After several weeks of being announced, the not-at-all-unpredictable Ministerial Meeting on the “resurgence of far-left political terrorism,” supposedly a transnational threat, took place in Washington on July 16th, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the star, literally speaking, of the show.
This platform has been used to criminalize anything that smacks of an alternative to the MAGA way of life, both within and outside the United States, and lends itself to strengthening the frameworks for justifying future violent actions that the White House may choose to unleash. Against whom exactly?
For this latest installment in an already tiresome and lengthy saga, there’s no need to read between the lines, as Rubio has been, at the very least, crystal clear:
“The radical left can adopt various slogans and ideologies; it can call itself anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, communist, anarchist, or Marxist; but its fundamental nature is resentment disguised in the language of equality, justice, and liberation,” he said, and included transgender people on his list of dangers to “freedom”—whose freedom, it is—his own.
The Secretary insisted that “we know what we must do, and now we must do it,” a phrase that immediately brings to mind the one his president used last Wednesday to defend the ICE officers, shortly after they killed another migrant in Maine: “The men and women of ICE are doing a great job, one that needs to be done.”
The “mainstream press, academia, and traditional institutions” were singled out as complicit in the “blind spot” of the US counterterrorism doctrine. Rubio knows what he will be accused of and decided to preempt it: “The mere idea that ‘far-left terrorism’ could be a serious threat is treated as a fever dream of the right, or worse, as a dangerous fascist conspiracy,” he acknowledged, concerned.
To further clarify, he made a point of drawing direct connections to the Cold War era and McCarthyist politics: “Nothing I have just described is new,” he asserted.
“It can no longer be denied or ignored, because it is time to eradicate this evil forever,” he declared to the representatives of more than 60 countries present in the room.
Furthermore, he emphasized that the primary responsibility of any government, regardless of its nature, is the protection of its people, the protection of its country. “This is a sacred obligation that must transcend all political and ideological divisions,” he explained, like someone calling for a forest fire to save biodiversity, while, as he says “biodiversity,” he points to the three rats, two donkeys, dog, and ivy in his yard.
The U.S. National Security Advisor, Stephen Miller, also deigned to speak, adding much the same, with descriptions such as a cancer on civilization and a mortal threat.
These people aren’t ten lunatics shouting in a town square; they are at the head of the world’s greatest military power. And, lest anyone still have any doubts, they are not playing games. They never have. They are the same, almost the same, as those behind Operation Condor in South America and napalm in Vietnam, the nuclear bombs in Japan and the scorched-earth policies in the Middle East, those who supported—and then some—apartheid in the southern cone of Africa and those who support—and then some—Zionism in the Levant.
THE PREVIEW
About 24 hours before the meeting in question took place, the American news outlet CBS News leaked that, in recent weeks, the Pentagon had been examining a series of alleged options for possible military action against Cuba.
The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, included the possibility of an “Army-led air assault involving thousands of U.S. soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division, the only unit trained for the task,” they speculated.
However, officials cited by the platform pointed out that these briefings are not concrete evidence that the president or the defense minister has decided to carry out an “operation.”
On Monday, the State Department announced the launch of a large-scale campaign against the International Criminal Court, which it accuses of being an intolerable threat to U.S. sovereignty, denying its jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute its military and intelligence agents. This represents three further steps on the already advanced path toward impunity for that country.
CUBA SPEAKS OUT AGAINST THE “SUMMIT” AND THE NOISE
On Thursday, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, a member of the Political Bureau and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba, stated that this type of information, disseminated from high-ranking U.S. officials through the media, is not only part of psychological warfare.
“With these alleged leaks, the US government seeks to measure the public opinion of its citizens, in the face of a military adventure that would cause a bloodbath and that lacks credible justification,” commented the Chancellor.
In addition, he confirmed that Cuba does not pose a threat to the largest military and nuclear power in the world, something that, he specified, the U.S. intelligence agencies know.
The diplomat criticized how the media of the neighboring country joins the campaign of threats of aggression against the Island and assured that “the fabrication of mendacious pretexts against Cuba from South Florida is the perfect business of a group of discredited and corrupt politicians, who continue to profit from the suffering of the Cuban people.
The day before, Rodríguez Parrilla also addressed the ministerial meeting announced in Washington, which he accused of seeking to reinstate the persecution and political repression of those who denounce, dissent from, and fight against the neoliberal, imperialist, fascist, and far-right measures promoted by the U.S. government.
“The means to achieve this don’t matter, nor do the victims or the double standards. All it takes is a new lie from those who have a record of creating them, and a good propaganda machine that they already control,” he concluded.
DISTRAINT ATTENTION?
Beyond increasing the U.S. government’s margin of impunity and criminalizing leftist movements, there is another possible motivation for holding this ministerial meeting: the military incursion into Iran, launched on February 22nd, has neither ended nor yielded the results the president expected.
On the contrary, it has influenced a global hydrocarbon crisis, which is only just beginning, while the Yankee military bases, which for the last 30 years have watched over American “national security” in the Persian Gulf, have been left in ruins after the Iranian response.
Is it necessary to shift the focus elsewhere? Perhaps. The Washington Post has just reported that the results of its latest poll are decidedly unfavorable for the country’s president.
Americans give President Donald Trump overwhelmingly negative reviews for his handling of key issues, the newspaper explains. They say, it continues, that they are stressed about the cost of living and pessimistic about the prospects for concrete results from the negotiations with Iran and their implications for fuel prices or the alleged development of the much-discussed nuclear weapon.
Meanwhile, CBS News has indicated that the war with Iran has exposed some friction between the president and Pete Hegseth, his Secretary of Defense, as the president has expressed behind the scenes his frustration with the progress of the so-called Operation Epic Fury, whose reactionary intransigence, coupled with pressure from Israel, has squandered opportunities to emerge from the conflict quickly and relatively unscathed.
Meanwhile, Hegseth proposes studying the testosterone levels of American soldiers over 30 to see, by his standards, if they’re still up to par. Up to par with what? With this whole grand spectacle, which often tires of being just talk and sends them to kill and die against an enemy that almost always, at least as they understand it, doesn’t exist.