Psyche, Science, and Society

Torture Playlist

February 27th, 2008

Mother Jones allows us to get a sense of one of the “interrogation techniques” used in America’s gulags, sensory overload via music. They have the

Torture Playlist

By Justine Sharrock

Music has been used in American military prisons and on bases to induce sleep deprivation, “prolong capture shock,” disorient detainees during interrogations—and also drown out screams. Based on a leaked interrogation log, news reports, and the accounts of soldiers and detainees, here are some of the songs that guards and interrogators chose.

Imagine these being played for hours on end at the maximum volume that won’t break your eardrums, with you tied up and unable to escape in any way:

No wonder the Society for Ethnomusicology has condemned the use of music in torture. Notice how, unlike the American Psychological Association, which can’t find it within them to mention, much less condemn the use of psychological expertise in US torture, the Ethnomusicologists have no trouble calling a spade a spade. But, then again, the musicologists probably don’t get tens of millions of dollars from the US military-intelligence community:

The SEM is committed to the ethical uses of music to further human understanding and to uphold the highest standards of human rights. The Society is equally committed to drawing critical attention to the abuse of such standards through the unethical uses of music to harm individuals and the societies in which they live. The U.S. government and its military and diplomatic agencies has used music as an instrument of abuse since 2001, particularly through the implementation of programs of torture in both covert and overt detention centers as part of the war on terror. [Emphasis added]

One day the profession of psychology will speak in such simple terms.

Entry Filed under: APA, Guantanamo, Interrogation, Music, Psychological Torture, Psychology, Torture