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The Gitmo playlist,[1] also called the torture playlist,[2] Guantanamo playlist and GTMO playlist,[3] was a loose collection of songs used to torture[4] inmates held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba during the war on terror. No official playlist is known to exist, and songs were chosen by interrogators and guards.[5][2] Interrogators generally opted to use heavy metal, country, and rap music, although music from children's TV shows was also used.
Music as an instrument of torture originated in psychological research from the 1950s, and the tactic was officially approved by several prominent US Army officials. Music was used to make detainees feel hopeless and make them cooperate with interrogators, and it was sometimes combined with other abusive practices like stress positions and temperature manipulation. Music has been used against several notable Guantanamo detainees, including Mohammed al-Qahtani, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, Shaker Aamer, and Ruhal Ahmed.
The ACLU, along with several journalists and musicology organizations, denounced the use of music at Guantanamo Bay and other American detention camps as torture. However, the reaction among the American public was often one of amusement.[6] Several artists, such as Tom Morello and Skinny Puppy, also denounced music torture, with some joining the National Security Archive in filing a Freedom of Information Act request regarding the playlist. The recording industry has stayed relatively silent on the issue, and several artists, such as Steve Asheim and James Hetfield, have come out in support of the practice.
- ^ "Gitmo playlist sought". The Los Angeles Times. October 23, 2009. p. 90.
- ^ a b Moskowitz, Gary (February 22, 2008). "Torture Playlist". Mother Jones. Retrieved September 20, 2024.
- ^ "The GTMO Playlist: Music, Interrogation and the Public". Guantánamo Public Memory Project.
- ^
- McKinney, Kelsey (December 11, 2014). "How the CIA used music to "break" detainees". Vox. Retrieved September 22, 2024.
This is how, and why, the CIA used some of America's most beloved, iconic songs as an instrument of torture.
- Cusick, Suzanne G. (2008). ""You are in a place that is out of the world . . . ": Music in the Detention Camps of the "Global War on Terror"" (PDF). Journal of the Society for American Music. 2 (1): 18. doi:10.1017/S1752196308080012 (inactive 2024-11-14).
By that standard, the aim of the psychological techniques that survive from the 1960s KUBARK manual is, indeed, to torture.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of November 2024 (link) - Papaeti, Anna (2020). "On Music, Torture and Detention: Reflections on Issues of Research and Discipline". Transposition (Hors-série 2). doi:10.4000/transposition.5289 – via OpenEdition Journals.
Catalyst to this turn were testimonies of detainees from the US naval base at Guantanamo, Cuba and the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, bringing to the fore the institutionalized use of music and sound in torture in the so-called War on Terror.
- Pellegrinelli, Lara (May 8, 2009). "Scholarly Discord: The Politics of Music in the War on Terrorism". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved October 19, 2024.
Along with hooding, wall standing, sleep deprivation, and erratic provision of food and drink, music torture counts among the commonly cited techniques designed to extract information without leaving physical evidence.
- McKinney, Kelsey (December 11, 2014). "How the CIA used music to "break" detainees". Vox. Retrieved September 22, 2024.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
:6was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Bayoumi, Moustafa (December 26, 2005). "Disco Inferno". The Nation. Retrieved October 25, 2024.