Feb 4, 2022 08:24 PM
(This post was last modified: Feb 5, 2022 08:23 PM by C C.)
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/dan...cia-report
EXCERPTS: Pulsed microwaves or ultrasound beams “plausibly” might have caused so-called Havana Syndrome injuries now thought to have affected about two dozen CIA and State Department employees, according to a newly released US intelligence community expert report.
The redacted report, however, fell short of definite conclusions, suggesting that psychology may also “cause some other incidents or contribute to long-term symptoms” of the incidents.
[...] In January, however, a US intelligence community report assembled by the CIA concluded that there was no massive worldwide campaign, and that most of the reported injuries were explainable. Only about two dozen were truly concerning and bore further investigation, perhaps being the results of attacks of some kind.
The expert panel report released Wednesday is a complement to that report, looking only at possible mechanisms for the injuries in those remaining cases. Essentially it finds that pulsed microwaves or ultrasound beams were “plausibly” causes for the injuries, meaning they were not impossible (as opposed to “likely”) explanations, and that researchers should examine them further.
"We will stay at it, with continued rigor, for however long it takes," Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and CIA director William Burns said in a joint statement regarding the report on the “Anomalous Health Incidents,” as syndrome cases are now termed by the US government. The Biden administration had announced on Tuesday that it was appointing a central point person to create policies for addressing reports of syndrome-like injuries that are scheduled for release later this month.
The new report does rule out radiation, poison, audible and subsonic noises, and heat as possible explanations for the injuries. In reintroducing ultrasound as an explanation for Havana Syndrome, however, the expert report complicated, rather than simplified, explanations for the cases. A National Academies of Sciences report had found that pulsed microwaves, which are capable of causing faint sounds in the ear at certain settings, were the most plausible (again, rather than likely) explanation, followed by mass psychology. Experts had largely ruled out ultrasound in 2017, but the new report suggests that concealed ultrasound sources close to victims might cause injuries.
[...] The unnamed experts who authored the new report were provided more than 1,000 classified documents, including the findings of “Top Secret” programs, and met with people with injuries to reach their findings. Such classified information was not provided to a 2019 CDC panel report, also first reported last year by BuzzFeed News. Nevertheless, the new report finds “a dearth of systematic research” on microwaves hurting people, and “information gaps” regarding ultrasound injuries, despite its access... (MORE - details)
The real danger 'Havana Syndrome' poses to society
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/...es-society
INTRO (Robert Bartholomew): The ongoing saga of Havana Syndrome—a mysterious malady affecting U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers with everything from difficulty concentrating to brain damage, marks an important milestone in the history of politics and science. If this trend continues, the repercussions could be felt in everything from climate change to vaccinations.
It started out like a page from a spy thriller, but the American government’s investigation into the origin of ‘Havana Syndrome’ has turned into a horror story that is undermining the credibility of its intelligence agencies and making them look like keystone cops. In this case, the villain is the political agenda of investigators and politicians who are determined to find a sinister foreign actor lurking in the shadows.
Havana Syndrome has come to define the present state of America: fractured and partisan. What is so alarming is that in its search for scapegoats after a 5-year-long wild goose chase, the investigation has crossed the line from science and into the murky world of politics.
When I write that ‘Havana Syndrome’ is “an imaginary condition,” I mean that it is created in the mind, but the symptoms are as real as any organic illness. If one follows the facts in this case, there can be only one outcome: it is psychological in origin. Yes, I know, a new government panel has just concluded that a weapon using pulsed microwave radiation was likely involved, but look closer and you will see political fingerprints all over it and a report that is full of red flags and caveats and which is tainted with the specter of partisanship... (MORE - details)
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Inner Cynic: Considering a potential penchant for using psychogenic illness and systemic oppression as explain-all propaganda answers across the gamut, one might consider some of these social justice academicians in the human sciences to be agenda-oriented themselves. But given that (depending on which source) almost as many or more people have died of COVID under Biden's watch as Trump's... and the Biden administration appointed a mediator to keep this HS thing going, in conjunction with Biden maintaining the Cuban issues below... Then we might speculate that this one isn't purely targeting the other side in this instance. However, the very use of "partisanship" in reference to policies that are shared by both former Trump and current Biden apparently sinks that possibility...
Biden vs Cuba After Havana Syndrome (left-wing website, excerpt): While campaigning for President, Biden promised to undo Trump’s fresh mountain of sanctions while implying that the softer, Obama-era approach would be re-started. But Biden’s Cuba pledges evaporated like many other campaign promises. Not only has he continued Trump’s warlike approach to Cuba, Biden has taken additional actions that have led to widespread suffering for the average Cuban in a time of social crisis triggered by Covid.
[...] Part of Trump’s regime change strategy was breaking off diplomatic relations with Cuba, including the closure of the US embassy in Havana. The pretext for doing so initially seemed bizarre: when US embassy staff in Cuba became ill Trump blamed “energy beams”, presumably blasted by the Cuban government using a high tech weapon— a theory never aided by evidence or common sense.
The myth of Havana Syndrome was born, and soon became the catch-all explanation for any illness incurred by US embassy staff stationed around the world. Cuba, however, was the only government targeted by the US in this increasingly-bizarre story that the US media reported without criticism.
Though the narrative around Havana Syndrome never passed the smell test, it eventually became putrid enough that the CIA sought to clear the air, by recently half-admitting that Havana Syndrome was more farce than fact.
The Cuban government responded to the CIA’s admission by insisting that Biden normalize relations with Cuba [...] Most Latin American countries also have plummeting economies due to the global economic crisis, but Cuba was especially vulnerable ... food lines are long, inflation is high and life is harder than it’s been in decades.
It was amid this suffering that Biden attacked, exploiting the misery triggered by Covid. Biden brutally maintained Trump’s sanctions and then tightened the noose, by expanding sanctions and then publicly supporting calls for regime change, using the pretext of “police repression” that occurred when small protests erupted spontaneously in July in response to shortages of basic goods. There was indeed police repression in Cuba, though nowhere near the levels used against Black Lives Matter protests in dozens of cities across the United States.
Biden then used his State Department to help promote a ‘national day of action’ inside Cuba in November. The November action fizzled, badly, in part because it was endorsed by the US government: plenty of Cubans are unhappy with their government but they have a deeper hatred for US imperialism. They also understand that their pain has more to do with Covid and Biden’s sanctions and the embargo than the bureaucratic flaws of their government.
