21st-Century McCarthyism: Cuba in the crosshairs

Guillermo R Barreto

It happened on 25 May 2020, in Minneapolis, US. George Floyd, a black man, was arrested on suspicion of attempting to pay for a pack of cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill.

Police officer Derek Chauvin, a white man, pinned him to the ground and pressed down on his neck for over nine minutes.

It was to no avail that Floyd repeated “I can’t breathe” more than 20 times. He lost consciousness and died of asphyxiation. In other words, he was murdered by the police officer.

This incident sparked a wave of outrage and protests that spread to over 2,000 cities across the US and beyond.

US history reveals a long record of discriminatory policies that reflect a structurally racist system. Outrage over the ruthless murder of a black man at the hands of a white police officer seems like an inevitable reaction.

Despite this, the US State Department has found no better explanation than to attribute responsibility for the protests to the Cuban government, whose “founding myth and central principle is to wipe the U.S. off the face of the Earth”, as stated in an infamous report, published on 20 July 2026, titled Cuba. The Capital of 21st-Century Communism.

The State Department report, which appears to have been generated by artificial intelligence, is a collection of clichés reminiscent of the era of Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy, who launched an anti-communist crusade between 1950 and 1954. This led to the persecution, dismissal or imprisonment of anyone accused of belonging to or sympathising with leftist movements – actions interpreted as ‘anti-American activities’. In general, there was never a judicial investigation linking the accused to such activities. A committee was created that summoned the accused, who were required to denounce acquaintances with alleged leftist views. The harassment reached such a level that refusing to answer by invoking the constitutional right against self-incrimination (Fifth Amendment) was considered proof of guilt.

Now, in the middle of 2026, the State Department is appealing to fear to create a fantasy that portrays the Cuban government and its intelligence services as the greatest threat facing the world’s greatest military power, thereby generating a climate of paranoia among the US population that fuels mistrust and sets the stage for a possible armed attack on the island.

In that report, Cuba is accused of having supported resistance movements against dictatorial and criminal regimes such as the Tupamaros, who fought against the Uruguayan dictatorship in the 1970s; the Sandinista Front, which overthrew the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua; or the Venezuelan guerrillas of the 1960s, who fought against the social democratic governments of Betancourt and Leoni – regimes that practised and perfected forced disappearances, torture and extrajudicial executions.

Although the report, just as McCarthy did, presents no evidence against Cuba, there is at least no doubt that the accusation is based on Cuba’s support for those who resisted criminal governments that have been heavily criticised by history. It seems that the AI used failed to notice this detail.

The 99-page report lists the numerous actions that, without any evidence, the Cuban government allegedly carries out to infiltrate not only the US government but also social movements, labour unions, universities, and scientific and cultural platforms.

It is a narrative that mixes a few verified convictions for espionage with unverified testimonies from defectors or reports from Congress, the CIA or the FBI that cannot be substantiated.

What the report omits are the over 60 years of US aggression against Cuba, including the illegal blockade, which has been repeatedly condemned each year by the United Nations General Assembly and has caused cumulative damages since its inception amounting to $164bn; armed attacks such as the Bay of Pigs invasion; the over 600 assassination attempts against Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro; and the bombing of Cubana de Aviación Flight 455 on 6 October 1976, which killed 73 people and whose masterminds, Orlando Bosch and Luis Posada Carriles, lived under the protection of the US until their deaths.

The State Department uses this report to incriminate all forms of dissent within the US, conflating different eras and movements – such as the Black Panthers, Black Lives Matter, lawyers’ associations, universities and solidarity brigades – as part of an alleged plan to destroy ‘American values’.

Suddenly, it turns out that academic agreements between the University of Havana and US universities are part of an espionage agenda, that Cuba’s tourism development plans are part of an indoctrination agenda, and that the Cuban medical brigade is actually a brigade of spies scattered around the world to destroy Western values.

The State Department report – now headed by Marco Rubio, an opportunist and ambitious politician – has no academic or intelligence value. That is not its significance. Its significance lies in the fact that it explicitly reveals an essentially fascist government that seeks to impose itself on the world through force, censorship and fear – and this includes the American people themselves.

The Argentine writer Julio Cortázar wrote: “To be a fascist—even if no one has defined it exactly—one need only observe it as a form of behavior to sense that its root is negative, that it stems from fear.”

It is precisely that fear that the Trump administration uses to justify its authoritarian actions. The evil enemy is first called a communist, then a terrorist, an Islamist, a drug trafficker, a migrant, and now, once again, a communist.

This is a dangerous course of action that seeks to build an international platform of repression in the style of a renewed and reinforced Operation Condor, using sophisticated technological tools to ruthlessly attack Cuba – but which aims to destroy anything that challenges it.

This year we commemorate the centennial of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro. Like few others, Fidel embodies human dignity and the defence of principles as unyielding values for building that other possible and necessary world of justice, equality and peace.

Where Cuba sends medical brigades, the US sends soldiers trained to kill. Where Cuba sends teachers to teach reading and writing and bring light to marginalised communities, the US sends media trash, alienation, darkness and death.

Cuba has withstood humanity’s greatest threat with dignity, and it is the duty of all of us to voice our strongest condemnation of the policies implemented by the US government – as outlined in that despicable recent report – and to express our solidarity, on the centennial of Commander Fidel Castro, with that brave people.

End the blockade now! Stop the threats now! – Globetrotter

Guillermo R Barreto is Venezuelan and holds a PhD in Science from the University of Oxford. He is a retired professor at Simón Bolívar University, Venezuela. He served as deputy science and technology minister, president of the National Fund for Science and Technology, and ecosocialism and water minister in Venezuela. He is currently a researcher at the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research and a visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of Social Transformations-Ivic.

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