Havana Syndrome in Vietnam: Possible Russian Role in Attack on Americans | Hacker News Reader

Havana Syndrome in Vietnam: Possible Russian Role in Attack on Americans

cbsnews.com

13 pointsdoener9 comments

> "It requires you to confront the fact that you have your arch enemy acting against your own people, your own intelligence workers, on your territory, and this is nothing other than a declaration of war."

That’s a fair point. The attackers know this. They know US officials may know. But they also figured US wouldn’t make it public that they know.

However there are two problems: 1) this still opens the Russians for covert retaliation. Now their officials might start getting fast acting cancers , heart attacks, planes exploding, etc. 2) US intelligence has a lot money to offer for any defectors. Those conducting those operations know they have a golden ticket in their pocket if can defect to the West. I suspect some of these journalistic stories serve exactly that purpose - raise the profile of the issue to hopefully encourage someone to switch sides, hopefully with a bag full of evidence.

True but russian security services spare no every effort to make potential defectors think twice; russia has a long history of punishing defectors. Recent examples include the Skripals in the UK and a helicopter pilot in Spain.

That's fair as far as England, Spain, in general Europe and probably other countries are concerned, But I am not sure if true for US. I can't recall any public assassinations in US like that.

However, now with the war in Ukraine and escalating threats, I can see them taking a step in that direction.

CBS partnered with The Insider for this investigation. This article contains a lot more details: https://theins.ru/en/politics/270425

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39889517

I might be wrong, but wasn’t it established that “Havan” syndrome was just severe burn out?

No, far from it

True. you are right.

Read the actual report, that is not what it says. In fact, the report makes the opposite case for the most part (especially when electronics were also being interfered with and many of them developed holes in their ear drums.) The issue is that bar is so high for proof that the US government, at least publicly, dismissed it possibly to make Americans not freak out. This is all covered in the piece, and it also places people from the GRU at locations where this occurred, and they coincidentally are in a unit that works on microwave length weaponry. Could it be a huge coincidence? Maybe? But I've never heard of anyone developing holes in their ear drums from work stress.

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