning about music to torture in Guantanamo Bay originated inAmerican exceptionalism.[40]
In 2007, theSociety for Ethnomusicology issued a position statement condemning the use of music for torture, and theSociety for American Music, the American branch of theInternational Association for the Study of Popular Music, and theAmerican Musicology Society (AMS) issued similar statements in 2008. However, theRoyal 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.[4]: 2 The response to the AMS's statement was mixed, andRichard Taruskin criticized the statement as "breeding complacency".Philip V. Bohlman, the then-president of the Society for Ethnomusicology, receivedhate mail blaming him for deaths in theIraq War.[41]
Research about music torture was generally met with skepticism from others, who argued that it lay outside ofmusicology. However, that skepticism dissipated in the wake of Cusick's research on music torture in the war on terror, prompting further research into music torture.[4]
Several artists were outraged by the use of their music.Tom Morello, member ofRage 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 guardTerry Holdbrooks that their music was blasted during interrogations, wrote the albumWeapon and sent an invoice to the American government for $666,000 upon its release.[42][43]Trent Reznor, member ofNine 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.[44] TheNational Security Archive, endorsed by artists including Morello, Reznor,R.E.M.,Pearl Jam, andJackson Browne, filed aFreedom of Information Act request, seeking the declassification of information related to the use of music in interrogations.[45][46][47]
The recording industry was reluctant to confront the issue, and whenThe 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 thedeath metal bandDeicide, argued that the use of loud music did not constitute torture. Bob Singleton, the music director ofBarney & Friends, laughed when learning of the theme song "I Love You" being used by interrogators and argued that it was ludicrous to believe it could psychologically alter detainees.[11][48]
Stevie Benton,Drowning Pool's bassist, said of the use of their song "Bodies" "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."[26] Benton later apologized for the comment, saying that he had been taken out of context.[49] Onthe Fourth of July of 2017, Drowning Pool played "Bodies" during a concert at Guantanamo Bay, which Slahi called "quite a coincidence."[50] Navy officials claimed that they did not know the details of the song's use in torture at the base, but emails among Navy staff showed that they had full knowledge of this when booking the band, with one staff member saying that it "might garner media interest".[51][52]
In a 2008 interview on3sat,James Hetfield, co-founder ofMetallica, 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.[53] In a 2009 interview withRachel Maddow, drummerLars Ulrich said that such use of their music was "certainly not something that we, in any way, advocate or condone."[54][53] Metallica clarified in 2013 that they had not spoken to the military on the use of their music.[55]
This is how, and why, the CIA used some of America's most beloved, iconic songs as an instrument of torture.
By that standard, the aim of the psychological techniques that survive from the 1960s KUBARK manual is, indeed, to torture.
Catalyst to this turn were testimonies of detainees from the US naval base at Guantanamo, Cuba and the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, bringing to the fore the institutionalized use of music and sound in torture in the so-called War on Terror.
Along with hooding, wall standing, sleep deprivation, and erratic provision of food and drink, music torture counts among the commonly cited techniques designed to extract information without leaving physical evidence.