Cuba has evidence that a sickness called “Havana Syndrome” wasn’t caused by a foreign enemy, and furthermore is upset with the United States for not acknowledging such evidence sooner. A worldwide US intelligence investigation regarding the syndrome was declassified recently, and confirmed Cuba’s evidence. Apparently the sickness had infected US diplomats and spies, which the US took personally and subsequently accused Cuba of purposely creating and spreading the sickness. Cuba’s deputy minister of foreign affairs has commented on the topic extensively. He claims that the US used the debate as a strategy to discredit Cuba as a nation. For years the US government cited the potential of Cuba having poisoned their diplomats as a reason to avoid working with Cuba and/or developing diplomacy. The Trump administration also spread lies about Cuba (harboring fugitives and rebel leaders) and kept the country on the US backlist of state sponsors of terrorism. Cuba received this as a microaggression. The compilation of visa services however could definitely be seen as an outright aggression considering the sheer number of Cubans who have lost their lives taking dangerous and risky routes towards Florida.
So this article required quite a bit of research considering I had no idea that the “Havana Syndrome” thing even happened. I guess that could also be a testament to the relationship (or lack thereof) between the US and Cuba. Anyway, I think there is certainly a connection to be drawn between the extremely delayed release of this US investigation that invalidates Trumps’ claims regarding the sicknesses and the fact that he is now out of office… Personally, I feel like the FBI and CIA must’ve either been so bored that they agreed to research this or petulantly forced to go into a bunch of countries investigating a fabricated lead (they literally created 3D models of the incident locations and, I quote, “considered extraterrestrials.”). The conclusion that has appeared at least 23 times in the last three articles I’ve read is a resigned “it is very unlikely that a foreign adversary is responsible.” Although no one said it outright, it seems that this was one of the plots (by the administration at the time) to raise suspicion of certain countries, specifically Cuba (obviously) but also Russia, as they briefly blamed it on Moscow and used this as justification for probe searches of the foreign administration.
This might be a stretch, and there’s definitely a plethora of relevant topics we learned about in class that I could apply to this situation, but I found myself most interestingly reminded of the conversation we had about Reagan’s Star Wars Program (SDI) during the Cold War. Although the Trump administration operated a solid unipolar power as opposed to Reagan’s race against the Soviet Union, many of his statements and attempts at policy mimicked the same tone of this particular Reagan move. Anti-ballistic missiles that can defy all kinds of gravity to shoot down missiles in space sounds like a sci-fi movie, as does a secret Cuban or Russian agent working in secret labs to develop an undetectable sound frequency that, when directed at US diplomats specifically, will cause about a month of curable sickness.