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Merged US may close Cuba Embassy over 'health attacks'
- Thread starter dann
- Start date
Sonic Attacks - the Norwegian version
LYDENE SOM DRIVER OSS TIL VANVIDD - Nils ville sende politiet etter isbilen (Klikk.no, Nov 11, 2021)
The sounds that drive us nuts - Nils wanted to call the police on the ice-cream truck
(In Norwegian, sorry!)
LYDENE SOM DRIVER OSS TIL VANVIDD - Nils ville sende politiet etter isbilen (Klikk.no, Nov 11, 2021)
The sounds that drive us nuts - Nils wanted to call the police on the ice-cream truck
(In Norwegian, sorry!)
Andy_Ross
Penultimate Amazing
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'Havana syndrome': US baffled after new cases in Europe
Four more US diplomats working in Geneva and Paris have fallen ill with a suspected neurological illness known as "Havana syndrome", US media report.
Three diplomats became sick in the Swiss city and one in the French capital last summer, with some 200 people affected over five years.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the American government was working to get to the bottom of the mystery.
There are fears an adversary may have targeted diplomats with microwaves.
Mr Blinken said the issue had been raised with Russia but no determination had been made.
Havana syndrome first emerged in Cuba in 2016 and has affected US diplomats, spies, officials and family members, as well as a number of Canadian diplomatic staff deployed in Cuba.
Some of the people who experienced the syndrome were left with dizziness and fatigue for months.
The latest cases include one person who was evacuated from Switzerland to the US for treatment, media reports say.
Mr Blinken told MSNBC in an interview that he had met state department employees around the world who had described their illnesses and how their lives had been disrupted.
People, he said, had been "directly and powerfully affected".
"To date, we don't know exactly what's happened and we don't know exactly who is responsible," he told the broadcaster.
"We are working overtime across the entire government to get to the bottom of what happened, who's responsible," he said.
Russia, China and the US itself are all said to have researched microwaves for military purposes but Moscow has dismissed accusations it used "microwave weapons" against US missions as "fanciful hypotheses".
A more innocent, but also unproven, theory is that those who got sick suffered from a mass condition brought on by some stressful underlying situation.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-59986297
Four more US diplomats working in Geneva and Paris have fallen ill with a suspected neurological illness known as "Havana syndrome", US media report.
Three diplomats became sick in the Swiss city and one in the French capital last summer, with some 200 people affected over five years.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the American government was working to get to the bottom of the mystery.
There are fears an adversary may have targeted diplomats with microwaves.
Mr Blinken said the issue had been raised with Russia but no determination had been made.
Havana syndrome first emerged in Cuba in 2016 and has affected US diplomats, spies, officials and family members, as well as a number of Canadian diplomatic staff deployed in Cuba.
Some of the people who experienced the syndrome were left with dizziness and fatigue for months.
The latest cases include one person who was evacuated from Switzerland to the US for treatment, media reports say.
Mr Blinken told MSNBC in an interview that he had met state department employees around the world who had described their illnesses and how their lives had been disrupted.
People, he said, had been "directly and powerfully affected".
"To date, we don't know exactly what's happened and we don't know exactly who is responsible," he told the broadcaster.
"We are working overtime across the entire government to get to the bottom of what happened, who's responsible," he said.
Russia, China and the US itself are all said to have researched microwaves for military purposes but Moscow has dismissed accusations it used "microwave weapons" against US missions as "fanciful hypotheses".
A more innocent, but also unproven, theory is that those who got sick suffered from a mass condition brought on by some stressful underlying situation.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-59986297
"In 2020, around 19.77 million people were working for state and local governments in the United States. This is much higher than the number of federal government (civilian) employees, which stood at about 2.93 million people in that year."
https://www.statista.com/statistics/204535/number-of-governmental-employees-in-the-us/
I think the figure is 5% of people have a mental illness at any one time.
A few hundred with Havana Delusion is entirely predictable.
If the Russians had weapons that actually worked, they could do so much more damage than this.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/204535/number-of-governmental-employees-in-the-us/
I think the figure is 5% of people have a mental illness at any one time.
A few hundred with Havana Delusion is entirely predictable.
If the Russians had weapons that actually worked, they could do so much more damage than this.
Considering that millions of people have been and still are being encouraged by the U.S. government to believe that they are under attack, I am surprised that it is still only a few hundred. And considering that some of them have believed this since 2016, it will be very difficult to convince them otherwise.
Many of those people will continue to believe this till their dying day when they die, not of but with the 'Havana Syndrome'.
Many of those people will continue to believe this till their dying day when they die, not of but with the 'Havana Syndrome'.
Does "Havana Syndrome" also cause Morgellons ?
No, I have not seen Morgellons mentioned in connection with 'Havana Syndrome'. The origin story of 'Havana Syndrome', i.e. sonic attacks, would not make it seem likely to people that skin lesions would occur in that context.
Mainly of interest to Swedes and other Scandinavians:
The Swedish non-fiction program Utrikesbyrån had an episode about Havanasyndromet on Nov 9, 2021 (29 min. in Swedish with Swedish subtitles).
The three Swedish experts all believed the story about U.S. diplomats and CIA agents having been the victims of enemy attacks.
https://forum.vof.se/viewtopic.php?p=747412#p747412
There is a short clip with Robert Baloh (at 13:05) in English.
The Swedish non-fiction program Utrikesbyrån had an episode about Havanasyndromet on Nov 9, 2021 (29 min. in Swedish with Swedish subtitles).
The three Swedish experts all believed the story about U.S. diplomats and CIA agents having been the victims of enemy attacks.
https://forum.vof.se/viewtopic.php?p=747412#p747412
There is a short clip with Robert Baloh (at 13:05) in English.
It is sometimes difficult to take it seriously! 
At least, Blinken seems to have become more and more hesitant about describing the AHIs as attacks:
Secretary of State Antony Blinken joins Morning Joe to discuss new reports of U.S. diplomats struck with suspected 'Havana Syndrome' and why he says those responsible will suffer 'severe consequences.' (MSNBC, Jan 13, 2022)
U.S. Diplomats in Geneva, Paris Struck with Suspected 'Havana Syndrome' (WSJ, Jan 13, 2022)
At least, Blinken seems to have become more and more hesitant about describing the AHIs as attacks:
Secretary of State Antony Blinken joins Morning Joe to discuss new reports of U.S. diplomats struck with suspected 'Havana Syndrome' and why he says those responsible will suffer 'severe consequences.' (MSNBC, Jan 13, 2022)
U.S. Diplomats in Geneva, Paris Struck with Suspected 'Havana Syndrome' (WSJ, Jan 13, 2022)
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Blinken: US still unsure who is behind Havana Syndrome cases (AlJazeera, Jan 13, 2022)
Of course, the U.S. is still unsure. After all, the victims are people with prestigious jobs working for the government. It they had been high-school girls in, say, Le Roy, N.Y., the alleged mystery (or AHIs) would have been solved in a couple of months and long forgotten.
Of course, the U.S. is still unsure. After all, the victims are people with prestigious jobs working for the government. It they had been high-school girls in, say, Le Roy, N.Y., the alleged mystery (or AHIs) would have been solved in a couple of months and long forgotten.
When asked about the 'Havana Syndrome', "what might it be?", Glenn Carl answers,"Well, the immediate thought, I think of all of my colleagues and the institutions involved in foreign policy, is that the Russians are the most likely ones to have done this kind of activity."
When asked "Has there been anything like this in the past?", Natasha Linstaedt, at first, answers that "we have no idea what's really causing this," "there is nothing like this where we don't really even know what the diagnosis is, who is doing it, or what it actually is ... and we don't even know it it's something real."
It will come as no surprise to the followers of this thread that Robert Bartholomew thinks that the cause of the 'syndrome' is mass psychogenic illness. He points out that Pamela Spratlen "was forced to resign" because she would rule out MPI as a possible (!) cause.
The moderator objects to this, saying that the 'Havana Syndrome' sufferers are "career diplomats, we're talking about people who are intelligent, well-travelled, they're well-educated people, they're presumably mature, and they're in their 40s, their 50s. They don't tear up when they're watching Hallmark TV, you know, they don't tear up when they're watching a chick-flick, a girly movie, when they're watching something that put tugs at the heartstrings."
It is possible that the moderator's ridiculous objection - How would he even know how diplomats and CIA agents respond to Hallmark chick-flicks? - is merely meant as an opportunity for Bartholomew to explain that being sentimental has nothing whatsoever to do with MPI. Even Glenn Carl objects to the idea that spies and diplomats are utterly heartless, unsentimental creatures.
The moderator himself again objects to the idea of MPIs because the sufferers are "200 people who have operated in the upper echelons of the international diplomatic service. It is highly unlikely, surely, that they have character traits that link them and they are given to behaving in a way where they clearly lack emotional equilibrium, and they believe that they have a certain set of symptoms so therefore they carry on displaying those symptoms even when they are ending up working part-time or they have been retired from that job early."
He thus makes it obvious that he has no idea what MPI is since he thinks that only people with very particular personality traits fall victim to it and that it stops immediately when you no longer are in the setting where you thought that you were subjected to whatever you have been led to believe is the cause of your symptoms.
The narrative of the 'Havana Syndrome' is ongoing, and the sufferers are still encouraged to believe that they are the victims of an attack perpetrated by Russia.
Glenn Carl agrees with the moderator and adds that "as I understand it, independent of any reports of, quote, Havana Syndrome having occurred, that people reported this phenomenon separately and without knowledge of it having occurred elsewhere. So someone in Paris felt these symptoms and said, 'Hey, my brain is not working right', and someone in Havana said, 'I'm suffering from x or ', and they were independent of each other, not a copycat of a subliminally influenced event, so far as I understand it."
I don't think that his reservation "as understand it" twice makes up for the fact that, at this point, it is impossible to imagine that any U.S. diplomat or spy anywhere in the world is unaware of the 'Havana Syndrome' and doesn't immediately consider it as a possible cause of their 'brain not working right' or symptoms 'x or y'. They have not only heard the rumors, they have been explicitly warned and encouraged by the U.S. government to report all x, y or z symptoms!
The moderator objects to the idea of directed microwave energy weapons because of the size that such a weapon would have to have. He finds a sonic weapon more likely because "the London authorities had plans or a conversation to use it around about the Olympics in 2012 for crowd control purposes."
He doesn't seem to understand that sonics would not cause brain damage.
When asked to comment on this, Natasha Lindstaedt says that "we don't completely understand what technology is being used, and we can't rule out that it could be possible it's a technology that we haven't discovered yet," thus implying that, in spite of all the "unknowns", the 'syndrome' must be caused by some kind of technology.
"But one thing we do know, the victims have reported hearing a sound, a loud sound in their head, before they started having problems. So there may be something connected to that that needs to be better explored, that it's not just something in their head, that it was actually a common stream amongst the victims."
This is a very good example of how the story about the 'Havana Syndrome', and thus the 'syndrome' itself, is evolving:
Back in 2017, it was described as an actual sound, not as "something in their heads." And AP's release of the first recording of the sound (YouTube, Oct 12, 2017) made it obvious that this was not merely "in their heads."
But when researchers pointed out that it was a recording of "lovelorn crickets" and not of a sonic weapon, it was necessary to come up with another explanation in order to justify the idea that 'Havana Syndrome' is caused by an attack. The solution was the Frey effect caused by a a directed microwave energy weapon, which would make a sound-like phenomenon occur inside people's heads. That the Frey effect would never be recordable as sound on a cellphone or on any other recording device contradicts this idea, but conspiracy nuts never worry about contradictions or thus aren't bothered by cognitive dissonance.
Natasha Lindstaedt, the "specialist on U.S. foreign policy," then asks the cui bono question as her argument for making Russia responsible for the 'syndrome', implying that it benefits Russia to destroy the U.S.-Cuban diplomatic relations as if Trump and Biden had no interest in destaffing the U.S. embassy in Havana, which the 'Havana Syndrome' served to justify.
The moderator calls the cancer deaths of three US ambassadors to Moscow since the 60s (!) "statistically ... highly unlikely," which it isn't.
He then says that "Some of the Canadians that have been directly affected by something have been transported from Ottawa to Halifax, Nova Scotia. They have been medically tested, and it's been found that the left-hand side of their brain does not connect properly with right-hand side of their brain. That's a matter of medical fact. On top of that, some of the Canadians (...) are displaying the early symptoms of Parkinson's, Alzheimer's or general dementia. (...) Statistically, that is highly unlikely. And they had no conversation with the Americans who were affected by this."
This is simply not true, which Bartholomew tells him. And it has been mentioned several times in this thread: Patient Zero, a CIA agent in Havana, was actively campaigning for the 'Havana Syndrome' idea, both among U.S. embassy staff and their Canadian colleagues. It is frustrating that the obvious lie persists that this was not the case, i.e. that the 'Havana Syndrome' sufferers came down with the 'syndrome' independently of each other. It wasn't the case in Havana, and it could not possibly have been the case in the rest of the world since then!
How fictitious the story of the 'Havana Syndrome' is becomes even more obvious at the end of the program:
And that is not entirely false: Nothing is more scary than imaginary unknowns! Ask any director of horror movies!
I didn't notice this Cuban video about the 'Havana Syndrome' till now. Google and YouTube do their utmost to make it go unnoticed, which is probably the reason why it only has 86 views so far.
It is a short (9:37 min.) interview in English with Dr. Mitchell Valdés-Sosa, director general of the Cuban Neuroscience Center and head of the Cuban Committee of Experts investigating the 'Havana Syndrome'.
No evidence Havana Syndrome (Radio Habana Cuba on YouTube, Oct 8, 2021)
It is a short (9:37 min.) interview in English with Dr. Mitchell Valdés-Sosa, director general of the Cuban Neuroscience Center and head of the Cuban Committee of Experts investigating the 'Havana Syndrome'.
No evidence Havana Syndrome (Radio Habana Cuba on YouTube, Oct 8, 2021)
"environmental causes, undiagnosed medical conditions or stress"
I assume that the crickets are an environmental cause ...
However, Mr. Burns seems to have grasped that the 'Havana Syndrome' is mass psychogenic illness:
That the symptoms are real is what proponents of mass psychogenic illness always stress in order to avoid the stigmatizing idea that the sufferers are mentally ill. It is just the causes of those symptoms that are entirely imaginary.
One victim, ...
I assume that the crickets are an environmental cause ...
However, Mr. Burns seems to have grasped that the 'Havana Syndrome' is mass psychogenic illness:
That the symptoms are real is what proponents of mass psychogenic illness always stress in order to avoid the stigmatizing idea that the sufferers are mentally ill. It is just the causes of those symptoms that are entirely imaginary.
One victim, ...
CIA Says ‘Havana Syndrome’ Not a Foreign Power Campaign: Reports (VOA News, Jan 20, 2022)
This one grew old really fast:
Yes, it could (and does) have psychological origins. By the way, I notice that the CIA doesn't use the taboo word - maybe to avoid upsetting the 'syndrome' sufferers.
Five days ago, the USA was still baffled by the 'syndrome': Blinken Says the United States Is Still Baffled By ‘Havana Syndrome’ (National Interest, Jan 15, 2022)
This one grew old really fast:
Yes, it could (and does) have psychological origins. By the way, I notice that the CIA doesn't use the taboo word - maybe to avoid upsetting the 'syndrome' sufferers.
Five days ago, the USA was still baffled by the 'syndrome': Blinken Says the United States Is Still Baffled By ‘Havana Syndrome’ (National Interest, Jan 15, 2022)
CIA cast doubt on 'Havana syndrome' being a foreign attack — reports (DW, Jan 20, 2022)
CIA finds most Havana Syndrome cases not work of enemies: Report (AlJazeera, Jan 20, 2022)
CIA Says 'Hostile Power' Not Behind Mysterius Havana Syndrome (Rolling Stone, Jan 20, 2022)
CIA says mysterious 'Havana Syndrome' is unlikely to betatack from foreign country, report says (Business Insider, Jan 20, 2022)
CIA "Havana Syndrome" task force rules out foreign attacks in most reported cases in interim report (CBS News, Jan 20, 2022)
CIA finds most Havana Syndrome cases not work of enemies: Report (AlJazeera, Jan 20, 2022)
CIA Says 'Hostile Power' Not Behind Mysterius Havana Syndrome (Rolling Stone, Jan 20, 2022)
CIA says mysterious 'Havana Syndrome' is unlikely to betatack from foreign country, report says (Business Insider, Jan 20, 2022)
CIA "Havana Syndrome" task force rules out foreign attacks in most reported cases in interim report (CBS News, Jan 20, 2022)