Facepalms and headbangs

Foreign Policy magazine's blog, Passport, reports a new use by US forces of heavy metal music as an implement of psychological pressure, from their friend Mikko Hyppönen, a Finnish security expert, who received an email from an anonymous Iranian nuclear scientist:

I am writing you to inform you that our nuclear program has once again been compromised and attacked by a new worm with exploits which have shut down our automation network at Natanz and another facility Fordo near Qom.

According to the email our cyber experts sent to our teams, they believe a hacker tool Metasploit was used. The hackers had access to our VPN. The automation network and Siemens hardware were attacked and shut down. I only know very little about these cyber issues as I am scientist not a computer expert.

There was also some music playing randomly on several of the workstations during the middle of the night with the volume maxed out. I believe it was playing 'Thunderstruck' by AC/DC. 

A lot of people think these stories are kind of amusing, every time they come out, which is surprisingly often. I don't exactly; used in combat, the music may not be so evil, although [jump]

From Vulture.

pretty nasty, but used on prisoners it is certainly part of an apparatus of torture. What is amusing, however, is the virtually endless juvenility of whoever is in charge of doing it, coming up with the same plan decade after decade. It's as if we had to have a debate on whether it's OK for boys to yank on girls' pigtails. No, pigtail-pulling is wrong, but you don't expect to have to tell that to an adult. Indeed, you don't really expect to have to tell it to a boy; most of the time they'll get it on their own.

There is something distinctly juvenile, or immature, or regressive, about torture practices in general. I don't think it ever gets talked about, because it sounds like minimizing the suffering of the tortured, but it's true nevertheless. Using cunning machinery to make yourself overwhelmingly powerful against your bogeyman, the tramp in the attic, the shoulder-squeezing vice principal, the burglars waiting outside, that's a boy's fantasy, and an entirely acceptable one too. That's what made the movie Home Alone so great.

But the bogeymen aren't real, and putting such plans into reality isn't acceptable. In the last analysis, that's what James Holmes was acting out. For US forces, who already are overwhelmingly powerful, it is also wrong, and not very dignified either.

Herewith a semi-random chronological sampler of rock as weapon:

Canal Zone, 1963:

Our Special Forces “A” Teams had to go through a Prisoner of War and an Escape and Evasion Course. That training really prepared me for my two tours in Vietnam. Once we were captured, and placed in a dungeon at Fort Sherman, Canal Zone, all our clothing and foot gear were taken away from us. They would hose us down with cold water all night so that we could not sleep, and then blasted loud speakers, with different types of American music. (The Use of Music in Psychological Operations)

Panama City, 1989:

Noriega remained at large for several days, but realizing he had few options in the face of a massive manhunt and a $1 million reward for his capture, he obtained refuge in the Vatican diplomatic mission in Panama City. The U.S. military's psychological pressure on him and diplomatic pressure on the Vatican mission, however, was relentless, as was the playing of loud rock-and-roll music day and night in a densely populated area. (Wikipedia)

The Three Stooges 2012

Pentagon, 1997:

Acoustic weapons” have been in development by Department of Defense contractors since at least the 1997 creation of the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Task Force, accounting for 1/3 of the Task Force’s budget in 1998-99.  Thus, they are not peculiar to 21st-century wars, or to the current administration. The earliest contract I know to have been let for such a weapon was on November 18, 1998, authorizing  now-defunct Synetics Corporation to produce a tightly focused beam of infrasound–that is, vibration waves slower than 100 vps–meant to produce effects that range from “disabling or lethal”....

Capable of projecting a “strip of sound” (15 to 30 inches wide) at an average of 120 dB (maxing at 151 dB)  that will be intelligible for 500 to 1,000 meters (depending on which model you buy), the LRAD is designed to hail ships, issue battlefield or crowd-control commands, or direct an “attention-getting and highly irritating deterrent tone for behavior modification”. (http://www.atcsd.com)  As of March, 2006, 350 LRAD systems had been sold–to the US Navy, the Coast Guard, various commercial shippers for marine interdiction; to the US Army and Marines for use by PsyOps units, and at checkpoints and internment facilities; to the police departments of Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Santa Ana, and Broward County, Florida. (Trans: Revista Transcultural de Música)

Guantánamo, 2003:

The next time Ahmed was taken to the interrogation cell, the music was heavy metal instead of Eminem. The volume was earsplitting and the music was played for hours, even entire days. Sometimes they also stuck a stroboscope in front of his face. The cell was dark and he could see nothing but the flashing lights in his eyes. The interrogators also turned down the temperature on the air-conditioning, forcing Ahmed to endure hours of the music and flashing lights in an ice-cold room. He wasn't permitted to use the bathroom and was left to urinate or defecate in his pants. The shackles caused his legs to swell up while the deafening music continued incessantly. (Der Spiegel)

Iraq, 2004:

As tanks geared up to trample Fallujah and American troops started circling the city, special operations officers rifled through their CD cases, searching for a sound track to spur the assault.

What would irk Iraqi insurgents more: Barking dogs or bluegrass? Screaming babies or shrieking feedback?

Heavy metal. The Army's latest weapon.

AC/DC. Loud. Louder!

Let's roll. (Tampa Bay Times)

Camp Cropper, Iraq, 2006:

Blaring from a speaker behind a metal grate in his tiny cell in Iraq, the blistering rock from Nine Inch Nails hit Prisoner No. 200343 like a sonic bludgeon.

"Stains like the blood on your teeth," Trent Reznor snarled over distorted guitars. "Bite. Chew."

The auditory assault went on for days, then weeks, then months at the U.S. military detention center in Iraq. Twenty hours a day. AC/DC. Queen. Pantera. The prisoner, military contractor Donald Vance of Chicago, told The Associated Press he was soon suicidal. (AP, via Fox News)

The detainee was Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago who went to Iraq as a security contractor. He wound up as a whistle-blower, passing information to the F.B.I. about suspicious activities at the Iraqi security firm where he worked, including what he said was possible illegal weapons trading.

But when American soldiers raided the company at his urging, Mr. Vance and another American who worked there were detained as suspects by the military, which was unaware that Mr. Vance was an informer, according to officials and military documents. (New York Times)

From CUCollector.com.

USA, 2008:

Now the detainees aren't the only ones complaining. Musicians are banding together to demand the U.S. military stop using their songs as weapons.
A campaign being launched Wednesday has brought together groups including Massive Attack and musicians such as Tom Morello, who played with Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave and is now on a solo tour. 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. (AP, via Fox News)

Tuscarora, Nevada, 2009:

Rock music blaring from boomboxes has proved one of the best defenses against an annual invasion of Mormon crickets. The huge flightless insects are a fearsome sight as they advance across the desert in armies of millions that march over, under or into anything in their way.

Reno Gazette-Journal

The 2-inch-long insects often carpet the arid landscape in the spring and summer, devouring vegetation and driving residents to distraction.

But the crickets don't much fancy Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones, the townspeople figured out three years ago. (Wall Street Journal)

Afghanistan, 2010:

US special forces have a novel weapon in the fight to expel Taliban from a desolate and war-weary farming community in southern Afghanistan – heavy metal music....

The playlist has been hand-selected to "---- off the Taliban", according to one US special forces officer. "Taliban hate that music," said the sergeant involved in covert psychological operations, or "psy ops", in the area in Helmand province. (Daily Telegraph)

Chicago, 2011:

A court says two Americans who worked for an Iraqi contracting firm can move forward with a lawsuit accusing former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of being responsible for U.S. forces allegedly torturing them....

Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel claim they were tortured in 2006 after blowing the whistle on alleged illegal activities by the contracting company. They say they were subjected to sleep deprivation, blasting music, hunger and various threats.

U.S. District Judge Wayne R. Andersen in Illinois last year found that the two could pursue claims that they were tortured using Rumsfeld-approved methods. This most recent decision was the former Defense Secretary‘s appeal to Andersen’s position, which he lost. (The Blaze)

Not what it looks like; Shemp is merely stuck in a hole in the ceiling. From Anthony Balducci's Journal.