Alan Macleod
While the Trump administration tightens the screws on Cuba to bring about regime change, the media are once again showing interest in the Havana Syndrome – the discredited theory that US officials and secret agents are being attacked with a previously unknown energy weapon that is making them sick.
CBS News’ flagship political affairs program, “60 Minutes,” aired another special report on Havana Syndrome on Sunday. The episode focused on profiling alleged victims of the mysterious illness and claimed that the U.S. government had purchased an energy weapon from a “Russian criminal network” and had already begun testing it on animals.
The program claimed that hundreds of American officials had been targeted by opponents of the US, but the government continued to refuse to even properly investigate the matter.
CBS’s claims were picked up and amplified throughout the press, including The Hill, MSN, The New York Post, Newsmax, AOL and The Daily Telegraph.
The first reported case occurred in Havana in 2016 and has since spread around the world. US officials—few of whom are willing to speak on the record—report a variety of symptoms, including headaches, dizziness, and nausea. Many believe they have been attacked by a futuristic microwave beam or sonic weapon.
Successive official and academic studies have cast doubt on the validity of these claims. And when the Associated Press published recordings of the “sonic weapon” handed over by American soldiers stationed in Havana, a far more mundane culprit was identified: crickets. The sound was unmistakably the high-pitched, shrill mating call of the short-tailed cricket.
The incident sparked uproarious laughter in Cuba. The Cuban Academy of Sciences later concluded that the idea of a microwave attack was “not scientifically acceptable in any of its components” and had survived primarily due to “sensationalist media coverage” and a “biased approach to science.”
Bay of Pigs 2.0
Nevertheless, corporate media are now reviving the idea of the Havana Syndrome – at an extremely opportune time in US-Cuban relations.
The Trump administration has launched a comprehensive campaign against Cuba and is aiming for regime change on the Caribbean island.
On February 25, a Florida-registered boat carrying armed Cuban Americans entered Cuban waters. Their intention was to land and carry out attacks on the island. When intercepted by the Cuban Coast Guard, they opened fire on the boat but were overpowered. Four of them died in the failed operation, and six others were wounded. Cuban authorities released photos of assault rifles, explosive devices, bulletproof vests, telescopic sights, and camouflage uniforms they had confiscated.
At the same time, President Trump significantly tightened the blockade against the island, cutting off international trade and penalizing those who continued to do business with Havana. He announced that any country supplying oil to Cuba would face a 10% tariff increase.
As a result, the Cuban economy has been thrown into turmoil. The country is heavily dependent on oil imports for electricity generation, and prolonged power outages have become commonplace. Cuba faces a critical shortage of fuel and essential goods such as medical supplies. Solidarity activists from around the world are working frantically to alleviate the shortage.
As official documents admit, US sanctions are intended to “bring about hunger, despair, and the overthrow of the government” – through “economic discontent and harshness.” “Cuba will fall soon,” Trump told CNN last week.
Trump also forced countries in the region to end their health partnerships with Cuba. Cuban doctors were ordered to leave a dozen Caribbean and Central American countries—much to the detriment of the local populations who depend on them for medical care. More than 605,000 Cuban health professionals have provided free medical assistance in 165 countries, performed some 17 million surgeries, and saved an estimated 12 million lives.
Since the 1959 revolution that brought Fidel Castro and the communist movement to power, the US has been trying to overthrow the Cuban government. Local authorities have documented at least 5,780 individual US-backed terrorist attacks against their country, resulting in the deaths of more than 3,400 people and the injury or permanent disability of thousands more.
Perhaps the most notable of these attacks was the 1981 dengue fever epidemic, in which the US introduced the deadly disease to the island as a form of biological warfare. 158 people were killed, including 101 children.
Don’t believe the hype?
The return of the story about the Havana Syndrome thus comes at an extremely opportune time for the war planners in Washington, who are currently busy instigating a regime change on the island located 90 miles south of Miami.
Another reason to be skeptical of this particular narrative is that it is based on statements from US officials working in organizations whose job it is to disseminate disinformation. Furthermore, many of the national security state mandarins who form the backbone of these allegations insist on remaining anonymous—even though they themselves are in no danger.
No weapon was ever found, no perpetrators were identified, and it is hard to see why America’s adversaries would go to such great lengths to slightly or moderately impair its agents.
Furthermore, some experts question the plausibility of the scientific basis behind these claims. “No one has discovered microwaves, acoustic waves, etc., that could cause the symptoms. The question is unresolved and likely won’t be until more information is available,” Kenneth Foster, professor emeritus of bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania, told MintPress in 2021, adding:
“I have not been able to find a plausible exposure scenario in which pulsed microwaves could cause the reported effects. So far, more than 300 people worldwide have reported ‘symptoms,’ and it is simply inconceivable that someone could direct microwaves of sufficient intensity at them to produce effects without it being noticed.”
Some have drawn parallels between the Havana Syndrome and the “Yellow Rain” phenomenon of the 1980s. While patrolling the region, U.S. forces in Southeast Asia noticed a yellow substance on leaves. They immediately feared the worst and suspected a chemical weapons attack, although no casualties were recorded. State Department officials amplified this notion and formally accused the Soviet Union of supplying communist forces in the region with weapons of mass destruction. The story became a national scandal that persisted throughout much of the early 1980s—only for the U.S. to admit years later that the yellow substance on the leaves was actually honeybee excrement.
Media of the national security state
CBS News’ own connections to the national security state should also not be ignored. Last year, the Ellison family acquired the network – the first building block of a large media empire that now also includes CNN and TikTok.
Larry Ellison, currently the sixth richest person in the world, made his fortune as the founder of the technology giant Oracle. He began his career in the tech industry as a contractor for the CIA. In fact, Oracle itself is named after Project Oracle, a CIA project Ellison worked on in the 1970s. For a time, the CIA was Oracle’s sole client, until the company began to expand and win contracts with other departments of the national security apparatus.
Since its inception, Oracle has acted as the privatized face of the CIA, allowing Langley to outsource his work to an officially private company. This relationship continues to this day. In 2020, Oracle received a share of a multi-billion-dollar cloud computing contract from the CIA. Two years later, the company won a $9 billion contract with the Department of Defense to supply the military with high-tech weapons systems.
Ellison is a vocal supporter, major political donor, and close confidant of President Trump, who personally approved his acquisition of TikTok. “I like Larry Ellison,” Trump said, calling him a “great guy.” In fact, he wields so much influence in the White House that one Trump insider referred to him as the “shadow president of the United States.”
As expected, Ellison quickly transformed CBS News into an openly pro-Trump outlet, appointing prominent anti-woke campaigner Bari Weiss as the network’s editor-in-chief. For astute observers, it should therefore come as little surprise that the network is now reviving dubious narratives about the Havana Syndrome, which could serve as a casus belli. In war, as the saying goes, truth is always the first casualty.
