U.S. to expel nearly two-thirds of Cuban embassy staff - U.S. sources

[snoop1130]

U.S. to expel nearly two-thirds of Cuban embassy staff - U.S. sources

By Patricia Zengerle and Matt Spetalnick

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration will order nearly two-thirds of Cuba's diplomatic personnel to leave the United States after months of mysterious "attacks" that have damaged the health of American embassy staff in Havana, according to a congressional source and a person familiar with the plan.

 

The U.S. State Department is expected to announce the expulsion on Tuesday, the sources said on Monday.

 

The decision follows an announcement on Friday that the United States was cutting its diplomatic presence in Cuba by more than half as it warned U.S. citizens not to visit because of unexplained incidents that have caused hearing loss, dizziness and fatigue in U.S. embassy personnel.

 

The latest plan was first reported by the Miami Herald, which cited a source as saying the expulsion of Cuban personnel was in "reciprocity" for the U.S. drawdown from Havana.

 

The steps being taken by President Donald Trump’s administration mark a further blow to his predecessor Barack Obama’s policy of rapprochement between Washington and Havana, former Cold War foes.

 

The State Department declined to comment on an expulsion plan, except to say that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson “continues to evaluate steps that the Department can take to ensure the Cuban government is accountable to its responsibility to protect diplomats.”

 

Several Cuban-American Republican lawmakers, including U.S Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, had urged that Cuban diplomats be expelled in retaliation for the Cuban government’s failure to get to the bottom of the attacks.

 

Trump administration officials planned to brief lawmakers on their Cuba policy on Tuesday, another congressional aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

 

AT LEAST 21 U.S. EMBASSY STAFFERS AFFECTED

 

The State Department announced on Friday that in addition to drawing down staff in Havana to essential personnel, the embassy was halting regular visa operations for Cubans seeking to visit the United States and would offer only emergency services to U.S. citizens.

 

At least 21 U.S. embassy employees in Cuba have been injured and reported symptoms such as hearing loss, dizziness, headache, fatigue, cognitive issues, and difficulty sleeping, the State Department said on Friday.

 

Cuba's Foreign Ministry Chief for U.S. Affairs Josefina Vidal said last week that the U.S. decision to reduce staff at its Havana embassy was hasty and will affect bilateral relations,

 

Cuba, the United States and Canada have investigated the attacks, but the probe has not yielded any answers about how they were carried out or who was responsible for them.

 

Cuba has denied involvement in the attacks. The State Department has not directly blamed Havana for them but asked two Cuban diplomats to leave Washington in May.

 

The U.S. measures will stop short of breaking off relations or closing the two countries’embassies, which reopened in 2015 following more than five decades of hostility.

 

But the bizarre case has brought simmering U.S.-Cuba tensions since Trump took office to a boil.

 

Trump, who in June vowed to partially roll back the detente with Cuba agreed by his Democratic predecessor Obama, called the Cuban government "corrupt and destabilising" in his address to the United Nations General Assembly last month.

 

He said he would not lift the U.S. trade embargo on the Caribbean island until it made "fundamental reforms." Cuba described his comments as "unacceptable and meddling."

 

(Reporting By Patricia Zengerle and Matt Spetalnick, additional reporting by Yara Bayoumy; Editing by Paul Tait and Michael Perry)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-10-3

[Boon Mee]

Commies not welcome... 

[ilostmypassword]

Mr. Trump said Tuesday that there would be some sort of discussion about gun legislation, but was not specific.

“We will be talking about gun laws as time goes by,” Mr. Trump said as he prepared to leave Washington for hurricane-battered Puerto Rico.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/03/us/las-vegas-shooting-live-updates.html

 

And like most other things having to do with Trump, it will be just talk. For him, the fundamental things, such as actually achieving something, do not apply.

[jcsmith]

If Cuba was behind the attacks on US embassy personnel then I'm all for it. But it almost seems like this is being used as an excuse in this case. The Cuban government offered to assist on investigating the matter and were rebuffed by the US government weeks ago.

[craigt3365]

8 hours ago, Boon Mee said:

Commies not welcome... 

Only ones that commit crimes.  In this case, that's a huge possibility.

[manarak]

6 hours ago, jcsmith said:

If Cuba was behind the attacks on US embassy personnel then I'm all for it. But it almost seems like this is being used as an excuse in this case. The Cuban government offered to assist on investigating the matter and were rebuffed by the US government weeks ago.

 

the cases of sickness in Cuba are very mysterious.

even more mysterious would be the Cubans' motivations, since they seem eager to normalize relations and hope to put an end to trade sanctions.

also, why would such a poor country invest heavily in sonic weapons tech?

and what would be the goal of these sonic attacks? to make US embasy staff feel unwell? can that be considered a major objective?

 

or could it rather be a third party interested in driving a wedge between the US and Cuba by causing suspicion and distrust?

 

 

[craigt3365]

6 hours ago, jcsmith said:

If Cuba was behind the attacks on US embassy personnel then I'm all for it. But it almost seems like this is being used as an excuse in this case. The Cuban government offered to assist on investigating the matter and were rebuffed by the US government weeks ago.

The US government is looking for assurances from Cuba this won't happen again.  They aren't saying Cuba is responsible, just want a guarantee it won't happen again.

 

It's now thought the attack could have been a virus or toxin.  It's being looked into.  This is serious stuff and people's lives have been changed for ever.

 

Kinda hard to argue with their reasoning for this:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/03/us-orders-cuban-diplomats-leave-washington-embassy-sonic-attacks

Quote

The state department said the expulsions did not necessarily mean the US had concluded that the Cuban government was responsible for a variety of symptoms including hearing loss, headaches and cognitive problems, but it said Cuba had failed to live up to its obligations under international law to protect diplomats.

 

[craigt3365]

Just now, manarak said:

or could it rather be a third party interested in driving a wedge between the US and Cuba by causing suspicion and distrust?

 

 

Prime suspect would be Russia.

 

http://www.newsweek.com/russia-us-attack-cuba-officials-649546

Quote

 

The incidents were said to have taken place in late 2016, a time when the U.S. was accusing Russia of interfering in its election. President Barack Obama later expelled 35 Russian diplomats and ordered the closure of two Russian compounds in the U.S.

 

In the 1960s, during the Cold War, the U.S. government discovered that its embassy in Moscow had been besieged with low-level microwaves.

 

 

[craigt3365]

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/25/the-secret-history-of-diplomats-and-invisible-weapons-russia-cuba/

Quote

The Soviets, it turned out, were bombarding the embassy in Moscow with low-level microwaves. The “Moscow Signal,” as officials in Washington called the radiation, was too low to do any obvious harm to the people in the building

 

[craigt3365]

From the link above:

Yet it was also a hundred times more powerful than the Soviets’ maximum exposure standards, which were much more stringent than those of the United States. That was cause for alarm.

[manarak]

Just now, craigt3365 said:

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/25/the-secret-history-of-diplomats-and-invisible-weapons-russia-cuba/

 

they were probably doing this to try to disrupt NSA spionage activities

[craigt3365]

2 minutes ago, manarak said:

 

they were probably doing this to try to disrupt NSA spionage activities

Possible.  So it would be OK for the US to do the same to Russian employees in Washington doing exactly the same thing?

[manarak]

4 minutes ago, craigt3365 said:

Possible.  So it would be OK for the US to do the same to Russian employees in Washington doing exactly the same thing?

 

yes, I think there is a strong probability that the US also apply jamming to the Russian Embassy and annexes or some other countermeasure.

 

as you said yourself, the intensity was too low to cause any damage.

I'm certain that US spionage and counter-spionage agencies also don't mind too much if exceeding environmental health standards as long as it doesn't lead to obvious problems.

Edited October 3, 2017 by manarak

[craigt3365]

Just now, manarak said:

 

yes, I think there is a strong probability that the US also apply jamming to the Russian Embassy and annexes or some other countermeasure.

 

as you said yourself, the intensity was too low to cause any damage.

I'm certain that US spionage and counter-spionage agencies also don't mind too much if exceeding environmental health standards as long as it doesn't lead to obvious problems.

How do you know it was too low to cause damage?  It was way over Russian standards, yet directed towards citizens of the US.

 

In Cuba, families of employees have been hurt.  Perhaps with permanent damage. 

 

From that article.  Seems it was proven the microwaves were harmful.

Quote

In December 1966, Cesaro reported that the first monkey involved in the tests had demonstrated “two repetitive, complete slowdowns and stoppages” as a result of exposure to the Moscow Signal. “There is no question that penetration of the central nervous system has been achieved, either directly or indirectly into that portion of the brain concerned with the changes in the work functions and the effects observed,” Cesaro wrote.

 

But hey, it's all the fault of the US.

[manarak]

6 minutes ago, craigt3365 said:

How do you know it was too low to cause damage?  It was way over Russian standards, yet directed towards citizens of the US.

 

In Cuba, families of employees have been hurt.  Perhaps with permanent damage. 

 

From that article.  Seems it was proven the microwaves were harmful.

 

But hey, it's all the fault of the US.

 

I think there was enough exposure of humans to the waves, so any obvious problems would have been reported.

maybe damage was caused, but in this case it was too minor to be noticed.

 

and nobody says it's the fault of the US. everyone is just playing the game. no rules, no referee. possibly no winners either.

but what certainly is wrong, is portraying either parties, including the US, as choirboys.

Edited October 4, 2017 by manarak

[craigt3365]

5 minutes ago, manarak said:

 

I think there was enough exposure of humans to the waves, so any obvious problems would have been reported.  maybe damage was caused, but in this case it was too minor to be noticed.

 

and nobody says it's the fault of the US. everyone is just playing the game. no rules, no referee.  but what certainly is wrong, is portraying either parties, including the US, as choirboys.

Who on this form has ever portrayed the US as choirboys!

[manarak]

By the way, health effects of the Moscow Signal have been studied in depth:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3509929/

 

Conclusion: no effects could be detected.

Edited October 4, 2017 by manarak

[craigt3365]

7 minutes ago, manarak said:

By the way, health effects of the Moscow Signal have been studied in depth:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3509929/

 

Conclusion: no effects could be detected.

And yes in this study, from the same website, they don't agree and think more research is needed.  Let's agree that currently, science isn't perfect and we've got no idea whether this had an impact on people's health or not.  Impossible to say one way or another.  But it did happen. 

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9814721

Quote

A review of statistically significant health effects noted in the Lilienfeld Study provided evidence that the disregarded health conditions match the cluster attributed to the radiofrequency sickness syndrome, thus establishing a possible correlation between health effects and chronic exposure to low-intensity, modulated microwave radiation. The author discusses these health effects relative to (a) exposure parameters recorded at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and (b) the Soviet 10-microwatt safety standard for the public. Given the evidence, new research-with current knowledge and technology-is proposed.

 

Also this:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26556835

Quote

The Soviets irradiated the US Embassy in Moscow with microwaves during the period 1953-1975, and while no convincing evidence of elevated cancer rates was reported, there were reports of "microwave illness". Officials passed these complaints off as being due to anxiety, not effects of the microwave exposure. There is increasing evidence that the "microwave syndrome" or "electro-hypersensitivity" (EHS) is a real disease that is caused by exposure to EMFs, especially those in the microwave range.

 

[Srikcir]

23 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

the expulsion of Cuban personnel was in "reciprocity" for the U.S. drawdown from Havana.

A twisted excuse.

It was the US that ordered the drawdown of US personnel from Havana - not Cuba. So the US retaliates against its own action by expelling Cuban personnel in the US? That makes about as much sense as Trump thanking Putin for saving the US money by expelling hundreds US embassy personnel from its Russia embassy.

[craigt3365]

39 minutes ago, Srikcir said:

A twisted excuse.

It was the US that ordered the drawdown of US personnel from Havana - not Cuba. So the US retaliates against its own action by expelling Cuban personnel in the US? That makes about as much sense as Trump thanking Putin for saving the US money by expelling hundreds US embassy personnel from its Russia embassy.

And that's just what Trump did! LOL