Joe McCarthy has been reincarnated as Marco Rubio. On July 20, Rubio’s State Department issued a 100-page report, titled “Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism,” for the dual purpose of both stepping-up judicial and other measures to crush the growing opposition in the U.S. to the Trump administration’s assaults on foreign countries and immigrants alike, and laying the groundwork for Rubio’s intended U.S. military invasion of Cuba.
The report follows on the State Department’s July 16 “Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism” in Florida, chaired by Rubio, which sought to coordinate “counterterrorist” actions by the some 60 countries reportedly present, against “extremist violence from the political left.”
Rubio, with Stephen Miller and Scott Bessent by his side, were explicit there that anyone opposing ICE, defending Palestinians or Cuba, etc. are “communists,” and national security threats.
The report is a piece of ludicrous propaganda. Cuba is portrayed as having the best intelligence agency around, created because over seven decades, it is the Cuban regime that has “assaulted” the United States, not the other way around. Its opening asserts that the conflict “was never, at root, a quarrel over economic policy or sovereignty or even ownership of a particular territory. It was a revolution against Western civilization itself,” and goes down from there.
Claiming that “today, Cuban agents and operatives maintain a foothold in hundreds of front groups, activist organizations, solidarity centers, and ideological NGO and nonprofit networks,” the report labels those groups, collectively, as “one of the single largest, most sophisticated and dangerous vectors for hostile foreign influence in modern American history.
Many of the most significant upheavals in recent American political history—from the George Floyd riots to the rise of Antifa to the explosion of pro-terrorist activism on American college campuses—can be linked, in some way, shape, or form, to Cuban influence.”
That verbiage is intended to trigger investigations, harassment, and prosecutions of groups and individuals opposing U.S. imperialist actions. Among the targets is the National Network on Cuba (NNOC), “a coalition of more than 60 American groups,” with the Democratic Socialists of America, National Lawyers Guild, CodePink, and Communist Party USA specifically named.
The State Department objects that the NNOC released a “National Rapid Response Plan” in June which maps out specifics for where protests should take place within 24 hours of any U.S. invasion of Cuba.
Two State Department officials gave a background press briefing on the Cuba report on July 20. “Both US domestic law enforcement and counterterrorism agencies are looking carefully’ at thevery serious and distinct threat’ and noted that some of the groups in the NNOC `have been involved in violent action in the past,’” the New York Post reported one of the officials having stated.
According to the Post, the Departments of Treasury and Justice are already investigating the finances of some of these groups, with Code Pink’s financial backer, Neville Roy Singham named as under investigation for “potential [sic] financial crimes” by the U.S. Southern District of New York, according to the Post.