White House Moves To Formally Reverse Obama-Era Detente With Cuba

After months of blustery rhetoric and half measures, the White House is finally taking steps to undo another one of former President Barack Obama’s legacy-defining foreign-policy accomplishments.

The Washington Post reports that, in a landmark ruling, the Trump administration is reversing some of Obama detente with Cuba by cracking down on travel and business with the island.

Under the new rules, most individual visits to Cuba will no longer be allowed, and U.S. citizens will again have to travel as part of a licensed group, accompanied by a group representative. Americans will also be barred from staying at a long list of hotels and from patronizing restaurants, stores and other enterprises that the State Department has determined are owned by or benefit members of the Cuban government, specifically its security services.

Administration officials said that the new regulations, which go into effect Thursday, would not affect travel arrangements already made or contracts already signed, which are to be grandfathered in under existing law.

Trump was extremely critical of Obama’s Cuba policy during the campaign, but after taking office did relatively little to restrict the newly opened lines of trade and tourism opened up by Obama, who made it much easier for US tourists to visit the island, so long as they could justify the trip under a list of criteria issued by the Obama State Department.

Trump railed against Cuba during a speech he gave back in May, sparking speculation that he would threaten to punish Cuba unless it returns US fugitives like Assata Shakur, who received political asylum on the island after being convicted of killing a New Jersey state trooper and escaping from a US prison.

Trump was spurred to act over the summer after US media reported on a series of mysterious cyberattacks that targeted more than 20 US diplomats stationed in Havana, including an unusually large number of spies.

Trump expelled most of Cuba’s Washington-based diplomats, and recalled two-thirds of US personnel from Havana after blaming Cuba for not doing more to prevent the attacks, though the US has said there’s no evidence to suggest the attacks were orchestrated by the Cuban government.

But now that it seems like Trump is getting serious, expect more restrictions to follow as Trump follows through with other promises like barring US companies American from making deals with the Cuban military, which controls much of the state-run tourism industry.
 

Mysterious Cuban 'Sonic Attacks' Targeted US Spies

Just days after the Associated Press reported that the State Department planned to withdraw most of its personnel from the Cuban embassy in Havana, the wire service is returning with another revelatory scoop about the mysterious “sonic attacks” that have caused injuries ranging from minor to life-threatening in 21 embassy personnel: Many of the diplomats targeted were US spies, partly explaining the State Department"s reluctance to discuss the attacks.

Frightening attacks on U.S. personnel in Havana struck the heart of America’s spy network in Cuba, with intelligence operatives among the first and most severely affected victims, The Associated Press has learned.

It wasn’t until U.S. spies, posted to the embassy under diplomatic cover, reported hearing bizarre sounds and experiencing even stranger physical effects that the United States realized something was wrong, individuals familiar with the situation said.

However, the AP’s government sources refused to confirm a timeline for the attacks, or provide other basic details, underscoring the sensitivity of the ongoing investigation.

While the attacks started within days of President Donald Trump’s surprise election in November, the precise timeline remains unclear, including whether intelligence officers were the first victims hit or merely the first victims to report it. The U.S. has called the situation “ongoing.”

To date, the Trump administration largely has described the 21 victims as U.S. embassy personnel or “members of the diplomatic community.” That description suggested only bona fide diplomats and their family members were struck, with no logical motivation beyond disrupting U.S.-Cuban relations.

The revelation that some of the victims were spies adds another dimension to the mystery; however, the motivations behind the attack remain as murky as the attackers’ identity. It’s unclear, according to the AP, whether the attacker intentionally targeted spies. Though if it were true, the attacks would represent an unprecedented escalation of the long-running spy games between the US and Havana.

Behind the scenes, though, investigators immediately started searching for explanations in the darker, rougher world of spycraft and counterespionage, given that so many of the first reported cases involved intelligence workers posted to the U.S. embassy. That revelation, confirmed to the AP by a half-dozen officials, adds yet another element of mystery to a year-long saga that the Trump administration says may not be over.

The State Department and the CIA declined to comment for this story.

The first disturbing reports of piercing, high-pitched noises and inexplicable ailments pointed to someone deliberately targeting the U.S. government’s intelligence network on the communist-run island, in what seemed like a bone-chilling escalation of the tit-for-tat spy games that Washington and Havana have waged over the last half century.

But the U.S. soon discovered that actual diplomats at the embassy had also been hit by similar attacks, officials said, further confounding the search for a culprit and a motive.

If disrupting US-Cuba relations was the attack’s intent, then they have clearly succeeded: The US quietly expelled two Cuban diplomats in August. And by withdrawing most of its embassy personnel and warning travelers to stay away from the island, the US is signaling a chill in travel and trade that could prevent Cubans from visiting family members in the US. The reduction in embassy staff means visa processing has been suspended indefinitely.  

Of the 21 confirmed cases, American spies suffered some of the most acute damage, including brain injury and hearing loss that has not healed, according to the AP’s sources. Many of the victims provided similar descriptions to US authorities: They described hearing something that sounded like loud crickets before falling ill. However, in many of the more recent cases, victims didn’t report hearing the noises. Instead, they identified the symptoms later on, raising concerns among investigators that the attacks may be getting more sophisticated and harder to detect.

To be sure, while the State Department told the AP that all cases have been “medically confirmed,” several officials said it’s unclear whether all of the victims’ symptoms can be conclusively tied to attacks. Considering the deep sense of alarm at the embassy, it’s possible that some wrongly attributed symptoms to the attacks.

So far, the US has been unable to identify the weapon used in the attacks. Initially, the State Department gave diplomats the option of leaving Havana, but many, including some of the attack victims, opted to remain.

For his part, Cuban President Raul Castro has denied responsibility for the attacks, expressing equal alarm and promising to aid in the investigation in any way possible.

When President Raul Castro denied any culpability in February, he did so on the sidelines a meeting in Havana with five visiting U.S. members of Congress, the AP found. The U.S. had raised complaints about the attacks to Cuba just days earlier through diplomatic channels.

But the visiting lawmakers knew nothing of the attacks taking place in the country they were visiting.

Nor did they know that Castro had used the occasion of their meeting to pull aside Jeff DeLaurentis, then the top U.S. diplomat in Cuba, to say privately that his government was equally alarmed and willing to help.

But if the Cubans aren’t responsible for the attacks, who is? The list of possible state actors has more than a couple names: Venezuela, Russia and China are all probably suspects. But until the US can determine the nature of the weapon used, intelligence officials can only speculate.

Mystery Deepens After US Confirms 16 Diplomats Suffered "Traumatic Brain Injury" In Cuban 'Sonic Attack'

One of the most bizarre stories this week took a more sinister turn yesterday as the US State Department officially confirmed 16 US Government employees were affected by health attacks in Cuba.

State Deaprtment spokesperson Heather Nuarte calmly explained the details, which are quite frankly stunning...

.@statedeptspox: We can now confirm that at least 16 USG employees were affected by attacks in #Cuba pic.twitter.com/UEy1PJ7bXt

— Department of State (@StateDept) August 24, 2017

And yet most of the mainstream media seems loathed to cover this!? Happy to focus on nazis?

CBS News, however, did some digging, discovering from a review of medical records that the American and Canadian diplomats in Cuba have been diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injury - and central nervous damage - after an apparent attack with a sonic weapon targeted their homes.

The diplomats complained about symptoms ranging from hearing loss and nausea to headaches and balance disorders after the State Department said "incidents" began affecting them beginning in late 2016.

A number of diplomats have cut short their assignments in Cuba because of the attacks.

The source says American diplomats have also been subjected other types of harassment including vehicle vandalization, constant surveillance, and home break-ins.

As Axios reports, The State Department hasn"t explicitly identified the source of the attack or what person or entity might have carried it out.

"We hold the Cuban authorities responsible for finding out who is carrying out these health attacks on not just our diplomats but, as you"ve seen now, there are other cases with other diplomats involved," Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters earlier this month.

The Cuban government has denied any involvement with the incident.

Of course, while we wish these diplomats well (if recovery is possible), the big question is - what will the repurcussions be for US-Cuba relations and what response will the Trump administration unleash? As Axios notes, the severity of the apparent injuries goes far beyond what was originally reported, so it stands to reason that President Trump"s administration might choose to respond strongly given his prior rhetoric on Cuba, especially given that the report notes that the attacks on Americans are continuing.

Korea And Venezuela: Flip Sides Of The Same Coin

Authored by Jacob Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

By suggesting that he might order a U.S. regime-change invasion of Venezuela, President Trump has inadvertently shown why North Korea has been desperately trying to develop nuclear weapons - to serve as a deterrent or defense against one of the U.S. national-security state storied regime-change operations. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Venezuela and, for that matter, other Third World countries who stand up to the U.S. Empire, also seeking to put their hands on nuclear weapons. What better way to deter a U.S. regime-change operation against them?

Think back to the Cuban Missile Crisis. The U.S. national-security establishment had initiated a military invasion of the Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, had exhorted President Kennedy to bomb Cuba during that invasion, and then had recommended that the president implement a fraudulent pretext (i.e., Operation Northwoods) for a full-scale military invasion of Cuba.

That’s why Cuba, which had never initiated any acts of aggression against the United States, wanted Soviet nuclear missiles installed in Cuba. Cuba’s leader Fidel Castro knew that there was no way that Cuba could defeat the United States in a regular, conventional war. Everyone knows that the military establishment in the United States is so large and so powerful that it can easily smash any Third World nation, including Cuba, North Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Venezuela.

Castro’s strategy worked. The Soviet nuclear missiles installed in Cuba drove Kennedy to reject the Pentagon’s and CIA’s vehement exhortations to bomb and invade Cuba. The way the Pentagon and the CIA saw the situation was that Kennedy now had his justification for effecting a violent regime-change operation in Cuba. The way Kennedy saw the situation was that a violent regime-change operation through bombing and invasion could easily result in all-out nuclear war between the United States and Russia.

It turned out that Kennedy was right. What the Pentagon and the CIA didn’t realize at the time is that Soviet commanders on the ground in Cuba had fully armed tactical nuclear weapons at their disposal and the battlefield authority to use them in the event of a U.S. bombing or invasion of the island. If Kennedy had complied with the dictates of the Pentagon and the CIA, it is a virtual certainty that the result would have been all-out nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States. To his ever-lasting credit, Kennedy struck a deal in which he vowed that the United States would cease and desist from invading Cuba in return for the Soviet Union’s withdrawal of its nuclear missiles from Cuba.

The point is this: If the Pentagon and the CIA had not been trying to get regime-change in Cuba, Cuba would never have felt the need to get those Soviet missiles. It was the Pentagon’s and CIA’s commitment to regime change in Cuba that gave us the the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Equally important, the resolution of the crisis showed that if an independent, recalcitrant Third World regime wants to protect itself from a U.S. national-security-state regime-change operation, the best thing it can do is secure nuclear weapons. Thus, the current crisis over North Korea’s quest to get nuclear weapons to deter a U.S. regime-change operation is rooted in how Cuba deterred the U.S. national security establishment’s regime-change efforts in 1962.

Americans would be wise to regime change operations in North Korea and Venezuela in the context of the U.S. government’s overall foreign policy of military empire and interventionism.

Recall, first of all, that the U.S. government has a long history of interventionism in Latin America, where it has brought nothing but death, destruction, suffering, misery, and tyranny. Nicaragua, Guatemala, Chile, Brazil, Panama, and Grenada come to mind.

In fact, the situation in Chile that resulted in U.S. intervention was quite similar to today’s situation in Venezuela. In Chile, a socialist was democratically elected and began adopting socialist policies, which caused economic chaos and crisis. The CIA and Pentagon intentionally and secretly did everything they could to makes matters worse. U.S. officials even engaged in bribery, kidnapping, and assassination in Chile. They incited and encouraged a coup that succeeded in ousting the democratically elected socialist and replaced by a “pro-capitalist” military general, whose forces proceeded to round up, kidnap, torture, rape, or execute tens of thousands of people, including the murder of two Americans, all with the support and complicity of the Pentagon and the CIA.

Haven’t we seen the same types of results with the U.S. regime-change operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and elsewhere? Death, destruction, and chaos, not to mention a gigantic refugee crisis for Europe.

And look at what the pro-empire, interventionist system has done to the American people. Constant, never-ending crises and chaos, with North Korea being just the latest example. Out of control federal spending and debt that are threatening the nation with financial bankruptcy and economic and monetary crises. Totalitarian-like powers being exercised by the president and his national-security establishment, including assassination, torture, and indefinite detention. Weird, bizarre random acts of violence that reflect the same lack of regard for the sanctity of human life that U.S. officials display in faraway countries.

None of this is necessary. It’s entirely possible for Americans to live normal, healthy, free lives. All it takes is a change of direction - one away from empire and interventionism and toward a limited-government republic and non-interventionism in the affairs of other nations. That’s the way to achieve a free, prosperous, harmonious, and friendly society.

The Long, Sordid Saga Of Cuban Drug Trafficking & US Looking The Other Way

Authored by "Anonymous Patriot of Truth" via The Burning Platform blog,

All specific information omitted in this article has been done in the interest of protecting the identity of the FBI’s cooperating witness.

In 1999, during President Clinton’s administration, the FBI was investigating a case where the Cuban government  was directly involved in drug trafficking.  It definitely was, and the ring leader was Cuban General Ramiro Valdes Menendez, a “Hero of the Cuban Revolution,” a loyal ally of Fidel Castro since  1953 when he was a member of Castro’s insurgents who attacked the Cuban Army’s Moncada Barracks.   That loyalty has endured over 60 years, and the Castro brothers have rewarded Valdes with many high-level positions in the Cuban government, to include Minister of Interior, the powerful overlord of the Cuban internal security services.  He’s been a member of the Cuban Communist Party’s Politburo since 1965.

Ramiro Valdes and Fidel Castro

In 2000, a highly credible FBI cooperating witness (CW), a foreign national (name and nationality are known, but omitted) thoroughly vetted by the FBI, was an eyewitness to a one-on-one meeting between Valdes and Colombian Cali Cartel chief Miguel Rodriguez Abadia in Havana, Cuba and the CW provided convincing reporting on the Cuban government’s complicity in international drug trafficking.  Valdes was in the uniform pictured above during the meeting.  After the CW watched Valdes and Rodriguez meet in a public setting (exact place and date known, but omitted), Rodriguez returned to the CW’s table and later that day offered the following information tied to the Cali Cartel’s drug shipments through Cuba.  Here are some details.  (There’s a simple explanation of WHY Rodriguez gave this information to the CW.  He fully trusted the CW as a confidant because they both were planning a multi-ton shipment of cocaine to the U.S. through Mexico.  The name of the Mexican organization and some of the Mexicans involved are known, but omitted.) 

Cali drug shipments were originally sent to Cuba via fishing vessels, but now most of the shipments were flown into Cuba by DC-3 cargo aircraft departing air strips in Venezuela.  Valdes dictated these terms to Rodriguez Abadia.  Note:  Castro ally Hugo Chavez was president of Venezuela at the time.

Ramiro Valdes and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez

Valdes is paid 20% of the value of each shipment on a strict cash-only basis (note: type of currency not reported, but presumably dollars for the cash-strapped, heavily indebted Castro regime).  This expense covered securing and offloading the drug shipment upon arrival, transporting it to the port of departure, usually Havana or Matanzas, and onloading the drugs on departing ships.  Destination ports were chiefly in Europe, with the Netherlands and Spain topping the list.  No drugs transiting Cuba were shipped to the U.S.

No drugs would remain on the island or sold in Cuba. 

Valdes controlled the quantity of drugs flown into Cuba, which Rodriguez said was 1,000 to 1,700 kilos of cocaine per shipment, normally sent to Cuba every 10-15 days.  Using the least frequent figures provided by Rodriguez to the CW – 1,000 kilos every 15 days – would mean that a minimum of 24 metric tons of Cali Cartel cocaine were moving through Cuba annually.  At an $18,000/kilo wholesale price, Valdes’s demand for 20% of the value of the drug shipments for handling charges would generate a minimum of over $86 million in cash of untraceable annual revenue to the Cuban government. 

Because of the potential nature of this case (the CW’s direct access to the leader of the Cali Cartel, with conclusive evidence such as phone conversations between the two taped by the FBI), its progress was briefed to FBI Director Louis Freeh and Clinton’s Attorney General, Janet Reno.  It is highly likely that this particular portion of the case, the eyewitness account of the meeting between Valdes and Rodriguez, was brought to the attention of President Clinton because of the possible broad political impact on foreign policy between the U.S. and Cuba.  

A few words about Cali Cartel chief William Rodriguez Abadia, pictured here.

Pretty nerdy looking guy, eh?  He’s a well-educated lawyer, and, although he claims he never murdered anyone or ordered any murders, it is probably not true.  Who admits to murder in a media interview, which is when he made this claim?  But his father, Miguel Rodriguez Orejuela, murdered and his uncle, Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, did also.  Plus Jose Santacruz Londono.  Those three men were the founders of the Cali Cartel, the world’s most powerful and wealthy criminal organization in the 1980s and 1990s.  After his father, uncle, and Santacruz were wrapped up by the Colombian National Police, William took the reins in 1995.  In his own words to a U.S. reporter, “I wanted the power.” 

He got just that.  And more.  A year later, in May 1996, he was the target of a vicious hit job during a luncheon in Cali that killed 6 people, but William survived his critical wounds.  5 years later, in 2001, he went into hiding, which coincides with his last contact with the CW (exact date known, but omitted).  5 years after that, in 2006, he surrendered to U.S. authorities, pleaded guilty to certain charges, and cooperated to reduce his sentence to 5 years instead of 20. 

Something important happened shortly BEFORE that meeting in Havana between General Valdes and Miguel Rodriguez in 2000.  A young Cuban child named Elian Gonzalez arrived in the U.S. in 1999 after his mother and 13 other Cubans tried to flee Cuba.  Storms sank the boat they were in, Elian’s mother drowned, but Elian and one other survived, were rescued and brought to the U.S.  Via court order, Elian Gonzalez was returned to the Cuban government on June 28, 2000.  Who can forget this frightening picture when Elian was forcibly taken at gunpoint from his relatives in Florida and later flown to Cuba? 

If the meeting between Valdes and Rodriguez had taken place BEFORE the Gonzalez case was decided, one can imagine that MAYBE Clinton and Reno would have taken a completely different legal path on the Elian Gonzalez case.  But even more importantly, both Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright might have moved to a much more hardline approach to relations with Cuba.   Might have.  Both of them knew, from intelligence information and much publicly available information, that the Cuban government was dead broke and the Cuban economy was in shambles.  It would make sense that a desperate Castro would turn to drug trafficking to raise much needed money.  And Castro did just that, through his trusted friend and loyal ally, Ramiro Valdes. 

Unfortunately, Clinton did nothing for several possible reasons.  In the presidential campaign season of the summer of 2000, his second administration was coming to an end in a few months, and he had more important political business to attend, helping Vice President Al Gore get elected.  Then there is the fact that in 1999 he eased travel restrictions to Cuba for “cultural exchanges” and approved a 2-game exhibition in Cuba between the Baltimore Orioles and Cuba’s national baseball team.  A pivot to a harder line policy on Cuba would have amounted to a rebuke of his own and the Democrat Party’s longstanding efforts to improve relations with Cuba, which started with President Carter’s establishment of mutual “interest sections” in Havana and Washington DC in 1977 and ended with President Obama’s approval of formal diplomatic relations with Cuba in 2015. 

Post 9/11, there is additional reporting that this case was transferred from the lead FBI field office in the southern US (specific field office is known, but omitted) to the FBI’s field office in Manhattan.  Later, the Southern District of New York, which includes Manhattan, issued an indictment for William Rodriguez Abadia on November 12, 2002.  The Cuban aspect of the case was explosive, and the best way to ignore or bury the Cuban angle was to send the case to an FBI office swamped with 9/11 terrorist investigations and turn it over to friendly prosecutors who would focus on leads solely based on U.S – Cali Cartel ties.  As noted above, the Cuban government was helping to send the cocaine to Europe, not the U.S.  Smart move by the Cubans.  No U.S. laws were broken.

At the time of the case transfer, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York was either Mary Jo White (appointed by President Clinton in 1993 and served until January 2, 2002) or James Comey (appointed by President Bush and served January 7, 2002 to December 15, 2003).  Comey was the U.S. Attorney when William Rodriguez was indicted.  He was Director of the FBI and responsible for the highly controversial decision on the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton.  Mary Jo White was chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission.  Both were appointees of President Obama. 

Today we are left with an international outlaw regime in Cuba, recognized as legitimate by the U.S. government, that has undermined our allies in Europe by helping to send huge shipments of drugs to their countries.  Some very important people in our government knew this and said nothing.  That is not how a friend treats friends.