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Musicians Protest Use Of Songs By US Jailers

The guy who wrote the Barney "I love you" song, and other musicians are banding together to protest the US military using their songs as weapons. The campaign has brought together groups including Massive Attack and musicians such as Tom Morello, who played with Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave. It will feature minutes of silence during concerts and festivals, said Chloe Davies of the British law group Reprieve, which represents dozens of Guantanamo Bay detainees and is organizing the campaign.

11 of 210 comments (clear)

  1. Torture by Jason+Earl · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm fine with waterboarding inmates as long as no one is actually drowned. I draw the line at Barney's "I Love You" song, though. Subjecting humans to that song is simply too uncivilized.

  2. Re:"Torture." Right. by 77Punker · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Sleep deprivation can kill. I certainly call that inhumane. Living a life that has no future except being locked in a prison for decades sounds like torture, too. When life is worse than simply being pointless and the mental cost of living another day outweighs the benefits, that's a tortured life. There's plenty of people who live lives like this, imprisoned or not, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing or that America can be proud of imposing this state of life on anyone.

    Also keep in mind that these people have been there for years. What new information could they ever give to us?

  3. Re:"Torture." Right. by Suicyco · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What "terrorists"? What, exactly, have the "terrorists" done? Who do they rape, kill and murder? Where and when is this happening?

    Well, ok, the us army rapes and murders people based on religious and political beliefs. We call it war.

    But these people in cuba? Do you know what they have done? What have they been charged with? What crimes did they commit? Do you even know who they are, where they come from, or what is being done to them?

    NO, you dont. But its ok, they are "terrorists." Because the tv told you so.

    Bush IS a war criminal. By any modern, humane definition of the term, by the UN's own definition. We hung Saddam. We hung the war criminals tried at Nuremberg.

    I just love this new term, "terrorist" it is so meaningless and vague. Lets hope someday you are tagged with it and then we'll see where you stand.

    You see, murderers and rapists are tried and sentenced, in any country. These poor people are not charged with any crime, are not sentenced to any punishment.

    Yet sick stupid motherfuckers like you continue to sit by while it happens. Hopefully someday you will know what its like. Hopefully.

  4. Re:"Torture." Right. by Free+the+Cowards · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If 16 hours of extremely loud rock music (apparently not enough to deafen, though) and 4 hours of complete silence and darkness counts as "torture," people need to visit some other countries more often.

    You disgust me. The United States of America is supposed to be a shining beacon of light to the entire world. But you're fine with this sort of abuse as long as we're better than Egypt or North Korea? Screw being a beacon unto others, at least we're better than certain squalid dictatorships!

    --
    If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
  5. Re:Miranda rights, asshole by Moryath · · Score: 5, Informative

    Miranda rights are for people picked up by the police, in a non-war zone.

    They do not apply to enemy military personnel, especially enemy personnel wh fail to uphold their Geneva Convention responsibilities to dress in military uniform and carry their weapons openly (so as not to cause problems in telling military and civilians apart) who are picked up either (a) in the act of sabotage or (b) on the battlefield itself.

    Finally: spies have NO rights, even in the Geneva Conventions.

    Live and learn. If you ever learn.

  6. Re:"Torture." Right. by cavePrisoner · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "If living a life that has no future except being locked in prison for decades is torture, then what should we do to criminals?"

    I don't know. Give them a fair trial and a sentence of some determinable time?

  7. Re:"Torture." Right. by adolf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hey, guess what? As long as we're being stereotypical, please allow me to assert that you must be from the South, being that you're inbred as far as you are. You just might be a redneck if your family tree has no branches. I'll bet your sister is your favorite aunt, and the lazy-eyed kids you two have together must sure be special. Et cetera, and so on, and so forth. Ad nauseum. Ad infinitum.

    But I digress.

    We don't really have any evidence that these folks have done anything wrong, because if we did, we'd have a trial for them, and THEN we'd have locked them up forever, or for however long their crimes may warrant. Meanwhile, there's no reason to torture anyone. Whether it be water-boarding, thumbscrews, humiliation, or simple sleep deprivation brought on by 16 hours of loud music followed by a 4 hour respite of quiet, it's torture.

    And, as a GTA-playing tinnitus sufferer, torture is just not how I want to see things done. This is not the America that I want to be a part of.

    You don't like being called inbred without any supporting evidence, I'd guess. And I don't like jailing terrorists without a public trial.

    To each his own, I suppose. I'm all for defending the country, but without limits on how we treat all humans, we're no better than any other offensive, fear-mongering, repressive society of the past.

    I want to be remembered as having lived during a time of greatness and good virtue, not insolence.

  8. Re:"Torture." Right. by Red+Flayer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I guess we should just not try to extract any information from prisoners. Forget the whole "intelligence" thing. We shouldn't spy, we shouldn't use "torture."

    Fuck that. We shouldn't be imprisoning people just to gain intelligence. Prove a crime was committed and punish them, or do not detain them. To do otherwise runs contrary to the entire set of principles on which the USA was founded.

    --
    "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
  9. There are no military personnel in Guantanamo by Rix · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They're all civilians.

    The ones picked within the US can be charged in a civilian court, deported, or both. That's it.

    Those picked up on the battlefield have done absolutely nothing wrong. If you invade a country, the civilians there have every right to attack your soldiers. That's war, sweetheart.

    If you don't like it, don't wage it. Imprisoning people for defending their homes is not on.

  10. Re:"Torture." Right. by QuantumG · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You're talking about the insurgency in the 70's that put Saddam in power right?

    Let's get this straight: In 2003 there was an invasion of Iraq by US forces (oh, and a smattering of allies, woo!) Since then there has been an occupation of Iraq by those same forces. One of the first actions of the occupying force was to disband the Iraqi army. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were told to go home. Their pay severed. For a while they tried to get jobs but, due to the widely publicized incompetence of the occupying forces, there was no jobs to be had. The looting and destruction of both private and public property was tolerated and ignored by the occupying forces. National treasures that had been preserved over millennia were destroyed. Seeing that their country was being systematically reduced to rubble they formed a militia and began fighting to remove the occupying force.

    This is not insurgency. If someone invaded your country, fired the government, fired the military and replaced it with nothing you'd rise up and try to eject them too. If you didn't, you'd hardly be a patriot.

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
  11. Re:Universal Declaration of Human Rights by Suicyco · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You know, I have a friend who was imprisoned in Afghanistan during the 70's/80's. A "terrorist" nation.

    He was never tortured or treated improperly EVER. When the soviets invaded and took over the prison, THEY never tortured nor harmed him, in fact treatment got even better. 20 years in a foreign prison and the only bad thing to happen to him was an opium addiction.

    Its funny hearing his story, because he was a good american boy, afraid of the bad guys and especially of the soviets. When they marched through the prison he freaked out, only to find they were genuinely interested in his well being. The soviet general who toured the place stopped specifically at his cell and talked to him, because he was american. He received medical treatment, fresh clothing and good food, plus a promise that his sentencing would be looked at and he was released a few years later, from a life sentence (for smuggling hashish.) I've never seen somebody more changed by an experience, going from good ol' american boy to seeing the truth: the USA is the biggest fucking fascist state on earth. All from being locked up in a foreign country. You can tell a lot about a society by how they treat their prisoners. He never once saw anybody raped or tortured. Now, american prisons on the other hand...

    Most people would be very very surprised to know the stats on prison violence and rape in the US versus the rest of the world. We have the most inhumane conditions for prisoners of almost anywhere on the planet. Not to mention the fact we have the highest per capita prison population on earth.

    The America people believe exists from watching tv, does, in fact, not exist except on tv.

    Not to mention nuclear weapons, oh yeah baby. We have used them. On innocent civilians. Twice. Nobody else can claim that prize.

    Oh well. Just bomb more brown people. That will fix your life so you can buy more video games in which you kill brown people.