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Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

theguardian.com

91–100 of 222 posts

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only 'transgression' Cuba's done is its unwillingness to be a US puppet state.

Cuba isn't exactly Switzerland. It has a long history of being a Soviet puppet state during the 20th century, and a nucleation site for anti-US activities elsewhere in Latin America. Furthermore, there would be no Maduro regime without the influence of Cuba, and that regime is expressly pro-Russia and destructive to Venezuela. Let's not distill away the complexity of the situation.

I don’t think Venezuela or Russia are relevant in this situation, since we are strictly taking about US-Cuba relations.

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#92
> “They said it was a ‘no-brainer’ that this medical condition was due to an attack.”

Exactly not the kind of people who should be allowed to investigate anything. Not even who framed Roger Rabbit much less a claim of international warfare committed with a secret ray gun.

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cuba isn't exactly Switzerland. It has a long history of being a Soviet puppet state during the 20th century, and a nucleation site for anti-US activities elsewhere in Latin America. Furthermore, there would be no Maduro regime without the influence of Cuba, and that regime is expressly pro-Russia and destructive to Venezuela. Let's not distill away the complexity of the situation.

I don’t think Venezuela or Russia are relevant in this situation, since we are strictly taking about US-Cuba relations.

If you understand the patchwork quilt of Latin American relations, then it is immediately obvious how those other countries are related to Cuba. Imagine discussing Cuban "transgressions" (under the present regime, no less) without considering the Soviet role in the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example.

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#94
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just finished "The Spy in Moscow Station" which talks about these signals. Although this isn't a direct response to your point about mortality, an interesting feature of the Moscow (Microwave) Signal is that it -- considered as a surveillance threat, rather than a health threat -- also received a lot of the same skepticism I'm seeing in this thread. The TL;DR is that various agencies strongly resisted attempts to d…

I imagine the conclusion of the book was that the microwave was used to send energy to a listening device inside the ambassy? (same technology as the contactless smart cards used in public transport) A famous instance of this is 'the thing' : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(listening_device)

That and you cover the signal of interest by flooding nearby frequency spectrum hoping nobody will notice the tiny blip.

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#95
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low level staff today is the high level staff of 15 years from now, so you just make them dumb now.

Directly attacking the health of US personal would be a hugely provocative act. I’m not saying the Russians wouldn’t do it. There are reports that they paid out bounties in Afghanistan to attack US troops. But launching a campaign to enfeeble the intellect of future high level state department officials in this manner doesn’t make much sense. If you tried this kind of attack on a large scale and targeted a significan…

The bounty story has been corrected, it was very thin to begin with.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/joe-bidens-tale-of-rus...

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#96
The US has a long history of abuses and orchestrated false flag attacks on Cuba. See Operation Northwoods [0] and Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 [1]. Somewhat ironically, the US illegally transmits EM radiation to the island in the form of a propaganda-heavy radio station known as Radio Martí. [2]

I ask you to please consider these historical events before deciding that Cuba has zapped people’s brains using targeted microwave beams.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubana_de_Aviación_Flight_455

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_y_Televisión_Mart%C3%AD#...

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#97

Absurd that groups as well resourced as the intelligence agencies aren't taking care of their people who've seemingly been injured in enemy attacks. Also, I don't understand the point of using this weapon. It seems like it causes debilitating issues, sometimes years later, but it's intermittently used on relatively low level personnel? What's the point? Make Americans afraid to work in Russia and Cuba? I also wonder…

Based on the evidence it's just as likely these are some kind of functional disorder as the product of an attack. Be careful about believing things just based on what intelligence agents report.

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#98
post #67

Why don’t they install detectors inside all the embassies at risk to prove or disprove this? Why didn’t they do this earlier? I’m pretty sure there are many places that could be contracted to make a detector in a few weeks - this isn’t new technology. This seems really easy to test... so why are we still speculating.

I've honestly thought about keeping one of these in my apartment, I worry a bit about people doing stupid things with microwave ovens.

Something like that? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUNFc1dfU7k

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#99
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes it seem like friendly fire is a reasonable hypothesis - as some side-effect of physical security measures taken by the US government. Since the reported attacks generally happen within a radius of US locations requiring physical security - and apparently not in any other location. It's otherwise difficult to explain why the USA would be the singular target of these alleged attacks, for a period stretching…

Your post looks like disinformation. Something bad happens to US and Canadian diplomats in a foreign country, yet you find a way to blame USA.

No, it's that based on the scant material evidence here, almost any explanation is just as reasonable as, it's a secret Cuban ray weapon.

Re: Havana syndrome: NSA officer’s case hints at microwave attacks since 90s

#100

> “They said it was a ‘no-brainer’ that this medical condition was due to an attack.” Exactly not the kind of people who should be allowed to investigate anything. Not even who framed Roger Rabbit much less a claim of international warfare committed with a secret ray gun.

Yes. Also if you look at the choice of words this citation only claims an attack, but not microwave attack.
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