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Government Medicine

'Havana Syndrome' Unlikely Caused By Hostile Foreign Power, CIA Says (theguardian.com) 64

Posted by BeauHD from the back-to-square-one dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: An initial CIA investigation into the mysterious set of symptoms known as Havana syndrome has found that it is unlikely to be the result of a worldwide campaign of attacks by a foreign power against US diplomats and spies. However, two dozen cases, including some of those originally afflicted in Havana in 2016, could not be explained and would be further studied for evidence of a possible attack, according to a senior CIA official who briefed the US press.

"While we have reached some significant interim findings, we are not done," the CIA director, Williams Burns, said in a statement. "We will continue the mission to investigate these incidents and provide access to world-class care for those who need it." Since the original outbreak of the symptoms, which include hearing strange sounds, dizziness, loss of balance, nausea and memory loss, more than 1,000 cases have been studied around the world. The interim findings of a CIA investigation have found that the majority of cases could probably be attributed to a pre-existing medical condition, or environmental factors, or stress, the senior official said. The defense department and an independent panel of experts are conducting their own investigations which have yet to publish reports. A Havana syndrome victims support group said in a statement: "The decision to release the report now and with this particular set of 'findings' seems a breach of faith, and an undermining of the intent of Congress and the president to stand with us and reach a government-wide consensus as to what is behind this," a Havana syndrome victims group said in a statement.

"This report was neither cleared nor coordinated through the interagency and must stand as the assessment of one agency [CIA] alone."
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'Havana Syndrome' Unlikely Caused By Hostile Foreign Power, CIA Says More

'Havana Syndrome' Unlikely Caused By Hostile Foreign Power, CIA Says

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  • Between the lines (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 20, 2022 @05:14PM (#62192907)
    So this must mean they know what it is if that is ruled out, meaning it’s either our own doing or one of our allies.
    • It's all spin. To admit that it is some adversary is to admit vulnerability and ignorance.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by spun ( 1352 )

      My first thought as well. Either that or it is an enemy, but we are doing the same thing and don't want to call attention to it.

      Or the CIA are actually telling the truth. They did say that 20-30 of the incidents need further investigation. So they admit something else is going on. But people will definitely pile onto a phenomenon like this and claim to be affected. Or they might just be hypochondriacs who got a little headache, and assumed they were important enough for some foreign power to target.

      So, it c

    • Re:Between the lines (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sg_oneill ( 159032 ) on Thursday January 20, 2022 @08:23PM (#62193427)

      Your missing the possibility that it isn't actually an attack. That theres something thats doing this that isn't actually initiated by humans, at least intentionally.

      The foreign attack thing never made a lot of sense. What was the motive here. Attacking diplomats has never been a strategically sane action. It aggravates the target country, without gaining any strategic ground over them.

      Like, OK yes Cuba isnt exactly a fan of the united states. But what would they gain out of it? Precisely nothing. But what could be lost? Well, the walking back of a lot of progress towards normalizing the relationship , something that would have a huge impact strategically for them.

      Nothing about the directed-energy-attack theory makes sense.

      There is a possibility that its some sort of espionage thing, like a passive surveilance device that requires energy to be beamed in to power it (Like the passive device in the wooden eagle crest found in the US embassy in Russia, many moons ago). But unless theres actual evidence its all just pointless speculation.

      The truth is, we have no motive, no body, and no smoking gun. Its more likely, there was no attack at all.

    • They just rightfully removed "foreign" from the description.

  • The Truth Hurts? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bloodhawk ( 813939 ) on Thursday January 20, 2022 @05:19PM (#62192921)
    How the fuck is an honest update a breach of faith and trust with the victims? Sounds like the victims are desperate for someone to blame rather than actually hear the truth. Almost certainly if it is technology induced it is likely something that the embassy itself uses rather than external interference, really the only question is if they do find a technology source will they honestly reveal it or perhaps keep that knowledge secret as its potential warfare uses would be valuable.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      It didn't reach the conclusion they desired. Nobody likes to be told their super mysterious illness is a combination of working too hard and an overactive imagination.

      • Which wasn't the conclusion reached.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          It was.

          The interim findings of a CIA investigation have found that the majority of cases could probably be attributed to a pre-existing medical condition, or environmental factors, or stress

          A minority of cases remain unexplained. So the majority gets to be pissed off, with the small saving grace that they can each assume they're actually in the mysterious minority.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by jd ( 1658 )

            So you take an assumption, an assumption about that assumption and conclude a certainty. My suggestion is to start with basic statistics, then learn some Bayes.

      • You can be damned sure that"working too hard" is not on the list of possible causes.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Is it related to money? If they were injured in service there could be financial support that is not available for pre existing conditions or stress.

      • Not sure, But from my understanding from previous articles, whatever happened to them happened at the embassy and there was a commitment to support them regardless of the cause.

    • Sometimes I feel that a lot of US foreign policy is orientated around “find the excuse for us to be belligerent” rather than “solve the problem and remove conflict”.

      For example, the US is more interested in conflict with Russia and the EU over Nordstream2 because Russia can use it to cut off Ukraine from both a funding source, a fuel source and a source of leverage over Russia. The US could easily step in and replace the first two for Ukraine, and forget the last one, and leave Russ

      • Northstream2 has nothing to do with Ukrainia, as it goes through the baltic sea.

        and tell both Russia and the EU what they can and cannot do with Nordstream2.
        That is the problem with USA. Even bullying "their allies" as if bullying the rest of the world is not enough for them.

        • Re:The Truth Hurts? (Score:5, Informative)

          by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Friday January 21, 2022 @05:33AM (#62194141)

          Nordstream2 adds capacity directly between Russian and Germany that makes the gas pipeline that Russia currently uses through Ukraine essentially redundant - if Russia shuts down that pipeline, Ukraine loses income from transit fees, and loses a source of natural gas. On top of that, Ukraine would also lose the political leverage it has in threatening to embargo that pipeline.

          That is why Nordstream2 is so important, and that is why its politics is intimately linked to Ukraine.

          And thats why its so important to the US.

          • Ukraine is only cut from Gas if Russia cuts them.
            And that obviously has nothing to do with NorthStream2.

            The gas which goes through pipelines is accounted for: a transit land can not simply take it wants.

            And thats why its so important to the US.
            That is simply plain wrong.
            a) the US want to bully the EU around
            b) the US want to expand their liquified natural gas tanker business

            That: is the reason the USA tried to make pressure.

            On top of that, Ukraine would also lose the political leverage it has in threatening

            • Ukraine is only cut from Gas if Russia cuts them.
              And that obviously has nothing to do with NorthStream2.

              It has everything to do with NordStream2, because thats what allows Russia to cut off Ukraines natural gas supply.

              Right now, the pipeline which flows through Ukraine does two things - allows Russia to sell natural gas to the EU, and supplies Ukraine. Russia cannot stop supplying Ukraine, because Ukraine can take what it wants from the pipeline anyway (this has been a long standing accusation and one of the points of tension between Russia and Ukraine - stolen natural gas).

              The gas which goes through pipelines is accounted for: a transit land can not simply take it wants.

              Agreed, a country that a pipeline

              • Agreed on point 1, but if point 2 stands then why doesn't the US offer to step in and replace the entire capacity of NordStream1, NordStream2 and all gas transiting through Ukraine at the same cost? That would completely and utterly eliminate Russias political leverage over both the EU and Ukraine?
                They did offer that.
                But what is the point to exchange one bully for another one.
                Besides Europe has not the port capacity.

                Did I make it simple enough for you to understand?
                Yes?

                No?

                There is nothing to understand. The

                • Ok, it seems that I have to treat you as stupid. Because it seems you are.

                  Russia wants Nordstream2.

                  The EU wants Nordstream2.

                  They both want Nordstream2 because it increases capacity and reliability of Russian gas from Russia to the EU.

                  Ukraine does not want Nordstream2 because it means they lose a secured domestic supply (with Nordstream2 in place, Russia can say to Ukraine "do as we say or we cut off your supply - we can now do that without threatening our supply to the EU") and a source of political levera

                  • Sorry,
                    You are tlaking about things that have nothing to do with the situation.

                    What Ukraine wants is irrelevant.

                    Northstream2, is the sister pipeline to Northstream1. Invisioned 30 years ago.

                    If you dont understand that, then you are fucking dumb.
                    Yeah, and you are dumb to reverse cause and reason and effect.

                    We have Northstream2 to for one simple reason:
                    a) be independent from stupid quarrels in the eas
                    b) make money

                    Oh ... that was two reasons.

                    The US does not want Nordstream2 because it hurts Ukraine, both becaus

  • It's rarely mentioned... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jerry Rivers ( 881171 ) on Thursday January 20, 2022 @05:19PM (#62192923)

    ...but Canadian Embassy staff in Cuba were also affected by this mysterious malady. I suppose it's possible they were mistaken for Americans, except that the two embassies aren't close to each other.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dohzer ( 867770 )

      Why only poke one when you have the chance to attack two out of Five Eyes?

    • they've probably use the same electronic (or other type) counter measures as the americans which is likely the cause.
      I bet you that they now know exactly what was causing it and are covering their collective asses because they won't ever admit a screw up like this in public.

    • This is yet another one of the numerous headlines that needs to be prefaced with "Surprising exactly nobody". A mysterious thing unexplainable by science that affects specifically US embassies (and possibly one caseload of Canadians) all over the planet, but which we know for sure is some unspecified enemy using some unspecified weapon unknown to science for some unspecified reason we can't explain.
  • It was not a worldwide campaign by a foreign power against US diplomats

    Could be a local campaign, not world wide.

    Or it might not be foreign power, just some rogue NSA / CIA types, field testing some things. "The skunk works told us it will help us read the minds, never knew it will do this shit"

    Or it is against lots of people not specifically against US diplomats.

    • Or it might not be foreign power, just some rogue NSA / CIA types, field testing some things.

      How about they aren't rogue at all? How about these people were targeted by the US government itself, for doing things the government didn't want them doing? Like looking into things they wanted buried? This government is just built out of conspiracies on top of other conspiracies.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Statistical clustering tells you that the cases are related, nit that there's an attack.

      Faulty electronic countermeasures, a CIA effort to spy on others that went horribly wrong, pollutants in the embassy building, these would also cause the same clusters.

  • I think it was mentioned here a while ago through an IEEE paper that it possibly was interference from different sets of jamming devices installed in the offices and homes of the victims.

    • Did that paper also mention the eight Canadians who were also affected? The Canadian Embassy is a considerable distance from the U.S. one, and Canada is quite friendly with Cuba. Indeed, Cuba complained when Canada reduced embassy staff after the complaints of illness.

  • It's called pretending to be sick to not go to school.

    • First, not every kid fakes illnesses.

      Second, neurological tests show damage. Hard to fake those.

      • Re-read my sentence: I didn't say every kid fakes illness to avoid school, I said all kids know it's a thing - and I would bet all of them have thought about it at one point or another.

        As to how that relates to the Havana syndrome, I bet there's a good chance the first diplomat to report the strange syndrome faked it (perhaps not out of laziness, but because he was tired of doing his job under difficult circumstances and didn't dare report it, or something like that), he was taken seriously beyond all expec

  • Axiom of Evil (Score:3)

    by NFNNMIDATA ( 449069 ) on Thursday January 20, 2022 @05:56PM (#62193031) Journal

    There's a saying to the effect of "never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity", and perhaps that applies here. It seems likely there's some kind of link between incidents and it's surely not "mass psychosis". The link could just be something as simple as a bureaucratic requirement for a certain product to be used by/for US personnel; maybe a particular pesticide, or maybe some cheap office supply-type product. Or maybe it really is the Russians attempting to spy and there's a glitch with their devices. Making the people you are spying on sick and thus drawing attention isn't really the goal after all.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • It seems likely there's some kind of link between incidents and it's surely not "mass psychosis".

      Why "surely not"?

      Psychosomatic symptoms are common. For example, most symptoms [umn.edu] of covid vaccine side effects appear to be psychosomatic.

      • Those studies usually make no real sense.
        a) Side effects are usually the expected effect If you have no side effect from a vaccine, it most likely did not work

        b) Local AEs (eg, pain at the injection site) were reported by 16.2% of placebo recipients and 66.7% of vaccine recipients after the first dose and 11.8% and 72.8%, respectively, after two doses.
        Makes no sense at all. You got an injection of a quite huge amount of liquid into a muscle or under the skin 8depending on vaccine): obviously that hursts fo

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by kriston ( 7886 )

      Not to be difficult, but while I originally attributed this concept to mass hysteria (mass psychosis in your words), it's too nonspecific for that.

      I would suggest it is more likely a cleaning product that is recommended for use by US foreign service posts.

  • "I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."

    I suppose the CIA were tempted to treat these illnesses as if they were attacks.

  • Psychogenic ... (Score:3)

    by kbahey ( 102895 ) on Thursday January 20, 2022 @06:22PM (#62193125) Homepage

    Here is one expert who says that it is Mass Psychogenic Illness [youtube.com].

  • It's possible the first few cases were caused by microwave radiation or similar from some kind of spying or disruption technique, and while investigating, they collected "too many" other candidate victims who just may have simply not had enough sleep or ate a bad sandwich.

    Targeted EM waves have various espionage and/or sabotage uses.

  • ... then explain it.

    new news cycle.

    Repeat inflammatory accusation... ...then explain it.

    Do they really think people don't remember the propaganda from the first time around?

  • Could it be that this are "late COVID" syndromes?

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