What the Bee Gees and waterboarding have in common

Posted By Stephen M. Walt Monday, October 26, 2009 - 4:07 PM Share

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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NTERRADAS

11:43 PM ET

October 26, 2009

Tragedy... in Massachusetts

Mr. Walt, I know you're just joking, but if you're in the mood you could actually use BeeGees' music to explain Realism in IR, and some of the most important issues in intl. politics. Some of them come to mind, for instance:

You can say that the US can not go it "alone", and that Obama should keep in mind THE big lesson of history: intl. politics is a "tragedy", and one "should [not] be dancing", but instead, try "stayin' alive".

Obama should have already closed Guantanamo --that "house of shame". He should be concentrating instead on constructing a "higher civilization", "giving up the ghosts", and putting an end to the "jive talking".

Well, Mr. president, "I've just gotta get a message to you": you can still be "saved by the bell". First, you should drop the "let there be love" "and the sun will shine"-type of approach. This is all "too much heaven" and you could end "paying the price of love". "What kind of fool" do you think we all are? We all know "(love) is thicker than water". Secondly, though "miracles happen", please, "don't forget to remember" the "New York mining disaster 1941" nor "Trafalgar".

OK, though I know you are pretty much the "man in the middle" here (and not really the "omega man"), bear in mind that though we are in the "turn of the century", "loose talk, [still] costs lives", "flesh and bones". There's no such thing as "immortality". These are "lonely days" and we're just "islands in the stream".

DAVIDW

3:49 PM ET

October 27, 2009

neocon torture

My own torture fantasy involves forcing Dick Cheney and other neocons to listen to John Lennon's peace and protest songs over and over and over, until they go mad.

APARICIO

9:39 AM ET

October 29, 2009

they are both means of torture

BeeGee´s music is a torture method, just as waterboarding is.