April 11, 2026: In 2017, an American foreign service officer experienced a sudden, debilitating health incident. Doctors at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center outside Washington ultimately diagnosed and treated the foreign service officer for a line-of-duty traumatic brain injury. He was never the same after the incident and years of painful recovery continued to the present. Since 1996, intelligence officers, diplomats, and military personnel have reported hundreds of cases of what is commonly known as Havana Syndrome. National Security Council officials admitted that the intelligence community’s approach had been flawed. They acknowledged that CIA leaders and analysts had resisted and ultimately ignored compelling intelligence that challenged their beliefs. From my perspective, the CIA’s resistance in particular caused victims to suffer without care, unable to access government medical facilities.

The current American President was urged t0 address the problem by determining why earlier intelligence information was ignored and the victims denied care. The CIA must be made accountable for this situation. Meanwhile victims and their families must have access to the best available medical care.

A hostile foreign government was apparently responsible for causing the Havana Syndrome and must be called to account. Even today, none of the victims emerged unharmed. At least the victims know that they were right about the Havana Syndrome. It was real and they were permanently injured by what the government initially dismissed as nothing to worry about.

Meanwhile, Cuba continues to have other problems, like hunger, electricity blackouts and a total lack of public services. This is nothing new for Cuba. Its economy has been in free-fall since the Soviet Union collapsed 35 years ago, and essential cash and commodities, mainly oil, subsidies stopped. While expanding the tourism business helped avoid complete economic catastrophe, one of the major casualties has been the national railroad. Much cargo and most passenger service halted as the railroad system slowly disintegrated from lack of investment. That changed when China and Iran came forward to finance new rolling stock. 550 cargo wagons and 200 passenger cars came from Iran, and a hundred engines from China and supporting gear, especially new signaling and communications.

Earlier China and Iran signed loan deals with Cuba. This was not a new relationship. When the Russians moved out the Cubans reacted badly to the cutting of Soviet subsidies, China and Iran moved in. This has proved useful. Back in July 2003, satellite broadcasters transmitting television shows to Iran found their signals being jammed. The source of the jamming was quickly traced to Cuba. A satellite signal is very difficult to jam as it comes down from the satellite. But if you are close to the ground station that beams the signal up to the satellite, you can more easily interfere with that. At first it was thought that the Cuban government, using an old Soviet era electronic eavesdropping facility outside Havana, were doing the jamming as a favor to Iran which buys Cuban support with supplies of cut rate oil. The Chinese now ran the old Soviet facility and paid well. The Cuban government denied it had anything to do with the jamming and said it would find out where the jamming was coming from, and they did. Within a few weeks, the Cuban government reported that they had traced the jamming signal to a suburban compound owned by the Iranian embassy. The Cubans ordered the jamming to stop, and it did. But the Iranians stuck around and began to develop the kind of relationship that China already had. That's how you build, or rebuild, a railroad.