- News>
- Newspapers
Heavy metal, nursery rhymes: Iraqi POWs face the US music: The Pioneer
Baghdad, May 22: American jailers in Iraq have invented a new variant of psychological attack. Iraqi prisoners who backed Saddam Hussein are forced to listen to heavy metal and cartoon film music. One serviceman says the measure is effective.
Baghdad, May 22: American jailers in Iraq have invented a new variant of psychological attack. Iraqi prisoners who backed Saddam Hussein are forced to listen to heavy metal and cartoon film music. One serviceman says the measure is effective.
Sergeant Marc Hudsell explains that with a view to break down the resistance of the population and to create continuous tension, the US military use loud aggressive music that is humiliating for the local cultural tradition.
The sergeant makes Iraqis listen to the song Bodies from the film XXX where Vin Diesel plays a charismatic and daring type, and also to Enter Sandman by heavy metal group Metallica. He likes this music, but the situation is quite different with Iraqis: They have never listened to heavy metal and they cannot stand it.
"If one is listening to this music day and night, one's brain and body weaken, the soberness of mind and the will are sure to be crushed," said Hudsell. It is considered to be the most painful torture to make people listen to Metallica guitars together with nursery rhymes from Sesame Street and the cartoon Barney the Dinosaur. This torture proves to be actually very effective: 24 hours are quite enough to make Iraqis speak. As Sergeant Hudsell says, he also was made to listen to Barney the Dinosaur's song for 45 minutes during psychological stability tests. He says he wouldn't like to go through that torture once again. When Newsweek journalists wanted to try the psychological effect of such music, they could stand it only for five minutes.
The sergeant makes Iraqis listen to the song Bodies from the film XXX where Vin Diesel plays a charismatic and daring type, and also to Enter Sandman by heavy metal group Metallica. He likes this music, but the situation is quite different with Iraqis: They have never listened to heavy metal and they cannot stand it.
"If one is listening to this music day and night, one's brain and body weaken, the soberness of mind and the will are sure to be crushed," said Hudsell. It is considered to be the most painful torture to make people listen to Metallica guitars together with nursery rhymes from Sesame Street and the cartoon Barney the Dinosaur. This torture proves to be actually very effective: 24 hours are quite enough to make Iraqis speak. As Sergeant Hudsell says, he also was made to listen to Barney the Dinosaur's song for 45 minutes during psychological stability tests. He says he wouldn't like to go through that torture once again. When Newsweek journalists wanted to try the psychological effect of such music, they could stand it only for five minutes.