To read and hear so much misinformation and false statements on Syria that seek to hide an enormous geostrategic defeat in the Middle East, to see such great blunders and the obsession to bring the world to a dangerous confrontation between the United States and their allies with Russia, to follow the "news" fabricated to create false accusations against Vladimir Putin on the supposed "hacking" of the e-mails of the National Democratic Council (NDC), all this makes the blood boil of this old journalist who knows, with a CIA document in hand[1], that if there is a government that invented digital sabotage and piracy, “hacking” in its diverse forms, and put it into practice in 1982 -- when the Internet was in diapers in the cradle of the Pentagon -- in order to execute a sabotage of enormous dimensions against the economy of the Soviet Union, that was the Washington government. That the Soviet government did not know at the time the origin of this sabotage, considering it "an accident" and hence leaving it unpunished, saved us from a nuclear war.

Since hypocrisy has no limits in this pathetic and dangerous imperial decadence, we should recall that a few minutes on the Internet are sufficient to discover that the digital sabotage of the trans Siberian gas pipeline served for other sabotages in "enemy" countries, the best known of which was the one carried out against the nuclear centrifuges of Iran with the sophisticated "virus" Stuxnet, the work of US and Israeli computer experts[2]. And in the case of hacking to obtain documents or to spy on conversations, Edward Snowden has shown us that no one is safe from the intromissions and eavesdropping of the National Security Agency, or Israeli “hacking”, as was seen in the "Duqu" operation against Iran during the conversations between Washington and Teheran, as reported by the Wall Street Journal and Haaretz[3].

Less than a month before the end of his mandate, President Barack Obama has threatened to take action against Russia for the supposed but never proven "hacking" of the NDC, but journalist David Sanger writes in the New York Times[4] that, for different reasons (among them evidently the lack of proof), there does not appear to be a consensus in the administration, even when the US has an enormous "cybernetic arsenal" at its disposition.

These plans, according to Sanger, could unleash a first class arsenal on a world scale of cybernetic arms assembled at a cost of billions of dollars under the mandate of Mr. Obama, to expose or neutralize the favourite hacking instruments of Russian spies, (that is) the digital equivalent of a preventive attack. But the selection of targets by the US and the precision of this reprisal could also expose the ‘implants’ (Trojan horses) of software that the United States has patiently inserted and maintained in the Russian networks for the event of future cyber-conflicts.

Following the logic of what Sanger says, the dilemma is that the US has already hacked the Russian computing systems--as it had previously done with the Soviets--and has installed its Trojan horses, so this strategic military advantage cannot be employed and hence put in danger unless there is a very grave matter, of the kind that could lead to a total war between both nations.

Further on, Sanger recalls that "Mr. Obama is the president who, in the first year of his mandate, sought to obtain the most sophisticated cyber-arms of the planet to pulverize parts of the installations of Iran’s nuclear plan. Now, at the end of his presidency he is faced with a different challenge in the area of cybernetic arms. The president has reached two conclusions, as reported by high officials. The only thing worse than not employing a weapon is to use it in an ineffective way. And if he chooses a reprisal, he insists on maintaining what is called a "dominant position", that is, to ensure the ability to end the conflict on his own terms.

We should not be surprised that for some time Russia and China have moved forward with the creation of computing systems and electronic components in their countries, evidently to free themselves from the Trojan horses and the "secret back-doors" that since 1982, that is to say from the beginning of sophisticated computing and its interaction with telecommunications, the US and their enterprises have been introducing into their products, and which most probably affect both those developed for their own country as well as those exported to other countries.

The role of cybernetic arms in economic warfare

One constant in the forms of aggression of past and present imperialists against peoples who decide to assume their destiny by making changes to recover their sovereignty, or undertaking a socialist revolution, is economic warfare.  It is applied in every possible area of the economy, in trade, finance and currency, and in interchanges that involve transfer of technology and science necessary for the development of productive forces.

Ultimately, the objective is to starve these peoples, preventing them from developing their productive forces, in order to destabilize the political life of these nations and oblige them to take measures of rationing, among others, that would not be necessary in the framework of normal international trade relations.

This is the form of war that the imperialist powers have utilized since 1919[5], beginning with the "cordon sanitaire" against the early Soviet Union, continued through blockades and export controls, such as CoCom and the whole panoply of extraterritorial embargoes and sanctions to asphyxiate the economies of the peoples that would not submit to the empire. From then on, this economic war has been accompanied by military aggression, either direct or fostered with local or foreign allies--such as the Gladio Operation in Europe--to bring about sabotage of every kind, invasions--such as that of Playa Girón--, economic blockades with extraterritorial sanctions, coups d'état (too many to make a list), clandestine operations and the creation of groups of terrorists or religious fanatics to destabilize governments--such as the creation of Al Qaeda to weaken the URSS and of ISIS to destroy the secular state of Syria--and many others.

Our America is a witness to the most prolonged economic war of modern history, as Cuban journalist Manuel E. Yepe recalls: the original arguments for the blockade (on Cuba) were given on April 6, 1960 by Lester D. Malloy, deputy assistant secretary of State for inter-American affairs, in a secret memorandum of the State Department, declassified in 1991, which was included in page 885 of Volume VI of the report of the State Department of the United States from 1958 to 1960 and which states: "The majority of Cubans support Castro... the only visible way to counter this support is through the disenchantment and dissatisfaction that comes from economic difficulties and material difficulties... we must rapidly employ all possible means to debilitate economic life in Cuba, a line of action that by being as clever and discreet as possible, can achieve the greatest advances in the privation of Cuba of money and supplies to reduce their financial resources and real salaries, provoke hunger, desperation and the overthrow of the Government[6]” (our translation from the Spanish).

This is why, if in modern history there was a political leader who for over fifty years knew and struggled valiantly against the economic warfare of US imperialism, this was Fidel Castro. And it is because of this that, in September 2007, in his article titled "Deliberate lies, strange deaths and global economic aggression"[7], he wrote that a clear example of the use of science and technology with the same hegemonic goals is described in an article by the ex-official of National Security of the United States, Gus W. Weiss, that originally appeared in the journal Studies in Intelligence, in 1996[8], but was published more broadly in the year 2002 under the title "Duping the Soviets". In this article Weiss attributes to himself the idea of sending software to the USSR that was needed by their industry, but already contaminated with the objective of collapsing the economy of that country.

Fidel refers here to Operation Farewell, that took place in the 1980s and cites the document written by Gus Weiss, who occupied the posts of special Assistant to the Secretary of Defence, and of scientific adviser in the Pentagon and in the Intelligence Service during the administration of President James Carter, as well as key positions in the National Security Council of the US under the presidencies of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan.

On this sabotage of 1982, Fidel wrote that "the production and transport of petroleum and gas was one of the Soviet priorities. A new Trans-Siberian gas pipeline was to deliver natural gas from the gas fields of Urengoi in Siberia through Kazakhstan, Russia and Eastern Europe to the currency markets of the West. In order to automatize the operation of valves, compressors and storage installations of such an immense enterprise, the Soviets needed sophisticated control systems. They purchased computers of the first models in the open market, but when the pipeline authorities approached the United States to acquire the necessary software, they were rejected.  Undaunted, the Soviets looked elsewhere, sending a KGB operative to penetrate a Canadian software provider to acquire the codes required. US intelligence, alerted by the agent of the Farewell Dossier, responded and manipulated the software before sending it on.

Once in the Soviet Union, the computers and the software together made the pipeline work very well. But the tranquillity was deceptive. In the software that operated the pipeline, there was a Trojan horse, a term used to describe lines of software code hidden in the normal operating systems that could make these systems run out of control in the future, or on receiving a remote order.

With the objective of affecting the earnings in foreign currencies from the West and the internal economy of Russia, the pipeline software for operating the pumps, turbines and valves had been programmed to self-decompose after a prudent interval and reset – it is so described -- the speeds of the pumps and the adjustments of valves, making them function at pressures way above those acceptable for the joints and welding of the pipeline.

The result was the most colossal non-nuclear explosion and fires ever seen from space. In the White House, officials and advisers received the warning from infrared satellites of a strange event in the middle of an unpopulated place in Soviet territory. NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) feared that this signalled the launching of missiles from a place where they did not know that rockets were based, or that perhaps it was the detonation of a nuclear unit. The satellites had not detected any electromagnetic pulse characteristic of nuclear detonations. Before these indicators could lead to an international crisis, Gus Weiss arrived to tell his colleagues of the NSC (National Security Council) that they should not worry, as Thomas Reed recounts in his book[9].

The campaign of countermeasures based on the Farewell Dossier was economic warfare. Although there were no personal fatalities due to the explosion of the gas pipeline, there was significant damage to the Soviet economy.

Fidel noted that “we cannot ignore the fact that during the Cold War and even in the brief period of ‘distension’ between Washington and Moscow, (1962-1975) the US and its allies tried by all means to prevent the USSR and all the socialist countries from acquiring high technology products legally, employing diverse instruments created for this effect, such as the CoCom.”

On the Farewell Operation designed to dismantle the Soviet team seeking access to modern technology, Fidel recalls that "an article published in the New York Times records that the operation utilized almost all of the arms available to the CIA--psychological warfare, sabotage, economic war, strategic deception, counterintelligence and cybernetic warfare--all this in collaboration with the National Security Council, the Pentagon and the FBI. The Soviet team of espionage was destroyed, the economy was damaged and the State destabilized. It was a complete success. If this had been done in the opposite direction (the Soviets against the Americans) it could have been seen as an act of terrorism".

"This theme is present another book called Legacy of Ashes which has just been published. In the flyleaf of the book it indicates that ‘Tim Weiner is a reporter with the New York Times who has written on the intelligence services of the US over twenty years, and obtained a Pulitzer Prize for his work on secret programmes of national security. He has travelled to Afghanistan and other countries to investigate first-hand the undercover operations of the CIA. This is his third book".

"Legacy of Ashes is based on more than fifty thousand documents, fundamentally from the archives of the CIA, and hundreds of interviews with veterans of that agency, including 10 directors. It shows us a panorama of the CIA since its creation after the Second World War, through the battles during the Cold War and the war against terrorism that began on September 11, 2001".

The Cuban leader also quotes the article of Jeremy Allison and those of Rosa Miriam Elizalde[10] in which these events are denounced, underlining the idea of one of the founders of free software, who noted that "as these technologies become more complex it will be more difficult to detect this kind of action".

He adds that “Rosa Miriam published two simple opinion articles, of barely five pages each. If she wished to, she could write a book of many pages. I remember her very well from the day in which, as a very young journalist, she asked me very anxiously, in a press conference, over fifteen years ago, if I thought that we could resist the special period that fell upon us with the disappearance of the socialist camp.

"The USSR collapsed with a loud crash. Since then we have graduated hundreds of thousands of young people in upper education. What other ideological arm is left to us than a high level of consciousness! We had it when we were a people with an illiterate or semi-illiterate majority. If what we want is to know true wild beasts, leave human beings to follow just their instincts. On this we could talk a lot”.

Fidel, who is immortal in his analysis and ideas, noted in 2007 that "at this time, the world is threatened by a devastating economic crisis. The US government is employing unimaginable economic resources to defend a right that violates the sovereignty of all other countries: to continue to buy with paper money the raw materials, energy, high tech industries, the most productive lands and most modern buildings of our planet".

(Translated for ALAI by Jordan Bishop)

- Alberto Rabilotta is an Argentine-Canadian journalist