'Havana syndrome'-like mystery illness affects Vienna US diplomats
bbc.com
bbc.com
Oh and these days everyone is an English speaker, at least most diplomats are. Whatever the US ones read, the Spanish, the French, the Italians, the Bulgarians, the Russians, the Brazilians read it too.
This is equivocation. One can enjoy fictional conspiracies without becoming a conspiracy theorist.
> Whatever the US ones read, the Spanish, the French, the Italians, the Bulgarians, the Russians, the Brazilians read it too.
I guess if you've never been to those countries you could think that, but no, even with 39% of French speaking some English, they still mostly read their own news and not American news, unlike Americans.
Examples from the past: Gulf Syndrome in the 1990s caused by anti-gas warfare antidotes, and the Agent Orange cancers and other birth-deformities inflicted on VietNam vets.
My hunch is this is more likely something the Russians are carrying out since both locations (Cuba/Vienna) are readily accessible to their agents.
Intelligence cooperation? I’m inclined to think that it would the the science and technology superpower that would be using devices that are out of reach for the rest. That superpower is not Cuba, not even Russia anymore. The US also has a history of being bold on extralegal experimentations with substances and devices.
The common party being the US doesn’t mean it was caused by the US.
1) Does not automatically follow. The US has the same geopolitical enemies with the same capabilities regardless of location of agents.
2) A public report engenders more reports since someone doesn't have to worry about losing their position/security clearance/etc. because they are "mentally unstable".
3) I don't think it's a side-effect that wasn't disclosed. If anything, it's a side-effect that is unknown from something trying to be protective. Gulf War Syndrome is a good example of that.
This is the exact same thing with Long Covid, or Gulf War Syndrome.
The most interesting thing about Havana Syndrome is that it apparently only affects English-speaking diplomats in American and Canadian embassies. This is probably because they're familiar with the syndrome from news reports.
The term long covid embraces a wide spectrum of organ involvement, with no clear evidence yet to help inform efficient diagnostic pathways or specific treatments or to indicate probable prognosis.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamacardiology/fullarticle/...
Besides which, all any of us have to go by are hypothesis. I think it's pretty clear that speculation is the only thing available to discussions on the possible causes.
Is your example trying to argue that Havana syndrome isn't physiological? Because that what I get from your tone, but the data you provide argues the opposite.
Both times a collection of unrelated people reported consistently reported broad but similar/overlapping symptoms, and in both cases (Gulf War Syndrome, and Long Covid) they were later shown to be objectively legit even though they weren't taken as seriously at first.
It seems like the same thing with this - in my book its a bit too coincidental at this point. Not to mention happening all around the same time period in a new location.
Wasn't that the premise of a video game series? A biological weapon that can be tuned to a specific language, so it affects only the speakers of the language? I cannot remember the name.
Or that it's a result of radiation given off by some cryptogear that's classified.
Or that it's a result of a global phenomenon and is only being detected in Vienna because they were alert to it after noticing it in Havana.
Or that it's a contagious but slow acting disease spreading through the US diplomatic corps from some Typhoid Mary as they get redeployed.
That, and directing annoying questions about Lotus Notes to the cafeteria staff so they could resolve issues with their lettuce nodes.
Or perhaps there was only an issue in Havana, and what we see now is psychosomatic. Or even that a few coincidental illnesses in Havana led to psychosomatic incidents as well.
Really all there is to go by is different levels of speculation informed by very few facts known for certain. However it would be odd for the US to allow its own devices to make its own staff sick, sparking many conspiracy theories and accusations at other countries.
I dance a bit of salsa, and sometimes there were cuban DJs at the festivals I visited. They all always tended to do one thing with their sound setup: they overamplified the higher part of the audio spectrum, producing a hissing distortion of sound. It had an effect on me very similar on what is described about Havana embassy: headache and slight nausea.
I tried talking to those DJs about it, and they told me that that's the way they like it. So I think that maybe you'd sickness is explained by cubans listening to their music the way they like it.
But that was before Vienna. Maybe there was a salsa festival recently?
Also, later I found out that my tinnitus is due to my unhealthy sitting position when using a copmuter that apparently was not so good on my neck.
Hadn't heard it was this wide-spread. What are the chances their own security systems are at fault? If not, then at this scale couldn't thermal imaging spot something?
How they then conclude that a microwave attack is the most plausible is beyond me.
Week one, years ago for this story, physicists said this is not possible, still stands since physics is still the same -
BBC - "The syndrome is unexplained, but US scientists say it is most probably caused by directed microwave radiation."
If you need a lesson, travel and work overseas is hard mentally. Totally manageable, and the reward is amazing. But look after yourself, just don't underestimate it.
Other lesson, diplomats are nothing special. Not especially smart. Normally just willing to be inquisitive about a country and stay inquisitive. They too get run down.
And you are being played by the state department here, they know it's hysteria, they have seen it before, but there is no reason for them to correct it internally or externally. It fits with cold war lite with Russia.
Let me tell you about the viennese hotdog stand owner who had three microwaves running at all time, to heat food quickly. Open. Behind his back.
There was a glass in between the customers and him, shielded, but the pressure of the microwaves (heat, i guess?) could be felt through the opening, where he hands out the food.
Of course it killed him eventually.
A lot of scientists, American and non-American alike, doubted the microwave weapon theory.
> The US accused Cuba of carrying out "sonic attacks", which it strongly denied, and the incident led to increased tension between the two nations.
The sound of the "sonic attacks" turned out to be the sound of indigenous Cuban crickets. Oops! https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/recording-of-soni...
You can listen to the sound here: https://apnews.com/article/health-north-america-ap-top-news-...
> A 2019 US academic study found "brain abnormalities" in the diplomats who had fallen ill, but Cuba dismissed the report.
As did a lot of academics:
"The latest brain scans may provide fresh evidence of some injury, but the study was not without critics and some researchers have questioned whether there was any kind of attack at all.
“Finding evidence of brain change doesn’t provide evidence of brain injury or damage,” said Dr. Jon Stone, a professor of neurology at the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, who was not involved in the study.
Dr. Sergio Della Sala, a professor of human cognitive neuroscience also at the University of Edinburgh, in an email called the study “half baked.”
He noted that 12 of the affected workers who had a history of concussion prior to going to Cuba were included in the analyzes. “In comparison, none of the controls declared previous brain injury. This in itself could cause statistical group differences,” Della Sala said."
https://nationalpost.com/news/world/scans-show-changes-to-br...
In his commentary Della Sala writes: "The JAMA article represents a case of poor neuropsychology; clinically inappropriate and methodologically improper." https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00109...
the point is probably how every US diplomat around the globe probably goes to sleep every night thinking "I hope I wake up tomorrow with without permanent brain damage"
Or are you suggesting a foreign power that wanted to cause fear would just hang around and wait and hope for symptoms to appear out of nowhere?
That said, there is the possibility that something happened in Havana and now some foreign power is reaping a long running additional "benefit" without ever attacking again.
You genuinely don't think creating paranoia for and generally antagonizing US diplomats is of any potential political or military value? If anything this creates additional stress, and demonstrates the US's total inability to defend itself from such things making it appear weak/incompetent/vulnerable to the entire world, to say the least.
Surely you're joking or feigning ignorance here, right?
It weakens recruiting for a diplomatic corps that has already seen its workforce whittled down under the leadership of Tillerson and Pompeo. Slower, lower-quality recruiting could reduce our ability to maintain influence in, and collect information from, key parts of the world. It's no secret that Cuba is an ideological beachhead used by our adversaries to hamper our foreign relations in Latin America.