Consortium News, August 10, 2026
Those who challenge and protest U.S. policies are not foreign-paid terrorists; Rubio and other Trump appointees are using “McCarthy” tactics to stop dissent, says Ann Wright.
Downtown Minneapolis ICE-out demonstration on Jan. 23 following ICE agent Jonathan Ross’ fatal shooting of civilian Renée Good. (Lorie Shaull /Flickr/ Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY 4.0)
By Ann Wright
Thin-skinned and heavy-handed, the Trump administration apparently feels like it is being singled out by those who dissent from its policies. As a result, Trump appointees are taking drastic “McCarthy” tactics to stop dissent.
In less than one month, alleging that dissent and protests are part of attempts of other governments “to overthrow the government of the United States,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio has sponsored two major initiatives to frighten those who oppose the Trump administration’s policies.
The first salvo was orchestrating a conference with 60 countries participating over “Threats From Left-Wing Terrorists.” The second was the report on Cuba that alleged virtually every group that has ever visited Cuba is paid by the Cuban government.
If You Are Not Outraged, You Aren’t Watching
These allegations of paid protest and travelling on the dime of another country are unfounded, untrue, and fly in the face of the history of protests in the U.S. and travel by U.S. citizens to see the effects of U.S. polices on other countries.
President Donald Trump’s erratic foreign policy, including the disastrous attacks on Iran as a favor to Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli war machine; attacks domestically cutting health and education; horrific treatment of migrants; daily outlandish statements on just about every subject; and disregard for facts in virtually every issue all provide good reasons for protests by outraged U.S. citizens.
I have not been paid by any country to protest U.S. policies, nor do I know anyone who has been paid.
No one needs to be paid to be outraged!!!
Dissent Is Not Illegal, Nor Paid by Other Countries
Sen. Joe McCarthy, center, confers with Roy Cohn, chief counsel for House Un-American Activities Committee, Aug. 23, 1953. (Los Angeles Times/Wikimedia Commons)
In particular, Secretary of State and National Security adviser Marco Rubio, who has authored the latest “McCarthy” report to quell opposition to illegal, immoral policies of his department and the Trump administration in general, seems to have lost his grasp on the history of dissent in the U.S.
From his 15 years in the U.S. Senate, he should remember that many of each administration’s domestic and international policies have been lawfully and non-violently protested by U.S. citizens in the U.S. Congress.
Having been a part of many protests since I resigned from the State Department in March 2003 in opposition to a war policy, President George W. Bush’s war on Iraq, I know that these protests are NOT a part of attempts of other governments to “overthrow the government of the United States,” but are legitimate shows of concern about specific policies.
Rubio’s allegations of other countries’ influence in these protests are unfounded and untrue.
I was not paid by a foreign government to resign. I resigned because I felt the war on Iraq was illegal, immoral, and a dangerous action jeopardizing the national security of the United States.
I have not been paid by any country to protest U.S. policies, nor do I know anyone who has been paid. Protest is a legitimate, time-consuming act of outrage about a policy that people use to bring attention to the policy, and hopefully effect change in the policy.
Rubio: Blame the Left, Ignore Right’s Violent Attack
The first attack against legitimate protest came in the U.S. Department of State sponsored conference on “Far-Left Terrorism” held in Washington, D,C,. in July, where Rubio and White House pit bull Stephen Miller harangued the representatives of 66 nations about terrorists from the left wanting to overthrow the U.S. government.
In his opening statement Rubio railed:
“This is a distinctive and unique evil. It has always been driven by a hatred above all else, a hatred for civilization itself. It is a revolt of the worst against the best, a revolt of the weak and the cowardly against the strong and the good.”
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Miller called left-wing extremism a growing threat aimed at “the overthrow of our system and form of government” that officials previously failed to sufficiently address. Miller railed:
“We must stay the course and be completely unflinching in the pursuit of justice against these enemies of civilization. If the left is allowed to use the real or actual threat of violence to destabilize our institutions, then those institutions cannot and will not succeed.”
A White House press release stated,
“Under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump, far-left extremism will be treated with the same seriousness and ferocity the world has long reserved for jihadist terrorism.”
Of course, neither Rubio nor Miller mentioned President Trump’s pardon of the over 1,500 persons who did try to violently overthrow the United States electoral process on Jan. 6, 2021 as they attacked the Capitol police and broke into and destroyed many offices in the U.S. Capitol.
The attempted overthrow of the 2020 election by seeking to nullify the election results through lawsuits in 62 federal and state courts was attempted by Trump’s loyal personal lawyers including the current acting U.S. attorney general and head of the U.S. Department of Justice Todd Blanche, and disgraced and disbarred lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Their cases of election fraud were stopped by rulings in all 62 federal and state lawsuits that no election fraud had occurred.
Untruthful Report About Cuba & Paid Protesters
Prisoners of the C.I.A,-backed Brigade 2506, after they were captured in the Bay of Pigs invasion, 1961. (Miguel Vinas / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain)
The most recent and most ludicrous allegations of left-wing violence and protests being funded by other countries is in Secretary of Rubio’s 10- page report on “Cuba: the Capital of 21st Century Communism.”
Rubio accuses the National Network on Cuba, National Lawyers Guild, CODEPINK: Women for Peace, the People’s Forum, IFCO/Pastors for Peace, and the Democratic Socialists of America of being paid by the Cuban government whose goal, the report states, has been for 60 years the overthrow of the U.S. government.
Talk about turning the facts on their heads. As is well-documented, 13 successive U.S. presidential administrations since 1959 — Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama (first term, when C.I.A. policies were still in effect, but changing in Obama’s second term with diplomatic recognition), Trump 1, Biden, and Trump 2 — have attempted to overthrow the Cuban government in the 60-plus years of its existence.
The current attempt of overthrow is centered on the U.S. brutal and total blockade of fuel going to Cuba, which has left Cuban citizens without electricity for operations in hospitals, for food preparation, and for the conduct of normal life.
Making life so miserable for the Cuban citizenry that they overthrow their government would fulfill the longstanding hopes of Cuban-American Rubio.
Rubio Dishonest About Cuban American Background
Marco Rubio has been less than forthright about his heritage as a Cuban American in his quest for the overthrow of the Cuban government.
Rubio, “Mr. Righteous against birthright citizenship,” is a “birthright citizen” born in the U.S. of noncitizen parents who had immigrated in 1956 from Cuba under the Batista dictatorship, not under the 1959 revolutionary government.
Rubio, “Mr. Tough on illegal immigrants,” ignores that his own grandfather entered the U.S. illegally and was ordered to be deported but was saved from deportation by an amnesty during the Cuban missile crisis.
Rubio, “Mr. Kill the Boat Drug Runners of the Caribbean,” disregards that his own brother-in-law was convicted of drug running and his sister implicated but never charged.
Rubio, “Mr. I Know All About Cuba Because I Am Cuban American,” has been to Cuba only once — where in Cuba did he go? A few hours at the U.S. prison on the U.S. Naval base at Guantánamo.
No doubt, more will come in the next two years as Rubio, Miller, and others in the administration seem to think they can get away with outrageous bullying of individuals and organizations that do not agree with them and that challenge them in non-violent ways, in contrast to the Jan. 6 gang.
In particular, there are always protests against the horrific effects of brutal sanctions that the U.S. government uses to make life so difficult for citizens of other countries that they will overthrow their own governments, whether it be Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, or Nicaragua.
Israel’s Paid Influence Seems OK With Rubio
Rubio and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivering joint statements in Jerusalem on Feb. 16, 2025. (State Department/ Freddie Everett)
However, Rubio must be thinking that since his buddies in the Netanyahu government have paid Trump’s former campaign manager, Brad Parscale, millions of dollars in a specific program to influence U.S. public opinion to stop the massive decline in Israel’s “likability,” that other countries have paid off U.S. persons to work clandestinely on the same scale.
Parscale’s firm was hired by Israel for $6 million in September 2025 and then signed a $15 million contract with Israeli firm Havas to conduct a digital campaign on behalf of the State of Israel, according to the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
Parscale and his team sent conservative influencers suggested positive language about Israel for posts on social media sites such as X, Instagram, and TikTok. The influencers are then compensated based on how many “likes” each post gets from readers.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government has dramatically increased spending on influence operations. Earlier this year, Israel increased by four times its “public diplomacy” influence budget from $150 million in 2025 to $730 million in 2026.
But even The Times of Israel says it’s too late for a “face lift” as a Pew Research Center poll reported that 60 percent of Americans now view Israel unfavorably, up seven points in a single year, with only 37 percent viewing it favorably after Israel has committed genocide of Palestinians in Gaza; pillaged and plundered homes, farms, animals in the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian West Bank; destroyed southern Lebanon; and got the Trump administration up to its neck in the war on Iran.
Keep Challenging Illegal, Immoral & Criminal Policies
The two recent major attempts of the Trump administration to quell dissent show how serious challenging illegal, immoral, and criminal policies has become and how important it is that we push back hard against these attempts to intimidate citizens to silence their dissent.
Despite these brutal, heavy-handed attempts, dissent is spreading to regular citizens. In a recent letter to the editor of my hometown newspaper Honolulu Star Advertiser, which serves a large U.S. military population, a resident of Hawaii summarized the challenge very well:
“The true domestic enemy includes those who monopolize political and economic power. The real enemy includes individuals who misinform, threaten, and disenfranchise the less powerful. The true enemy are those who are antidemocratic, have little or no concern regarding the welfare of others, and enrich themselves, family, and a few friends at the expense of the general population.”
Ann Wright served in the U.S. Army/Army Reserves for 29 years and retired as a colonel. She was also a U.S. diplomat for 16 years and served in U.S. embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She is the co-author of Dissent: Voices of Conscience. She has been with the Gaza Freedom Flotilla Coalition since 2010, has been put in Israeli prison twice for attempting to break the illegal Israeli naval blockade on Gaza and has been on segments of flotillas in 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2024.
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