The Psychological Warfare of Sound Torture

two opposing truths in one reality: we should not prosecute micro aggressions and sound torture has long existed

Sound torture comes under the umbrella of no-touch torture in the CIA playbook. Reports exist on the mechanism of sound torture in interrogation practises, mostly in the anti terrorism realm. Because of its cultural significance and wide availability, music serves as a primary means of torture. Playlists exist, actually. If you do even a bit of research you’ll find that Gitmo used sound torture on its detainees. You’ll also see that psychological torture proves as difficult as and maybe even more difficult to overcome than physical torture.

Yesterday when I got off the bus near my home at Marine Drive, I heard a terrible racket. It hurt my ears. I decided to use a decibel measuring app to measure the decibel level of the construction noise. It looked like a jackhammer, from the appearance of the machine the worker had. I’ll share the sound clip and then the screenshot of the decibel metre.

It would seem the app identifies this jackhammer noise as a subway train. No matter, the point made still stands. That’s 104 dB. For a few minutes I found it intolerable. I can’t imagine this level of noise for 12+ hours in a row for weeks on end, in my home and neighbourhood.

It’s said that the sound of truck horns blasting into Ottawa for hours on end and weeks on end measured around 120 dB outside and 85 dB inside. So, I compare the terrible sound of that construction noise in the sound clip to the horns blasting. And actually you can listen to a video clip someone posted on Xwitter during the Convoy, imagine this for hours on end for days on end for weeks on end. I can’t imagine.

Reader, the torment of loud noises for extended periods of time is real. Ideologues dismiss inconvenient truths rather than sit with the discomfort they present to us. That’s a you problem, reader, if you can’t acknowledge the psychological torment of deliberately imposed lengthy periods of obnoxiously loud noise for spite. It’s real. It happened.

I don’t think anyone needs to go to jail over it though. To suggest that as a consequence simply perpetuates the dysfunctional behaviour you didn’t like. Revenge is a dish best served cold, right, reader? Can we at least say that we learned that as a nation and we continue to learn it as the Lich-Barber trial drags on until the Justice Perkins-McVey delivers her ruling on the sentence?

Did you know sound torture has a lengthy history? Aztecs had a device called a death whistle they would use in ritual and possibly in warfare. You can go and look up the Aztec death whistle on your own.

Reader, did you know that the US used heavy metal and hard rock to torment Noriega? There’s a playlist and you can listen on YouTube.

According to an old Guardian story from 2010, “American marines in Afghanistan unveil secret weapon against resistance – Metallica, Thin Lizzy and Offspring albums” because the Taliban hated that music. “Marines are allegedly blasting heavy metal into villages in Marjah, hoping to subdue the Taliban through ringing ears.” Apparently the Metallica singer felt proud the US military used his music against the enemy of the state.

From a 2017 BBC article, “Sergeant Mark Hadsell of the Psychological Operations Company (Psy Ops) told Newsweek magazine: “These people haven't heard heavy metal. They can't take it. If you play it for 24 hours, your brain and body functions start to slide, your train of thought slows down and your will is broken. That's when we come in and talk to them.”

Singer David Gray objected to US interrogators using his music in their anti-terrorist interrogations. It’s said US interrogators favoured his song Babylon, among others. Other stories report that Sesame Street and Barney music helped to psychologically break Iraqi POWs. News stories, corroborated by other media outlets, indicate that, in the law enforcement agent siege against David Koresh and his Branch Davidian Cult, “… they played pop music - including Nancy Sinatra's These Boots Are Made for Walkin' - and the sound of jet planes all night. The onslaught included Tibetan chanting and the screams of rabbits being slaughtered.”

Did you know that Nazis uses music to torture concentration camp inmates during the Holocaust? You can read more about music torture in this CNN report. You can read about sonic torture during the Holocaust here, as well.

Researcher Suzanne Cusick writes that “…it is not at all clear that the music aimed at prisoners in detention camps has functioned as music. Rather, it has more often functioned as sheer sound with which to assault a prisoner's sense of hearing; to 'mask' or disrupt a prisoner's capacity to sustain an independent thought; to disrupt a prisoner's sense of temporality (both in terms of how much time had passed and in terms of the predictability of temporal units); to undermine a prisoner's ability to sustain somatic practices of prayer (both through behaviour at the hours of prayer and through abstinence from musical experiences considered sinful); and to bombard the prisoner's body (skin, nerves and bones) with acoustical energy.” Find Cusick’s paper using music as a weapon here.

Cusick writes about Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRADs) and their use against crowds, to incapacitate and disorient people with a view to subduing them. According to reports, American Police departments use them as part of their Disorder Control Units. Below you can watch a YouTube video of Pittsburgh police using an LRAD in 2009 at the G20 summit.

Now obviously an LRAD and very loud big rig and rail air horns differ. The point stands that sound can serve as a weapon in psychological warfare and in efforts to subdue and disorient people. And during the Freedom Convoy some Ottawa residents may well have felt tormented by the repeated horn blasting for long periods of time. Our sense of hearing has a high degree of sensitivity, making it easy to torment someone with sound. That’s simply fact. Facts don’t care about your feelings, reader. Engage reality.

Where does psychological discomfort end and torture begin? That’s a difficult and complex question, reader. And you can think about that on your own time. When I write, it’s my goal to get readers to think about stuff. So go and do that.

The Freedom Convoy stirs up extremes of emotion because of the experience and the interpretation of that experience. The pandemic stirs up extremes of emotion because of the experience and the interpretation of that experience. That’s where we find ourselves, at an impasse, crawling into the womb of our respective echo chambers.

It’s a choice we make, reader, as to how we go forward from here. I don’t know much. I just know political prosecution and punishment by the state and retaliatory measures to stick it to your perceived opponent hurts everyone.

Please think about the country you would like to have and work for that in yourself, your community, your city, your country, your geopolitical region, the planet.