Alternative Torture Methods

This from an ABC news story from last year, on detainees in CIA secret prisons:

"They would not let you rest, day or night. Stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down. Don't sleep. Don't lie on the floor," one prisoner said through a translator. The detainees were also forced to listen to rap artist Eminem's "Slim Shady" album. The music was so foreign to them it made them frantic, sources said.

The use of music in torture and information-gathering is nothing new, but the use of Eminem's body of work was news to me. We all know how most caucasians are frightened and disoriented by the sound of an angry black man singing in rhyme over heavy percussion, or, in this case, a white man imitating the same. But I would have thought that the Arabs would have been more immune to these effects; maybe I'm thinking this because of their proximity to Africa. But the use of lyrics such as "Got pissed off and ripped Pamela Lee's tits off" might be understandably scary to a people who don't understand our culture of freedom.

I myself have never used hip-hop or rap for musical Psy-Ops, though now it's gotten me interested. I might have to load up my I-Pod for my next interrogation session (I'm thinking the Bonecrusher and Killer Mike collabo; they've got a very angry song about shooting other African-Americans). The one time I engaged in 'musical persuasion' (as we call it) was in Yemen, 2000, about 3 month before the Cole bombing. We had gotten tips that several Yemeni and Saudi hard-liners were planning something, but it was all very amorphous information. Nobody seemed to be privy to any real solid information, but we knew something was going on.

But we think we've got four of the main guys in custody. We're set up in the basement of an abandoned oil refinery, and we have the four strapped into these chairs in the middle of the room, and C-Dog, me, and another agent we called Silus are trying to break them down a bit. They've all got the usual defiance of the just-captured, spitting in our faces and whatnot, mentioning Allah in loud voices. Silus suddenly gets the idea to play like a musical chairs sort of game with them. He brings in the Doberman Pinschers and has them sit watch on the sidelines, and C goes to get the boombox from upstairs.

And for some reason Silus has this whole tote bag full of horrible music, like John Tesh, Stevie Nicks' solo albums, Michael Bolton, some kind of muzak version of Peter Frampton songs, a live recording of Barry Manilow sounding very inebriated, etc. We were ribbing him a bit about carrying that stuff around, but it was obvious he was some kind of sick musical sadist and he had this specific scenario in mind the entire time.

So we cut the M.E.'s free, and we tell them the rudimentary rules of Musical Chairs. After a few stupid questions (No, you can't sit on two chairs at once, Habib) we start up the music. Then Silus cuts in; the winner of this particular version of Musical Chairs will be the last person we execute. And he gives a long evil laugh. Me and C just look at each other, not sure how serious Silus is because we don't know him well at all. Then Silus starts up the boombox, blasting some John Tesh in their faces, and the detainees start to marching somewhat lackadaisically around the chairs.

"Now, when the music stops, boys!" Silus yells, "that's when you've got to grab a seat! You really want to get that seat, boys! This is like Russian Roulette, motherfuckers! You sit down too early and you get a bullet!" I am quiet, not sure how effective this method will be. So C and I are waiting for Silus to stop the music, so we can see who's the quickest Arab, but after 5 minutes or so we understand that's the rub; Silus isn't stopping the music. He's got an 8 CD disc-changer in the boombox, and he has no plans on stopping this music. And the M.E.'s really are hating this music. They look disturbed and disgusted. One guy actually turns green and pukes after the 3rd John Tesh song, and I'm not feeling too well myself. C and I leave the room as a bootlegged New Kids on the Block concert starts up and the dogs in the corner start howling. But Silus, the true sadist, stays and watches for the entire next 6 hours. We can hear him laughing in the next room as we're checking satellite images and drinking Starbucks.

To make a long story short, 6 hours later we return to the room, and the captives are a complete mess; there is vomit and urine on the ground, one guy has a nose-bleed, and they are all piled up in the middle of the room, shivering and scarcely breathing, and Bryan Adams is blasting out of the boombox, which Silus has actually set on top of their spent bodies in a sort of victory symbol, like a flag on top of a conquered mountain. Silus seems very pleased with himself. "Next time I do this," he says contemplatively, "they'll be naked.....Yeah."

After that the Yemenis didn't put up much resistance to our questioning. As it turned out, they were just a bunch of innocent fisherman who were no more interested in blowing things up than your average Yemeni citizen; that is, not so much as to be concerned about. But we wouldn't have found that out as quickly as we did without Silus' particular form of information-gathering. It was on that day that I truly realized the great power of music.