Metallica is latest interrogation tactic

* Julian Borger in Washington
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 20 May 2003 02.32 BST
* Article history

US military interrogators are using unorthodox musical techniques to extract information about weapons of mass destruction of fugitive Ba'athist leaders from their detainees - a fearsome mix of Metallica and Barney the Dinosaur.

The Americans have long been aware of the impact of heavy metal music on foreign miscreants. They blared Van Halen (among other artists) at the Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega when he took refuge in the Vatican embassy in Panama City, and blasted similarly high-decibel music at Afghan caves where al-Qaida fighters were thought to be hiding.

Now it is reported that the combination of high-voltage rock and happy-smiley children's songs can break the will of the hardest terrorist or rogue element.

"Trust me, it works," a US "operative" told Newsweek magazine.

"In training, they forced me to listen to the Barney I Love You song for 45 minutes. I never want to go through that again."

US interrogators routinely employ "stress-and-duress" techniques, including sleep deprivation: treatment which human rights activists describe as a form of torture. ..

etc..

Ok I am INVITED over for a bbq and were having STEAK!!!

here you can borrow my bubble wrap suit

...boy did we have fun. JUMP IN THE FIRE!!! Those nuns were so pissed off I thought they were gonna kill us. JUMP IN THE FIRE!!! I told seargent D that I felt bad. He said it made up for all the times the nuns cracked our hands with a ruler in catholic school. JUMP IN THE FIRE!!! I concurred. We were blasting my metallica cassette for 2 days. JUMP IN THE FIRE!!! Those JBLs on posts kept a constant sound pressure of 119 decibels. We sat and ate captain crunch with earplugs in. The cardinal was one very upset person. JUMP IN THE FIRE!!! It was months before I could listen to that metallica tape after that and our battle cry for months after was james hetfield screaming JUMP IN THE FIRE!!! We would call each other on the phone at 2 am and yell JUMP IN THE FIRE!!! My army buddy jimmy and I still yell it first and foremost when we call each other. Then laugh. Overall in rotation over a week we heard metallicas JUMP IN THE FIRE!!! A couple hundred times. My colonel made me change to van halen after 2 days of it. I always wondered if we helped metallicas album sales in panama city because of that. We did play diver down and 1984. We also played husker dus annoying cat song. Over and over that will give you a headache. It repeats- "We feed the rats to the cats and the cats to the rats and that's how we get our catskins for nothing"! My colonel at the time was a korean vet bordering on retirement. (just think hank hills dad dressed up in his uniform). He was a creative self proclaimed old fart and I had the greatest respect for him. He was 68 and could still run 2 miles every day. I learned a lot of wisdoms from the old man. He was an encyclopedia. You never forget those people you served with that helped you. And after panama and honduras conflict and lots of specialized government training (I had 3 mos), I got lucky and many of us got sent to europe together to a specialized unit and given diverse jobs. The worst of the first was quite a group. With training from marine FTU to technical combat to psychological warfare. They kinda had to keep us together. Because we were dangerous. We had some incidents- the faux simulated nuclear explosion incident with 2 mile mushroom cloud, and the air force requisition incident where we wanted to borrow some 3 yard frontend loaders from the air force and they said "F*ck you army guys". So we got requisition paperwork and forged signatures and took the frontend loaders from the air force. Boy those forging signature classes paid off big. We were like a group of james bonds running around for a couple years. We helped clean up the rammstein air disaster. We ran blockers for SR71 aircraft that flamed out on maneuvers. (you didn't see this aircraft. You don't know about this aircraft. This aircraft is a figment of your imagination)! Guys, there is nothing like an SR71 coming in at a mach 1 and a quarter. The sonic boom will blow you off your feet. Ran blocker for 2 commercial 747 emergency landings with no landing gear and 2 c141s and one c130 cargos. All emergency landings a success! Every 2 weeks we would train national guard and reservists for their 2 weeks of annual training. And on the side I carried secured packages so I got to carry a locked and loaded weapon every day. My choice? Colt 1911 .45 acp. Only had to use it and discharge it once in europe in defense. Overall I had lots of fun. I miss it. Too old and busted up to do it now. I'm honored that I did it though.