On Being A Government DJ, Or, “Torture? You Call That Torture?”

It's become more or less common knowledge that US forces have been using music as an operational tool for some time now, and I've begun seeing lists of the songs that are being used either to inflict pain, to demoralize, or to just generally disorient various people in various sorts of situations.

There are others, wiser than I, who will opine as to the questions of efficacy and the moral issues surrounding these kinds of operations; I will opine, instead, as to the quality of the songs used.

Frankly, had anyone asked, I could have put the torturers onto much better musical choices, just by selecting from my own "My Music" folder--which left me thinking: "hey, it's the weekend...why not do exactly that?"

Got any psychological warfare missions planned for the weekend? Expecting to have to direct amplified sound at an angry mob in a defensive maneuver Saturday night? Planning a Halloween haunted house that goes a bit...fuurther?

Come along with me then, soldier, and I'll provide you a playlist that should do the trick in almost any foreseeable emergency.



Before we go any further, a word of warning: some of the links in this story will lead to material that is extraordinarily offensive and, in some cases, exceptionally distressing in nature.

If you are reading this, and you're, say, eleven years old, go get your parents and make them read this with you so that they can also learn about some sweet death metal; later on you can all listen to better music in the car on family outings.

What's On Guantanamo's iPod?

So the obvious first question: what songs are the government using?

If the lists that I've been seeing can be believed, there is a fair collection of songs being used to create "environmental manipulation", including songs like Eminem's "White America" and "Kim", the obvious choices like "Born in the USA", songs from the super-patriotic county song genre like that "boot in your ass" song, sexually suggestive songs like Christina Aguilera's "Dirrty" (which has a waaaay dirtier video than lyrics...), and a heavy diet of heavy metal. (According to Justine Sharrock's reporting at Mother Jones, MPs on duty in the detention facilities would often be making the choices about what detainees would hear.)

"The healthy man does not torture others -- generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers."

--Carl Jung

The odd thing about the metal: most of the songs seem to be far more tame than what they could have found--and a lot of the songs are actually among my "Rocktober" favorites...although at least one song was new to me, and I liked it, too.

Examples included Nine Inch Nail's "March of the Pigs", AC~DC's "Hell's Bells", Drowning Pool's "Bodies", Mettalica's "Enter Sandman", and a song by Deicide that I had never heard before...but, to borrow from "American Bandstand", it had a great death metal beat and you could mosh to it.

Now if it had been me in there, I would have suggested, for starters, some good old New Orleans Goatwhore, like "Alchemy of the Black Sun Cult", or maybe some delightful Cannibal Corpse ("Barbaric Bludgeonings" being a good place to start), or perhaps something that draws from Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound" concept, like "Upper Decker", by The Red Chord.

One of my friends suggested I consider a Norwegian Black Metal band (which is a good choice due to the Satanic messages that are literally at the core of the music); and you can't go wrong with either Gorgoroth's most excellent "Carving a Giant" or a selection from Emperor's "The Nightside Eclipse" (which should also be mandatory for any haunted house soundtrack anywhere).

Did You Say Sex?

Songs with gay-oriented themes work in both PsyOps and "friendly" haunted house environments; my suggestions would include two long-time favorites: The Mike Flowers Pops' rendition of "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" (which actually manages to be amazingly perky, unabashedly "pop", samples "The Macarena", and, despite all that, doesn't suck), or, when you're ready for the big guns, the Keta-Men's super-masculine, give-it-a-beat, four-part-harmony reworking of Sheryl Crow's "Strong Enough"; which should be effective, as I said, for any PsyOps you may have planned--or any friendly haunting.

As for other songs with a sexual connection: well, you could do a lot better than Christina Aguilera. How about, just to get things rolling, 20 Fingers and Gilette's "Short Dick Man" ...and then, after midnight, you gotta dig up the impotent sea snakes' "Kangaroos (Up the Butt)" (which is, indeed, about an Australian lifestyle choice gone horribly, horribly, wrong).



Apparently songs like "Wind Beneath My Wings", "Mandy", Air Supply's "Lost in Love", the entire Celine Dion catalog, and Morris Albert's unforgettable "Feelings" (unforgettable? After you hear it, you wish you could forget it...) did not make the list (although the public record is incomplete, and that may yet prove to be incorrect). The "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack apparently did make the cut, which confirms some theories I've had about the Brothers Gibb and torture that date back to the 1970s...but that's a subject for another day.

It also appears that no one went for the industrial/dance bands, and as far as I'm concerned, no serious haunted house (or PsyOps mission) is complete until the Negativland comes out to play--but there's a lot of other top-quality disorienting and jarring music available, including music from :wumpscut: and ohGr and Einstürzende Neubauten...or even Twink's "Pussy Cat".

Finally, a few words about what might be the cruelest songs to make it on the list.

The theme from the Meow Mix commercials made the list.

The Sesame Street theme song made the list.

And, finally, in what might be the most barbaric act ever perpetrated by the American Government...Barney the purple dinosaur's "I Love You", a song you always said was torture to have to listen to, has now actually been used to soften up detainees for interrogation at Guantanamo Bay.

Amazingly, the song that might be the worst ever to have deployed against you in any PsyOps operation--or any haunted house, for that matter--is not on any list I've seen so far: the theme from the Disney ride "It's a Small World". I can testify to this personally: as a kid at Disneyland I was stuck on the ride, one summer day, for about an hour-and-a-half.

All I can say...is that it changes you.

Check out the link. It's almost 11 minutes long, and I challenge you to sit through the whole thing. If you do make it, I challenge you to get that song out of your head...ever...again. Good luck.

Why Do Terrorists Have Rights?, Or, A Government, Restrained

There is a lot of debate in the public space this week over the impact of the United States Supreme Court’s ruling that gives detainees in a “holding pattern” at Guantanamo Bay access to the United States Courts for the purpose of presenting petitions of habeas corpus.

It is a generally accepted misunderstanding that the Court’s ruling gave new rights to the detainees, which seems to be the issue that is the most controversial.

The purpose of today’s discussion is to explain why that view of the ruling is dead wrong…and to offer some thoughts on why this ruling might actually be one of the most important “restraint of government” rulings to have come down the pike in some time.

So off we go, eh?

First, the background. The Supreme Court has ruled in Boumediene et al. V. Bush, President of the United States, et al. that some Constitutional protections do extend to “non” US territory, and that the Military Commissions Act can not restrict the US Courts from having jurisdiction over “any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of detention of an alien detained by the United States since September 11, 2001.”

The Government had attempted to argue that because the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station’s holding facility is located on Cuban territory Constitutional protections do not apply, and that view was dismissed by the Court. The Court instead relied on a concept known as the “Territorial Incorporation Doctrine” which grants some, but not all, of the Constitution’s rights to those who live in US Territories…and as the Court noted, having “complete and uninterrupted control of the bay for over 100 years” pretty much makes it a US Territory, despite its physical location.

And that’s where we begin to address the question of whether this ruling gives new rights to detainees.

In reading the ruling, one thing that stands out is that the Court is not so much empowering the Plaintiffs as it is restraining the power of Government to operate outside the control of the Constitution—that the Court is saying that whatever the United States Government does, to the extent the sovereignty of other nations allows, it must do it within the framework of that document…and that despite the Administration’s desires, there is no legal basis to deny these detainees access to any judicial forum beyond the military tribunals offered by the Military Commissions Act. This from Boumediene V. Bush:

And although it recognized, by entering into the 1903 Lease Agreement, that Cuba retained “ultimate sovereignty” over Guantanamo, the United States continued to maintain the same plenary control it had enjoyed since 1898. Yet the Government’s view is that the Constitution had no effect there, at least as to noncitizens, because the United States disclaimed sovereignty in the formal sense of the term. The necessary implication of the argument is that by surrendering formal sovereignty over any unincorporated territory to a third party, while at the same time entering into a lease that grants total control over the territory back to the United States, it would be possible for the political branches to govern without legal constraint.

Our basic charter cannot be contracted away like this. The Constitution grants Congress and the President the power to acquire, dispose of, and govern territory, not the power to decide when and where its terms apply. Even when the United States acts outside its borders, its powers are not “absolute and unlimited” but are subject “to such restrictions as are expressed in the Constitution.”

The Court goes on to suggest that if the Government’s view were to be upheld, it would be possible for the President and Congress to interpret law. The Court says that is not allowed, and refers to one of our most fundamental legal precedents to illustrate its point. To quote the 1803 case Marbury v. Madison:

It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. Those who apply the rule to particular cases, must of necessity expound and interpret that rule. If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each.

Why shouldn’t we allow Government, from time to time, to act outside of the Constitution? There are those who will point out that we are in dangerous times, and that it is sometimes necessary for the Government to take exceptional measures to ensure our protection.

The answer is fundamental: the Constitution exists to enumerate exactly what Government is allowed to do. In this country We, The People, control all the rights and liberties of our Nation…and we grant to Government some powers from time to time as we choose through the Constitution. From time to time we also remove some of those powers.

What we never do is allow Government to grant unto itself rights, or to strip We, The People of rights.

The Court, in this ruling, reasserts that most basic of American principles—that Government is under the control of The People—that it is not a power unto itself, that its powers derive from the grants we give it…and that every person affected by the Government’s actions has a basic right to contest those actions, whether the Government likes it or not.

This is the fundamental difference between freedom and despotism; and we are the most privileged Nation on Earth for exactly that reason.