Stephen M. Walt
What the Bee Gees and waterboarding have in common
A group of musicians has joined the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo and issued a formal protest against the use of their music as part of the Bush-era torture regime. Music from performers like Bruce Springsteen, Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine and the Bee Gees (?) was reportedly played at excruciatingly high volumes ...
A group of musicians has joined the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo and issued a formal protest against the use of their music as part of the Bush-era torture regime. Music from performers like Bruce Springsteen, Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against the Machine and the Bee Gees (?) was reportedly played at excruciatingly high volumes as part of various sleep-deprivation and enhanced interrogation techniques, and some of the artists whose music was involved (Trent Reznor, Jackson Browne, David Byrne, R.E.M., and many others) are now seeking additional information about these practices and demanding that their music not be used in this fashion.
Good for them. Being forced to listen to the Bee Gees at any volume might be construed as a form of torture by some of us, although I don’t think President Obama’s ban on the various Bush-era practices goes that far.
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