GLOBAL DIALOGUE
Volume 12 ● Number 1 ● Winter/Spring 2010—Working the Dark Side Cranking up the Volume: Music as a Tool of Torture
Although the article was barely over one hundred words long and was nestled away in a side column next to articles on tornado safety and The DaVinci Code, it has generated a great deal of media and public interest since it first appeared. Music in interrogation has been the subject of seemingly countless television, radio, newspaper, magazine, and blog discussions, and reactions have been highly varied, ranging from joking dismissal to unequivocal condemnation as torture.
Music and interrogation formed one component of my research on the relationship between music and American soldiers in the Iraq War. In May 2009, I published a book which examines the role of music in a variety of aspects of military life—music in recruiting, as an inspiration for combat, as a psychological tactic, and as a form of soldier expression.2 The use of music in interrogation and captivity has been the most provocative, and undoubtedly the most challenging, of the topics I have researched.
In the following pages, I examine the complexities surrounding the use of music, or perhaps more accurately “sound”, in interrogation. How is the technique Piore described being practised by the US military and intelligence agencies? Is it still practised today? Moreover, is it torture? What are the ethical and legal issues surrounding this technique? How do the musicians who create this music react? These and many other questions motivate my discussion. A Historical PerspectiveThe first question we may want to ask is, what is the history of this technique? Although the recent use of music in interrogation by US military personnel has garnered the most attention, the US military was not the first to develop or employ this technique, so where did the idea of prolonged sonic irritation and sleep deprivation through auditory over-stimulation come from?
The answer to this question isn’t exactly clear. If we consider that music or sound can be used to frustrate, irritate, disorient, or sleep-deprive a combat adversary, the most immediate examples come from the twentieth century, but we could easily go back much further. Professor Dan Kuehl, who teaches information operations at Fort McNair’s National Defense University, suggests, “unless you are a biblical literalist, Joshua did not make the walls of Jericho fall down with his trumpets, but he psychologically dislocated the defenders with that operation. And we’ve seen that all the way up to modern times.”3
Another possible example, from American history, comes from the battle of the Alamo during the Texas Revolution (1835−6). According to Major Ed Rouse (retired), a twenty-year veteran of PSYOPS and psychological warfare, “the Mexicans under Santa Anna played the dreaded ‘Deguello’ (no quarter to the defenders) throughout the night and into the chilly, pre-dawn hours of March 16, 1836, as columns of Mexican soldiers attacked and overran the Alamo.”4 This tactic may have had any number of purposes: to inspire the Mexican soldiers, to intimidate their Americans counterparts, and to prevent the latter from sleeping, which could lessen their ability to fight. In reality, it probably accomplished all three of these ends.
While these examples offer possible precedents of music’s being used to disorient and possibly sleep-deprive an adversary, the specific technique of playing music at a captive seems somewhat different. Interestingly, the first clear precedent I found was cinematic. In a scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 film, Foreign Correspondent, Nazi spies attempt to obtain secret information about a peace treaty from a character named Van Meer. Van Meer is drugged and placed in a bed with bright lights shining directly upon him. A recording of big band jazz music is played repeatedly as one of the spies prevents Van Meer from putting his hands over his ears. Although I suspect that Hitchcock did not invent this scene and that Nazi interrogators developed and used this practice, I have been unable to locate definitive information regarding the exact implementation of music or sound as a form of irritation and sleep deprivation in Nazi interrogation practices.
Another cinematic example is the James Cagney comedy One, Two, Three (1961). In one scene East German officials interrogate a character, Otto, who has been accused of being an American spy. The scene implies that they have been playing Brian Hyland’s 1960 hit “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” for hours in an effort to break Otto’s will. Although Otto is a dedicated communist, the repetitive music drives him to sign a confession.
Finally, a real-life precedent emerges in Britain’s conflict with the Irish Republican Army (IRA). On 9 August 1971, twelve suspected IRA terrorists were arrested by British agents and subjected to five “disorientation” or “sensory deprivation” techniques between 11−17 August and 11−18 October. In 1978, the European Court of Human Rights found that one of these techniques was “subjection to noise ... holding detainees in a room where there was a continuous loud noise or hiss”.5 The noise was a way of sonically over-stimulating and irritating the detainees so that they would agree to answer questions in order to make the sound stop; and/or of depriving them of sleep to the point that, as Hadsell puts it, their “brain and body functions start to slide”. But the European Court of Human Rights ruled that this technique and the other four Britain employed—wall-standing, hooding, deprivation of sleep, and deprivation of food and drink—did not amount to torture; rather, they were a form of “inhumane and degrading” treatment. Although the court condemned the techniques and found Britain to be in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights, its decision set a precedent for using sound, but not music, as a distinct interrogation technique by ruling that the former was not torture. Deafening NoriegaA defining moment in American military operations came in December 1989. Operation “Just Cause” was an attempt by the US government and President George H. W. Bush to arrest Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. As US troops invaded Panama, Noriega sought asylum in the Papal Nunciatura (the Vatican Embassy). Soldiers surrounded the Nunciatura and negotiations between Monsignor José Sebastian Laboa and Panamanian general, Marc Cisneros, began for Noriega’s release.
Sergeant First Class Ronald Botelho was deployed on this operation in support of the 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, and 4th PSYOPS group in Panama. He recalls that one of the PSYOPS goals was to limit Noriega’s communications:
Someone came up with a great idea. We knew where Noriega was holed-up and he was asking for asylum in different places. One of the ways in which we wanted to limit his communications, both with the outside world, vis-à-vis him coming on a platform and talking, and internal communications from within [the Nunciatura] was to just limit communication outreach. And one of the ways in which we did that was to play music.6
Because of the embassy’s proximity to hotels and residential buildings, it was also feared that reporters with powerful microphones would be able to overhear the sensitive talks. With this in mind, US forces created a musical barrier by playing hard rock/metal music, such as AC/DC, Mötley Crüe, Metallica, Led Zeppelin, and others, through loudspeakers surrounding the Nunciatura.
While some accounts claim that the music was played to boost the morale of American troops, it had, regardless of original intent, a powerful side effect. When Noriega commented that the music was irritating him, the Marines increased the volume, playing the music continuously. The relentless blasting of hard rock/metal music had such a powerful impact that Monsignor Laboa considered sleeping away from the embassy. The music was soon replaced by less controversial noise-jamming signals to prevent reporters from eavesdropping on negotiations, and Noriega from publicly communicating with audiences outside. But another possibility of music and sound as psychological tactics had been uncovered. SEREIn truth, though, the US military has known about music and sound as forms of sonic antagonism and sleep deprivation since long before Operation Just Cause. While Operation Just Cause saw perhaps the first battlefield employment of music as an instrument of irritation and sleep deprivation during a major US military mission (or at least the first one to receive significant attention), this technique has been part of specialised training in the US military for decades.
Since the end of the Korean War (1950−3), the US Air Force has implemented a specialised training course, “Survive, Evade, Resist, Escape” (SERE), intended for aircrew, thought to be at higher risk of enemy capture than ground troops or naval personnel. During the Vietnam War (1959−75) and thereafter, this training was also provided for the Army and Navy. One of the principal goals of SERE is to expose trainees to the treatment they might receive if captured by an enemy so that they can endure and resist that treatment without divulging information or making confessions, true or false. This aspect of the course is largely based on the experiences of past US captives and prisoners of war, particularly those who experienced or witnessed the techniques of Chinese communists during the Korean War.
Much of what SERE trainees experience depends on the degree to which they are at risk of capture. At the highest level, the most harsh interrogation techniques are performed on trainees in mock, but very true-to-form, captivity situations, and include abuses like waterboarding (a physician and psychologist are assigned to each trainee to monitor the extent to which these tactics are employed). Although it is unclear as to exactly when it became part of the course, among the techniques used in SERE training is sleep deprivation through prolonged exposure to loud noises and music. Adoption by the ArmyThis somewhat disjointed historical picture provides the framework for understanding how music and sound came to be used as interrogation techniques. When we ask, “How did this practice go from being used to prepare members of the US military for the interrogation practices of others to being part of the techniques used by the US military?”, the answer lies in many places and is manifold. There is no clear historical path because—and this is the point that most discussions of this topic overlook—there are many different military and intelligence agencies involved in the US “war on terror” and each one has its own guidelines, training, and interrogation practices.
A detainee may be interrogated by an Army interrogator, who operates by the declassified Field Manual 34−52. However, the detainee might then be interrogated by a CIA agent who operates by a completely different set of classified tactics. What is permitted or unlawful for each interrogator may be quite different. As a result, the technique of exposure to sound has been applied in highly varying ways.
My research revealed that even within the same branch of the military, tactics underwent a variety of interpretations and allowable applications. Let’s consider the situation Adam Piore reported in his 2003 Newsweek brief. In Piore’s account, US Army interrogators were playing music at non-compliant detainees. In my research, I spoke with Sergeant C. J. Grisham, who was involved in the detention and interrogation of non-compliant captives in Iraq. He indicated that most detainees willingly answer questions and in only 10 per cent of cases did he have to attempt to break the will of a detainee by using sounds. Heavy metal and children’s songs were a way “to get on these people’s nerves [to] break down their resistance. You just want to find some way to put a wedge between that resistance. And once you chip away a little bit of it, it starts crumbling, and so music is a just a way of doing that”.7 Grisham indicated that he did not have specific training for using music in interrogation.
Grisham explained that interrogators could not be reckless in their choice of sounds because they were required by law to listen along with the detainee:
I had tapes of babies crying that I would play ... The only problem with that was that as long as they were listening to babies crying, I had to listen to babies crying ... You are not allowed to do anything to the enemy, by law, that you wouldn’t do yourself. So if I’m getting eight hours of sleep, the people I’m interrogating have to get eight hours of sleep, if I’m only getting two hours of sleep, then my prisoners are only required to get two hours of sleep. We can’t treat them any worse than we treat ourselves ... Mudvayne worked really well, and Metallica worked really well and really any kind of American music, except for the popular stuff ... I never used any of that because, you put on a Michael Jackson tape ... and it doesn’t do anything for them. But you put on the hardcore, heavy metal American music from the deep South or wherever. They don’t want to hear that stuff, they think it’s Satanic.8
On the other hand, another US Army interrogator, Sergeant William Thompson, told me that music in interrogation would probably have been a violation of the standard operating procedures of his division. While there was no official policy against music, it would have been a questionable practice and may have fallen into the category of a prohibited “change of scenery”:
I think that we bumped that [the use of music in interrogation] into the category of a change of scenery, which is: you can’t put somebody in a blindfold, put them in a Humvee, and drive them around in circles and tell them they’re in a different country, that kind of thing ... Where I was, it was probably illegal, it was one of those questionable things that you would probably err on the side of caution and not do it ... you could go to jail.9
While, like Grisham’s, Thompson’s training did not address the issue of music in interrogation, he was instructed by his section sergeant that this practice would have been questionable and that the soldiers should exercise caution.
These two accounts demonstrate contrasting interpretations among US Army interrogators of the permissibility of using music in interrogation. One possible explanation for the discrepancy between the guidelines for detainee interrogation as practised by Grisham and Thompson lies in the historical timeframe of their deployments. Grisham was part of the initial US invasion force in Iraq in 2003, and Thompson deployed in 2004. This is significant because the psychological and physical abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison were exposed in April 2004—after Grisham returned from his service and coinciding with Thompson’s deployment.
Because of the international outrage over Abu Ghraib, the guidelines for interrogation practices became more restrictive, and Army interrogators may have erred “on the side of caution” with regard to techniques that were not clearly defined as lawful or unlawful. Thomson said, “at the time, all this stuff is going on at Abu Ghraib, all these horrible things that people are doing in interrogations—it just makes everybody look bad. So, we had to be on our toes all the time, being super careful.”10 The US Army may have responded to the public indignation over Abu Ghraib by restricting interrogation practices for fear of further claims of prisoner abuse. The CIABut what about other organisations, such as the CIA? Certainly, there have been numerous substantiated accusations that sound and music were used in detainee centres and prisons run by the agency in ways far more harsh than Grisham described. Claims have been made against the CIA that prisoners were held in secret jails and exposed to deafening music/sounds for days on end (many of the people making these claims are represented by the prisoners’ rights group, Reprieve.org.uk). Prolonged sleep deprivation is quite damaging; medical studies have shown that it can induce hallucinations and psychosis after four or five days.
CIA interrogation practices are more difficult to assess than Army ones because much of the information available to us comes through skewed, partial, and sometimes overtly biased filters. The CIA denies such accusations but reveals very little, if anything, about what it did do. On the other hand, the accounts of what happened to detainees in these secret prisons are sufficiently consistent to warrant credible consideration.
Exaggerations about the details of detainees’ imprisonments are not out of the question. For instance, Ruhal Ahmed, a British citizen released from detention at Guantanamo Bay in March 2004, claimed for years that he had never attended an Islamist training camp. In 2007, however, he admitted that he had attended such a camp in Afghanistan, where he learned how to shoot an AK-47. Again, British resident Binyam Mohamed has claimed that he was kept awake for twenty days straight by the relentless playing of Eminem and Dr Dre in a CIA jail outside Kabul in 2002. But this claim is highly suspect given the physical and psychological consequences of such a degree of sleep deprivation. While such claims should not be dismissed entirely, their merit and accuracy are open to question. Nevertheless, it certainly seems possible, indeed likely, that music and sound were employed in CIA prisons as instruments of prolonged sleep deprivation.
Thus, as we try to piece together a historical context for the use of music and sound as a form of irritation, frustration, and sleep deprivation in US military and intelligence practice, the picture is quite fragmented. Army interrogators may have been improvising when they started using this technique, perhaps recalling its (secondary or tertiary) role in Operation Just Cause in Panama. Meanwhile, higher-level personnel may have borrowed this practice based on their experiences at SERE training—experiences some Army interrogators may never have had. It has even been claimed that those involved with SERE training travelled to Guantanamo Bay and taught interrogators there how to implement what was being done to SERE trainees.
It then appears that, just as the degrees to which this technique has been applied are highly variable, so are the historical paths which led to its use. When it comes to interrogation, there is no standard set of techniques practised by the US military and intelligence agencies, and I would argue that it is a mistake to think of such bodies as a single entity—“the Pentagon”, “the US Department of Defense” or related labels—because there are different guidelines for different organisations (the Army, the CIA, the FBI), all of which have varying training and functions. So, Is It Torture?For me, this is the wrong question to ask. The use of music in interrogation is not an issue of it either is torture or it isn’t; rather, it is a case of when can it be torture, where is the line, and who decides? When does aural discomfort become sonic antagonisation, and when does sonic antagonisation become torture? This technique has been applied in such varying degrees that in some instances it probably qualifies as torture and in others it does not. For instance, as noted above in the discussion of Britain’s treatment of the suspected IRA members, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that sonic interrogation was not torture. It did so on the grounds that such use of sound “did not occasion suffering of the particular intensity and cruelty implied by the word torture as so understood”.11 On the other hand, I firmly believe exposure to noise and music can be used to excesses that amount to torture, particularly through prolonged sleep deprivation, which may have occurred at CIA-run prisons.
The fact that sonic techniques have been applied in a wide variety of ways by a variety of entities presents many challenges and makes them more difficult to engage with than other issues involved in the torture debate. Most people would probably consider waterboarding, beatings, and intimidation by dogs as forms of torture. Matters aren’t so clear with music and sound. Is listening to a tape of babies crying for half-an-hour torture? Irritating for sure but probably not torture. Is using deafening music as a form of sleep deprivation for five straight days torture? I would say yes.
It is also important to address the torture question from a legal perspective. The issue of music and interrogation is subject both to international and US domestic laws, which then govern the guidelines and regulations in military field manuals. The United States is a signatory to certain treaties that dictate the permissible treatment of detainees, and field manuals are then written based on these regulations. (The treatment of detainees obviously varies widely from country to country depending on which treaties have been ratified or amended—what may be torture in one country may be permissible in another.) Most recently, US lawmakers have tried to co-ordinate domestic law with international law so that the two align. The idea here is that the United States does not treat foreign detainees any differently from how it treats its own citizens.
The reality on the ground is that interrogators are given a set of guidelines to follow and their compliance or otherwise with those guidelines is used to assess any violations or possible charges of war crimes, such as torture. As we have seen, permissible practices have changed throughout the course of the war on terror and, at least in Thompson’s case, there may have been ambiguity about the acceptability of certain interrogation methods, such as the use of music or sound. For US Army interrogators, the permissibility of sonic techniques is still unclear as revisions to Field Manual 34−52, made in 2006, address and outlaw tactics like waterboarding, intimidation by dogs, mock execution, and others, but not music/sound.
As far as other intelligence agencies are concerned, the classified status of their field manuals makes it difficult to know if music and sound are addressed. However, we can assert that, given the sharp decline of music-torture allegations against US military and intelligence agencies in recent years, it is highly unlikely that interrogators are maintaining this practice. If music and sound are still used in detention camps, it is most probably to limit communication among detainees rather than to deprive them of sleep: the military has discovered that detainee camps were fast becoming fertile recruiting grounds for militant groups like al Qaeda, and loud music creates a sonic barrier preventing communication. Interestingly, this seems to represent a return to the original motive behind the use of music in Operation Just Cause. A Total Ban?Should the US government outlaw this practice altogether? My opinion is “yes”, but there are complications. From one perspective, numerous studies show that the reliability of information obtained under harsh interrogation is highly questionable. In instances where valuable information was extracted, one has to question if finding the needle in the haystack can justify torturing people who may be innocent. Additionally, one of the initial goals of sound torture, when used by the Chinese communists, was to extract confessions, true or false. At a certain point, a person will confess to just about anything: Professor Dan Kuehl of Fort McNair’s National Defense University jokingly said he “would confess to being a member of al-Qaeda” if someone made him listen to the song “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini” for an hour. “After ten hours of that, I’d confess to being Osama bin Laden.”12 Under extreme physical and psychological distress, people will say, sign, or admit to anything they think will stop the torture, not necessarily what is true.
Moreover, it must be questioned whether the isolated instances in which useful information is obtained outweigh the diminution of integrity and reputation that the United States brings upon itself by using such techniques. In an attempt to justify these acts, it is often argued that these techniques are no worse than what other countries and terrorist groups do to their detainees—in fact, this is how the United States learned to do them in the first place. But accepting this line of thinking removes the moral right to object when US detainees are unlawfully mistreated. It is also hypocritical that, in a war fought supposedly in defence of democratic values, a country that presumes to occupy the moral high ground would stoop to the level of an enemy it finds so abhorrent.
However, if sonic methods are outlawed and deemed to be torture in all their applications, some problems may arise. What remain as permissible techniques for the interrogation of non-compliant detainees? As Sergeant William Thompson remarked in his interview with me, “What am I supposed to do? Come in and offer this guy ‘a Coke and a smile’?”13 Moreover, if acoustic interrogation methods are outlawed, how long before citizens start filing legal suits of torture against one another? The suggestion may appear comical, but consider that one of the most common causes of neighbourhood quarrels in highly urbanised areas like New York City is complaints about noise. People often go to court over this issue and are sentenced to attend conflict-resolution counselling. If domestic law is aligned with international law, could a citizen press torture charges against a noisy neighbour for sleep deprivation?
Where exposure to noise and music is concerned, the circumstances of captivity and those of civilian life may not be as disparate as we might think. At the beginning of this article, I said that joking dismissal has been one of the reactions to the use of music in interrogation. Many people appear to have a humorous reaction to this technique because they can relate to the experience. In November 2004, for instance, St Petersburg Times reporter, Lane DeGregory, remarked that the Army has been slow to recognise the irritation potential of children’s songs:
It shouldn’t have taken the Army this long to discover it. Anyone who’s had a preschooler knows the pain: sing-songy, cotton-colored puppets crooning over and over again about happy, joyful things. Dancing, smiling puppets. So pleased you tuned in. You can’t tune them out. Then your little one joins in, even during commercials. Incessant. Mind-numbing. An agonising infliction of unbearable assault. Reruns were bad enough. Now with videos, the rewinds never stop. Once Barney [the purple dinosaur] gets going, there is no escape.14
There are countless similar examples, including Piore’s original report which concluded, “But can children’s songs really break a strong mind? ... In search of comment from Barney’s people, Hit Entertainment, NEWSWEEK endured five minutes of Barney while on hold. Yes, it broke us, too.”15 Perhaps because cartoon songs are used, and because the feeling of being constantly bombarded by music that cannot be controlled or turned off is familiar from civilian life, many people seem to have difficulty in taking seriously the possibility that music can be used as a form of torture. Nevertheless, supposing US domestic law were aligned with international law, then I’m inclined to ask what ramifications, if any, would outlawing music in interrogation possibly have in domestic life? The Response of MusiciansBeyond the legal perspective, it is worth considering how musicians react to the use of their songs in interrogations. Perhaps not surprisingly, their reactions are highly varied. Some have been supportive of this technique, like Stevie Benton of the heavy-metal group, Drowning Pool, who told Spin magazine in December 2006, “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. 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.” However, bands like Rage against the Machine, Audioslave, and Massive Attack were angered by the use of their music in interrogation. These bands have joined the most concentrated effort to speak out against “music torture”, Zero Db, an initiative launched by Reprieve.org.uk that encourages musicians to sign an online petition and contribute a photo or video of their silent protest.
Such initiatives are commendable as many musicians are horrified by the idea that their music would be used to inflict harm upon another person. My concern with such efforts is that they unequivocally condemn this technique as torture without acknowledging the varying degrees in which music has been applied. In some instances, I believe that it can and probably has been torture, but in others it clearly does not qualify. Then, making the blanket generalisation that using music in interrogation is torture immediately casts everyone who has employed this practice as a torturer and war criminal, which I find a convenient dismissal of the complexities surrounding the issue.
Certainly, there are many challenges to be faced when engaging this topic. Acknowledging these challenges provides an important overall context for addressing the issue of music in interrogation and torture. To collect, understand, and interpret material related to a highly controversial war that is still being fought is extraordinarily difficult. We do the best we can with what we know at the present time, trying to draw conclusions through a critical engagement of information, while understanding that our convictions must be tempered with the knowledge that we most likely cannot see the entire picture—or that the picture will take different shapes as time goes by. Anything less, however passionately well-intentioned, betrays many of the foundations of critical thinking and has the potential to weaken the platform for positive social change.
Endnotes
2. Jonathan Pieslak, Sound Targets: American Soldiers and Music in the Iraq War (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 2009).
3. Dan Kuehl, interview by author, tape recording, New York, 2 May 2006.
4. Ed Rouse, e-mail communication, 26 April 2006.
5. Plenary Court Judgement of the European Court of Human Rights, Case of Ireland v. The United Kingdom (Application no. 5310/71), Strasbourg, France, 18 January 1978, paragraph 96.
6. Ronald Botelho, interview by author, tape recording, New York, 8 June 2007.
7. C. J. Grisham, interview by author, tape recording, New York, 1 May 2006.
8. Ibid.
9. William Thompson, interview by author, tape recording, New York, 22 June 2007.
10. Ibid.
11. European Court of Human Rights, Ireland v. The United Kingdom, paragraph 167.
12. Kuehl, interview.
13. Thompson, interview.
14. Lane DeGregory, “Iraq ’n’ Roll”, St Petersburg Times, 21 November 2004.
15. Piore, “PSYOPS”.
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