Music in Detainee Interrogations
Thursday, May 21, 2009
With the debate over torture continuing in Washington, relatively little attention has been focused on the practice of music as torture. The CIA has used loud music at deafening volumes as an "enhanced interrogation technique" -- recently drawing protest from groups like the American Musicological Society. We examine music and prisoner abuse and whether the practice will continue under the Obama administration.
Our guests are Jonathan Pieslak, a CUNY professor, composer and author of the book Sound Targets: American Soldiers and Music in the Iraq War; Moustafa Bayoumi, also a CUNY professor, and author of How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America; and Sgt. 1st Class Ronald Botelho, who has been deployed to Iraq three times.
Our guests are Jonathan Pieslak, a CUNY professor, composer and author of the book Sound Targets: American Soldiers and Music in the Iraq War; Moustafa Bayoumi, also a CUNY professor, and author of How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America; and Sgt. 1st Class Ronald Botelho, who has been deployed to Iraq three times.
Comments [15]
Sound can kill. Read the wonderful mystery novel by Agatha Cristie, The Nine Tailors, involving Sir Peter Wimsey and holiday bell ringing in England. A complex and subtle theft, a war deserter, a car accident... all lead to a death that no one understands until the end. But sound is the culprit. Great book! Great PBS Mystery series!
Years ago I was stuck in a hospital bed in serious pain. a visitor left a cd playing, I was too heavily medicated to get up and stop it. it played for 36 hours and if I hear that album 11 years later I feel traumatized and lost all over again. as a disciplinary tool this kind of pavlovian response must be scarily effective-essentially, you would only have to "break" someone once and you could later turn on the distressed state by pressing "play". the album is of acoustic guitar love songs - the subject matter would be immaterial to the learned associations.
I have been brought to tears by music that I can't stop in apartments and/or hotels.
Not getting to go to sleep is awful. having it happen over and over, wihtout being able to control it, is really horrifying.
Does the government have the right to use an artist's work as a matter of course? Another commenter asked about copyright infringement. Is it too crass to ask about "royalties?"
If the detainees don't speak English, they wouldn't get the imperialism. They'd hate the noise--the type of music, not the lyrical quality of Gray's work or ironically Springsteen's anti-American anthem.
oh being on a subway or bus or in a closed area with someone with earphones that are too loud and all we hear is scratchy noise.
this is torture.
Most depressing soundcheck ever. When I thought about them playing loud music to the detainees, I generally just thought of it being deeply annoying and frustrating, but obviously to this extent there is some serious mental consequences. The most upsetting thing is that once we that we decide "OK, this is torture" we then ask "well.. is it effective?" Once we establish that something is torture, the second part is irrelevant.
wouldn't the US Army be using these songs for official business and would be required to license it for these "purposes", would d. grey have a case.
i'm surprised metallica hasn't filed an intellectual property suit against the 'enhanced interrogators' for copyright infringement!
In "Ghost", Patrick Swayze sang "I'm Henery the Eigth I Am" over and over to Whoopie Goldberg until she capitulated.
Remember the rehabilitation/torture scenes in the film, "A Clockwork Orange" when the authorities used the music of "Ludwig Van" as a tool for inducing revulsion & submission.
How about some Yoko Ono or Sonic Youth
Any record will do.
Important discussion. Looking forward to reading both of these books.
Two minutes of Michael Bolton or John Tesh and I'd confess to the Lindbergh kidnapping.
i agree that listening to Bruce Springsteen is torture, though not as torturous as watching him on PBS.
getting noreiga out of panama comes to mind
how about the use of music at sporting events to intimidate the opposing team, like mo's music when he comes in. (hint you opened the show with the metallica gem.)
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