Horrigan column: “Guantanamo’s Greatest Hits”
I was in line buying a Christmas tree when I heard it:
Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say
On a bright Hawaiian Christmas Day.
That’s the island greeting that we send to you
From the land where palm trees sway.
I dropped the tree and fled, but it was too late. Every year, I try to avoid “Mele Kalikimaka,” possibly the worst Christmas song ever recorded, but every year it finds me. I had heard only a few bars, but they had burned themselves into my brain.
It could be worse. The Associated Press reported last week that the United States Army, in its questioning of detainees at the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, used songs by Nine Inch Nails, AC/DC, Queen, Pantera and dozens more as instruments of “torture lite.” The playlist also included the “Meow Mix” TV commercial and music from “Sesame Street,” all of it played at ear-spitting volume.
Now some of these bands and singers are working with a British human rights group called Reprieve to protest the use of their music in Iraq, at Guantanamo and at various secret CIA “rendition” prisons elsewhere in the world. The protest, called “zero dB” [zero decibels] takes the form of musicians injecting actual moments of silence into the performance.
Music as part of psychological warfare is as old as Joshua fittin’ the Battle of Jericho. Reprieve notes that in 1978, the use of music by British troops against Irish prisoners was condemned as “inhumane and degrading” by the European Court of Human Rights. In 1997, the United Nations Committee against Torture condemned Israel’s use of loud music against prisoners as torture and called for a ban on the practice.
In December 1989, U.S. Army psychological warfare troops famously surrounded the Vatican Mission in Panama City where Panamanian dictator Gen. Manuel Noriega had taken refuge. The story goes that a general ordered music cranked up so that reporters in nearby hotels couldn’t use parabolic microphones to eavesdrop on negotiations for Noriega’s surrender.
But a psy-ops officer told the press the music was intended to harass Noriega. The playlist had a touch of irony; it included Alice Cooper’s “No More Mr. Nice Guy” and Martha and the Vandellas’ “Nowhere to Run.”
President George H.W. Bush, worried that Vatican officials also were being subjected to the noise, called the practice “irritating and petty.” Gen. Colin Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Army to knock it off.
Twelve years later, Mr. Bush’s son would not be so concerned.
Reporter Justine Sharrock interviewed former guards from Army prisons in Iraq for an article in Mother Jones magazine last spring. She even compiled a “Torture Playlist,” featuring 30-second snippets from 22 of the songs most frequently used against Iraqi prisoners. The tunes range from David Gray’s “Babylon” to Don MacLean’s “American Pie,” the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” and the theme song from Barney the Purple Dinosaur.
Gray, who has joined the “zero dB” protest, said he resents that his song has been added to what he called “Guantanamo’s Greatest Hits.”
“What we’re talking about here is people in a darkened room, physically inhibited by handcuffs, bags over their heads and music blaring. That’s torture. It doesn’t matter what the music is. It could be Tchaikovsky’s finest, or it could be Barney the Dinosaur. It really doesn’t matter, it’s going to drive you completely nuts.”
A Guantanamo detainee named Binyam Mohamed, a British subject whom the United States has charged with being an al-Qaida-trained terrorist, told Reprieve that he was interrogated at prisons in both Morocco and Afghanistan. At a CIA “dark prison” in Afghanistan, he said:
“They hung me up. I was allowed a few hours of sleep on the second day, then hung up again, this time for two days. My legs had swollen. My wrists and hands had gone numb. . . . There was loud music, [Eminem’s] ‘Slim Shady’ and Dr. Dre for 20 days. . . . The CIA worked on people, including me, day and night. . . . Plenty lost their minds. I could hear people knocking their heads against the walls and the doors, screaming their heads off.”
All of this is funny in a way, except it’s not. I think of how irritated a few bars of “Mele Kalikimaka” makes me, and I can see that I would confess to the Lindbergh kidnapping to make it stop. Yes, it’s better than being waterboarded, and maybe waterboarding is better than having bamboo shoved under your fingernails. But the United States should be better than all of it.
Military spokesman at Guantanamo told the AP that the “music treatment” is no longer part of the prison’s interrogation techniques, but officials haven’t ruled out using it in the future. They should.
(LISTEN to the “Torture Playlist.” And then tell us what song would make you sing to your captors at www.STLtoday/ThePlatform.
Kevin Horrigan is deputy editor of the editorial page. He writes editorials on local, state and national politics and public policy and also contributes a signed column to the Sunday Commentary Page. "The Old Sport" is a former sports columnist for the Post-Dispatch and for 10 years hosted radio talk shows on KMOX and KTRS in St. Louis. He lives in South St. Louis with his wife, Kate, and a dream of one day starting a professional catfish noodling tour. 
Hey, it’s no picnic for us either. Everyday I am bombarded with stupid, boring advertisements from radio, tv, billboards and the internet (the other day I actually heard a phone number repeated 6 times). I can’t go into a store or restaurant without being subjected to annoying and loud overhead music.
Forget Gitmo, a day out in public is sometimes enough to make me spill the beans on where my chocolate is hidden.
Obviously, the United States government and military has lost its moral compass, if it ever even had one. One song that would make me sing( I would admit to being George W. Bush’s twin) is “I Shot the Sheriff.” It’s mainly the cover by Eric Clapton that grates on me. But I have a friend who viscerally hates “Mama Let Him Play” by Doucette. So, of course, anytime I hear the song on the radio I call his cell phone, get his voicemail and record a segment of the song for his later delight.
Please spare me another Gitmo commentary by the PD. I find this to be even more evil torture than obnoxious music being used to torture our enemy.
But apparently this is more comfortable to talk about than the irony that the candidate the PD endorsed is going to be impeached rather than the one they didn’t endorse, President Bush.
Why not talk about how the Jews in the Mumbai temple were tortured before they were murdered by Muslim terrorists which has gone unreported by the AP and the PD? You seem to like to discuss people who torture their enemy. Why has this not been discussed?
Or how about the PD Editorial Page’s favorite gal, Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin whose church was torched over the weekend. Anybody want to guess why?
Is it possible it was anti-Prop B militants? I wonder if the PD will report it if that is true? Since the PD editorial writers have blocked my e-mails, I am going to say my peace here. It makes me sick that the only reason they and all the Democrats hated Gov. Palin was because she was pro-life. What is wrong with you sick people and why are you so hateful?
As a pro-life centrist, I have voted for pro-choice Democrats and would also have no problem voting for pro-choice Republicans if other things they stood for were more important. But I have never hated anyone for being pro-choice. It is an arguable point, but I find it hard to understand how any Christian can simply hate someone because they are pro-life.
I think we need to supply every captured terrorist with a “comments” card, like you get in a restaurant, that they can mail to the U.N., or American newspapers, so that they can provide feedback on their care. I understand that frequently, their bed linens are too starchy and that they have to constantly ASK for a glass of water during their meals. There is no excuse for treating people that way!
A Centrist… I didn’t like Sarah Palin and it had nothing to do with her being pro-life. I didn’t like Palin because she didn’t have the capacity to form a coherent sentence unless using a teleprompter or having been coached. I also think she’s someone who has relied on her good looks nearly her whole life to get to where she is, including obtaining her college degree. She has zilch in the areas of personality, education and intelligence. As for the former two, she ditched the work because she felt there was no need for her to do it (ref above: good looks). As for the third, it just wasn’t there. Instead, she’s complemented her good looks with a competency for treachery, which doesn’t take intelligence to pull off. All that is required is for her to be a sociopath, which is something I think she’s nearly proven herself to be. Also, I’m assuming the candidate you’re claiming will be impeached is Obama. If so, please present your case. If not, please be more clear in your writing.
I might also add that from the first time I saw Palin, the line that has run through my head each time I’ve had the bad luck to see her again is from the ’80s band The Northern Pikes: “She ain’t pretty — she just looks that way.” But I really do hope the ‘Pub’s take her on as their standard bearer in 2012. If you thought Mondale got trounced by Reagan in 1984, just hold onto your seat.
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Nuts that think as does EJ shouldn’t play with matches
http://www.breitbart.com/print.php?id=D953B2UG0&show_article=1
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Nothing like throwing your intellect behind your posts, BobZ.
“I didn’t like Palin … she’s someone who has relied on her good looks … has zilch personality, education and intelligence … a competency for treachery … a sociopath, which is something I think she’s nearly proven herself to be” — EJ Rotert 7:47 pm
More of your intellect EJ. More, more, more…!
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Kevin & ej - you two are complete morons. “The US should be better than all this”…those words sound like a whiny kid in the back seat during a long car trip. Just shut up. Playing music, waterboarding, etc are not only NOT TORTURE, they work. Torture is physically maiming someone. Playing music, sleep deprivation or waterboarding don’t cause physical harm, you Bush hating goons. I sleep well at night knowing my gov’t is legally keeping my family safe by using these methods. Most likely your opinion will change after BHO is inaugurated and allows the same tactics.