Posted on 05/30/2012 8:19:49 PM PDT by DogByte6RER
Guantanamo Bay Prisoners Were Tortured With Sesame Street
Guantanamo Bay prisoners were reportedly tortured with the sounds of children’s Sesame Street songs, in an attempt to get them to talk.
Al Jazeera reports that Thomas Keenan, a human rights researcher, explained that:
“Prisoners were forced to put on headphones. They were attached to chairs, headphones were attached to their heads, and they were left alone just with the music for very long periods of time. Sometimes hours, even days on end, listening to repeated loud music.”
Christopher Cerf, the award-winning composer of the songs used to torture prisoners at both Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, was shocked when Al Jazeera broke the news to him that his music was being exploited in such a way. He stated that:
“My first reaction was this just can’t possibly be true…Of course I didn’t really like the idea that I was helping break down prisoners, but it was much worse when I heard later that they were actually using the music in Guantanamo to actually do deep, long-term interrogations and obviously to inflict enough pain on prisoners so they would talk.”
The Huffington Post reports that other songs torturers have used on their victims have included Metallica’s ”Enter Sandman” and Drowning Pool’s “Bodies,” both of which were used in the same way as Sesame Street at Guantanamo Bay.
The Sesame Street, which includes about 200 songs, which are meant to help children learn reading and writing skills, is apparently very effective, considering this is not the first time it was reportedly used for torture. Al Jazeera reports that Cerf went on to say:
“This is fascinating to me both because of the horror of music being perverted to serve evil purposes if you like, but I’m also interested in how that’s done. What is it about music that would make it work for that purpose?”
Cerf, since learning about the powerful effect music seems to have in interrogation work, produced a film entitled “Songs Of War,” in which he embarks on a journey to learn what makes music so powerful. Al Jazeera reports that in the process, he spoke to soldiers, psychologists, and prisoners who were tortured using his music. He also discovered during his travels that the military has been using music as a potent torture weapon for hundreds of years.
But not quite as bad as the song that broke former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noreiga.
That’s what I keep threatening to do when they’re misbehaving!
Damnation to all! They must worship me instead of Big Bird!
I still bust a blood vessel when I hear a Cal Fresh (Food Stamp) Commercial during the Rush Limbaugh Show.
It's bad enough that they advertise Welfare, but buying time with Taxpayer Money to an audience that detests the Entitlement Society is ludicrous.
Liberal songwriters?
Ever hear Joan Baez sing, “The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down”? That’s brutal.
All power comes from the stem of a lily pad...?
No no, from Miss Piggy’s ‘Hi Yah!’
I still bust a blood vessel when I hear a Cal Fresh (Food Stamp) Commercial during the Rush Limbaugh Show.
It's bad enough that they advertise Welfare, but buying time with Taxpayer Money to an audience that detests the Entitlement Society is ludicrous.
They’re wearing Elmo outfits! Oh yeah!
Its a small world after all...not sesame St...but could work too.
Noooo! Please no more purple dinosaur! He haunts me in my dreams with the “I love you, you love me.” I can’t take any more. I’ll tell you everything I know!
I too clench teeth over that stupid jingle.
Sometimes they use Sesame Street.
Sometimes they use thrash metal.
When they really want to break ‘em down, they use...both:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWCJfCP_ISM&feature=relmfu
I doubt for days on end.”
Funny but both of my grandkids listened to it for days on end and it never seemed to bother them.
Small World is one of my fav songs. My daughter first heard it at Disney World when she was three and we heard it for years thereafter. Now that she’s not here on earth anymore it remains one of my fav songs and I find myself humming it all the time. Very infectious tune.
“Ever hear Joan Baez sing, “The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down”? That’s brutal.”
LOL. It is. Baez’s naive earnestness and picture-perfect diction. You can just see her imagining that the song had something to do with the proletariat, somehow.
A little like Linda Ronstadt’s version of “Allison.” She’s done some nice work—but it was a very wrong song for that artist.
File all the rough edges off a rough song and you get high comedy.
One man’s Sesame Street ditty is another man’s torture!
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