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Comment by MsMowz | Hacker News Reader

I think it's interesting that this was immediately framed as an "attack," with of course the implication being that the Cuban government attacked American diplomats, since Cuba has so much to lose from attacking diplomats and literally nothing to gain.

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The perpetrators are repeatedly performing an activity that hurts specific targets. It's hard not to consider this an attack.

I agree that it's probably not Cuba itself doing it though. My own suspects, based on nothing but wild speculation, is that this is Russia, rogue elements in Cuba, China, or the CIA testing experimental technology.

Why would Russia, China, or CIA test it on American diplomats though? They all have access to plenty of people on whom they could test this, in a way that no one would have ever heard about it. Supposing it is some kind of weapon, by testing on American diplomats they just revealed its existence.

To be clear I only meant "testing" to apply to the CIA. I imagine the other groups would be using it as part of some operation.

As for why I imagine the CIA is testing this, the CIA has experimented on unwitting American citizens and servicemen with drugs and poisons in the past[1], so it's not outside their ken to do such a thing.

Perhaps the CIA is testing their new stealth harassment/assassination/mind reading tool and wants to test it on realistic targets but also not risk exposing the device to a hostile party. With US intelligence agencies perpetrating and investigating attacks on realistic targets, it may make a good test environment.

I'm not saying I believe it is the CIA, obviously I have no evidence and this is just speculation. I'm just saying I'd consider them as suspects.

1 - http://healthland.time.com/2012/03/23/the-legacy-of-the-cias...

... aaaand you are now in a list of people that the CIA wants to know more about!

Cuba has been a long time ally of Russia, and Russia has been aggressively trying to reassert their power on the world stage.

The other thing is, that a large part of the spy game is that intelligence agents often work out of embassies. The way the game is played is that as long as intelligence personnel stay in their lane, there's no trouble. The US has spies working out of embassies around the world, and foreign intelligence services have spies working in embassies in DC.

But for an adversary like Russia, maybe they would try to attack people on diplomatic passports if they knew there were some way to make it untraceable or covert. Cuba might do the same if they felt they could thwart US spying.

Note that there was also an alleged incident like this at the US embassy in Uzbekistan:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5126383/US-embassy-w...

State Dept. denies it, but if there is an intelligence angle to this, denials would be standard.

And it's worth mentioning the possibility that even though the current Cuban leadership might not have allowed external entities to try this, elements within the government, or powerful elements within the society, might benefit from a reversion to the previous status quo.

For context, read up on Obama expulsion of Russian "diplomats", and subsequent events leading up to current Mueller investigation.

To track news minute-by-minute:

https://www.memeorandum.com/m/

I was just reading an article about how Justin Trudeau connected with North Korea through Cuba. Maybe North Korea is involved.

Actually in this case, the US has been impressively measured in its response toward Cuba when it comes to framing it as an attack by the Cuban Government.

The US Government has so far never said or implied that it was the Cuban Government. For at least two reasons: it's obvious they have a lot to lose, and it's questionable whether they have the capability to pull off that attack.

It's very reasonable to frame it as an attack. It was highly targeted at US embassy staff (and one Canadian was harmed I believe). I've seen no major media sources pushing the line that it was likely Cuba.

I agree. Sometimes it's interesting to look at the difference between what the media is actually saying vs what people think the media is saying.

True. But it's also possible that this a deliberate attack carried out by an actor other than the Cuban government.

Like some other government that has historically carried out anti-US operations in Cuba..

Do you mean America? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

That was a rejected proposal.

(There are probably all kinds of crazy military proposals that get rejected)

Going to war with Spain over the USS Maine's magazine detonation of unknown cause.

Though that outcome falls more on Hearst and Pulitzer.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_(ACR-1)

That's one possible theory about an event that happened in the 1890's.

My memory of reading Bamford's book was that it was an APPROVED proposal, which was made obsolete by the Cuban Missile Crisis. The DOJ approved that plan, and many of the people involved in that are still on the scene today. But, I read that book a decade or more ago so maybe I'm misremembering.

Exactly how many people involved in a scheme during the early 1960’s would still be “on the scene today”? If one of the coauthors of the plan was a 20 year old intern who had a long government career, that person would be 75 today. “Many of the people” involved seems unlikely.

Or ginning up something to beat the drums of war like the USS Madox[1] or USS Maine[2]. I think it would be hasty to rule out something like Operation Northwoods[3] given the current president's position on Cuba.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_(ACR-1)

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

Maybe you should read some books about Cuba, the USSR, their leaders, and the twentieth century Communist movement.

I'm aware of the history of Cuba's opposition to the US after the revolution, but the Cold War has been over for 25 years and all signs point to Cuba attempting to rebuild solid relations.

Cuba seems to be cooperating with the US during the investigation. Perhaps it was a false flag attack?

Doesn't "false flag" in this scenario indicate the US did this to its own diplomats, in order to frame Cuba (to what end?). I think it's much more like that's it's a third party, either without Cuban knowledge or a don't-ask-don't-tell type of thing. Probably without Cuban knowledge. As others have said, Cuba has very, very little to gain from something like this and a lot to lose.

It doesn't have to be the US. It could easily be Russia or some other country wanting Cuba to take the fall for the attacks

Well, it's not the first time the US tries something in those lines. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

there was no flag involved

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