In an “Alert Memorandum” issued today, the Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) warns U.S. President Donald Trump that his administration’s current approach to Cuba makes “an ugly humanitarian disaster, for which the U.S. will be responsible, increasingly likely.” Published in Consortium News,](https://consortiumnews.com/2026/05/29/vips-memo-avoiding-catastrophic-failure-in-cuba/) the former intelligence veterans, whose work history spanns diverse sectors of the intelligence community, the armed forces, and government, starkly added “we also believe that any military option will draw us into a losing war.”
Take note, they underscored, Cuba “is not Venezuela.” There will be no simple regime change. Despite the challenges of daily life, and many Cubans’ desire for significant change, they “will rally behind the flag if there is an attack from outside.” The reality is that Washington “has never grasped Cubans’ deep national pride and yearning for sovereignty nor their culture of respect for institutions.” Face it, the VIPS say, the Cuban government has “residual legitimacy.”
The memo points to the absurdity of the language in the Jan. 29 Executive Order, which established an oil blockade on the island, that Cuba constitutes an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security. This, they state, “suggests confusion between reality and politically-motivated allegations. These narratives are mostly fake.” Those claiming broad support for U.S. sanctions and even military intervention “are heavily colored by people who are in the pay of the USG (U.S. government).”
