Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-21T20:00:26.757Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

“You are in a place that is out of the world. . .”: Music in the Detention Camps of the “Global War on Terror”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2008

SUZANNE G. CUSICK
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Based on first-person accounts of interrogators and former detainees as well as unclassified military documents, this article outlines the variety of ways that “loud music” has been used in the detention camps of the United States‘ “global war on terror.” A survey of practices at Bagram Air Force Base, Afghanistan; Camp Nama (Baghdad), Iraq; Forward Operating Base Tiger (Al-Qaim), Iraq; Mosul Air Force Base, Iraq; Guantánamo, Cuba; Camp Cropper (Baghdad), Iraq; and at the “dark prisons” from 2002 to 2006 reveals that the use of “loud music” was a standard, openly acknowledged component of “harsh interrogation.” Such music was understood to be one medium of the approach known as “futility” in both the 1992 and the 2006 editions of the US Army's field manual for interrogation. The purpose of such “futility” techniques as “loud music” and “gender coercion” is to persuade a detainee that resistance to interrogation is futile, yet the military establishment itself teaches techniques by which “the music program” can be resisted. The article concludes with the first-person account of a young US citizen, working in Baghdad as a contractor, who endured military detention and “the music program” for ninety-seven days in mid-2006—a man who knew how to resist.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Society for American Music , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , February 2008 , pp. 1 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Music 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Al-Ghazzali, . On Listening to Music. Trans. Muhammad Nur Abdus Salam, with an introduction by Laleh Bakhtiar. Great Books of the Islamic World, series ed. Seyyed Hossein Nasr. n.p.: Kazi Publications, 2003.Google Scholar
Amnesty International. “Iraq: Decades of Suffering, Now Women Deserve Better.” http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE140012005?open&of=ENG-IRQ (accessed 10 October 2007).Google Scholar
Beaver, Lt. Col. Diane, E. “Legal Brief on Proposed Counter-Resistance Strategies.” In Greenberg and Dratel, The Torture Papers, 229–36.Google Scholar
Beccaria, Cesare. Dei delitti e delle pene. Livorno: Coltellini, 1764.Google Scholar
Begg, Moazzam. Enemy Combatant: My Imprisonment at Guantánamo, Bagram, and Kandahar. New York: New Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Begg, Moazzam. Telephone interview with the author, 18 April 2007.Google Scholar
Bellamy, Richard, ed. On Crimes and Punishments, and Other Writings. Beccaria, trans. Richard, Davies with Virginia, Cox and Richard, Bellamy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Center for Constitutional Rights. Report on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment of Prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. New York, July 2006.Google Scholar
Central Intelligence Agency. KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation. July 1963, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB122/CIA%20Kubark% 201-60.pdf (accessed 8 October 2007).Google Scholar
Conroy, John. Unspeakable Acts, Ordinary People: The Dynamics of Torture. An Examination of the Practice of Torture in Three Democracies. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Department of the Army. FM 34–52, Intelligence Interrogation. 1992. http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/pdf/intel_interrrogation_sept-1992.pdf (accessed 8 October 2007).Google Scholar
Department of the Army. FM 2-22.3 (34–52). Human Intelligence Collector Operations, September 2006, http://www.army.mil/institution/armypublicaffairs/pdf/fm2-22-3.pdf (accessed 8 October 2007).Google Scholar
Department of the Army. Army Regulation 15-6: Final Report. Investigation into FBI Allegations of Detainee Abuse at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba Detention Facility. 1 April 2005 (amended 9 June 2005), http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jul2005/d20050714report.pdf (accessed 8 October 2007).Google Scholar
Executive Order: Interpretation of the Geneva Conventions Common Article 3 as Applied to a Program of Detention and Interrogation Operated by the Cent- ral Intelligence Agency, signed by President George W. Bush on 20 July 2007, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070720-4.html (accessed 28 September 2007).Google Scholar
Gall, Carlotta. “The Reach of War: Detainees’ Rights Group Reports Afghanistan Torture.” New York Times, 19 December 2005.Google Scholar
Greenberg, Karen J., and Joshua, L. Dratel, eds. The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grey, Stephen, and Ian, Cobain. “Suspect's Tale of Travel and Torture.” The Guardian, 2 August 2005.Google Scholar
Golden, Tim, and Eric, Schmitt. “A Growing Afghan Prison Rivals Bleak Guantánamo.” New York Times, 26 February 2006.Google Scholar
Harding, Luke. “After Abu Ghraib.” The Guardian, 20 September 2004, http://www.doublestandards.org/harding1.html (accessed 10 October 2007).Google Scholar
Hastings, Deborah. “Steep Price Paid by Those Who Blew Whistle on Iraq Fraud,” Associated Press, 25 August 2007, http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/25/3410 (accessed 29 September 2007).Google Scholar
Human, Rights Watch. “No Blood, No Foul”: Soldiers' Accounts of Detainee Abuse in Iraq. Report 18/3 (July 2006).Google Scholar
Lagouranis, Tony, and Allen, Mikaelian. Fear Up Harsh: An Army Interrogator's Dark Journey Through Iraq. New York: NAL Caliber, 2007.Google Scholar
Macky, Chris, and Greg, Miller. The Interrogators: Inside the Secret War Against Al Qaeda. New York: Little, Brown, 2004.Google Scholar
Mahmood, Saba. Politics and Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Mayer, Jane. “Outsourcing Torture: The Secret History of America's ‘Extraordinary Rendition’ Program.” The New Yorker, 14 February 2005, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/02/14/050214fa_fact6 (accessed 7 October 2007).Google Scholar
Mayer, Jane. “The Gitmo Experiment.” The New Yorker, 6 July 2006, http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/07/11/050711fa_fact4 (accessed 7 October 2007).Google Scholar
Mayer, Jane. “The Black Sites: The CIA's Interrogation Techniques.” The New Yorker, 8 August 2007, http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/13/070813fa_fact_mayer (accessed 7 October 2007).Google Scholar
McConnell, Admiral Michael. Interview by Tim Russert, Meet the Press, NBC, 22 July 2007, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19850951 (accessed 29 September 2007).Google Scholar
McCoy, Alfred. A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, From the Cold War to the War on Terror. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006.Google Scholar
Moss, Michael. “American Recalls Torment as a U.S. Detainee in Iraq.” New York Times, 18 December 2006.Google Scholar
Moss, Michael. Interview by Lisa Myers. MSNBC, 17 June 2007, http://www.msnbc/msn/com/id/19226700 (accessed 29 September 2007).Google Scholar
Otterman, Michael. American Torture from the Cold War to Abu Ghraib and Beyond. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Phinney, David. “Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling: ‘My Name Used to Be 200343.’” Inter Press Service, 5 April 2007, http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/05/337 (accessed 29 September 2007).Google Scholar
Saar, Erik, and Viveca, Novak. Inside the Wire: A Military Intelligence Soldier's Eyewitness Account of Life at Guantánamo. New York: Penguin, 2005.Google Scholar
Sassi, Nazir. Prissonier 325. De Vénissieux à Guantanamo. Paris: Editions Denoël, 2006.Google Scholar
Scarry, Elaine. The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Schmitt, Eric, and Carolyn, Marshall, “Task Force 6–26: Inside Camp Nama; In Secret Unit's ‘Black Room,’ A Grim Portrait of U.S. Abuse.” New York Times, 19 March 2006.Google Scholar
Shane, Scott, David, Johnston, and James, Risen. “Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogation.” New York Times, 4 October 2007.Google Scholar
Shiloah, Amnon. Music in the World of Islam: A Socio-Cultural Study. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Smith, Craig, with Souad Mekhemnet and Mark Mazzetti. “Algerian Tells of Dark Odyssey in U.S. Hands.” New York Times, 7 July 2006.Google Scholar
“‘Surge’ Has Led to More Detainees.” Washington Post, 15 August 2007.Google Scholar
Vance, Donald. Response to e-mail questionnaire from the author, 29 December 2006.Google Scholar
Vance, Donald. Telephone interview with the author, 28 January 2007.Google Scholar
Vance, Donald.. Telephone interview with the author, 25 July 2007.Google Scholar
White, Josh, and Robin, Wright. “Afghanistan Agrees to Accept Detainees.” Washington Post, 5 August 2005.Google Scholar
Willemsen, Roger. Guantánamo Speaking: Per la prima volta parlano gli ex-detenti. Interviste di Roger Willemsen, trans. Ludovica, Maggi. Napoli: Michele di Salvo Editore, 2006. Originally published as Hier spricht Guantánamo: Roger Willemsen interviewst Ex-Häftlinge. Frankfurt am Main: Zweitausendeins, 2006.Google Scholar
Zagorin, Adam, and Michael, Duffy. “Inside the Interrogation of Detainee 063.” Time, 12 June 2005, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1071284,00.html (accessed 7 October 2007).Google Scholar