Cuba vs. Media Terrorism

On July 11, Cuba was the target of a renewed, sophisticated cyberwarfare operation, which included a toxic disinformation campaign and fake news propagated on massive corporate media outlets. It also featured the use of “influencer” social media accounts and non-governmental organizations as tools of social infiltration. This operation is intended to cause chaos and violent instability on the island, and its primary objective is to justify military intervention by the United States under the guise of “humanitarian intervention.”

The covert actions of the Biden administration bear all the marks of the Pentagon’s “unconventional warfare.” It is irregular, asymmetric, and focused on attrition and takes “full spectrum dominance” as its core concept. “Full spectrum dominance” encompasses political action within which military action (including psychological warfare, hybrid warfare, cyberwarfare, terrorism, sabotage); economic action (including the blockade, the sanctions and laws with overseas impact, like the Torricelli Act and the Helms-Burton Act); and cultural action (the juxtaposition of the slogan “Patria y Vida” with Fidel’s iconic phrase “Patria o Muerte”) have common and complementary objectives.

Fourth-generation warfare requires the control and weaponization of the media (radio, TV, publications) for use in psycho-social warfare, in combination with information networks (fiberoptic, cables, computers, and electronic devices for the creation and transmission of information) used to disseminate the pre-fabricated narratives crafted in the basements of the Pentagon and the CIA.

The human element is the very essence of irregular warfare. Understanding the culture (identity, values, beliefs, perceptions), as well as the political, economic and religious factors at play, is crucial to subversion and espionage. Since 2007, the CIA has made it a priority to guarantee internet access in Cuba without government control. In 2011, emboldened by the successful use of text messages in inciting young people to protest against the government during the Arab Spring, the CIA concocted a clandestine social media platform similar to Twitter called ZunZuneo. In 2018, the Cuba Internet Task Force was created under the Political Action Group, which is part of the Special Activities Center, a division of the CIA that conducts big data analysis and processes the profiles of subjects of interest. This operational group employs netcenters, cyberassassins and “haters” (hecklers) to carry out public slander campaigns against individuals or governments by means of spreading rumors and fake news, manipulating digital media, photographs, recorded conversations, E-mails, and by stealing passwords and identities.

Adherents of what Shoshana Zuboff called “surveillance capitalism” and of the World Economic Forum’s “Great Reset” have sought to use cyberattacks against Cuban websites to bog down, block and/or damage channels of communication, obtain valuable information, take control of servers and destroy the credibility of Miguel Díaz-Canel’s government and its capacity to disseminate information through official channels regarding the real situation in Cuba.

Incited by agents-provocateur, the segments of the population who are suffering the effects of the pandemic, the blockade and U.S. sanctions participated in the protests, along with a few dissidents and those who were emotionally manipulated on social media. Protesters orchestrated disturbances in the street and violent takeovers of public installations to provoke the police into retaliating, in order to create the appearance of human rights violations. Activated by the political agenda of counterrevolution, the protests were part of a political and intelligence operation that included hateful cries for lynching and murder. First, however, there was an effort to symbolically undermine neighborhood and community solidarity through massive social media bombardment.

As befits media terrorism, and in accordance with the manual on “color revolutions” (soft coups), the NGO Artículo 19 intentionally passed off an image of a large protest in Egypt as if it were on the docks in downtown Havana. That was on top of the lies and manipulation by pseudo-journalists, as well as the intensive use of bots, algorithms and recently-created accounts in which the U.S. was implicated during the Twitter campaign that was supported by multimillion-dollar sophisticated technological platforms located in the U.S., especially in Miami, the seat of the counterrevolution industry. And of course, all with the support of Senators Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Lindsey Graham, Republicans, and Robert Menéndez, a Democrat from New Jersey.

To kick off the regime change, the culture war included rappers, the hip hop industry, sectors of the Cuban entertainment industry financed by USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy (which are both fronts for the CIA) and foundations like Open Society (Soros) and Red Atlas. The hashtag #SOSCuba and #CorredorHumanitario were used by cyber-mercenaries, along with the song “Patria y Vida” [“Homeland and Life”] (which translates from Orwellian as “Annexation and Hatred”), and boosted by activists from the Movimiento San Isidro as the hymn of the “spontaneous” protestors who were flying U.S. flags …

The sovereignty and self-determination of Cuba is the business of the Cuban people. History has shown that hybrid warfare falls apart when people become fully aware of it and mobilize against it. Those of us who have followed the process of the Cuban Revolution, from the heroic deeds of the Granma, Fidel and his bearded guerrillas in the Sierra Maestra, and the July 26 Movement, know that we must defend the revolution without hesitation, confusion or reservation. For its history, for the construction of a socialism with Cuban characteristics and for its internationalist efforts, Cuba deserves support and solidarity. Let no one doubt that, as Martí wrote: “In Cuba there are more mountains than depths: there are more who love than who hate …” So it is for the whole world.