from the Swamp 

Waterboarding is one thing.

But the Bee Gees? And Nine Inch Nails?

Saturday night Head-banging taken to a new level: A coalition of rock musicians, including Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and Tom Morello, formerly of the band Rage Against the Machine, has joined in a Freedom of Information request to learn what loud music may have been used in the torture of detainees at the U.S.-military-run prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - a practice which the Obama administration, intent on closing Guantanamo, says no longer exists.

"The fact that music I helped create was used in crimes against humanity sickens me," Morello said in a statement. "We need to end torture and close Guantanamo now."

A coalition of musicians, including Reznor, R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Jackson Browne, Rise Against, Rosanne Cash, Billy Bragg and the Roots has announced they are joining the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo They also have initiated a formal protest of the use of music in conjunction with alleged torture at Guantanamo.

Retired Gen. Robert Gard, a critic of the Bush administration's practices at Guantanamo, says: "I sympathize for the musicians whose music was used without their knowledge as part of the Bush administration's misguided policies."

Sympathize with the musicians?

"Having these acclaimed artists join the campaign to close Guantanamo will help ignite a prairie fire of grassroots support across the nation. We are thrilled and grateful to have them aboard" said Tom Andrews, a former congressman from Maine and director of the National Campaign To Close Guantanamo.The musicians have signed on to a FOIA request for records of what records where played at Guantanamo which the Washington-based National Security Archive has filed.

"At Guantanamo, the U.S. government turned a jukebox into an instrument of torture," said Thomas Blanton, executive director of the National Security Archive. "The musicians and the public have the right to know how an expression of popular culture was transformed into an enhanced interrogation technique."The group already has found 20 declassified documents referring to the use of "loud" music to "create futility" among some uncooperative detainees at Guantanamo. A 2004 Defense Department report stated that the "futility technique included the playing of Metallica, Britney Spears and Rap music."

"We signed onto the campaign in complete support of President Obama and the military leaders who have called for an end to torture and to close Guantanamo," R.E.M said in a group statement. "As long as Guantanamo stays open, America's legacy around the world will continue to be the torture that went on there.''