Musicians protest use of songs by US jailers

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Blaring from a speaker behind a metal grate in his tiny cell in Iraq, the blistering rock from Nine Inch Nails hit Prisoner No. 200343 like a sonic bludgeon. "Stains like the blood on your teeth," Trent Reznor snarled over distorted guitars. "Bite. Chew." The auditory assault went on for days, then weeks, then months at the US military detention center in Iraq. Twenty hours a day. AC/DC. Queen. Pantera. The prisoner, military contractor Donald Vance of Chicago, told The Associated Press he was soon suicidal. The tactic has been common in the US war on terror, with forces systematically using loud music on hundreds of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, then the US military commander in Iraq, authorized it on Sept. 14, 2003, "to create fear, disorient ... and prolong capture shock." Now the detainees aren't the only ones complaining. Musicians are banding together to demand the US military stop using their songs as weapons. A campaign being launched Wednesday has brought together groups including Massive Attack and musicians such as Tom Morello, who played with Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave and is now on a solo tour. It will feature minutes of silence during concerts and festivals, said Chloe Davies of the British law group Reprieve, which represents dozens of Guantanamo Bay detainees and is organizing the campaign.