[ravenfish]

I think the assumption is malice rather than incompetence- if one believes that (certain portions of) the U.S. government desires to sabotage U.S.-Cuban relations, then one would be inclined to take claims of High-Tech Cuban Secret Weapons with a grain of salt. Certainly, the sheer variety of accusations the government has made (we've gone through sonic weapons, microwave weapons, I think chemical attacks were hinted at one point- I'm don't think there have been accusations of voodoo dolls or the cruciatus curse, but I feel like there's been nearly everything short of that) could leave one less inclined to believe in the veracity of any single one. The lead-up to the more recent Iraq war has shown that the CIA is quite capable of (to take the most generous interpretation) fooling itself regarding foreign weapon capacities when the top brass wants to believe.