by Ramin Mazaheri for the Saker Blog
I can’t think of another story I’ve reported on which was so completely, 100% devoid of facts….
The allegations of Cuban “sonic attacks” are a complete and total joke. If you believe one iota of this scandalous insult to human honesty and decency – you are dangerously gullible.
Why are only White workers in the US and Canadian embassies reporting health problems, when Cubans act as embassy guards, janitors, etc.? Are injurious sound waves racist?
I talked to Cubans guarding the abandoned Canadian embassy: they said their health is totally fine. The US embassy is in a densely-populated area – hundreds of locals should have been impacted, but nobody has reported any problems.
Scientists of all nationalities have declared: the idea that imperceptible sonic waves can cause brain damage is against the laws of acoustic physics. Scientists are entirely too charitable when they attribute as “mass hysteria” the self-reported and unproven “physical affects”.
Therefore: All you US and Canadian “diplomats”, and your damned families, and anybody else making these claims, are all just damned liars!
The US embassy in Tehran – which was occupied by protesters in 1979, shut down, and converted into a museum – was called the “den of spies” only because Iranians are sticklers for honesty.
Why anybody would believe the claims of these obviously paid-to-lie intelligence operatives working in Havana is beyond me. I don’t even know why Havana let them reopen an embassy here!
I’m sure the reason is tourism – Cuba needs the money, and the visa paperwork has to be completed. Sadly & infuriatingly, it was just announced that Cuban tourism from the US has dropped 40% since the “sonic attacks” began being reported as the gospel truth just one month after Trump took office.
The “sonic attacks” are a weapon against the Cuban people, not by the Cuban people – this is diplomatic and economic warfare.
Here is the real truth behind the “sonic attacks”: They never happened, and are scientifically impossible. This is a massive lie to the American public in order to:
1) Roll back the modest diplomatic steps forward taken under Obama, 2) Shutter US & Canadian embassies, thus reducing visas and also the already-limited business ties permitted under the ongoing international blockade, 3) Justify a further hardening the genocidal blockade, 4) Give cover to provide official “travel advisories” in order to scare US tourists and thus sabotage the tourism sector of the Cuban economy. Of course, the overall goal is to create enough pain, death & instability to spark a civil war in order to reverse Cuba’s democratic choice of a socialist-based system and to restore US control of Cuba (currently limited to only a naval base in Guantanamo).
The incredible thing is that Americans believe the lie. It seems that – no matter how big or lacking in proof – they are culturally incapable of even considering the possibility that their own government could ever issue something called “propaganda”; they also honestly believe that American mainstream journalism is “objective”, and even about longtime enemies like Cuba.
Indeed, how many times have US news anchors reported on the “sonic attacks” with the utmost gravity…despite there never being any actual evidence? It is appalling that – after all these months without proof – the US media is not howling for blood from the Trump administration, in order to salvage their own reputations and consciences. They apparently don’t have the latter.
They instead continue to report the assurances of totally biased sources such as Marco Rubio, who recently said that the FBI has “made a lot of progress” in finding proof for the attacks…and they do it without providing a counter-view limited to a 1-sentence denial by Havana. Just terrible journalism…when did “journalism” become just parroting the government line to the total exclusion of fact-checking?
What is not galling is journalism which is mediocre, but the self-sanctified hypocrisy that American media is somehow “freer” than in other nations.
You can even read of how the longstanding Iranian-Cuban ties may have allowed Iran to mastermind these “attacks”. LOL, the best thing about that absurdity is that it reminds people of the longstanding ties between Cuba and Iran, two socialist countries.
Cuba was one of the first countries to recognise the Iranian Revolution, in obvious appreciation of the Iranian Islamic Socialist model. Iran has invested more than $1 billion in more than 60 (mutually beneficial) projects in Cuba since 2005. Cuba would only have only “allowed” us to “mastermind” these attacks against North American imperialists because of the exceptionally-close ideological ties with our Cuban (mostly non-Islamic) Socialist brothers and sisters…if only the rules of science (and morality) did not totally prevent the possibility of super-quiet “sonic attacks”.
I feel bad for the genuinely-concerned Cuban authorities who were forced to take this seriously for so many months:
“Has anyone heard of such a weapon existing? How many of our people are hurt? Is somebody using a new weapon on our territory? Is there some rogue force within our own government trying to undermine our own policy of détente? Who? Should we let American investigators in for the first time in 50 years? We will? Is that a safe idea for us? What on earth is going on?!?!?!
Those were undoubtedly genuine conversations; genuine follow-up work was undoubtedly undertaken, uselessly.
But this has been a waste of my time, too! Why should I be reporting about some group of lies told by liars with no concern for other people’s time? It’s not fun to do a report of: “Look at how stupid this all is”. Some journalists get their jollies by being smug, but I don’t. It is depressing – I mean…how dumb can Americans be?!
Sadly, if we look at history we see the answer: Incredibly dumb…and dishonest, insensitive, uncaring, immoral and – above all – manipulated to the detriment of their own interests.
But that is not fair: This is just one story among many in the world; a majority of Americans do not support the blockade against Cuba anymore; the number of people benefiting or supporting the blockade and the falsely named “sonic attacks” is a tiny coterie of reactionaries in Miami and not the average American.
The “sonic attacks” appear to be a certain winner for “US Lie of the Decade”: for more than 1 year they have been in the news despite a total lack of evidence, and – as the drop in tourism shows – they have negatively impacted the lives of the average person in a non-US country. The false allegations of a chemical attack by the Syrian government on Syrians never did not lead to a massive change in policy, although that was the West’s hope.
I have come up with previous winners in previous decades below. However, let’s keep in mind that these lies are all examples of class warfare, and not really of “American stupidity”: Americans opposed every policy which produced this list, which is truly just an homage to Western capitalism-imperialism.
‘US Lies of the Decade’ – Is your country a winner?
“US Lie of the Decade – 2000s”: Iraq’s alleged Weapons of Mass Destruction
To me, and to many Iranians, the irony was: Hussein had already violated the single-most important rule of international politics – thou shalt not invade – not once (Iran), but twice (Kuwait). That should have provided all the justification needed to invade and capture Hussein, in order to try him according to international law (but never to permit American occupation, nor all the subsequent crimes). Hussein also used mass chemical weapons against Iran – another possible justification for an internationally-approved invasion.
But because nobody in America cares about Iranians, Kuwaitis or defending international law – despite claiming to be “the leader of the free world” at every opportunity – the WMDs were invented, and then promoted by intelligence tools like the New York Times’ Judith Miller, and then defended at the United Nations by the most reputable American they could find (Colin Powell).
If the Americans had invaded, captured Hussein and left, the lack of WMDs could have been fairly regarded as an honest mistake…but Iraq is still under occupation.
“US Lie of the Decade – 1990s”: Claims of goodwill towards the ex-USSR
When the USSR imploded Gorbachev did what nobody in their right mind would do – rush right into the arms of their longtime enemy.
But, even before dissolution, Gorbachev spent the 1980s negotiating away Soviet advantages despite getting nothing in return. When he finally achieved his goal, Gorbachev appeared to actually believe that the US was actually going to help improve the standard of living of the average person in the USSR. The 1990s proved him wrong, and in an extremely painful manner.
Instead of reacting with horror to the drastic drop in living conditions in the former USSR, the US government and media couldn’t have cared less…because the new oligarch class they took under their wing was to blame, of course. The idea that the US was “promoting democracy” in the former USSR will forever be easily disproven by the Time magazine cover which proudly boasted of how the US undemocratically rigged Russia’s election in favor of Yeltsin.
All in all, the biggest lie of the 1990s truly is: “Socialism has failed”. It hasn’t, but it was sabotaged / undermined / attacked / abandoned in some regions. Fortunately it remains strong in others – China, Iran, Cuba, Eritrea, etc.
Honorary second-runner up: That the creation of the modern European Union (1992 Maastricht Treaty) and the introduction of the euro currency (1999) would increase democracy and equality. LOL, that was a good one, too!
“US Lie of the Decade – 1980s”: The cold-blooded mass murder of Iran Air Flight 655
I will be accused of bias, but this is my list. The constant lie that this was a “mistake” is completely disproven by the fact that no one on the ship was ever disciplined, that the crew all got medals (which is what soldiers get for successful combat attacks), and that the US Navy ship fired from inside Iranian waters.
No Iranian will ever forget this, and it was obviously sent as a message to Iran (just 1 month from concluding 8 years of Western-foisted war with Iraq): the US is ready to wipe you all out, even if our attack dog Iraq failed.
“US Lie of the Decade – 1970s”: The US is not involved militarily in Laos or Cambodia
Laos became the “most bombed country ever“ while Cambodia was attacked despite being a neutral country. This ties into the next entry on this list.
“US Lie of the Decade – 1960s”: The Gulf of Tonkin Incidents
These never happened, but permitted the escalation of the US & French Wars Against Vietnamese Independence.
“US Lie of the Decade – 1950s”: The Korean “Conflict”
It was not a “conflict” nor a “police action” but a “war”, and not a war between Koreas but the “US War Against Korean Democratic Socialism”.
You can say that North Korea is not democratic in 2018 all you want, but in 1950 the Korean peninsula would have democratically gone over to socialism, just like Vietnam would, if they had not been targeted by a horrific US invasion and bombing campaign which was the world’s worst until Laos. Korea remains divided and occupied today.
“US Lie of the Decade – 1940s”: The US could never possibly work alongside the same fascists in Germany and Japan whom US soldiers had just died fighting
Or in Italy and Greece. Or with Vichy France supporters, both those in Europe and across their colonial empire in the Muslim world. But the US did, of course.
Indeed, Germany and Japan somehow “lost” World War II, and yet are today’s dominant economies in Europe and East Asia (until the rise of China). Their penance appeared to have lasted all of 15 minutes?
The truth and the reason for this simply must be: Japan and Germany did not “lose” World War II – they only allied with Washington after some extremely difficult negotiating sessions.
“US Lie of the Decade – 1930s”: Poor state planning and revolutionary changes in agriculture led to millions of peasant deaths in the Ukraine and the USSR…but not even one of all those dispossessed US Dust Bowl farmers ever died of hunger
Or perhaps, as in the end of The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, US women donated enough breast milk to keep millions of homeless farmers from starvation? That’s about as likely an idea as the idea that poverty, homelessness, debt and forced migration did not increase mortality rates during this era.
If Russians are to accept the estimates of US researchers, which not vice versa? They found 7 million US peasant deaths in this decade.
This is getting rather long (but has been rather easy to think up) so I’m going to stay Cuba-focused here, as they make a 2nd entrance on this list:
“US Lie of the Decade – 1890s”: The sinking of the USS Maine in Cuba
Even US schoolchildren are taught that the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana’s harbor was the apex manipulation of the “yellow press” of New York City – notably William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer – which inflamed war hysteria in order to provoke the Spanish-American War. Perhaps in 120 years US textbooks will tell the truth of the “Cuban sonic non-attacks”?
The USS Maine was sunk under mysterious conditions (certainly, it would have been as insane for Cubans to have done it as it would have been for the Syrian government to use chemical weapons against Syrians in this decade), and it allowed the US to enter into the Cuban War for Independence (against Spain) in order to occupy Cuba. Guantanamo Bay remains occupied today as a result of this lie.
There is a huge monument in Havana reminding people of the incident…but it’s one built by the occupying Americans. I’m glad to report that Cubans have just begun on a 2nd, prominent, seemingly quite large monument right across from the US monument which is dedicated to the true story of the Maine. One day, American tourists will see it and remark, “Oh yeah, ‘Remember the Maine…now where’s the bar?’” Cubans will remark, “Oh yeah, we can’t put up with the US any longer, no matter how bad their lies and blockades”.
In 2018 the US is thus repeating their independence-hating history in Latin America, with everyday Cubans victimised yet again – so say so the next time you hear someone talking about it.
And, if can afford it, ignore the fearmongering and visit Cuba (and not with a US cruise ship).
Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. His work has appeared in various journals, magazines and websites, as well as on radio and television. He can be reached on Facebook.
“I can’t think of another story I’ve reported on which was so completely, 100% devoid of facts….
The allegations of Cuban “sonic attacks” are a complete and total joke. If you believe one iota of this scandalous insult to human honesty and decency – you are dangerously gullible.”
Or a pindo zombie.
When I read this story, I thought: ‘Oh, if there is anything that these north-americans are hearing, it is NOT sonic weapons, as they say. They are hearing Cubans singing in the roads and public squares — because the Cuban people are cheerful! For the north-americans, sounds of Cuban cheerfulness would sound like sonic weapons, wouldn’t they? And, of course, north-americans would not tolerate sounds of happiness coming from the streets of Cuba, would they?’
As a Brazilian, I know that we would sing, as well, if we were as fortunate as the Cubans and had a government as good as they do (thanks to the people’s revolution, with Fidel and Che Guevara!). Despite the AZ sanctions – and the pain it inflicts on Cuban people -, people praise the government above anything else, and the security it provides to all. They know how bad it could be for the majority if the revolution was lost.
Instead, in Brazil, we despair and cry, again and again, with relentless interferences, coups d’état, plunder…
Mr. Mazaheri is apparently fortunate in not having much exposure to the American corporate media. Everything in the fake news these days is “completely devoid of facts.”
Ramin,
Thanks much for this article. By coincidence, I’ve been thinking the past few days that it would be useful to draw up a list of recent journalistic “failures” on the part of the New York Times.
This, because there are millions of Americans — including a large number of my friends — who still believe it is an objective, unbiased, respectable source for international news. They will concede that “mistakes were made” regarding WMDs in Iraq, but this doesn’t shake their deep-seated confidence in the NYT.
I suspect part of the reason they cling to the NYT is because they hope against hope that it is somehow one of the last bastions of real journalism in the horrible US mediascape. They may still listen to NPR, but the corporate sponsorship worries them. They know that CNN is garbage. Fox is too right-wing for them. WaPo too swampy. Salon and Huffpo too lightweight. But at the same time, the chaos of the Internet unnerves them. They are too scared of the blogosphere. A site like the Vineyard is too “out there” and too raw for their sensibilities.
In this situation, it seems important to present a very clear, concise argument against the NYT, the undermine the false confidence of those who cling to it.
We can see this confused, desperate attitude in Spielberg’s recent film The Post, which is openly nostalgic for a time when journalists had the courage to go up against criminal governments, the irony being that Spielberg seems to think that Trump is the Nixon de nos jours, and that somehow the US MSM needs our support to do the right thing.
I submit that this systemic problem with what passes for mainstream journalism is an important problem to address, beyond specific instances of lies/propaganda as in the case of the absurd story of “sonic attacks” in Cuba.
If time permits, I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on this (and maybe also your take on the decision to ban cryptos in Iran).
Why focus on only ‘recent failures’? One could publish a long series of thick books detailing the entire history of failures and lies of the NYT. Like the game of thrones books, there could always be another volume published whenever one ran short on cash.
I used to read an American alternative journalist named Al Giordano (or something close) who’s website reported on events south of the US border. He regularly gave specific examples that the reports in the NYT were almost always false and misleading and slanted almost beyond recognition of what was really going on.
Or, one could print perhaps one volume of the world’s shortest book detailing the times when the NYT told the truth honestly and without bias.
If you want to start on that long series, by all means be my guest :)
I was thinking a focus on recent examples might make it easier to convince those with a weak knowledge of history. It would also help to underscore that the propaganda and practices of distortion are ongoing.
I used to read an American alternative journalist named Al Giordano (or something close) who’s website reported on events south of the US border. He regularly gave specific examples that the reports in the NYT were almost always false and misleading and slanted almost beyond recognition of what was really going on.
http://narconews.com/
This is what happens when you leave the propaganda interns unsurpervised.
Oh boy!so true!
I know a fair bit about acoustics and hearing, so I could recognize this one as nonsense immediately. I don’t know much about poisons, so I was fooled for a few days by the exactly parallel Skripal theater.
Both are the same. Nothing actually happens. Employees of the “victim” spy agency pretend to be injured, and the spy agency builds its own pretending into a reason to destroy the world.
Stripped down to the basics:
Nothing happened, therefore we need to obliterate the world.
“when did “journalism” become just parroting the government line to the total exclusion of fact-checking?”
Answer:
Right after common sense restrictions and regulations were discarded and Zionists were allowed to gain contol of the media.
Control of the media has never been about money.
If money is derived from it then that is just a bonus.
The real aim is to determine what the goyim hear/see or not hear/see.
Selah
In America, it was during the 1980’s.
America used to have restrictions on media ownership. A person or a corporation was limited in being able to own only a small number of newspapers, radio stations or TV stations.
Ronald Reagan destroyed the regulations, thereby making legal the mass ownership of American media and the death of independent media. Now only a small handful of corporations own all American media. Reagan also destroyed rules that were known as the “Fairness Doctrine” which mandated that stations give “equal time” to competing political parties and points of view. Can one imagine that if Fox News or MSDNC gave one hour to partisan Republican or Democrat politics, that they then had to give an hour to coverage of the other party and possibly to other political opinions as well? That’s what Reagan destroyed.
One used to see local TV stations give a plainly labeled ‘editorial’ commentary on a topic. Then, on following nights, you’d see other groups giving a ‘reply’ to this editorial and expressing other opinions. That’s what TV was like when I was growing up. And the stations were locally owned, so that ‘editorial’ was the independent point of view of the station owner, not of a national conglomerate. I suppose this is also the reason why editorials were plainly and clearly separated from news coverage, as today’s practice of having editorial opinions and news coverage intertwined in the same piece would have led to a station having to give ‘equal time’ for its entire news programming.
Thank you Ronald Reagan for helping to destroy America and in creating today’s mono-news propaganda machine.
What ever the Hegemon is doing it accuses its antithesis of doing.
What ever the Hegemon don’t want its antithesis to do it accuses them of doing (think of S-400 deployment in Syria prior to Turks downing the SU-24; or “Iran X & Y in Syria”; or like recently that Iran have recruited 80.000 Shia’s in Syria).
Sonic attacks is something the US will do post WWIII outbreak through Project Bluebeam and HAARP.
Excellent piece — hats off to Ramin Mazaheri. There is only one passage that I have to disagree with:
“Instead of reacting with horror to the drastic drop in living conditions in the former USSR, the US government and media couldn’t have cared less”
Quite the opposite — the brutal immiseration of the Russian people was 100% deliberate, driven by insatiable greed, psychotic hatred, and the Satanists’ premature conclusion that victory was final/total.
As regards the Pindos and their corporate media, it’s highly reminiscent of flies and excrements. The fouler the smell, the better.
Having worked in American corporations, I’d say it was almost entirely their “insatiable greed”. That’s what they focus on. That is their entire guage of success of failure in life.
I never sensed a hatred of Russians in particular in either corporate environments or in the public at large. The corporation I worked for had sales and dealerships in Russia, and I spend some good times drinking with our Russian dealers and technicians at trade shows. There was never any corporate animosity towards Russia. All they wanted to do was to find a way to increase sales there.
I’m not saying that the effects upon Russia that you describe are not true. Of course it did happen. But, in American, the God is Money, and the goal at all times is to grab as much money as you can. It was pure greed, and if the Russian people suffered from this, that was immaterial.
After all, the same corporations and elites are now doing the same to the American people, whose living standards are now declining and who’s life expectancy is now shortening. Its not hatred, its just greed. Pure unadulturated, insatiable, more money at all costs, greed.
My wife and I really liked Cuba.
Sonic Attacks can actually be very real. The Americans use them a lot for protest crowd dispersal. Strangely enough, they can also be pleasurable, though still dangerous to human hearing and mental health, especially when combined with strong pulsonic lighting. Anyone liable to epilepsy can be seriously affected, but they can have the equivalent of a psychedelic mental effect, on a large audience, without the use of any mind alterating drugs whatsoever. I first experienced it at Salford University, England in 1972, when Lemmy (Motorhead) was still playing with Hawkwind. They knew exactly what they were doing, and Lemmy now deceased, has since admitted it. I understand the main component of the effect is low frequency repetetive sound, typically played very loud on a bass guitar, but also combined with electronic sound. (Lemmy – Motorhead – last played in Moscow, about a year before he died).
I still find Hawkwind really enjoyable, but it may well be associated, with what is undeniably a loss of hearing in my old age, and also the fact that some people find me a bit eccentric (mad)
I do not want to endanger any visitors to this website, so if you feel the slightest bit vulnerable, do not click on this link, though it contains no flashing lights (it was a free festival – highly enjoyable). My wife and I are going to see Hawkwind again later this year. (I reckon they are better than Pink Floyd).
“Hawkwind – Sonic Attack – (Live at Stonehenge Free Festival, UK, 1984)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgUYq_QAkw4
Tony
Tony,
There is also a device called ‘Mosquito’, tuned to a pitch that is extremely annoying only to adolescents (older people lose the ability to detect that pitch due either to a physical maturing or the onset of the very slow but natural hearing loss of aging– it isn’t clear which is the culprit in this case but older people don’t register any annoyance).
These small, unobtrusive and commercially available gadgets are in use in places where youths gather and hang about in an unwanted fashion.
I haven’t heard of such a gadget that discriminates only against white people though, as in the Cuban example.
Dogs of course respond to a different, higher range of sound that humans cannot hear (hence the term dog-whistle in politics) so sonic effects, if not attacks, are somewhat plausible.
BTW, Lemmy in Hawkwind and in the original Motorhead lineup always had a welcome, drug-free and absolutely energising sonic effect on me too, but then so do bagpipes and the duduk I heard played live for the first time on Tuesday night in Islington. ;)
I can confirm what Tony says as i was also a student at Salford University from 1971 to 1974…at first during Freshers Week, most of us stood right near the loudspeakers….then we learnt that the Bass was just a little too loud….it definitely affected the hearthbeat as well as the hearing…but it was a great feeling to be totally absorbed into the soundwaves…
Luckily Salford University also had a good acoustics lab and i was a guinea pig for a fellow student, to test my hearing loss after one of the heavy rock concerts…;oD
Can anyone remember the brilliant Avengers episode when Steed and Emma Peel were investigating a killing by sound wave?
The Israelis use this today to control crowds…I can confirm one_minions point that a similar method is used today in UK Shopping Centres to prevent younger people from loitering in Hallways…younger people can hear it and be disturbed by it, whilst older ones dont hear it…its not fatal just unpleasant…and indeed there are similar devices you can use on dogs, to modify their behaviour…
But the Cuban stuff is totally obviously a fabrication…why anyway should the Cubans bother to do anything like that? and a simple survey of cuban staffers is enough to convince me this is nonsense…
Mr. Mazaheri made the excellent point that its very odd that such a weapon would not effect Cubans working at the embassy or just outside as for instance security guards.
And, in terms of this whole thing, it should be possible to detect any such weapon by mounting sensitive microphones that are able to pick up high or low of the human hearing range around the building. Or, if its in the high range, I suppose dogs could also work.
Of course, its impossible to prove a negative, especially against creative liars who just generatre more lies to ‘refute’ whatever actual evidence is shown of the lack of such a weapon.
One thought that just occurred to me is that perhaps the Americans installed some sort of sonic anti-eavesdropping device, and that it backfired. American police use lasers bounced off windows to pick up the vibrations from the sound inside. Perhaps the Americans were worried about a similar device being used against them and spent millions on some sort of sonic defense, and its had the usual impact of an American weapons program which is that it costs a lot of money, it doesn’t really work, and perhaps in this case had negative effects on the Americans inside. Possibly this could be employed only in the most sensitive areas, so that might explain why the Cubans in the area (but not allowed into those sensitive areas of course) were not effected.
“I mean…how dumb can Americans be?!”
Well, I guess you could gauge it at least from their plain lack of sense of irony. Their self-worship makes them blind to backhanded compliments, where every other people would “get it” in an instant. This is a Pindo national trait which is extremely inviting to take advantage of.
I spend decades of my life conducting research on the effects of perceptable sonic vibrations upon the human brain. These experiments were largely conducted by standing in front of the speaker stacks at Grateful Dead concerts.
I’d say the effects were hugely positive. I changed from a youth who’d been groomed to serve in the military to a peace-loving hippie. Complete change in my thinking. Of course, its hard to isolate if this was because of the perceptable sonic vibration to which I was often exposed, or spending a large amount of time amongst peaceful and kind people in the sort of environment where everyone could drop their mental defenses and experience what’s its like to be able to be open, peaceful and loving towards others and to always receive peace, love, kindness and generosity in return. :)
The only negative effect is now that my hair is turning white, I do have a rather persistent ringing in my ears. But that goes away as soon as I tune to a live Grateful Dead performance on youtube and start dancing. :)
Great article. The recent media coverage I read spoke of concussion-like symptoms, and sustained injury to widespread brain networks, without a history of head trauma, in those affected. (That does sound dreadful!) No cause identified. It seemed like a primary target was the Canadian government since Canada is the number one source of tourists to Cuba. If someone wanted to put an immediate economic squeeze on Cuba, having the Canadian government label Cuba as a dangerous country is one way to do it. The govt didn’t label Cuba as dangerous for tourists (“no evidence, safe country”) just as dangerous for diplomats (“mysterious illness” risk).
I do love the fact that since I do not watch or listen to the American ‘news’, I’ve only heard a bit of this nonsense. And laughed at it immediately of course.
Long ago, back in the lead-up to the 3rd Iraq War (Dubya’s war), I decided to use the parental blocking obscenity controls on any TV system to completely ban the 24/7 American and BBC networks from my house. If something important is happening, say once a year, I can enter a secret code and watch the nonsense. But generally, life is much better and I am much better informed than in the days when my channel-flipping used to take me past Corporate News Network.
I love the times when people around me are talking about some nonsense story and I have no idea what they are talking about. Something stupid like a big story about shark attacks or missing blondes or a royal wedding. That just confirms to me that my strategy is working!
Those were just crickets and/or cicadas:
http://ativismoabc.org/2017/11/23/arma-sonica-cubana-nao-era-uma-arma-afinal/
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/10/us-diplomats-retreated-in-horror-of-crickets.html
Really fun reading, and I humbly referring to the style alone. The topic is as breathtaking as in most of your works!
Thus far a close tie to the rural-urban thing about the Chinese Cultural Revolution! Wish some of the members of my countriy’s goverment read that.And, sad but true, the opposition even more.
Always merit reading you!
‘US Lie of the Decade’
I don’t know there seems to be a lot of stiff competition.
“When did journalism become just parroting whatever the government says?” Easy answer: Just before the criminal US invasion of Iraq: the journalists who came to report that war, known by the government to be a grossly criminal act, were ordered to be imbedded with the US troops. Meaning of course that those who successfully reported US troop horrors could be shot in place as war related deaths.
At the end of that war, US leaders and generals were ordering the US winning troops to cut of the engorged penises of the dead Iraqis to take them home as trophies.
Or, the US normalisation of genocide.
As were the Vietnam war and the Korean war. The US airmen who bombed all the Vietnamese rice water works exclaimed how beautiful the rushing waters were. US government propaganda no-one outside the military was ever to know. But all Asian,Eurasian, Korean, Vietnamese, people know.
The West has not the amount of humans that the East contains. Just a naive bunch easily fooled fewer humans and more expensive arms, poisons and expensive propaganda than anyone else.
Right after 9-11, any real journalists who were left who question the lies of that day were fired. Even for speaking truths about how Dubya flew to Nebraska and dove into a bomb shelter over some imaginary fear that the terrorists were about to shoot down Air Force One, journalists got fired. By two years later, in the 3rd Iraq War, there weren’t any honest journalists left in the major media. They had all been purged or had gotten the message to toe the official line or lose their jobs.
In the tradition of Joe Pulitzer and his lies to start the Spanish-American war, the Pulitzer Prize for 2018 was just given to the NYT and WaPo for their “Russiagate” coverage. Old Joe Pulitzer must be proud.
Its hard to come up with a single “US Lie of the Decade” when its hard to keep up with the “US Lie of the Day.”
US Lie of the 1910’s….. In 1916, Woodrow Wilson (D) campaigned for re-election as President of the US on the slogan “He kept us out of the war”. He won the election, and very shortly after his second inauguration, the US entered WW1.
I don’t think you’ve done your homework. As an EE with a fair amount of RF and security experience – it is more than plausible that microwaves (possibly microwave holography) are the attack vector that presents. Microwaves
can be delivered with much more precision than sound waves.
If you could pull off what is probably one of the greatest single-day deceptions in history (America’s Sept. 11th Reichstag Fire) and have much of the world believe it (or at least not challenge this lie publicly), wouldn’t you be emboldened to perpetuate more outlandish lies like Cuban sonic attacks, false flag chemical attacks in Syria, Russia Stole Our Election, etc…..?
This is what has happened due to the 9-11 Lie being allowed to stand–despite the efforts of the 9-11 Truth Movement.
“The incredible thing is that Americans believe the lie.”
Mr Mazaheri very kindly lists some American lies for us – approx. one per decade – but well…. when last did any American politician, leader or lawmaker stand before the world’s press and tell the simple, clear, unvarnished truth? …….. Ever?
Because I don’t recall a single instance.
”/…/ when last did any American politician, leader or lawmaker stand before the world’s press and tell the simple, clear, unvarnished truth? …….. Ever?”
Ironically, that would be none other than George W. Bush:
”One of my proudest moments is I didn’t sell my soul for the sake of popularity”
Children and fools tell the truth.
Another of my favorite moments of truth from Bush was this one….
“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”
I remember this story when it was first reported. I haven’t heard anymore about it lately. At the time I didn’t really give it much thought.
But it is undeniable that we in the west are swimming in a sea of constant lies, misinformation and deception. Don’t people ever wonder about the true motives behind the violence our governments commit? A blockade of Cuba because they are communist? We don’t seem to have any trouble doing business with China or Vietnam. We must prevent far off countries from getting their hands on nuclear weapons even if we have to destroy them. Think Iran and North Korea. There are a number of countries that have such weapons. Why aren’t we threatening them?
I recall something a former CIA director said, back in the 80’s I believe: “We will know our program of disinformation has been successful when everything Americans believe is false”. Looks like they were successful.
A former leading Democrat named Tip O’Neil once gave some excellent political advice, when he said “all politics is local”. This saying explains the blockade of Cuba.
Florida is a key swing state in American politics. Its statewide elections are usuallly close, and this strongly impacts both the election of Presidents and who’s got a majority in the US Senate.
In Florida politics, the Cubans who fled social change in Cuba when the Batista dictatorship fell, and who have hated Cuba’s policies of trying to be decent to their own people ever since, are a small but loud and rich part of the Florida electorate, especially on the Republican side. Florida’s elections tend to be so close that if this group withheld their support from the Republican candidate, or backed a 3rd party candidate more to their liking, this could cost the Republicans either the White House or control of the US Senate. Thus, the Republicans usually bend over and take whatever the Cuban emigres who want to kill social decency in Cuban and to return to their places in a new dictatorship tell them they want.
All politics are local, and as usual, the public statements giving public reasons for American policy are mostly bull-droppings. Trump is still thinking about running for re-election, and he knows that if he can’t win Florida then its much less likely that he can win re-election. Trump only won by about a 100,000 votes last time, so it wasn’t in Florida hanging-chad territory, but it was very close. Also, with the Republicans being down to a 1 vote majority in the Senate and looking shaky nationwide in this off-year election, an incumbent Democrat Senator from Florida is being challenged likely by the current Republican governor of FL, and this is going to be a key vote on Trump’s radar as he might face impeachment if he loses both houses of the US Congress.
Gee, the US has been developing crowd control weapons, high frequency weapons, to use as crowd control for the inevitable riots that come with public discontent. I recall distinctly that causes the sensation of skin burning.
So let’s look at who would be responsible for this.
Take a guess.
“The incredible thing is that Americans believe the lie.” …… and, therein lies the key to all the problems in the world today. America’s stupid, dumbed-down street.
Good commentary- good list. There are so many more lies you could add, including about those responsible for 9/11, and who killed JFK. And then there’s MH-17, etc., etc., etc.
I was the victim of a Cuban sound attack. But that was in Hialeah ;-)
On am ore serious note, if such a device were used, there would be some evidence of its use. I guess this “happened” last summer. Given what we are hearing from the State Department of late, if I were the Cubans I would insist that any “brain damage” discovered was a preexisting condition.
With everything that’s happened in the last few months, surely only the dumbest of the dumb, or those poor deluded souls, who have been utterly brainwashed beyond repair would believe anything coming from the Western mainstream media. In fact, media is almost an oxymoron to describe these people who just lie and lie repeatedly. Paul Craig Roberts uses the phrase ‘presstitutes’ to sum up their activities. I agree with him wholeheartedly.
Interestingly, i explained in another post what happened, but it was not posted. Look up R-410A MSDS and read the sheets, especially those ex-USA. Then look up symptoms of HF gas. It wasn’t a weapon, it was faulty HVAC systems. Almost killed us and left us with same symptoms plus more.