Musicians Crank Up The Volume On Guantanamo Debate
October 22, 2009, 15 years ago
Richard Lardner from The Associated Press is reporting:
A coalition of mega-bands and singers outraged that music - including theirs - was cranked up to help break uncooperative detainees at Guantanamo Bay is joining retired military officers and liberal activists to rally support for President Barack Obama's push to shutter the Navy-run prison for terrorist suspects in Cuba.
PEARL JAM, R.E.M., and Trent Reznor of NINE INCH NAILS are among the musicians who have joined the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo, which launched Tuesday.
On behalf of the campaign, the National Security Archive in Washington is filing a Freedom of Information Act request seeking classified records that detail the use of loud music as an interrogation device.
"At Guantanamo, the U.S. government turned a jukebox into an instrument of torture," said Thomas Blanton, executive director of the archive, an independent, nongovernmental research institute.
Based on documents that already have been made public and interviews with former detainees, the archive says the playlist featured cuts from AC/DC, BRITNEY SPEARS, THE BEE GEES, MARILYN MANSON and many other groups. The Meow mix cat food jingle, the Barney theme song and an assortment of Sesame Street tunes also were pumped into detainee cells.
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