Merged US may close Cuba Embassy over 'health attacks'

[Planigale]

I was wrong. Biden hasn't (yet?!) "removed Cuba from the list of states allegedly supporting terrorism." I wasn't aware that there are two lists, and so far Cuba has only been removed from one:



I can see why Reuters describes the move as "tepid": "a tepid if symbolically important move on behalf of the Biden administration."

It seems odd, that the US can list Cuba as fully co-operating against terrorism but still list it as a state sponsor of terrorism.

 

[dann]

The Reuters article mentions that "the State Department official said the state sponsor designation is determined by separate statutory criteria. "Any future review of Cuba's status would be based on the law and criteria established by Congress," the official said."
But it doesn't say what those separate statutory criteria are.

 

[dann]

New podcast with Polymeropoulos, and Grozev and Weiss from The Insider, the usual suspects with the usual arguments.
Once again, their main argument against MPI is that anything that can't have been MPI (i.e. the alleged 68 cases always mentioned by Grozev) is taken as proof of DEW attacks. (See post 2,262 about the 'Putin in the Gaps' argument.)

In this episode, Cipher Brief Managing Editor Tom Nagorski talks with Christo Grozev, a journalist who served as a lead investigator on Havana Syndrome for a publication called The Insider and Insider Editor Michael Weiss as well as former senior CIA officer and Cipher Brief Expert Marc Polymeropoulos, who says that he himself was struck during a visit to Moscow. Grozev and Weiss also share the findings of their recent investigation conducted in cooperation with 60 Minutes and the German news magazine Der Spiegel that indicates who is behind Havana Syndrome, saying they have uncovered evidence that members of a special Russian military intelligence unit may be to blame.
Is Russia Attacking U.S. Government Employees Using High-Energy Weapons? (Cipher Brief/State Secrets on Apple Podcasts, May 20, 2024 - 41:05)

Marc Polymeropoulos just knew that he was the victim of "something nefarious" when he came down with the 'syndrome' in a Moscow hotel room because he "was in top mental and physical condition" and he doesn't "believe in coincidences." In the teaser from Australian 60 Minutes, a couple of minutes of Bartholomew explaining mass psychogenic illness is confronted with Polymeropoulos' story about a woman whose baby allegedly came down with he syndrome, too. In this podcast, Polymeropoulos again tells the story about 6-month-old as a gotcha: If it wasn't MPI, it just must have been an attack. Did anybody ever hear of babies getting sick for other reasons than Russian raygun attacks, right?!
He thinks that the intelligence community's investigation was biassed. In order to be unbiassed, "they should have been trying to prove that it was a foreign adversary." Since they didn't, they were obviously "hostile to the victims." Marc Polymeropoulos just knows the truth about what happened to him: "It was an act of war."

Christo Grozev is convinced that his studies of the itineraries of alleged members of Russian GRU Unit 29155 proves Who Done It: "We could only account for 15 to 20% of their travel." He forgets to add that they couldn't account for any details making their claims really relevant. If an incident happened in Europe and if it seems to be likely that one of the 29155 members was in Europe at the time, then it is proof proof positive that they did it.

Michael Weiss thinks that when 'syndrome' sufferers describe "the feeling (!) of some kind of attack that you are experiencing (!) in your head (!)," then it is obvious that they were attacked with an invisible weapon with some kind of "directionality." And he too thinks that Unit 29155 "being in the same places at the same time," i.e. being in the same country or the same continent, is all the proof that's needed. Only because of "too much confirmation bias about how the IC went about ..." investigating the 'syndrome' prevented them from reaching the same conclusion as The Insider and 60 Minutes.

Towards the end of the podcast, they make their 'Putin-in-the Gaps' argument explicit: "Even one thing that cannot be explained away with psychosomatic symptoms is sufficient for the existence of a crime." After all, people - much like babies - don't just get sick, do they?! And since The Insider has allegedly found 68 cases that weren't MPI, it means that "there was a crime." Because it has just got to be one or the other: a case of MPI or a DEW attack!

They even found that Unit 29155 members were on "two trips in China at the time when" there were also "incidents" in that country. He actually says "China." Not 'near the residence of Marc Lenzi' or even 'in Guangzhou'! They were in China, so the 'crime' has obviously been solved! Not even the interviewer dares point out to them that China is a pretty big country or that Russian agents would be much more conspicuous there than in, say, Tblisi, Frankfurt or Florida.

It is no wonder that the intelligence community's professional investigators don't buy into the fabulation of these guys and are probably annoyed that they are still telling diplomats and secret agents that they risk becoming victims of invisible attacks by invisible foreign adversaries with invisible weapons if they take a job abroad.

 

[dann]

"the Cuban government in Washington"

It seems odd, that the US can list Cuba as fully co-operating against terrorism but still list it as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Outrageous!
The communists have not only taken control of the U.S. government, they have probably also already sold the secrets about baggage screening to Putin!

The visit was recorded nearly a week after the United States removed Cuba from the list of countries that do not fully cooperate in the fight against terrorism
(...)
Miami-Dade County officials expressed their outrage on Tuesday after a Cuban government delegation toured security areas of Miami International Airport.
Five members of the Cuban government spent five hours at the airport on Monday and were shown two areas, including a security checkpoint and a baggage screening area.
(...)
NBC6 reached out to the Cuban government in Washington for a statement.
'Incredibly reckless': Cuban delegation visit to Miami airport security areas sparks outrage (NBC6 South Florida News, May 21, 2024)

 

[dann]

A podcast to look forward to:

Hysteria (Wondery and Pineapple Street, July 22)
After a brief break, Dan Taberski (Running From Cops, Missing Richard Simmons, 9/12) returns with a new project that carries a striking hook. How might a strange illness that tore through a group of high-school girls in upstate New York connect to the so-called "Havana Syndrome" phenomenon that plagued American state personnel around the world? The clue, of course, lies in the title. These may well be expressions of psychosomatic responses, but that raises a whole other question: What does it mean if we can collectively hallucinate?
8 Podcasts We Can't Wait to Listen to This Summer (Vulture/MSN, May 22, 2024)

I am not familiar with Dan Taberski's work, but it looks interesting.

 

[dann]

Brain Damage and Biomarkers Revisited

On this week's episode, Max and Maria sat down with Roman Dobrokhotov, the founder and editor-in-chief of the Russia-focused investigative media outlet, The Insider. Roman's team, along with colleagues at CBS's 60 Minutes and the German outlet Der Spiegel, recently concluded an investigation that uncovered evidence potentially linking Russia's military intelligence agency, the GRU, with the health incidents impacting U.S. government officials and their families that have come to be known as "Havana Syndrome."
Show Notes: "Unraveling Havana Syndrome: New evidence links the GRU's assassination Unit 29155 to mysterious attacks on U.S. officials and their families (https://theins.ru/en/politics/270425) " by Roman Dobrokhotov, Christo Grozev, and Michael Weiss (The Insider)
A New Investigative Report on the "Havana Syndrome" Phenomenon with Roman Dobrokhotov (Center for Strategic & International Studies on YouTube, April 21, 2024 - 43:20 min.)

30:06--> Maria: ... you explicitly argue in your paper and in our podcast that there is [brain damage], right?!
Dobrokhotov: Yes, there is and, and, and there are so many proof for this: that it is brain damage. Just impossible to deny. First of all, then, if you test the victim the next day after, which usually was not done, which is also important. So if you, if you test a victim, like in a week, you will not find anything. So with a usual, like, blood test. But if you, if you test them the next day, you will see biomarkers, like two different proteins, one for white matter and one for gray matter, which shows that there was a real brain damage. And this is, uh, the same biomarkers that you would find in people who had a usual head trauma like in a football players or someone falling from a ladder. If you didn't fell out of the window, but for some reason you have brain damage, this is is strange, right? So this is cannot be psychosomatic. You would not have biomarkers from brain damage in your blood just because you're stressed.

So this is one thing. Another is a neuro optometric test where they just follow the movement of the eye and, uh, there are some like kind of disruptions of how an eye follows an object. And this cannot be simulated. So this is an, an objective thing, and this was seen in all, uh, the victims.

Yeah, if you if you just look into blood samples like a week after. Or if you just, uh, look at MRI, you won't see anything because you don't, you're not looking at, at, at what you should be looking. Or you just lost time and you, you don't see the traces. We have now many many medical documents proving that these people had brain damage. And in in four cases is already even proven concrete minus syndrome.

So for many people we see the symptoms that look like Havana syndrome. But four, in four cases, we have this syndrome officially diagnosed by doctors, which is also very powerful. So, yeah, I think that this information about no traces in the brain is just outdated.

It annoys the hell out of me that The Insider's people keep mentioning those "biomarkers, like two different proteins," without telling us the names of those biomarkers.
The story sounds much like targeted individual Len Ber's story (see posts 2,119 and 2,129, except that Len Ber named the actual proteins, which made it possible to look them up. He wrote:

biomarkers associated with mild traumatic brain injury and concussion, called neurofilament light chain (NfL) protein and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), have been found to be elevated in patients with AHI. Levels return to normal within a few weeks, which matches the time-course of said biomarkers following mTBI, indicating damage to the BBB (Blood-Brain Barrier) and neural injury.

As I documented in posts 2,119 and 2,129, the two biomarkers NfL and GFAP can also be found in blood samples from people who suffer from stress-related exhaustion. You don't have to fall out of a window for that to happen.

These amateurs can't have come up with this idea on their own. They must have been 'helped' by somebody like Michael Hoffer or one or more of the other usual suspects, i.e. somebody who knows (or at the very least ought to know) that elevated levels of NfL and GFAP may indicate mTBI but may also indicate stress and/or exhaustion.

This is how it's described in The Insider's article:

These so-called biomarkers are metabolized by the body within hours to days, meaning that someone hit with an acoustic weapon would need to have their blood drawn almost immediately after an attack to detect this kind of evidence of injury.
The former Kyiv Station CIA officer who was hit in Hanoi in 2021 was one of only two victims of Havana Syndrome whose biomarkers had been measured before the attack, thus establishing an individualized baseline. In this officer’s case, the biomarker levels jumped from normal before the attack to far above normal hours after; they then returned to normal days later, clearly indicating brain injury at the time of the attack, according to multiple sources within the U.S. intelligence community. He was diagnosed with “neural network dysfunction and persistent dysautonomia due to traumatic brain injury.”
Unraveling Havana Syndrome: New evidence links the GRU's assassination Unit 29155 to mysterious attacks on U.S. officials and their families (The Insider, April 1, 2024)

If the story about "multiple sources within the U.S. intelligence community" is true, and if my suspicion is correct that the unnamed biomarkers in The Insider's story are also NfL and GFAP, then the journalists were deliberately misled the same way Len Ber was.
This is what makes it so annoying that they don't write explicitly which biomarkers they are talking about.

I assume that the "neuro optometric test" is the one mentioned in post 1,680 when jerky eye movement was used to convince Kate Husband and Doug Ferguson that their brains had been damaged by a DEW attack:

Cue, Doug: So even when we went to Miami, we really didn’t feel like we had any issues. You know, like I said, all the symptoms that we’d experienced, you know, some balance issues and, and headaches, that kind of thing. Nausea, easily written off to other things.
So it wasn’t until the doctors there put us in, certain equipment and certain situations where you could tease out the symptoms…
One of the tests they perform in Miami is a device that tracks eye-movement. It basically moves a dot back and forth in front of you. In a healthy patient, your eyes follow it smoothly.
Cue, Doug: … what we saw in the recording of our eyes was that tracking that dot across our field of vision was jerky.
Cue, Doug: It didn’t feel abnormal when I was doing it, but the doctor explained it to me. He said, look, here’s a recording of what normal eyes look like, and then here’s a recording of what your eyes look like.
And you know, it was at that moment when I go, ‘oh yeah, I can see that it’s messed up’…
it begins to dawn on Doug and Kate that something might be seriously wrong.

 

[dann]

A very dumb article on Scientific American by Jon Stone and Kenneth Foster.
Jon Stone always had something against MPI:

“I wince when I hear the word ‘psychogenic,’” Jon Stone, a neurologist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, told Hurley. “It creates a false impression about what these disorders are."
Is 'Havana Syndrome' an 'Act of War' or 'Mass Hysteria'? (NYT, Oct 26, 2021)

But it gets worse in the new article, whose point it is to claim that PPPD caused by microwave weapons explains the syndrome instead of the alleged brain damage that the NIH studies couldn't find a trace of:

Less discussed [than the alleged brain damage] is that nearly a third fulfilled diagnostic criteria for a condition called persistent postural perceptual dizziness (PPPD). PPPD is a disorder related to abnormal brain function that can be triggered by any (!) cause of dizziness or vertigo, and, like other subtypes of functional neurological disorder, can’t be seen with conventional tests. This condition gives us some unexamined clues about “Havana syndrome.”
Havana Syndrome: We Don’t Need to Choose between Brain Injury and ‘Mass Hysteria’ (Scientific American, May 22, 2024)

PPPD can indeed "be triggered by any (!) cause of dizziness or vertigo," but since it is theoretically possible that dizziness and vertigo can also be caused by a DEW attack, the authors choose to ignore all those other, much more mundane causes:

"PPPD can develop gradually over time but usually starts after an alarming or distressing (!) event. The event is typically caused by a balance or psychiatric (!) disorder, such as a panic attack (!) or benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) episode."
Persistent Postural-Perceptual Dizziness (Stanford Medicine Health Care)

Stanford's definition looks extremely psychogenic to me, so how does the idea of DEW attacks fit into this new proposed PPPD paradigm?

However, calculations (!) show that it should (!) be possible (!) to beam strong enough pulses of microwaves, millimeter waves or laser energy to disturb the vestibular system at levels anticipated to produce symptoms similar to those initially reported from AHIs.

As the Stanford article shows, there are much more likely explanations for PPPD. We already know that the first case in Havana was a guy who got scared by and subsequently recorded the sound of crickets, i.e. definitely not microwaves, and then continued to scare his colleagues with the recording. There was no detection of "strong enough pulses of microwaves, millimeter waves or laser energy to disturb the vestibular system." But since "calculations show that it should be possible (!) to beam" those "microwaves, millimeter waves or laser energy" into people's skulls and thus disturb their sense of balance, that is supposed to be the sophisticated refutation of "simplistic (!) arguments of “brain damage” versus “mass hysteria”," and thus the equally sophisticated way of claiming that U.S. officials in Havana and elsewhere were the victims of beam attacks.

I have discussed this a couple of times with Kennth Foster on X. His main argument for the DEW-attack idea is that some people, apparently rogue elements, in the Intelligence Community claim that they have proof of DEW attacks. He hasn't seen the proof and he thinks that he should be allowed to see it, but that they claim that the proof is there good enough for him to be adamant that it must real.

Is there a logical fallacy called appeal to alleged evidence?

 

[dann]

The Mad Gasser

At first, I thought, 'It's the New York Post. Who reads that rag?'
But it has the audience that should read an article like this to learn about the 'syndrome' even though it is mainly about The Mad Gasser of Mattoon!

I feel a little sorry for people like Kate Husband and Dough Ferguson who will now see themselves in an article about The Mad Gasser, but if they can get over it, it may actually help them to see the connection!

The Mattoon case became public for the first time on September 1, 1944, when a local newspaper reported an interview with Aline Kearney, a cabbie's wife and mother of three-year-old Dorothy Ellen. She had gone to bed around 11 p.m. and noticed a "sickening, sweet odor" that "grew stronger and I began to feel a paralysis of my legs and lower body.
"I grew frightened and screamed for Martha," her sister-in-law, who "at once noticed the odor."
(...)
Upon arrival, officers were told a mysterious figure in all black had been spotted near the house, and that he had used an anesthetic - chloroform, ether or a combination of both - to make Aline Kearney ill.
Some 90 minutes later, her husband arrived home, spotted a tall figure at the window - a man, and possibly a woman, who would soon be dubbed 'The Mad Gasser of Mattoon.'
US' first case of mass hysteria might have something in common with Havana Syndrome (New York Post, May 27, 2024)

If I had the choice between the two kinds of trigger, I would much prefer to be scared by the sound of crickets!

It's actually a great article, and it ends with a link to "Havana Syndrome": A Post Mortem by Baloh and Bartholomew.

 

[dann]

A short video (5:08 min.) and transcription of an interview with Mitchell Valdés-Sosa, director of the Cuban Center for Neuroscience and in charge of the Cuban investigation of the 'syndrome':

PBS NewsHour newsclip: Today the intelligence community has assessed it was likely not the work of a foreign adversary.
Valdes-Sosa: I’m willing to take the leap if there's evidence of another source saying, "This needs an explanation." But the question is, "What needs explanation?" Because if there's no brain damage, if there's no hearing loss, if there's no new syndrome, if there's no evidence of any perpetrator, then why do I have to search for a mysterious— and make that leap.
https://fullmeasure.news/newest-videos/havana-syndrome-05-23-2024 (FullMeasure, May 26, 2024)

 

[dann]

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence passed the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025 (IAA) last week by a unanimous 17 to 0 vote.
(...)
The IAA for Fiscal Year 2025 authorizes funding for the IC and ensures that it has the resources, personnel, and authorities it needs to protect our country and inform decision makers, while ensuring continued robust congressional oversight. The bill’s provisions focus on the following key areas:
(...)
* Ensures continued support to the victims of anomalous health incidents (AHIs or “Havana Syndrome”) by improving funding flexibility for payments to qualified victims.
Senate Intel Committee unanimously approves Intelligence Authorization Act for 2024 (AugustaFreePress, May 29, 2024)

Nothing about directed-energy or microwave weapons. However:

“Our Intelligence Authorization Act represents significant improvements to our national security tools, legal authorities, Intelligence Community workforce, and ensures resources are focused on the most pressing threats, specifically from China, Russia, Iran, and their partners, including Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea, as well as terrorist organizations,” Committee Vice Chairman Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said

 

[dann]

China is working on modern warfare weapons that include biological and "mind-melting" microwave technology — similar to those that caused Havana Syndrome — in its preparations for "all-out war," experts are warning.
(...)
The intelligence is not widely distributed nor precisely known because of China's "secrecy" and lack of "transparency," Lee added.
China Prepping 'Mind-Melting Weapons' for All-Out War (Newsmax, June 2, 2024)

Unlike the USA where "intelligence" is always "widely distributed" and "precisely known" because there is no "lack of "transparency.""
I assume that "similar to those that caused Havana Syndrome" means entirely made up and published by unreliable sources like Newsmax and The Sun.

The U.S. has been subject to the "mind-melting weapons" through the Havana syndrome, Glees noted.
"We've known for sure since December 2020 that the 'Havana syndrome' is real, that microwaves can be used to cause 'cognitive fog, dizziness, loss of balance, anxiety and nausea' as a weapon," Glees told The Sun.
"A study the year before identified brain damage amongst those who had experienced microwave attacks.
"To use a computer virus to infect Taiwanese computers to develop a cyber version of 'Havana syndrome' which would affect large sections of a chosen group in dispersed locations, e.g., air force pilots, soldiers manning the batteries, should be relatively easy.
"Equally, infecting Taiwanese computers with sleep programs should be simple."

It sounds much like the plot of Neal Stephenson's (very entertaining!) 1992 cyberpunk novel Snow Crash (Wikipedia).

It's no surprise that Targeted Individuals love the story, i.e. Anthony Glees and John Lee's story in Newsmax/Sun, not Neal Stephenson's Show Crash:

How China’s shadowy ‘Brain Warfare’ unit is preparing for war with new mind-melting weapons to ‘paralyse’ enemies
Prof Anthony Glees told The Sun: "We've known for sure since Dec 2020 that #HavanaSyndrome is real, that microwaves can be used to cause..."
Dale Schenck (June 2, 2024)

 

[dann]

At first, I thought that these two articles from Gary C. Woodward's site The Perfect Response - Effective Communication in a Distracted Age had been drowned out by the 'noise' caused by the 60 Minutes pseudo investigation of the 'syndrome', which was aired on March 31, 2024:
My Havana Moment (The Perfect Response, April 24, 2024)
New Data on the Havana Syndrome (The Perfect Response, March 27, 2024)

But then I noticed that Woodward wrote his first article about the 'syndrome' in 2020.
I don't remember seeing any of his articles until now, so maybe Google and other search engines didn't discover them until very recently:
The Havana Syndrome Revisited (The Perfect Response, Dec 11, 2020)
Reconsidering the Havana Syndrome (The Perfect Response, Jan 28, 2022)

The author is mainly interested in sound and the perception of sound and not so much in politics, the Flynn effect and DEWs.
However, he is aware of mass psychogenic illness or, as he calls it, "somatic Contagion."

 

[dann]

That said [i.e. that it is very, very serious if somebody is actually out there targeting U.S. diplomats etc. with rayguns], and despite both robust evidence and consistent reporting, some skeptics still dismiss Havana Syndrome as a hoax or psychological phenomenon. This does not explain how affected diplomats, intelligence officers and military service members were all found to have persistent, abnormal changes in their brains. These findings point to a physiological basis for the symptoms, directly challenging the argument that Havana Syndrome is purely psychological.
Until we recognize Havana Syndrome as real, some affected individual are not able to receive necessary support and treatment. Ignoring their symptoms exacerbates victims' suffering and undermines the credibility of institutions responsible for their care.
Take Havana Syndrome Seriously (RealClearScience, June 5, 2024)

What robust evidence?! If there were any actually 'robust evidence' (since the cricket recordings aren't recognized as such), she could have given up on her claim that the 'syndrome' needs to be investigated more than it already has been. The same thing can be said about the alleged "abnormal changes in their brains."

Nobody has ignored their symptoms, but fairly recently the NIH found "no sign of brain injuries." Insisting on treating injuries that aren't there doesn't benefit the victims. It only benefits people who have a vested interest in keeping the 'syndrome' alive.

 

[dann]

Great article by neurologist Racheed M Mani:

As of April 2024, there are still Senate hearings and "60 Minutes" news segments exploring Havana syndrome as a tool of Russian warfare (Pelley, 2024; Clancey, 2024). This is particularly pertinent in light of escalating geopolitical tensions between the collective West and Russia. The bigger issue is the overreach of politics into medicine through framing these AHIs as being sequelae of sinister acts by a geopolitical adversary.
(...)
Much of the public discourse on "Havana syndrome" has not involved a large enough contingent of the neurological community. We need to have greater participation by actual, objective medical specialists and scientists in the discourse and investigation of these AHIs and not allow them to be co-opted and exploited for political grandstanding. This is essential when mistrust in health care providers and institutions in favor of pseudoscience is all too prevalent.
Havana Syndrome: Exploitation of Medicine for Political Gain (Psychology Today, June 10, 2024)

 

[dann]

Upcoming podcast series: "Hysterical"

Hysterical investigates a mysterious illness that spreads among a group of high school girls in upstate New York. What is causing their sudden, often violent symptoms? Is there something in the water or inside the school? Or is it “all in their head?” The series examines the outbreak in LeRoy, NY, believed by some to be the most severe case of mass hysteria since the Salem Witch Trials. In his search for answers, Dan Taberski (9/12, Missing Richard Simmons, Running from Cops) explores other seemingly inexplicable events of the last few years – CIA officers being crippled with nausea and vertigo; cops OD'ing from exposure to fentanyl – and discovers they’re far more connected than we realize.
Introducing: Hysterical (Apple Podcasts, June 26, 2024, with teaser, 2:41 min.)

The series begins by examining the outbreak of a puzzling illness in LeRoy, NY, believed by some to be the most severe case of mass hysteria since the Salem Witch Trials.
In the process, Taberski discovers similarities to more recent mysterious cases, such as Havana Syndrome and the outbreak of police officers across America apparently overdosing from exposure to fentanyl.
Hysterical explores mysterious illness among New York high school students (PodcastingToday.co.uk, June 26, 2024)

It is a good sign that the 'syndrome' has been placed in the right context this time.
On the other hand, there's this excerpt from the teaser:

Who's susceptible?
Just how often is this happening?
What do you do when they tell you, 'It's all in your head'?
"The idea that this is somehow psychogenic, psychosomatic, mass hysteria, I mean, that just doesn't apply to me."

The guy saying that it "just doesn't apply" to him sounds an awful lot like Marc Polymeropoulos, the former CIA official, who came down with the 'syndrome' in a Moscow hotel room and insists that his version of it is a "combat injury". (See post 1,659.)

 

[gabeygoat]

I'll check it out

 

[Sherkeu]

I'll check it out

Perhaps just read what I postulated as rational possibilities AGES ago. It will save you loads of time.
Or if you like fantasy theories and want to share with someone who will berate you for any slight disagreement, like a schizophrenic may do, then just continue posting in here.

Good luck to you.

 

[dann]

From the very first day of your participation in this thread, you came up with some weird ideas, probably based on the experiences with your sister that you have mentioned in the thread.

I think if the FBI focuses on the first 2 people to complain, they will find that one of them has been interested in gangstalking and "Targeted Individual" material. They will find a history of complaints that 'something' is wrong with their phone and computer that needs debugging. There could be other odd complaints like for lighting, vents, or potential gas leaks. They will find that the move to Cuba was requested (these people think places like Cuba may rid them of covert 'harassment').

There is and was no reason to assume that people who experience MPI have "been interested in gangstalking and "Targeted Individual" material," and they don't all tend to be paranoid.

They will find the source to be a lower level staffer with no prospects for advancement.

True. I posted yesterday "They will find the source to be a lower level staffer with no prospects for advancement."
The top diplomats, such as the Ambassador, are unlikely to be one of the affected.
That's my prediction anyway!!

The first cases weren't lower level staffers. In fact, the Patient Zero in MPI cases tends to be somebody with high status, somebody the others look up to: "a spread that moves down the age scale, beginning with older or higher-status people" (Wikipedia)

The other injuries will follow knowledge of the first ones and will have been 'medically confirmed" through self-reporting. There will be no children affected. The union rep will support claims 100%.

Children were affected, i.e. whatever symptoms they had (e.g. nosebleeds) were interpreted by their parents (and later by doctors) as having been caused by the same thing that they imagined had caused their own 'syndrome'.

And I think Castro knows all of this already which is why he welcomes the FBI to find the answer.

There is no reason to assume that the Cubans knew it all from the very beginning. I think they welcomed the FBI investigation because they appreciated the new spirit of reconciliation (and the America tourist $$) and hoped that the FBI would find out what was going on and thus put an end to the syndrome story. They probably wouldn't have expected that the vested interest in the DEW idea would result in several 'expert panel' investigations until some of them came up with the politically useful confirmation of the DEW idea as "plausible".

I am not saying that you didn't also have some good observations and arguments at the time. You did, for instance about the cricket sounds.
But in less than two months you went from various speculations, some valid, some not so much (and we were all speculating because we had very few facts in those days), to embracing the idea of an attack and a weird conspiracy to cover it up:

It's still possible that everyone 'in the know' long ago concluded it's mainly a psychogenic phenomena and the Obama folks are agreeing to, and perhaps even instigating, the 'attack' story to avert some larger looming threat to US-Cuba relations, and hence, protecting Obama's legacy.

But reading between the lines in their interviews it sounds more like Cuba did do something and the Obama folks are saying "Hey, we understand it wasn't your official orders to do that so let's try to get through this on good terms."

It was reported that Trump said "Cuba did some bad things".
But that isn't what he said. He said "Some very bad things happened in Cuba. They did some bad things in Cuba." Because he puts little thought into his off-the-cuff remarks, sometimes there is truth in there!

The 'health attack' may just be the public face of some activity more serious that is not disclosed, like avoiding WW3 with Russia because we caught them doing 'bad things' there and Cuban forces were complicit.

This is another one of those ideas that you "postulated as rational possibilities AGES ago," and it really wouldn't save gabeygoat "loads of time" to "just read" that.

 

[dann]

Havana syndrome hit Biden during presidential debate, conspiracy theorists claim

The same explanation came up when Mitch McConnell 'froze' and Angela Merkel did the Hippy Hippy Shake (see post 2,024), so it had to come up this time as well:

conspiracy theorists believe that Biden’s dismal performance was not because of his age- or health-related issues but due to the use of ‘directed energy weapons.’
Such claims have been made on social media ever since the presidential debate aired, and are leading to extended conversations on the topic.
Havana syndrome hit Biden during presidential debate, conspiracy theorists claim (Interesting Engineering, July 2, 2024)

The article mentions these tweets:

URGENT: Scientist whose previous work included directed energy beam research for the US intelligence community said Biden's symptoms during the CNN debate made him think of the Havana Syndrome.
This is according to former KGB spy Yuri Shvets who defected to the US in 1993.
Igor Sushko (X, July 1, 2024)

Shvets, a former KGB spy who was based in Washington DC during the 80's, does not believe in coincidences, and the fact that Russia's IL-76 government plane landed in the US on June 27 before the debate and then left after the fact on June 29 could further suggest foul play.
Igor Sushko (X, July 1, 2024)

Did a directed-energy weapon cause Joe Biden’s debate disaster or is it time to drop out? (Toronto Star, July 2, 2024)

Now Biden's Poor Performance During the Debate with Trump is Being Blamed on Havana Syndrome (Naked Emperor on Substack, July 3, 2024)

 

[dann]

I thought Sung Tieu had given up on the 'syndrome' at this point, but apparently not:

The exhibition creates an environment where the resonance of sound meets the solidity of institutional infrastructure, delving into temporal and spatial contexts at the same time.
Central to the exhibition is a collaborative sound installation by Beck and Tieu in the corridor enveloping the Kunstverein’s main exhibition space. The installation features an intricate network of 28 speakers arranged to produce a continuous sonic environment.
Sung Tieu, known for her minimalism-critical approach, explores the tensions arising from design and its social application. Tieu contributes two digital clocks, each set to different time zones linked to incidences of Havana syndrome around the globe.
Martin Beck, Sung Tieu, and Philipp Fleischmann (Salzburger Kunstverein exhibition, July 13 to Sep 8, 2024)

Havana and Guangzhou? Or maybe Havana and Vienna since it's in Austria.