Page 477 – Nejat Society

Washington clears MEK for covert war

Here’s a thought experiment: imagine that there is a terrorist network in the USA that has been responsible for hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths over several decades. The group Washington clears MEK for covert war declares itself dedicated to destroying the US government and has been involved in car bombing urban centres, kidnapping and murdering members of the country’s security forces, and assassinating government scientists, as well as perpetrating countless random murders on businessmen and ordinary families.

Now imagine that the Iranian government announces a new policy in which it does not consider the above clandestine group a terrorist entity. That policy means that the network is free to raise money in Iran to fund its terror campaign against US citizens and to lobby for political support among Iranian lawmakers and ambassadors.

We can safely conclude that in such a far-fetched scenario, the US government would immediately declare war on Iran and proceed to carpet bomb that country mercilessly – with the Western corporate news media blasting righteous endorsements of vengeance.

Yet this scenario of aiding and abetting terrorism is far from far-fetched when it comes to actual US policy towards Iran. Just last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton officially de-listed the Iranian Mujahideen e-Khalq (MEK) from its official terror watch list.

That the MEK is a terror group is beyond dispute, despite the US government’s apparent change of opinion. The term “terror group” applies objectively and accurately. It is not just a pejorative propaganda label used by the Iranian government to blacken some dissident group. Since the 1980s, the MEK network itself claims that it has killed 40,000 Iranians whom it considers legitimate targets because they are “loyal” to, that is because they are citizens of, the Islamic Republic. Lower estimates of fatalities are put at around 17,000. Proportionate to its population that would give an upper equivalent of 150,000 dead Americans – a death toll suffered by Iran which is 50 times greater than that ascribed to 9/11.

The MEK, also known as MKO, has colluded with foreign powers for the stated goal of destroying the Islamic Republic of Iran. Most notably, between 1980 and 1988 when Iran was facing a US-backed war of aggression by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, the MEK functioned as subversives and shock troops operating “behind enemy lines” to betray their own people.

For that reason, the group has negligible, if any, popular support within Iran. It cannot claim the slightest modicum of popular mandate that might otherwise serve to give its activities a veneer of legitimacy as an “insurgency” or “freedom struggle.” Indeed, it is more accurate to call the group a sort of terrorist cult rather than a political movement. Since 2003, the MEK has not even had a base within Iran, operating clandestinely out of Iraq.

Such is the organisation’s fringe status, that even Iranian political opponents of the government in Tehran deprecated the US government move to officially de-list it as a terror group. That indicates how extreme the network is viewed by the Iranian population.

The Western mainstream media claim that Washington’s clearance of the MEK was given because the group “has renounced violence.” That renunciation was officially made 10 years ago. That is also allegedly why the European Union and the British government removed the network from their terror lists in 2009 and 2008.

How these Western governments can maintain this charade with a straight face is rather astounding. The MEK and other Iranian terror gangs, such as the al-Qaeda-linked Jundallah, have been actively plying violence unabated against the citizenry over the past decade. Even Washington officials admit it. Following the murder of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan on 11 January earlier this year with a magnetic bomb attached to his car in northern Tehran, anonymous US officials disclosed to American mainstream media that the killing was the work of the MEK in collusion with Israel’s Mossad.

Since 2007, five Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated. The MEK and Mossad are strongly implicated in all these murders and much worse.

Why US officials should have authoritative knowledge of such MEK activities is quite simple. It is because the US government and its military intelligence support these very terrorist activities, along with Mossad and Britain’s MI6. During the George W Bush presidency, congressional leaders secretly approved a budget of $400 million to arm and fund the MEK and Jundallah. According to investigative American journalist Seymour Hersh, US Joint Special Operations Command trained members of the MEK at a secret site in Nevada between 2005 and 2009. Training included use of weapons and explosives in the black arts of sabotage, or, in short, terrorism. During the American illegal occupation of Iraq following 2003, the MEK was given protection and immunity at a dedicated facility, known as Camp Ashraf, in Iraq from where they would launch operations into Iran. The camp has since been closed down following the large-scale American troop withdrawal from the country.

So, the “ceasefire” pretense is a bad joke. However, a substantial reason why the US has de-listed the MEK is the powerful lobbying for such a decision over many years by senior American political and military figures. They include former CIA director James Woolsey, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, ex-New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and past US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton. All of these senior figures, and more, of the American ruling class have called for Washington to give clearance to the MEK – at a time when even US officials are acknowledging that the group is involved in assassinations in Iran.

The move by Washington last week is, in effect, giving full approval to the MEK’s terror and assassination campaign in Iran. It is a stark reminder of Washington’s unwavering warpath towards Iran. Recently, some commentators have tended to misread Washington as giving a rebuff to Israel’s war rhetoric against Iran. But the clearance by Washington of a terrorist campaign in Iran – one that the US government is materially assisting – is a sobering sign that war is still the order of the day. The recent alleged spats between Washington and Tel Aviv are more likely a reflection of tactical variance due to the forthcoming US presidential election than any substantive difference in aggression towards Tehran.

It is hardly a coincidence that Washington’s MEK announcement was made only days before Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed the 67th summit of the UN General Assembly in New York. The Washington regime also took the unprecedented step of denying some 20 Iranian diplomats travel visas to attend the UN assembly ¬ this week – this despite an historic agreement by the US, as host nation to the United Nations, to refrain from such obstruction of diplomats from any country regardless of bilateral disputes.

The obstructive snub to Iran’s sovereignty comes in the wake of the successful hosting of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) last month in which some 120 member states gathered in Tehran. And it beggars belief that such a diplomatic mugging by Washington this week is not related to Iran’s new presidency of the NAM emphasizing the urgent need for an overhaul of the UN Security Council and greater democracy within the UN General Assembly to end the abusive political domination by the US. Such an overhaul is glaringly obvious now especially in light of the American member of the “security council” supporting terrorism in Iran and denying the victims of terrorism a full hearing. (That other has-been security council power, Britain, is also a disgrace for the same reason.)

Washington’s sinister relationship with Iranian MEK terror group points up the fact of who really is the “rogue state.” White House rhetoric has long tried to paint Iran as such. But in the real world, the MEK joins the phalanx of Washington’s terror proxies and mercenaries, from the Contra to al-Qaeda, who do America’s dirty work around the world. Like the MEK, it’s probably only a matter of time before al-Qaeda is also given official clearance by Washington. Yes, the contradictions are perverse, but such is America’s real relationship with world terrorism and its rogue status par excellence.

By Finian Cunningham

September 26, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Obama Decision on Islamo-Marxist Terror Cult Will Lead to U.S. Funding

After a multi-million dollar lobbying campaign that unlawfully enlisted top members of the bipartisan U.S. political class, the Obama administration decided that the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Obama Decision on Islamo-Marxist Terror Cult Will Lead to U.S. Funding (MeK), an Islamo-Marxist terror cult notorious for murdering Americans, should no longer be on the State Department’s list of designated terrorist organizations. Experts say the decision paves the way to begin openly showering U.S. taxpayer money on the anti-American outfit in its bid to overthrow the Iranian regime.

The controversial decision to formally "delist" the organization came in the wake of reports charging that the federal government was already arming and training the cult-like Iranian MeK in violation of U.S. terror laws. The purpose of the alleged support, according to multiple sources, was to help wage a proxy war against Iran. Criticism of the administration’s recent decision, however, erupted quickly and forcefully.

Also known as the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran, the MeK was founded in an effort to advance a hybrid system incorporating communism and Islam. It officially landed on the U.S. government’s terror list some 15 years ago for perpetrating numerous terror attacks against civilians and more than a few senior American military personnel. The group was also allied with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, helping him to wage a brutal war against Iran while suppressing dissidents within Iraq.

“The U.S. Department of State took the moral and strategic bankruptcy of America’s Iran policy to a new low,” observed Iran expert Flynt Leverett, a professor at Pennsylvania State University’s School of International Affairs. “Since when did murdering unarmed civilians (and, in some instances, members of their families as well) on public streets in the middle of a heavily populated urban area (Tehran) not meet even the U.S. government’s own professed standard for terrorism?”

Despite federal statutes defining as a felony the provision of any “material support” to designated terrorist organizations, the MeK managed to buy die-hard support from numerous senior U.S. politicians and former officials on both sides of the aisle. Advocates for the terror cult range from neo-conservative terror-war cheerleaders like Rudy Giuliani and Michael Mukasey to liberals like Howard Dean and Gen. James Jones. Former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, ex-CIA and FBI bosses, and many others jumped on the pro-MeK bandwagon, too.

The paid lobbyists for the terror cult unlawfully earned massive sums of money — often tens of thousands of dollars or more. But the administration’s decision, supposedly based on “humanitarian” concerns to get the group’s members out of Iraq, sets a troubling precedent, according to analysts. “The delisting of the MEK, following a well-funded political lobby campaign, creates the dangerous impression that it is possible for terrorist organizations to buy their way off the [terrorism] list,” Mila Johns of the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism was quoted as saying by Wired magazine.

But there is undoubtedly more to the decision to delist the group than the fact that it showered money on former U.S. officials — funds that were probably extracted from American taxpayers at some point. While well-paid shills for the group claim that the MeK has not been engaged in much terrorism recently — at least not against American targets — numerous reports indicate that the cult has been as busy as ever. As recently as 2009, for example, the U.S. State Department warned that “MEK leadership and members across the world maintain the capacity and will to commit terrorist acts in Europe, the Middle East, the United States, Canada and beyond.”

More recently, U.S. officials have even admitted that the murders of Iranian scientists over the past several years were being conducted by the MeK — apparently with support and training from the Obama administration and the Israeli government. Journalist Seymour Hersh with the New Yorker reported that members of the cult were actually receiving training from the U.S. government on American soil, a severe violation of federal law.

However, for now at least, the group’s terror campaign appears to be largely directed at Iran, which is ruled by a regime that both the Western establishment and the MeK hope to depose. So, because the Iranian regime is now the terror cult’s primary target for terrorism — it used to be capitalism, America, and the West, and probably will be again at some point — war-mongering U.S. officials have apparently found an ally.

“When these criminal politicians start speaking about the ‘war against terrorism,’ spit on your television screen, as they are the terrorists,” fumed liberty-minded analyst Daniel McAdams after the decision was made public. “They are wealthy terrorists who steal your tax dollars to send overseas and recoup to lobby in favor of bloody killers of civilians in Iran.”

Experts predict with relative certainty that U.S. taxpayer money will soon begin openly flowing to the Marxist terror cult, too. However, observers argue that collaborating with the dangerous group at all would be a terrible plan — let alone openly arming and funding it to wage a war against a foreign government.

“To limit the damage from its decision, the State Department needs to make it powerfully clear that the United States does not support the MEK,” wrote analyst Jeremiah Goulka, who studied the MeK in Iraq for the RAND Corporation. “The White House should consider making it policy for the government not to fund, employ, or otherwise collaborate with the group. The MEK is not our ally. Its interests are its own, not ours.”

Analysts also said the delisting of the terror cult would be counterproductive on multiple fronts even for goals the Obama administration purports to support. For one, it reinforces Tehran’s narrative that the lawless U.S. government intends to destroy Iran and the Iranian people no matter what — and that it has nothing to do with non-existent nuclear weapons. It also makes war more likely.

Meanwhile, the MeK, unsurprisingly, is widely despised within Iran, partly because it worked with Saddam Hussein to massacre Iranians with American support before the Iraqi tyrant found himself on the U.S. government’s enemy list. The fact that the Obama administration is now seen as openly supportive of the terror cult and may even begin openly funding it soon will decimate the genuine movement for political reform inside Iran as well.

The decision will also allow the Islamo-Marxist group to have an even larger say in U.S. government policy toward Iran as it seeks to overthrow the government and seize the reins of power. Former DNC boss Howard Dean even called for recognizing the mass-murdering cult, which, again, has virtually no support outside of Washington, D.C., as the legitimate government of Iran.

Iranians opposed to the Islamist regime, however, say that would be a terrible idea. “The MEK does not represent the Iranian-American community or the pro-democracy movement in Iran,” noted the National Iranian American Council. “We do not support the use of violence and war to replace Iran’s undemocratic regime that abuses human rights with the MEK’s undemocratic cult that tortures its own members.”

According to analysts, the controversial decision to delist the MeK has also exposed once again the lawless and hypocritical nature of U.S. government policy makers. In recent decades, no matter which political party has been in power, the U.S. government has routinely backed dictators and terrorist groups before turning against them. Critics of the latest example of such outrageous behavior say the MeK’s victory fits into that pattern perfectly.

“This MEK scam more vividly illustrates the rot and corruption at the heart of America’s DC-based political culture than almost any episode I can recall,” observed popular analyst Glenn Greenwald in the U.K. Guardian, adding that the U.S. government often “favors” terrorism despite purporting to oppose it. “The history of the U.S. list of designated terrorist organizations, and its close cousin list of state sponsors of terrorism, is simple: a country or group goes on the list when they use violence to impede U.S. interests, and they are then taken off the list when they start to use exactly the same violence to advance U.S. interests.”

Activists are still hoping that federal terror laws will be applied consistently so former U.S. officials and politicians bought by the MeK can be held accountable for providing “material support” to a designated terrorist organization. Even more important, however, are the consequences of having the U.S. government work with yet another terror group, in this case an anti-American Islamo-Communist cult. The blowback will undoubtedly come back to haunt the world — probably sooner rather than later.

by Alex Newman

September 26, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Money Talks: The Mujahideen-e-Khalq Episode

Money Talks: The Mujahideen-e-Khalq Episode as the Fundamental Display of Washington Lobbying Power

If you want to understand how things get done in Washington, perhaps the best lesson of the year comes from the State Department’s decision late Friday to remove the Iranian exile group Mujahideen-e-Khalq from the official list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The MEK never really lessened the activities that got it listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in the first place; in fact, they have intensified inside Iran. No, their path to de-listing came simply from buying off practically every prominent figure in Washington and rallying DC opinion to their side. It didn’t hurt also that the object of their terrorist activities happens to be a foreign country we don’t like.

But truly, the MEK went about securing their de-listing the way an oil company would secure a subsidy in an energy bill or the way a developer would secure an earmark for a new road near one of their land holdings. They just bought a bunch of lobbyists, spending millions of dollars to change their public image. And it paid off.

The campaign to bury the MEK’s bloody history of bombings and assassinations that killed American businessmen, Iranian politicians and thousands of civilians, and to portray it as a loyal US ally against the Islamic government in Tehran has seen large sums of money directed at three principal targets: members of Congress, Washington lobby groups and influential former officials.

Prominent among the members of Congress who have received fund is Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the chair of the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee. She has accepted at least $20,000 in donations from Iranian American groups or their leaders to her political campaign fund.

Other recipients include Congressman Bob Filner, who was twice flown to address pro-MEK events in France and has pushed resolutions resolutions in the House of Representatives calling for the group to be unbanned. More than $14,000 in expenses for Filner’s Paris trips were met by the head of an Iranian American group who also paid close to $1m to a Washington lobby firm working to get the MEK unbanned.

A Texas Congressman, Ted Poe, received thousands of dollars in donations from the head of a pro-MEK group in his state at a time when he was a regular speaker on behalf of its unbanning at events across the US, describing the organisation as the ticket to regime change in Iran.

It goes on and on, with money funneled to members of both parties, and lobbyists hired from the ranks of former elected officials on both sides as well. Luminaries like Ed Rendell, Howard Dean, Bill Richardson, Tom Ridge, Newt Gingrich, Rudy Giuliani and more were all paid to extol the virtues of the MEK. Big time lobby shops like DLA Piper, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, and DiGenova & Toensing took $1.5 million in the last year alone to work on lawmakers and the State Department to get the de-listing. Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Hugh Shelton, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, former national security advisor James Jones and more all took MEK money and praised the organization. MEK also paid members of the Beltway media to further their efforts. Virtually everyone with a name in Washington got some piece of the action.

MEK got its money for this high-scale lobbying effort from the Iranian exile community, which has as its goal the overthrow of the current government in Iran. Their old benefactor was Saddam Hussein, who had exactly the same goal. Basically Saddam kept this group of militants on the border with Iran as his personal strike force, and George W. Bush cited the sheltering of the MEK as one of the reasons for the need to invade Iraq. All that history was forgotten when the money started flowing.

The subtext for this is that the MEK found it so easy as a known terrorist group to toss money at everyone in Washington and find purchase because their goals to overthrow Iran’s government lines up with what would be termed “pro-Israel” policies. You’re allowed to engage in terrorism, then, as long as you do it against an enemy of the United States, and in the best interest of an ally of the United States.

Glenn Greenwald takes five lessons from this episode, all of them worthwhile. Note in particular the parallels between DC establishment advocacy for a Muslim terrorist organization and the type of advocacy for other terrorist groups, which will get you prosecuted and thrown in jail faster than you can say “My Speaker’s Bureau fee is $25,000.” There’s also this:

The US government did not even pretend that terrorism had anything to do with its decision as to whether MEK should be de-listed. Instead, they used the carrot of de-listing, and the threat of remaining on the list, to pressure MEK leaders to adhere to US demands to abandon their camp in Iraq. But what does adhering to this US demand have to do with terrorism? Nothing. This list has nothing to do with terrorism. It is simply a way the US rewards those who comply with its dictates and punishes those who refuse.

Terrorism, at least in its applied sense, means little other than: violence used by enemies of the US and its allies. Violence used by the US and its allies (including stateless groups) can never be terrorism, no matter how heinous and criminal.

I think the biggest lesson is that it exposes this industry of ex-elected officials and hangers-on in Washington that form a shadow government with tremendous power, which they use in service to whoever hires them. The lobbyist class around these former policymakers makes them in many ways stronger than when they were allegedly setting policy in the first place. This way, they can actually write the legislation instead of taking dictation about it.

By: David Dayen ,Firedoglake.com

September 25, 2012 0 comments

Nejat Publications

Pars Brief – Issue No.68

Inside This Issue:

• Five lessons from the de-listing of MEK as a terrorist group
• Terror delisting the MEK is a cynical sham
• MEK decision: multimillion-dollar campaign led to removal from terror list
• Syrian security forces arrest five MKO terrorists
• UN envoy welcomes last major transfer of Iranian exiles MEK

Download Pars Brief – Issue No.68
Download Pars Brief – Issue No.68

September 25, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Iranian Cult Is No Longer Officially a Terrorist Group!

Washington’s favorite Iranian terrorist group has likely won. By a forthcoming edict of the State Department, you can now no longer call the Mujahideen-e Khalq — formerly Saddam Hussein’s proxies against the Iranian regime — a terrorist organization. Erasing its status as a cult is a different story.

The State Department is set to remove what everyone simply calls the MEK from its list of terrorist groups, in advance of a court-imposed deadline for a decision. That will leave the organization free to fundraise and operate without attracting the attention of the FBI. The impact on U.S.-Iranian relations may be marginal, but the symbolism is enormous: As tensions with Iran over its nuclear program remain high, the Obama administration is wiping away the stigma from a cultish group that wants to overthrow the Iranian regime so badly it has attacked Iranian and other civilians to advance its agenda. And it comes after a long and deep-pocketed lobbying effort attracted a host of Washington politicos to advocate for the group.

“The delisting of the MEK, following a well-funded political lobby campaign, creates the dangerous impression that it is possible for terrorist organizations to buy their way off the [terrorism] list,” says Mila Johns of the University of Maryland’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism.

The MEK’s questionable practices extend beyond attacks on Iranian civilians. In a 2004 New York Times Magazine story, Elizabeth Rubin documented the group’s cult-like behavior. “Every morning and night, the kids, beginning as young as 1 and 2, had to stand before a poster of Massoud and Maryam, salute them and shout praises to them,” a former member told Rubin, referring to the “husband-and-wife cult” of leaders Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. Life in the MEK, Rubin reported, means enforced celibacy and public confessions of sexual desires. “Mujahedeen members have no access to newspapers or radio or television,” Rubin wrote, “other than what is fed them.”

Originally founded as a student organization in the 1960s to overthrow the Shah, the MEK attacked Western targets in pre-revolutionary Iran, and their victims included three U.S. Army officers. But they fell out of step with the Islamic radicals that took control of Iran in 1979, and turned their weapons on the new regime. Saddam Hussein became their sponsor during the Iran-Iraq war, yet the leadership moved to Paris. For over a decade, the MEK carried out bombings and hijackings on regime targets inside and outside Iran, including an audacious April 1992 coordinated raid on 13 Iranian diplomatic facilities around the world. The State Department listed them as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 1997.

But it’s been years since the MEK attempted a terrorist attack. Most of its operations have centered around endearing itself to the U.S. by portraying itself as an advocate for a democratic Iran, a source of information on Iran’s nuclear program and an implacable enemy of Washington’s Tehran enemies. It turned over its weapons at a training camp in Iraq after the U.S. invasion that until recently was a de facto U.S. protectorate called Camp Ashraf. In Washington, supporters have spent years and millions of dollars waging a lobbying campaign to remove the group’s terrorist status, holding rallies outside of Congress and slathering the sides of buses with pro-MEK posters.

The sources of that money remain undisclosed. But it purchased prominent D.C. lobbying firms like Akin Gump and advocates like Reagan administration veteran Victoria Toensing. And it got an odd collection of supporters, from former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani on the right to former Vermont Governor Howard Dean on the left, plus retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark, ex-CIA director Michael Hayden, ex-FBI director Louis Freeh, ex-Obama national security adviser James Jones and a host of other notables.

The Iranian government, having been on the receiving end of MEK attacks, thinks the group still plans violence against it. Accordingly, some consider the MEK a diplomatic obstacle to resolving the Iranian nuclear question. The MEK also has support among U.S. Legislature who want to see the U.S. take a more bellicose turn toward Iran, so it’s possible that the group will rocket from the terrorist list to the halls of Congress.

Chances are, the State Department decision will merely entrench the impasse between Washington and Tehran. “I don’t think the world really looks that much different after the MEK delisting,” says Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “U.S.-Iran relations will remain hostile, and the MEK will remain a fringe cult with very limited appeal among Iranians.”

Byy Spencer Ackerman ,Danger Room

Danger Room senior reporter Spencer Ackerman recently won the 2012 National Magazine Award for Reporting in Digital Media.

September 25, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The Mistaken Decision to De-List the MEK

Paul Pillar’s response to the de-listing of the MEK is exactly right:

No good will come out of this subversion of the terrorist group list with regard to conditions in Iran, the behavior or standing of the Iranian regime, the values with which the United States is associated, or anything else. The regime in Tehran will tacitly welcome this move (while publicly denouncing it) because it helps to discredit the political opposition in Iran—a fact not lost on members of the Green Movement, who want nothing to do with the MEK. The MEK certainly is not a credible vehicle for regime change in Iran because it has almost no public support there. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime will read the move as another indication that the United States intends only to use subversion and violence against it rather than reaching any deals with it.

What may make this decision even more damaging over the long term for U.S.-Iranian relations The Mistaken Decision to De-List the MEK is that most Iranians loathe the MEK. De-listing the group is a mistake in its own right, but it is especially foolish because it does nothing but generate ill will from Iranians regardless of their views of the regime. Iranians will understandably consider the decision to remove the terrorist designation from the group as an insult, and many will take it as further proof of enduring American hostility towards Iran and Iranians and not just towards the current government.

It’s important to note that the decision by itself does not mean that the U.S. is supporting the MEK or aligning our government with the group, but it will likely be perceived that way. We shouldn’t discount the possibility that the decision to remove them from the FTO list will be exploited by the same pro-MEK advocates in the U.S. that lobbied for them until now. If they are removed from the FTO list now, it will probably be just a matter of time before Iran hawks begin agitating for funding, training, and eventually arming them to use against the Iranian government.

One of the standard, completely false talking points these advocates repeated was that the MEK was a democratic movement and the “main” Iranian opposition group. Many ex-officials, retired officers, and has-been politicians disgraced themselves with their fawning expressions of admiration for Maryam Rajavi. Leaving aside the de-listing decision for a moment, the conduct of these Americans and the absurd claims they made on behalf of a horrible political cult reflect just how corrupting and deluding anti-Iranian hawkishness can be. It shouldn’t be forgotten that these people went far beyond advocating on behalf of people at Camp Ashraf or arguing for de-listing. They were actively shilling for a monstrous, fanatical movement as if it were the legitimate representative of the Iranian people. That is something that shouldn’t be forgotten, nor should it be forgotten that several of the people speaking in support of this group serve in some capacity as advisers to the Republican presidential nominee.

By Daniel Larison

September 25, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Once a terrorist, not always a terrorist

The State Department’s removal of Iranian dissident group MEK from terrorist list draws wide criticism

On Friday, the State Department removed Iranian exile group MEK (Mujahedin-e-Khalq) from its list of foreign terrorist organizations. Over the weekend, commentators responded to the news with skepticism over the motives, procedures, political maneuvers and payoffs that seem to determine which groups do or do not count as terrorists.

MEK, Iranian dissidents who lost a power struggle with Ayatollah Khomenei supporters in the years following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, relocated to Iraq and established allegiances with Saddam Hussein. For 15 years the group has been listed among foreign terrorist organizations by the State Department. Although considered cultish by many, MEK has preserved and fostered strong U.S. ties, especially among a handful of conservatives, who share the group’s desire to overthrow Iran’s government. Both Republicans and Democrats have received substantial fees to talk at MEK events, while advocating in Washington on the group’s behalf.

As Joshua Keating at Foreign Policy noted Monday, there is reason for cynicism about the declassification “after the group [MEK] waged a years-long PR, lobbying, and advertising campaign, paying political VIPs including Rudy Giuliani, Howard Dean, Tom Ridge, and Ed Rendell tens of thousands of dollars to endorse their cause.” Keating adds, however, that MEK have indeed not carried out a terrorist attack in years, but, going by the language of the Patriot Act alone, many more groups aside from MEK should then be removed from the terrorist list too.

Salon’s old friend Glenn Greenwald was less generous than Keating in a Guardian comment piece Sunday. He calls U.S. dealings with MEK a “scam,” which “more vividly illustrates the rot and corruption at the heart of America’s D.C.-based political culture than almost any episode [he] can recall.”

In an extensive, important post noting key takeaways from the episode, Greenwald argues:

The history of the US list of designated terrorist organizations, and its close cousin list of state sponsors of terrorism, is simple: a country or group goes on the list when they use violence to impede US interests, and they are then taken off the list when they start to use exactly the same violence to advance US interests. The terrorist list is not a list of terrorists; it’s a list of states and groups which use their power to defy US dictates rather than adhere to them.

The NYU scholar Remi Brulin has exhaustively detailed the rank game-playing that has taken place with this list: Saddam was put on it when he allied with the Soviets in the early 1980s, then was taken off when the US wanted to arm and fund him against Iran in the mid-1980s, then he was put back on in the early 1990s when the US wanted to attack him.

And now, with the MEK, we have a group that, at least according to some reports, appears to have intensified its terrorism, and yet they are removed from the list. Why? Because now they are aligned against the prime enemy of the US and Israel – and working closely with those two nations – and are therefore, magically, no longer “terrorists.”

By Natasha Lennard

September 25, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The Hypocrisy and Looming Danger of De-Listing MEK

The Obama administration’s decision to remove the Iranian cult Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) from the State Department’s list of officially designated terrorist groups was a long time coming. But The Hypocrisy and Looming Danger of De-Listing MEK no single act by the administration so crystalizes the hypocrisy and recklessness of US postures towards Iran.

The MEK has a long history of terrorist activity going back to the 1970s and has the goal of overthrowing the Iranian government. Because of this goal, there has been a big money push by many influential people in Washington to get the group de-listed, presumably to make it eligible for US funding to act against the Iranian regime.

Please ignore the fact that these political elites that received payments from the MEK in order to advocate on their behalf appear to be in violation of laws prohibiting material support for “terrorists.” Also ignore the fact that George W. Bush included Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorists like MEK in his propaganda justifying the invasion of Iraq in 2003. “Iraq shelters terrorist groups including the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization,” reads a document in the archives of the White House’s website, “which has used terrorist violence against Iran and in the 1970s was responsible for killing several US military personnel and US civilians.” As recently as 2007, a State Department report warned that the MEK, retains “the capacity and will” to attack “Europe, the Middle East, the United States, Canada, and beyond.”

As Glenn Greenwald pointed out yesterday, whether the MEK is still an officially designated “terrorist” group has exactly zero to do with whether or not they carry out terrorism:

This was also exemplified earlier this month when the Obama administration decided to officially designate the Haqqani network a terrorist organization. The Haqqanis are a branch of the Taliban that launches attacks on occupying forces in Afghanistan. The Reagan administration funneled money and weapons to Islamic fighters in Afghanistan against the Soviets in 1980s. Back then, the Haqqani network were freedom fighters. Now the US says they’re officially terrorists.

And as Greenwald explains, “Saddam was put on it when he allied with the Soviets in the early 1980s, then was taken off when the US wanted to arm and fund him against Iran in the mid-1980s, then he was put back on in the early 1990s when the US wanted to attack him.”

Aside from the clear-as-day hypocrisy of this list, the decision to de-list MEK will have deleterious effects for US policy towards Iran. The Obama administration has stubbornly refused to reciprocate to Iranian concessions in the international negotiations over their nuclear program and has imposed harsh economic sanctions. The two things the administration had going for it was the fact that it was pretty clear to the world that they were blocking an immediate Israeli strike and also that negotiations are continuing, probably in an attempt to deal with it more freely after the US presidential elections. But now that the US has de-listed MEK and opened up the potential for more direct support of the group, which argues for the overthrow of the Iranian regime, how can the administration claim its policy is one of engagement and negotiations as opposed to subversion and aggression?

As Paul Pillar wrote yesterday:

The regime in Tehran will tacitly welcome this move (while publicly denouncing it) because it helps to discredit the political opposition in Iran—a fact not lost on members of the Green Movement, who want nothing to do with the MEK. The MEK certainly is not a credible vehicle for regime change in Iran because it has almost no public support there. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime will read the move as another indication that the United States intends only to use subversion and violence against it rather than reaching any deals with it.

So why de-list the MEK? The only credible answer is that the US aims to undermine the Iranian regime. And even though MEK has virtually zero support in Iran, and despite the embarrassing history the US has of aiding dissident groups in rival countries, Washington seems to view the MEK as instrumental in undermining Tehran. Furthermore, according to US officials, Israel has supported and is supporting the MEK to carry out terrorism in Iran and targeting Iranian nuclear scientists for assassination. Pillar says it might have been nice to mention this when the State Department was de-listing MEK, “But that, of course, would have required the politically inconvenient act of publicly addressing Israeli terrorism.” Better to just de-list MEK than to have Israel supporting an officially designated terrorist group.

MEK’s de-listing very well might come along with increased Israeli support for them…and increased US support.

By John Glaser

September 25, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Anti-Terrorism Association Blasts US Support for MKO Terrorists

The Association for Defending Victims of Terrorism (ADVT) in a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blasted Washington’s support for the anti-Iran terrorist Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO also known as the MEK, PMOI and NCR), and cautioned the US to revise its decision for removing the MKO from its terror list.

In its letter addressed to the US secretary of state, the ADVT, a non-governmental, cultural institution whose members are the families and children of terrorism victims, underlined the necessity for the US to pursue a non-political drive and study its decision more before striking off the MKO from the list of its terrorist groups.

"The US State Department’s approach to the MKO cult which ignores the group’s criminal and terrorist record and its potential threats is surprising," the letter said.

The letter came after three senior Obama administration officials told CNN earlier this week that Clinton is expected to notify Congress on Friday that she plans to take MKO off a State Department terror list.

Notification will be followed by formal removal in coming days from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, which includes more than 50 groups like al Qaeda and Hezbollah.

Clinton is under a court order to decide by October 1 whether to remove the grouplet from the terror list.

MKO is considered by many in the administration to be a bizarre cult-like organization, prompting concerns about its behavior. Officials say these concerns factored heavily in the debate.

"While they present themselves as a legitimate democratic group worthy of support, there is universal belief in the administration that they are a cult" one official said. "A de-listing is a sign of support or amnesia on our part as to what they have done and it does not mean we have suddenly changed our mind about their current behavior. We don’t forget who they were and we don’t think they are now who they claim to be, which is alternative to the current regime."

MKO has paid well-known former US politicians and former administration heavyweights to speak out on its behalf, including former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, former US Rep. Patrick Kennedy, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, and former National Security Advisor James Jones.

Earlier this month, the seventh and last group of the MKO terrorists left Camp Ashraf, their main training center in Iraq.

The last group of the evacuees included 88 terrorists. They have been transferred to Camp Liberty which lies Northeast of the Baghdad International Airport.

Camp Liberty is a transient settlement facility and a last station for the MKO in Iraq.

Earlier this year, the Iraqi government set a new deadline for the MKO to evacuate its members from Camp Ashraf by October this year.

The MKO cannot find a shelter outside Iraq as it is blacklisted by much of the international community, including the United States.

The MKO is blacklisted by much of the international community.

Before an overture by the EU, the MKO was on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations subject to an EU-wide assets freeze. Yet, the MKO puppet leader, Maryam Rajavi, who has residency in France, regularly visited Brussels and despite the ban enjoyed full freedom in Europe.

The MKO is behind a slew of assassinations and bombings inside Iran, a number of EU parliamentarians said in a recent letter in which they slammed a British court decision to remove the MKO from the British terror list. The EU officials also added that the group has no public support within Iran because of their role in helping Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988).

Many of the MKO members abandoned the terrorist organization while most of those still remaining in the camp are said to be willing to quit but are under pressure and torture not to do so.

The group, founded in the 1960s, blended elements of Islamism and Stalinism and participated in the overthrow of the US-backed Shah of Iran in 1979. Ahead of the revolution, the MKO conducted attacks and assassinations against both Iranian and Western targets.

The group started assassination of the citizens and officials after the revolution in a bid to take control of the newly established Islamic Republic. It killed several of Iran’s new leaders in the early years after the revolution, including the then President, Mohammad Ali Rajayee, Prime Minister, Mohammad Javad Bahonar and the Judiciary Chief, Mohammad Hossein Beheshti who were killed in bomb attacks by MKO members in 1981.

The group fled to Iraq in 1986, where it was protected by Saddam Hussein and where it helped the Iraqi dictator suppress Shiite and Kurd uprisings in the country.

The terrorist group joined Saddam’s army during the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988) and helped Saddam and killed thousands of Iranian civilians and soldiers during the US-backed Iraqi imposed war on Iran.

September 24, 2012 0 comments

Iraq

Iraq denounces US plan to delist MKO terror group

Iraq has denounced the United States’ plan to remove the anti-Iranian Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) from the US State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.

The MKO is listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community, including Iraq tells US: Don’t delist MKO as a terrorist group Iraq, and has committed numerous terrorist acts against Iranians and Iraqis. The group also cooperated with former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in the massacres of Iraqi Kurds and in suppressing the 1991 uprisings in southern Iraq.

According to a statement issued on Sunday by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s office, the Iraqi government said that Washington’s decision of delisting the MKO as a terrorist group would not change Baghdad’s position toward the group “which was involved in terrorist acts against Iraqis, in addition to its role in defending the former (Saddam Hussein) regime.”

The statement also said that Baghdad is determined to expel members of the terrorist organization from Camp Ashraf, and called on the United Nations to fulfill its commitment to resettle the group members outside Iraq.

On September 21, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent the US Congress a classified communication about the decision.

"I am not in a position to confirm the contents of this, because it’s classified, but we anticipate being able to make a public announcement about it sometime before October 1," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said later in the day.

Two unnamed US officials said that the decision would be officially announced next week.

The MKO fled to Iraq in the 1980s, where it enjoyed the support of Saddam Hussein and set up Camp Ashraf in the eastern province of Diyala, near the Iranian border.

According to US officials, there are about 1,200 to 1,400 MKO members currently residing at Camp Ashraf, while some 2,000 have relocated to the new base outside of Baghdad since February.

Iran has repeatedly called on the Iraqi government to expel the group, but the US has been putting pressure on Baghdad to resist the calls.

September 24, 2012 0 comments

Newer Posts

Older Posts