Music can be used to torture, as I’ve discovered in my day job, reporting on the CIA’s “enhanced interrogations” in its allegedly closed secret prisons and during its “renditions.”
The latter violations of international laws and our own involve kidnapping terrorism suspects and storing them in foreign prisons specialising in torture. There, music played incessantly at unremittingly high volume can “break” any prisoner.
I’ve written a number of syndicated columns about British citizen Binyam Mohamed who, finally released after years without charges, recalls his CIA experiences in our own overseas prison in Kabul, Afghanistan, and during “renditions”:
“It was pitch black. … They hung me up for two days. My legs had swollen. My wrists and hands had gone numb. … There was loud music [by] Slim Shady and Dr. Dre for 29 days. … It got really spooky in this black hole.”
Since the CIA’s playlists are classified as “state secrets” (as are many other details of President Obama’s continuation of the Bush-Cheney “renditions”), I don’t know if any jazz combos, classic or cutting-edge, have been torture apprentices.
But I expect that any of us for whom music of any category is a vital life force, would agree with Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine (reported by Andy Worthington on commondreams.org on Oct. 23):
“The fact that music I helped create was used as a tactic against humanity sickens me. We need to end torture.”
And Rosanne Cash, phoning the Washington Post, adds: “I think every musician should be involved. … Music should never be used as torture. … It’s beyond the pale. It’s hard to even think about.”
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