If hearing Barney the dinosaur sing "I Love You" one more time seems like torture, try it on a loop for the next 24 hours.
According to a new piece on the Huffington Post by Andy Worthington, author of "The Guantanamo files," the children's show song that became the musical earworm of the '90s was one of many songs used by the CIA to enhance interrogation techniques in the War on Terror.
Songs used by the CIA varied wildly from children's songs and popular commercial jingles all the way to American hip-hop and death metal.
The variety often was intentional, intended to jar the senses, Worthington said. Prisoners would spend hours listening to a song like "Take Your Best Shot" by the metal band Dope on a constant loop, only to hear it get replaced unceremoniously by the Meow Mix cat food jingle.
In the moment, the juxtaposition of songs was funny. But eventually, it could grow maddening, Worthington writes.
American music – whether from commercials or actual songs – helped drown out the prisoners' inner thoughts, Worthington said, without providing them a familiar song from their own culture for which to escape into. Genres like heavy metal were particularly effective, because many Muslims had never heard anything like it before.
Original Article
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