The ‘Havana Syndrome’ was most likely due to crickets

One of the weirdest news stories in recent years has been the so-called ‘Havana Syndrome’ when US embassy personnel in various parts of world, starting in Havana, reported hearing buzzing, having headaches and nausea, and other medical complaints. Aided by US government sources and egged on by anti-Cuban forces, the media quickly assumed that this was caused by a new kind of weapon developed by Cuba or possibly Russia or China.

While this was always far-fetched, Branko Marcetic writes that a secret government study concluded back in 2018 supported one theory that it was psychosomatic and caused by crickets. The cricket theory was postulated by some scientists two years ago but dismissed as preposterous. The new government study was classified and only released this week.
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A transnational kleptocratic class

Thanks to whistleblowers who released a trove of documents, a team of journalists led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has released the first reports of what it calls the Pandora Papers. (Readers may recall an earlier expose called the Panama Papers.)

It reveals how vast sums of money are spirited away by politicians and wealthy people all over the world into tax-havens. Over 330 politicians from 90 countries are named. The US has become one of the biggest locations for tax dodging because of its laws involving the use of trusts. (This may be why the Panama Papers revealed few US names as using off-shore tax havens. It is not that they are more scrupulous but that they don’t have to. All the tax dodges they need are within the US.) News reports are careful to point out that these transactions may not be illegal but that is not the point. The global oligarchy makes the laws and we should not be surprised that they then use those laws to benefit themselves. But key questions that can and should be raised is how they amassed such wealth in the first place and why governments are allowed to connive in these schemes.
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John Oliver on voting rights

He explains what is going on in the effort to suppress the votes of poor and minority groups. He says that the Democratic party leadership and Joe Biden are avoiding taking the step of abolishing the filibuster and passing stronger voting rights laws, thinking that they can out-organize the Republicans and get out a large vote like they did in 2020. But that is not a given.

Taliban promise to revive barbaric punishments

A leader in the new Taliban government is promising a return to barbaric punishments.

The Taliban will resume executions and the amputation of hands for criminals they convict, in a return to their harsh version of Islamic justice.

According to a senior official – a veteran leader of the hardline Islamist group who was in charge of justice during its previous period in power – executions would not necessarily take place in public as they did before.

The Taliban’s first period ruling Afghanistan during the 1990s, before they were toppled by a US-led invasion in 2001 following the 9/11 attacks, was marked by the grisly excesses of its perfunctory justice system, which included public executions in the football stadium in Kabul.

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Which hapless nation is going to be the next Grenada?

The secretary of defense Lloyd Austin, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff of the US military general Mark Milley, and the head of the US Central Command general Frank McKenzie have all been trying to explain the reasons for the debacle in Afghanistan, not just the final chaotic withdrawal but the failure of the entire two-decade long nation building enterprise and the inability to defeat the Taliban despite pouring vast amounts of money into the Afghan military and providing all manner of material, training, and air support. When the USSR was the occupier of that country, the US government was providing covert support to the then-Mujahideen to undermine the Soviet-backed government but there is no evidence that any outside power, Russia or any other country, was providing anything like significant support for the Taliban in its fight against the US.
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Good news about those who sheltered Snowden in Hong Kong

Back in 2016, I blogged about a family of Sri Lankan asylum-seeking refugees in Hong Kong who in 2013 hid Edward Snowden in their tiny apartment when he was hiding from the media and the clutches of the vindictive Obama administration. This was after he left the hotel from where he had released his bombshell revelations about the massive spying efforts waged by the US and its allies against their own citizens. The family sheltered him for two weeks before he was able to get to get out of Hong Kong and into Russia where he now lives. The role of this family was only revealed in 2016 in the Oliver Stone film Snowden.
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How the Soviet Union left Afghanistan

The way that the US forces left Afghanistan left the whole world aghast at its utterly chaotic nature. It has become a cliche to describe Afghanistan as the graveyard of empires, humbling the British, the Soviet Union, and the US. But not all such attempts by empires ended as pitifully as the way that the US did. The NPR radio program Morning Edition compared the US exit with that of the Soviet Union in 1989.

One feature that is similar is that by its end, the occupation was seen as a tragic blunder by the Soviet Union.

By the time the Soviet army withdrew, the war was seen by most Soviet citizens as a mistake. Fifteen thousand soldiers had been killed, thousands more wounded. And an estimated million Afghans had died in the fighting. After a decade of war, many Soviets couldn’t understand what the USSR was even doing there.

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This was so sad and so unnecessary

Watch as 67-year old Joe McCarron, hospitalized with Covid-19 in Ireland, is urged by a fanatical anti-vaxxer and covid-denier to check himself out of the hospital while a doctor calmly, kindly, and patiently explains why that would not be a good idea for someone in his condition and urges him to stay, saying that he was very ill and could die if he went home. But the person with McCarron badgered him to leave and he finally acquiesced. Two days later, he was back in the hospital with breathing problems and subsequently died.


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