5 ms·

CIA officer from bin Laden hunt to lead Havana Syndrome probe as cases rise

21 points by LinuxBender 5y ago

okareaman 5y ago
I watched Andrea Mitchell and Sen Marco Rubio discuss this today. I didn't realize it was happening outside Cuba and even within the US (If what I heard is accurate)
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  There is no evidence of it ever happening, there are people with unexplained symptoms outside of Havana.
ergot_vacation 5y ago
What baffles me is this: what's the endgame here? If you're a spy, and you assassinate someone, that has clear benefits. Same with bribery, blackmail, etc. What does making someone briefly ill and possibly giving them minor brain damage accomplish? Are they hoping to scare diplomats away from these regions? That seems unlikely to work.
- calin2k 5y ago
  supposedly, they are practicing on diplomats. the endgame is that it can be used on anyone given relative proximity. any head of state, commander of army, anyone labeled as enemy
  - eloff 5y ago
    You can practice on anyone, you don't need to target diplomats, and it's not clear what that would gain.
- calmd 5y ago
  Imagine any protracted conflict, if you can give the other leadership group minor brain damage, you'll more likely be able to out maneuver them.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- anonAndOn 5y ago
  Why does Russia keep poisoning dissidents? They could clearly assassinate or disappear the targets instead.
  - eloff 5y ago
    I think Russia does it to send a clear message it was them, to dissuade others from going against the state.
- sam2426679 5y ago
  idk if this article mentions this, but the article I read in the WSJ made mention of a victim who was forced into early retirement.
- Stevvo 5y ago
  An order of magnitude more staff in any US embassy are spies than diplomats. If this whole thing isn't a mass-hysteria, then the idea would clearly be to scare the spies away, rather than the diplomats.
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  Communist countries each have a million people sitting around thinking about how to replace the US. They have multiple levels of ways to influence other countries that are short of kinetic war. Using microwaves against their enemy makes a lot of sense when viewed from the above. The best example in the headlines today is CRT which is a variant of Communist Critical Theory (CT.) Just look at the chaos this non-kinetic influence is having in the US, all self-inflicted. (All of the leaders in US intersectionalism are self-proclaimed Marxists, but we are slow to believe them.)
- Goety 5y ago
  >minor brain damage Any brain damage is much more impactful than you think. If I could guess it would be grey zone tactics to affect the most amount of people and inhibit their work. If you attack everyone there is less information pertaining to motive than a single target can get you. I think it is a broad stroke attack that should not occur.
  - nullsense 5y ago
    >Any brain damage is much more impactful than you think. True. I guess the endgame may be "dumbing down" the "intelligence agency".
    - Goety 5y ago
      I doubt they are doing it to dumb down the agency. Any time you trigger a disruption or emergency protocol the entire operation is more vulnerable.
- fasdf234241 5y ago
  Lets think for a moment: if there's actually a team of spies using this technology it could be a production level tech, or prototypes with somewhat strong science behind it. Then they would know much more about what exactly are they doing with people's brains. Wait for it.. What if all these cases are just the failures? The actual damaged brains are others, and the damage is much more specific, like in high energy based strong psychological conditioning, making those other - invisible, not detected yet - targets, think and pursuit goals projected to them by the adversary forces.
  - Goety 5y ago
    It is also possible that the investigation team is suspect as well. Both Cuba and Austria are Russian area of influence strongholds.
calmd 5y ago
Doing it to the US is ballsy, but I bet you could have gotten away with this for quite some time against less major actors. In fact I question why someone would use this against just US diplomats in such a low stakes situation. I would have saved this weapon for when it would have made a difference.
aaron695 5y ago
For those not into Area 51 weapons (What's Russia's equivalent?), it's worth thinking about all those articles about being poor and poverty and the effects on the brain. And how that relates to general stress and even things like a global lockdown. That's not to say there's evidence of physical brain damage here, there's not, you can read the sources for yourself. But brains can go strange at times.
- darkcha0s 5y ago
  The people impacted include US Diplomats, so I'm not sure being poor and living in poverty is an easy explanation here.
rendang 5y ago
Shouldn't it be pretty easy to set up a microwave/RF detector in these embassies? I haven't seen word of any attempts to do so in the Wikipedia article on this nor in the articles I've come across.
legerdemain 5y ago
Why can't they use Palantir software to solve this, just like they used Palantir to "solve" Bin Laden?
warlog 5y ago
Imagine the the US .gov recognizes they must drawdown their foreign presence because Rome is burning. False flag against own personal that requires the broad and full repatriation (retreat) of all assets. Has anyone looked in the basement of nearby US run facilities? /Conspiracy
killingtime74 5y ago
Is it Jessica Chastain?
stefantalpalaru 5y ago
> An undercover Central Intelligence Agency officer who helped hunt down Osama bin Laden Osama bin Laden was sold by Pakistani intelligence who had him and his family. There was no "hunt down": https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n10/seymour-m.-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n10/seymour-m.-hersh/the... What the CIA did was a fake vaccination campaign to verify the identity of the prisoner they were buying, using DNA samples, before concluding the deal. That little trick compromised the idea of vaccination in the whole region for many years to come.
vcbx3423fd 5y ago
This should be interesting, good ol' science with scientific method based conclusions and stuff, clear cause + effects, fully empirical & non-speculative, like most non-scientist people like to have in official documents. "Houston Methodist Neurological Institute researchers from the department of neurosurgery shrunk a deadly glioblastoma tumor by more than a third using a helmet generating a noninvasive oscillating magnetic field..." https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-07/hm-imd072221.php https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-07/hm-imd072221...

21 points by LinuxBender 5y ago

I watched Andrea Mitchell and Sen Marco Rubio discuss this today. I didn't realize it was happening outside Cuba and even within the US (If what I heard is accurate)

boomboomsubban 5y ago
There is no evidence of it ever happening, there are people with unexplained symptoms outside of Havana.

ergot_vacation 5y ago

What baffles me is this: what's the endgame here? If you're a spy, and you assassinate someone, that has clear benefits. Same with bribery, blackmail, etc. What does making someone briefly ill and possibly giving them minor brain damage accomplish? Are they hoping to scare diplomats away from these regions? That seems unlikely to work.

calin2k 5y ago
supposedly, they are practicing on diplomats. the endgame is that it can be used on anyone given relative proximity. any head of state, commander of army, anyone labeled as enemy
- eloff 5y ago
  You can practice on anyone, you don't need to target diplomats, and it's not clear what that would gain.
calmd 5y ago
Imagine any protracted conflict, if you can give the other leadership group minor brain damage, you'll more likely be able to out maneuver them.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
anonAndOn 5y ago
Why does Russia keep poisoning dissidents? They could clearly assassinate or disappear the targets instead.
- eloff 5y ago
  I think Russia does it to send a clear message it was them, to dissuade others from going against the state.
sam2426679 5y ago
idk if this article mentions this, but the article I read in the WSJ made mention of a victim who was forced into early retirement.
Stevvo 5y ago
An order of magnitude more staff in any US embassy are spies than diplomats. If this whole thing isn't a mass-hysteria, then the idea would clearly be to scare the spies away, rather than the diplomats.
redis_mlc 5y ago
Communist countries each have a million people sitting around thinking about how to replace the US. They have multiple levels of ways to influence other countries that are short of kinetic war. Using microwaves against their enemy makes a lot of sense when viewed from the above. The best example in the headlines today is CRT which is a variant of Communist Critical Theory (CT.) Just look at the chaos this non-kinetic influence is having in the US, all self-inflicted. (All of the leaders in US intersectionalism are self-proclaimed Marxists, but we are slow to believe them.)
Goety 5y ago
>minor brain damage Any brain damage is much more impactful than you think. If I could guess it would be grey zone tactics to affect the most amount of people and inhibit their work. If you attack everyone there is less information pertaining to motive than a single target can get you. I think it is a broad stroke attack that should not occur.
- nullsense 5y ago
  >Any brain damage is much more impactful than you think. True. I guess the endgame may be "dumbing down" the "intelligence agency".
  - Goety 5y ago
    I doubt they are doing it to dumb down the agency. Any time you trigger a disruption or emergency protocol the entire operation is more vulnerable.
fasdf234241 5y ago
Lets think for a moment: if there's actually a team of spies using this technology it could be a production level tech, or prototypes with somewhat strong science behind it. Then they would know much more about what exactly are they doing with people's brains. Wait for it.. What if all these cases are just the failures? The actual damaged brains are others, and the damage is much more specific, like in high energy based strong psychological conditioning, making those other - invisible, not detected yet - targets, think and pursuit goals projected to them by the adversary forces.
- Goety 5y ago
  It is also possible that the investigation team is suspect as well. Both Cuba and Austria are Russian area of influence strongholds.

calmd 5y ago

Doing it to the US is ballsy, but I bet you could have gotten away with this for quite some time against less major actors. In fact I question why someone would use this against just US diplomats in such a low stakes situation. I would have saved this weapon for when it would have made a difference.

aaron695 5y ago

For those not into Area 51 weapons (What's Russia's equivalent?), it's worth thinking about all those articles about being poor and poverty and the effects on the brain. And how that relates to general stress and even things like a global lockdown. That's not to say there's evidence of physical brain damage here, there's not, you can read the sources for yourself. But brains can go strange at times.

darkcha0s 5y ago
The people impacted include US Diplomats, so I'm not sure being poor and living in poverty is an easy explanation here.

rendang 5y ago

Shouldn't it be pretty easy to set up a microwave/RF detector in these embassies? I haven't seen word of any attempts to do so in the Wikipedia article on this nor in the articles I've come across.

legerdemain 5y ago

Why can't they use Palantir software to solve this, just like they used Palantir to "solve" Bin Laden?

warlog 5y ago

Imagine the the US .gov recognizes they must drawdown their foreign presence because Rome is burning. False flag against own personal that requires the broad and full repatriation (retreat) of all assets. Has anyone looked in the basement of nearby US run facilities? /Conspiracy

killingtime74 5y ago

Is it Jessica Chastain?

stefantalpalaru 5y ago

> An undercover Central Intelligence Agency officer who helped hunt down Osama bin Laden Osama bin Laden was sold by Pakistani intelligence who had him and his family. There was no "hunt down": https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n10/seymour-m.-hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n10/seymour-m.-hersh/the... What the CIA did was a fake vaccination campaign to verify the identity of the prisoner they were buying, using DNA samples, before concluding the deal. That little trick compromised the idea of vaccination in the whole region for many years to come.

vcbx3423fd 5y ago

This should be interesting, good ol' science with scientific method based conclusions and stuff, clear cause + effects, fully empirical & non-speculative, like most non-scientist people like to have in official documents. "Houston Methodist Neurological Institute researchers from the department of neurosurgery shrunk a deadly glioblastoma tumor by more than a third using a helmet generating a noninvasive oscillating magnetic field..." https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-07/hm-imd072221.php https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-07/hm-imd072221...