The Guantanamo Collection

Confess! Confess!

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Tracy mentioned to me that the US apology site I posted earlier was sweet but a bit left-wing, drippy wet and right-on. To which I commented that leftie liberals are generally preferable to tanks, missiles and death.
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... or Barney the Dinosaur singing 'I love you. You love me'
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I remember when the Barney story first broke. Iraqi prisoners were being held in 40ft shipping containers and blasted with unbearably loud music 24/7 whilst search lights were played on them. When first reported, in the US and UK, the story that Iraqis were being tortured with 'I love Barney' and the Sesame Street theme was presented as being somehow humorous.
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There's an old saying that God only permits you as much pain as you can bear. I saw some recently cleared pictures of the Iraqis in those containers. Looking at their contorted faces it was clear that someone, not God, had subjected them to as much as they could bear and kept on going.
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They had really shot their wad, big time.
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... and, as one commentator observed, the Iraqis hadn't even learned any new letters or numbers.
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If only they had a combined protective psychic helmet / vegetable drainer like I do.
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In the British Army our soldiers break people by hooding them, placing them in stress postures and subjecting them to white noise for a few days. I've always believed that this was morally preferable to physical torture but still a pretty horrible thing to do and only justifiable in extreme circumstances. However, compared to the Barney treatment, British interrogation techniques start to look like a school disco.
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No-one has been held accountable for the Barney torture incident. The colossal sound system used was provided by an American psywar unit but they maintained they were only following orders from a local commander. Apparently, 1,000,000 watts US army psywar PA systems are not intended for torture and are primarily used for propaganda messages and, presumably, the occasional wedding reception.
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Back in WW2, psywar was largely restricted to playing better music than the enemy on the radio and dropping pornographic leaflets, illustrating what their wives were up to back at home, onto enemy soldiers. Techniques progressed and by Vietnam, US aircraft were flying over Vietcong positions playing the sound of babies crying and the moans of wounded men
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... and dropping pornographic leaflets illustrating what Vietcong wives were up to back at home.
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Then, in the 1980s and 1990s things started to get quite strange.
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I recall watching footage of the US invasion of Panama. For some reason, not made entirely clear at the time, the invasion force included jeep-mounted PA systems playing 'Don't stand so close me' by The Police REALLY LOUD outside General Noriega's compound.
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Then there was Waco. What was going on there? Was it really such a good idea to keep a compound full of armed religious lunatics awake night after night with searchlights and Nancy Sinatra records?
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Apparently, there was an army plan to hide subliminal messages in the music blasted into the compound. Charlton Heston had been booked to play the voice of God to speak to Koresh directly ordering him to surrender. All things considered this must score a maximum 10 marks on anyone's bizarro rating index. Nothing came of the idea in the end. Personally, after seeing 'Bowling for Columbine', I can't take Chas seriously anymore and would have booked James Earl Jones instead ...

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'(snort) David (snort) I am your Father'

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I'm currently putting together a compilation CD based on American psywar classics. Hopefully, it will be ready for the Christmas market and will be released under the title 'The Guantanamo Collection'. The provisional track list so far ...
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Enter Sandman - Metallica (Iraq)
The Best of Fleetwood Mac (Cuba)
I Love You Barney - Barney and Friends (Iraq)
Don't Stand So Close to Me - The Police (Panama)
These Boots Were Made for Walking - Nancy Sinatra (Waco)
Kris Kristofferson Greatest Hits (Cuba)
XXX Soundtrack (Iraq)
I Am God - Charlton Heston (Waco)
Theme from Sesame Street (Iraq)
Unwell - Matchbox 20 (Cuba/ Iraq)
Common People - William Shatner/ Joe Jackson (not actually used by the US Army to my knowledge but should be given that's it's one really weird record)
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And now the good news. According to the woman with the clipboard who recently tried to hustle money out of my brother for leaving his radio on in his cafe, you would normally have to pay performance royalties if you played this CD in a public place. However, use of pre-recorded popular music in an interrogation situation is not covered by existing performance rights agreements which means you won't have to pay any royalties if you use my CD as part of torture. I know this because the man who composed both The Sesame Street Theme and I Love You Barney was on TV with his agent last week and let slip that he hadn't received a penny for the use of his music in Iraq.
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The really fascinating question is how do the psywar specialists know what record to play in a given situation? 'When overthrowing Panamanian Drug Lords play The Police. When coercing Messianic lunatics into believing you are God try Nancy Sinatra'. That's one manual I'd love to read. Given the result of playing 'These boots were made for walking' at Waco was fire, destruction, mayhem and death I presume the guidelines are subject to periodic revision.
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All these thoughts on acoustic psywar remind me of I guy I met many years ago whilst a geology student. He was a vibroseis unit operator. A vibroseis unit is a vibrating metal plate used in seismic surveys. The really big vibroseis plates are truck mounted and powered by an enormous generator. As a surveying technique it's nowhere near as nifty as using explosive charges but it's usable in populated locations and also offers an additional benefit not mentioned in the user's manual. My acquaintance reckoned, quite reasonably, that every part of the human body had a resonant frequency. His interest was focused on a particular part of the female anatomy, quite tiny and normally impossible to find, which, as I recall, resonates at something like 80-85hz (it wasn't the female brain which is much larger and I believe vibrates at something like 30hz). He maintained that he could set his unit up next to an office building, twiddle with a couple of dials and reduce every woman in the building to quivering jelly. Try doing that with gelignite. The last time I spoke to him he was thinking about some way of opening a night-club with a vibroseis dance floor.
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He wasn't the only geologist I've met who was harnessing the power of acoustics in pursuit of love not torture. Another acquaintance swore by personal massager units, fine tuned to hit the magic frequency. Yes, there's more to geology than giggling at lecturers talking about blue veins and colouring-in dinosaur pictures with crayons. Be careful when investing in vibroseis units or personal massagers though. You need to buy the ones with the rotary controllers, rather than a simple on/off switch, so that you can hit the exact resonant frequency. In use it's a bit like tuning a radio until you get the little red 'optimum reception' light, or so I'm told. Once you've tuned in it's a good idea to make an index mark for future reference with a felt tip pen. If you're feeling naughty you can test your partner's sense of humour by adding several additional random marks and write a different girl's name against each.
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Another top tip, and this is based on personal experience, is to wash your hands thoroughly before trying this technique out, particularly if you've been chopping chillies earlier in the evening
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Right, I'm off to the shops.