AP Photo/Alex Brandon
Those Who Challenge and Protest U.S. Policies Are Not Terrorists, and They Are Certainly NOT Paid By Other Governments
By Former U.S. Diplomat and Colonel (Ret) Ann Wright
Feeling singled-out by people who push back against horrific policies, Trump appointees are taking drastic “McCarthy-like” tactics to stop dissent.
In less than one month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has sponsored two initiatives to frighten those who oppose the Trump administration. The first was a conference with 60 countries participating in “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. Allegations that paid protest and travel on the dime of another country are unfounded, untrue, and fly in the face of the history of protests.
Trump’s erratic foreign policy, including the disastrous attacks on Iran as a favor to Israel’s war machine, plus cutting health and education domestically, the horrific treatment of migrants, and blatant disregard for facts, all provide good reasons for protests. No one needs to be paid to be outraged!
In particular, Rubio, who authored the latest report to quell opposition to illegal, immoral policies of the Trump administration, 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 each administration’s domestic and international policies have been lawfully and non-violently protested by U.S. citizens. Having been a part of many protests since I resigned from the State Department in March 2003 in opposition to 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. 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’ve never been paid by any country to protest U.S. policies, nor do I know anyone who has. Protest is a legitimate act of outrage that people use to bring attention to egregious policies in the hope of making change
Rubio’s first attack against legitimate protest came in the U.S. Department of State-sponsored conference called “Far Left Terrorism” held in Washington, DC in July 2026 where he and White House pitbull 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.”
Stephen 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 Trump’s pardon of the over 1500 persons who did try to violently overthrow the United States electoral process on January 6, 2001 as they attacked the Capitol police and broke into and destroyed many offices in the U.S. Capitol.
The most recent ludicrous allegations of “left wing violence” and protests being funded by other countries is in Rubio’s 10- page report on “Cuba: the Capitol of 21st Century Communism” Rubio accuses the National Network on Cuba, National Lawyers Guild, CODEPINK: Women for Peace, and others of being paid by the Cuban government whose goal, the report claims, has been to overthrow the U.S. government.
Talk about turning the facts on their heads, as is well-documented, all 13 U.S. administrations since 1959 have attempted to overthrow the Cuban government in the 60+ years of its existence. The current attempt is centered on the total blockade of fuel going to Cuba, which has left Cuban citizens without electricity for operations in hospitals, for food preparation, and for the ability to conduct normal life activities. Making life so miserable for the Cuban citizenry that they overthrow their government would fulfill the longstanding hopes of Cuban-American Marco Rubio - who has been less than forthright about his heritage in his quest for the overthrow of the Cuban government.
‘Mr. Righteous against birthright citizenship” is a “birthright citizen” born in the U.S. of non-citizen parents who had immigrated in 1956 from Cuba under the Batista dictatorship, not from the 1959 revolutionary government.
‘Mr. Tough on illegal immigrants’ 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.
‘Mr. Kill the Boat Drug Runners of the Caribbean’s own brother-in-law was convicted of drug running and his sister implicated but never charged.
‘Mr. I Know All About Cuba Because I Am Cuban-American’ has been to Cuba only once. And where in Cuba did he go? A few hours at the U.S. prison on the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo.
More will come in the next two years as Rubio, Miller, and others in the Administration continue bullying those who nonviolently challenge them—unlike the January 6 crowd. Protests will also persist against U.S. sanctions that pressure citizens in Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, and Nicaragua to topple their own governments.
However, Rubio, no doubt, is thinking that since his buddies in Netanyahu’s 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 “likeability,” 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. Pascale and his team sent conservative influencers suggested positive language about Israel for social media posts. The influencers are compensated based on how many “likes” each post gets.
Israel’s government has quadrupled its “public diplomacy” influence budget, from $150 million in 2025 to $730 million in 2026. But even the Israel Times says it’s too late for a “facelift”—a Pew poll shows U.S. favorability toward Israel has dropped to 37%, down seven points in a year, following its Gaza genocide, West Bank ethnic cleansing, destruction in southern Lebanon, and its entanglement of the Trump administration in the war on Iran.
These recent attempts 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 the uptick in intimidation. Despite attempts to silence, dissent is spreading. In a letter to the editor of my hometown newspaper, the Honolulu Star Advertiser, 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 is 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.”
Tell Secretary of State Marco Rubio & the State Department: Your 100-Page Cuba Report is a joke but the blockade isn’t!
Ann Wright spent 16 years in the U.S. Department of State as a U.S. diplomat, 8 times as long as Marco “McCarthy” Rubio has been appointed as Secretary of State.
After serving in the U.S. Army/Army Reserves for 29 years and as a U.S. diplomat for 16 years and 8 presidential administrations, she resigned in March 2003 in opposition to President George W. Bush’s justification that the U.S. should wage war on Iraq on the knowingly false claims of Iraq possessing “weapons of mass destruction.”
