As far as the Foreign Service experience goes, you're in a strange country where you often don't speak the language so everything is difficult. You may not be well liked, or worse, may be hated, and people may be trying to kill you. The opposition security services openly tail you wherever you go, bug your house, your telephone, and on top of that, your own CI people may be spying on you. The pressures to perform at work for Foreign Service are enormous, since (unlike the civil service), if you don't get promoted in a specific time window, you're fired. You work in a fish bowl, and cliques form mainly of effective people vs the dumb ones. It's extremely hierarchical, and if you're low on the totem pole, and you're ineffective, you're ignored and left out of the loop.
Often the security services routinely surreptitiously break into your house and rearrange shit in your fridge, or other head-fuckery, just to intimidate you, and just to show they can.
It's extremely difficult for people who aren't prepared for that environment. The ones that crack are usually civil servants overseas for the first time for domestic agencies like IRS, Social Security, FBI, Commerce, etc. Most larger embassies and consulates have a State Department shrink working there, for good reason. People lose their shit all the time. It's not particularly rare.
Additionally, in the more difficult countries, you are essentially living with the people you work with. That can induce some particularly cruel claustrophobia.
So, it's no wonder people are driven mad, either by each other, the environment or just crickets.
there's brain anomalies in any sufficiently large sample of people, so the first thing would be to establish whether there's an usual amount of them, or you'll be fooled by randomness.
Also it would be pretty weird if people who have neurological symptoms don't have brain anomalies, given that this kind of goes hand-in-hand regardless of what the cause of either one is. Migraine patients often have neurological anomalies in the brain, doesn't mean someone caused them with a laser. People who experience Havana Syndrome style symptoms might be predisposed to overreact to, in this case apparently crickets, because they have some neurological issue to begin with.
Sure, I don't discount the possibility of malicious attack. I cannot however discount human frailty.
But in answer to your question, it would depend on the quality of the medical reports. It doesn't seem, so far, that the science can be widely replicated or is clearly pointing to maliciously directed activity. I believe there is a Canadian study that suggests exposure to chemicals. I don't know how that study has been received by peers.
Sure. In the same vein, it may be the case that once upon a time a child abduction was attempted at WalMart by guys in a white van. How that incident caused mass hysteria on Facebook is beyond my ken.
You're referring to the study in JAMA (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2738552)? I don't claim to know with any confidence, but there are many possible confounders, so there's not necessarily anything we need to make of it if there are other reasons to believe the syndrome is psychosomatic. (For example, their control group doesn't seem to have lived in Cuba.)
Yeah, I think it’s about time to stop using that phrase, “low on the totem pole”. Remarkably ignorant and insensitive. You already even used the word “hierarchical”… we get it.
Could you explain for those of us who remain ignorant? Not really a phrase I tend to use anyway but it would be useful to understand the additional context.
Often the security services routinely surreptitiously break into your house and rearrange shit in your fridge
That sounds like horrifying gaslighting. Any evidence of this? It just feels like now days you need a camera in your private rooms (at work and at home) because god knows what kind of allegation someone can throw at you, or if the cops come and say you did some shit when you really didn’t etc. A camera connected to the cloud at all times.
To your larger point, I agree that humans can crack. It doesn’t take much when you are alone and no one believes anything you are saying. Imagine someone follows you around and briefly points a laser pointer near the ground. Imagine they do this daily, just for a second. Try explaining it to to others, they’ll think you’re mad. Try explaining it to cops or a shrink. You’ll go crazy in no time.
You better record every waking moment if you want to stand a chance, but by then, you’re already insane.
Yes, I have personal experience with this. It was relatively common in Moscow, and in fact was a part of that station's (and others) security briefing. This was in '92 however, when camera surveillance equipment wasn't readily available to the public cheaply. I suppose being easily detectable that sort of fuckery is less common nowadays .
That’s extremely sadistic. I fear those who can take part in something like that more so than explicit acts. Just rob the place, but don’t do demented stuff like that.
I don't want to give the impression that a Foreign Service career is fraught. My 30 years were gratifying and I often felt I was taking part in history, instead of merely reading about it.
You're not paying for rent or utilities. Your children are provided (generally) with very good, very expensive educations going to school with children of diplomats of other countries.
The pension is fantastic. It's good work if you can get it. Salaries are low initially, but as promotion kicks in, sooner or later you're making real money. My salary at retirement was a little over 160k a year, which is not bad for generic IT support. I retired at 62.
> In a series of secret memos sent back to Washington, described to me by several current and former U.S. officials who have written or read them, diplomats reported that Russian intruders had broken into their homes late at night, only to rearrange the furniture or turn on all the lights and televisions, and then leave. One diplomat reported that an intruder had defecated on his living room carpet.
I feel like using Russia as an example of the standard US diplomat experience is probably misleading. I suppose I wouldn’t be surprised if similar things happened in South American or African embassies, but a combination of our history with Russia and its general temperament has got to make it a one of the places most prone to this sort of non-direct fucking with people.
Often the security services routinely surreptitiously break into your house and rearrange shit in your fridge, or other head-fuckery, just to intimidate you, and just to show they can.
It's extremely difficult for people who aren't prepared for that environment. The ones that crack are usually civil servants overseas for the first time for domestic agencies like IRS, Social Security, FBI, Commerce, etc. Most larger embassies and consulates have a State Department shrink working there, for good reason. People lose their shit all the time. It's not particularly rare.
Additionally, in the more difficult countries, you are essentially living with the people you work with. That can induce some particularly cruel claustrophobia.
So, it's no wonder people are driven mad, either by each other, the environment or just crickets.