Page 531 – Nejat Society

The Vain Struggle to Keep Ashraf Open

The ground reasons for the closure of Camp Ashraf are more than enough

All the current evidences indicate that the story of MKO is nearing its end in Iraq and closure of its The ground reasons for the closure of Camp Ashraf are more than enough bastion and the consequent expulsion of its insiders from Iraq are unquestionable. And the Rajavis themselves have come to learn the bare fact despite their advocates’ struggle on their behalf. Whatever we see coming out of the organization’s propaganda apparatus drumming up support for the insiders and recognition of their rights is nothing more than a shrewd play by the leaders, with Rajavi at the top, to distract the outsiders from a different episode that is to occur in the future.

The ground reasons for the closure of Camp Ashraf are more than enough to present. The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki, made it clear that the camp had to be closed simultaneous with the exit of the American forces from Iraq. America also left the decision for the group’s future to the Iraqi government. However, under outside pressures and to show its good-will for humanitarian reasons, the Iraqi Government agreed to extend the deadline for another six months, beginning October 2011 to the end of April 2012.

However, a big bulk of MKO’s propaganda machine is still concentrating on the issue of recognizing the rights of Camp Ashraf residents and strives on progress to keep the camp open and active in Iraq. Why is Rajavi on a struggle of securing his organization’s stay in Iraq while he knows the efforts are foiled for certain reasons? Neither the Iraqi political potentiality allows the group to live nor does the organization itself feel safe to survive on the Iraqi soil, especially after the leaving of American forces. An idle organization with many imposed limitations would mean a rapid political and strategic deterioration and structural disintegration. The Iraqi government substituting the fallen dictator totally disappointed MKO’s hope of having a replaced reliable patron.

For clear as well as untold reasons Rajavi can neither continue his organization’s stay on the Iraqi soil nor is Iraq willing to let it on its soil. In fact, further stay in Iraq is tantamount to an idle lingering that guarantees no political and strategic development for the organization. Besides, the heavy investment on some former American personalities and paying them thousands of dollars to speak in MKO’s behalf in the group’s occasionally held luxurious events resulted in much less than the least expectations. Above all, Rajavi came to the reality, particularly after the exit of American forces and handling the control of Ashraf to Iraq itself, that none of the orchestrated squawks and protests against the Iraqi Government and demonization of Nuri al-Maliki to prolong his organization’s stay in Iraq could deter Iraq’s decisiveness to expel the group.

However, MKO has proved to be the untrusted party in any contract, the side that refuses to comply with the other side when there is a dispute to be settled peacefully. It spends big sums to challenge and its tone is hostile and threatening when called to parley. Typically, it is a shock and prepared to strike when you never expect it and double speaks when everything seems resolved and concluded. At least it is what has been going on during the past two months of the arrived agreement to move residents from Ashraf to Temporary Transit Location TTL. The deadline is nearing, less than two months, and still Rajavi is dillydallying. Probably, he is gambling on another trick to disappoint the Iraqi Government; but he has to be also alert to the possibility of a shock he never expects.

March 28, 2012 0 comments

The MEK Expulsion from Iraq

MKO from TTL to third countries

Tough road ahead of Mojahedin Khalq, MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult in Iraq

Temporary Transit Location (TTL), which is going to be the only camp of MeK in Iraq, may be an Tough road ahead of Mojahedin Khalq, MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult in Iraq end for the painful life of each member of this terrorist cult that Rajavi has imposed to them.

Over the next few months, Camp Ashraf will be completely blocked and its residents, whether they want or not, will be resettled in the TTL as Refugees- not Mujahedeen-e Khalq, or any other name.

However, the MerK’s obstruction and turbulence is still ongoing, so every moment it is expected from the terrorist group’s leadership to adopt new positions.

25. Dec. 2011, that is considered a turning point and qualitative topic in the project of closing the MeK case in Iraq, now, with transfer of the other Camp Ashraf residents to the TTL, is entering a new phase of its developments.

The existing evidences indicate that, although, European countries, U.S and the Zionist Regime already have made the most of the MeK, but, considering the terrorist cult a serious threat to the security of their citizens, almost none of them are willing to accept its members in their territory.

Philip Giraldy, former CIA agent, in his recent article about the MeK’s departure from camp Ashraf and final destination of its members, (the Mujahidin Khalq’s Useful Idiots) which was inserted on the Antiwar website, says: "…There might be some problem in arranging the move, as few countries want to take the MEK supporters, fearing that they would have to be deprogrammed from their brainwashing."

Also, according to the Habilian Foundation website (families of Iranian victims of terror), Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, on March 3 2012 in a meeting with Shia Soudani, the Iraq’s Minister of Human Rights, announced the UNHCR’s opposition with the granting asylum to terrorist group’s members.

At the meeting that was held in Geneva, Guterres said: "The UNHCR does not give asylum to groups, but it will be given only to individuals, if they quit violence."

So, MeK Have a tough road ahead from TTL to European countries. Renounce of violence and rejection of the sectarian organization is the first and the most important step to pass this arduous path.

Considering what was said above, UN, UNHCR, and ICRC can play the influential and unprecedented role to avoid turning the Temporary Transit Location to a new camp for more brainwashing of its residents by the MeK’s leadership and its gang leaders.

By Seyed Hojjat Seyed Ismaili, former member of the MeK’s central council

March 28, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

State Dept to court: Don’t meddle with terror list decisions

The State Department is asking a U.S. appeals court to deny a suit that would force Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to decide, within 30 days, whether to remove an Iranian opposition group from the U.S. list of foreign terror organizations. State Dept to court: Don't meddle with terror list decisions

The group, the Mujahadin-e Khalq, was placed on the terror list in 1997 because of the deaths of Americans during attacks in the 1970s against the U.S.-backed shah of Iran. The U.S. says the M.E.K. engaged for years in terrorist activities in Iran launched from bases in Iraq, including assassinations of high-level Iranian officials and attacks in Iran with heavy weaponry. In the 1980s, the M.E.K. supported Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war. Later, it vowed to disarm. Since 2003 the group has been living under U.S. protection on a former U.S. military base in northern Iraq, Camp Ashraf.

The Iraqi government is in the process of moving the residents from Camp Ashraf to another location in Iraq. Clinton has said the way that transfer is carried out could influence whether the group is removed from the terror list. A number of residents have objected to the move.

In its statement to the court, the State Department said the review of the M.E.K. requires "close analysis of highly classified information … expert judgments about the continuing capabilities and intentions of a currently designated foreign terrorist organization … extremely sensitive national security judgments and difficult decisions concerning the best way to avoid possible serious human rights violations."

The secretary of state, it said, has to "direct her full attention to emergencies of the highest magnitude, involving the United States and its allies throughout the globe."

"Any interference by a court with the Secretary’s ability to carry out these absolutely critical duties would set a seriously troubling precedent."

The terrorist designation prohibits Americans from providing material support to the organization, but a number of high-profile former U.S. officials have taken up the cause of the M.E.K. and called for it to be delisted. Some of them have received speaking fees for that support. The Treasury Department currently is issuing subpoenas to some speakers’ bureaus for information on the source of those funds.

By Jill Dougherty

March 28, 2012 0 comments

USA

U.S. urges court to stay out of decision on MEK

The Obama administration on Monday urged a U.S. appeals court not to interfere with its review and decision-making process over whether to remove the Iranian dissident group Mujahadin-e U.S. urges court to stay out of decision on MEK Khalq from a U.S. terrorism blacklist.

The group asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to order the State Department to either remove it from the list or require action within a specified period on its request to delist the group.

The State Department urged the court to stay out of the matter, saying it was continuing to evaluate the matter, consulting with the intelligence community and other government agencies and that it had met with representatives of the Mujahadin-e Khalq.

Further, in its reply to the appeals court, the department repeated what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last month to U.S. lawmakers: that they were closely watching the group’s cooperation in closing its Camp Ashraf base in Iraq.

The group, which calls for the overthrow of Iran’s Islamist government, has been based in Iraq. It was supported by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, but is no longer welcome in Iraq under the Shi’ite-led government that came to power following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and Saddam’s downfall.

The Iraqi government plans to expel the residents of Camp Ashraf and is in the process of moving them to a processing center at a former U.S. military base in Baghdad.

Camp residents, who numbered about 3,000 and had been under the protection of the U.S. forces since 2003, agreed to be moved last month. U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq in December.

Also known as the People’s Mujahideen Organization of Iran, the group led a guerilla campaign against the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran during the 1970s that included attacks on U.S. targets.

As a result, the United States placed it on its list of foreign terrorist organizations. The group has said that it has renounced violence.

BAN ON FINANCIAL SUPPORT

Americans are banned from providing financial and other support to any group included on the so-called "Foreign Terrorist Organization" list, and its members or representatives are banned from entering the United States.

Representatives for the group, which has also received support from several former senior U.S. government officials, had urged the court to intervene and force the administration to act or take the step itself of removing the group from the list.

"Such relief would – despite the PMOI’s long history of terrorism – remove an important barrier to the PMOI’s ability to operate freely in the United States, and is clearly unwarranted here," the State Department told the court.

"Moreover, an order directing the Secretary to act by a particular date is also inappropriate given the highly complex and delicate overall nature of the matter pending before her," it said.

The State Department also warned that court action "would seriously interfere" with its efforts to resolve the Camp Ashraf situation.

A lawyer for Iranian opposition group, Viet Dinh, said that they would respond by the April 2 deadline set by the court.

"The important thing to recognize from the brief is that the Secretary recognizes her responsibility to delist the PMOI if it does not meet the statutory criteria, and she does not have any discretion to keep the group on the list simply out of national security concerns," he told Reuters.

The appeals court has deferred a decision on whether it will hear oral arguments in the matter.

The case is In re: People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, No. 12-1118.

Jeremy Pelofsky
(Editing by Mohammad Zargham)

March 27, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MKO’s supporters throw party in U.S. Congress

It’s not every day that groups supporting a State Department-listed foreign terrorist organization hold a party in the U.S. Congress, but that’s exactly what happened today when the friends of the Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK) threw their Nowruz party in the hearing room of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
"Members of Congress will join Iranian Americans in wishing the Iranian people a Happy Nowrouz and address the humanitarian rights of Iran’s main opposition in Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty, in Iraq," reads the flyer for the party, which was held Thursday at the Rayburn building in room 2172, where the foreign affairs committee holds all of its public events.
The flyer says that the event is sponsored by "Iranian American communities" from around the United States, but the mention of Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty is a clear reference to the MEK, a group designated by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization that has about 3,000 members living in the secretive Ashraf compound in Iraq.
The U.N. and the State Department are working to move them to Camp Liberty, a former U.S. military base near the Baghdad airport, but the MEK is resisting that move, and has enlisted its many supporters in the United States to decry the conditions at the former military base. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani even went so far as to call Camp Liberty a "concentration camp."
House Foreign Affairs Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) spoke at the event and discussed human rights in Iran, but did not mention the MEK by name. Former Homeland Security secretary and Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, a paid advocate of the MEK, also spoke.
"The event was not sponsored by the MEK," Ros-Lehtinen’s spokesperson Brad Goehner told The Cable. "The room was requested by the Iranian-American Society of South Florida and sponsored by the Iranian-American communities of 39 cities for an event commemorating the Iranian New Year. Space in Congressional office buildings is routinely made available to organizations wishing to hold events on issues important to members of Congress."
The flyer doesn’t say the party is being thrown by or for the MEK, and aides who attended told The Cable that there were no MEK signs or banners at the event, as one usually sees wherever the MEK is camped out.
That could be a result of the revelation that the Treasury Department’s counterterrorism unit has issued a subpoena to former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell for records related to his paid advocacy of the MEK, as part of an investigation into the web of organizations that support the terrorist group.
There is a long list of Iranian-American organizations that fund pro-MEK events and pay speakers fees to MEK supporters. Many of these organizations – such as the "Global Initiative for Democracy, whose homepage is entirely devoted to the MEK’s concerns and who hosted an MEK conference in January — seem to have no other function other than to advocate for the MEK, and the actual sources of their money is unclear.
Receiving funding from a terrorist organization or even providing it with "material support," which could include advocacy, is a crime.
The campaign by the MEK’s supporters to disparage Camp Liberty and lobby for the MEK’s removal from the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations has included huge rallies outside the State Department, massive sit-ins at Congressional hearings, and an ongoing vigil outside the State Department’s C Street entrance.
Those supporters, many of them paid, include Giuliani, Rendell, Vermont Governor Howard Dean, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, John Lewis (D-GA), former FBI Director Louis Freeh, former Sen. Robert Torricelli, former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, former National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers, former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, former Rep. Lee Hamilton, former CIA Director Porter Goss, senior advisor to the Romney campaign Mitchell Reiss, retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, and former Sen. Evan Bayh.
Congressional aides attended the event on Thursday in the hearing room both out of curiosity and hunger for free food. But multiple aides told The Cable the event was bizarre, even by Congressional standards.
"Looks like you just have to be the ‘right’ terrorist organization to hold a fancy party in the halls and hearing rooms of Congress," one House aide told The Cable. "Hope everyone who ate their kabobs doesn’t get hit with material support subpoenas."

Josh Rogin, Foreign Policy

March 26, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Secretary Clinton trapped by a false dichotomy

In November 2011 a large group of interested people met in Baghdad to discuss the seemingly intractable problem of how to dismantle the Mohjahedin-e Khalq foreign terrorist group and remove the members from the country. At the behest of families of the individuals trapped inside Camp Ashraf, the GOI agreed to proceed in a way that would avoid violent confrontation. Iraq’s Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari announced later, “We will refuse them the satisfaction of becoming martyrs on our soil”. The Governor of Diyala, the military head of Diyala province and other authorities all went the extra mile to prevent the MEK from killing more hostages and blaming the Iraqis for it.
Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the UN which would allow more time and give oversight of the eviction process to the UN and to representatives of the EU and US.
The Iraqis have kept their side of bargain – the deadline for the MEK’s departure was extended and negotiations were facilitated to persuade the MEK to cooperate in a move from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty where the UNHCR would be able to assess each individual for refugee status. (Remember that no external body, including the GOI, has been able to freely access the inside of Camp Ashraf since the fall of Saddam Hussein.) The first 800 individuals have now moved and another 800 are lined up to move over the next few days in two groups of 400. The MEK leader has not been able to exploit the situation and kill any hostages. The GOI has control of the situation.
UNAMI has been rigorous in its supervision of the move and, by enforcing its own rules and regulations has not allowed propaganda to overshadow activities at either camp. Facilities at the new camp were approved by UN inspectors, the ICRC has been involved and behind the scene EU and US special advisors have been keeping a watchful eye on events. The MEK has ‘character assassinated’ UNAMI and its officials, and others, in the media but UNAMI has not been diverted by the efforts of the MEK and their backers.
But one pernicious factor which has actively impeded proper progress in this task has been the support given to the MEK by Israelis and US Neoconservatives whose clear intent is to politicise what is essentially a humanitarian situation. The MEK is a well-honed tool in the hands of these ideologues and is used to incite hatred against Iran and Iraq among ignorant and lazy political communities. The MEK is far too valuable for them to allow it to disappear. Most recently, the MEK has been used by Mossad to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists.
This being so will make it even more difficult for UNAMI to transfer them to third countries. This ruthless use of the MEK as a mercenary terrorist force has a direct impact on the situation of the hostages trapped in the camp; their future becomes all the more uncertain.
But then, it has been all along, the clear intention of the MEK’s paymasters to keep the MEK intact as a terrorist entity in Iraq, in total disregard for the human beings involved.
If it wasn’t because of the backing of Israel and the Neoconservatives, Rajavi would have had no choice but to open the doors of his closed totalitarian group and allow the individuals trapped inside to walk free. That is the aim of everyone on the ground working to resolve the situation in Iraq. In this respect it is no less the responsibility of the US Government to work with the international community to dismantle this terrorist group and rescue the hostages.
But while the rest of the world is genuinely working toward a peaceful end to the camp and the release and resettlement of the hostages, it appears Secretary of State Clinton is somewhat ambiguous in her dealing with the situation.
Based on a legal ruling, Clinton must make a decision by the end of March whether the State Department remove the MEK from its terrorism list or not. Presenting this as leverage she has introduced a unilateral condition to the MEK’s removal from Iraq; if the MEK cooperate with UNAMI and the Government of Iraq, she has indicated, we will remove them from the US terrorism list. But cooperation with UNAMI is a legal obligation rather than an optional choice for the MEK. So what is really behind this position?
On the surface this would appear as though the USG is prepared to do a political deal to get the MEK to leave Iraq (and in doing so gain credit with the Iraqi government). It is as though the MEK were a far distant uncontrollable threat to US security which needs careful handling to bring it under control before dismantling it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Everything that the MEK’s western owners can do is being done to help the MEK’s leader keep the doors to the camp closed, to keep the hostages inside and to deny them contact with their families – even though this is against all humanitarian, moral or indeed criminal law.
By talking about the terrorism list rather than talking about what is happening in Iraq Clinton is bowing to this pressure. Certainly if UNAMI is allowed to do its job properly – with the support of all the international community – there will not be an organisation left to be listed or not listed. By invoking the US terrorism list, the actual script appears to be whether the MEK can be more useful listed as terrorists or if they are not regarded as terrorists. This false choice disguises the real intent of its proponents which is to keep the group intact as a terrorist group so it can be rearmed and used.
Secretary Clinton, indeed the whole government of America, needs to unhitch the politically charged consideration of the MEK’s inclusion in the US terrorism list from the very real humanitarian situation in Iraq. If the USG’s intention is really to deal properly with this terrorist group, it should reassert the humanitarian focus of American policy toward the MEK and unequivocally support the dismantlement process in Iraq.

March 24, 2012 0 comments

The MEK Expulsion from Iraq

Martin Kobler in the European Parliament on the MKO

On Wednesday, 21/03/2012 Martin Kobler, the UN Special Representative for Iraq and Head of the United Nation Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), reported to the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee on the work of the UNHCR and UNAMI in Iraq and the current situation of the Iranian Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) in Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty.
As part of his description of the problems of resettlement of the Ashraf residents Kobler said that it demanded a cooperative attitude from the residents.
The infrastructure at Camp Liberty was indeed improved, but the basic services are guaranteed. The capacity of the camp was for use by 4000 – 5000 U.S. soldiers and UN staff. This has been sufficient and would offer ample space.
The medical care at Camp Ashraf, although confined to two doctors and six nurses, but also including use of hospitals outside of Liberty, is guaranteed. The establishment of a clinic inside the camp had, however, until recently been refused by the residents, said Kobler.
In addition, there are ultra-modern kitchen facilities in accordance with U.S. standards, but these were rejected by the occupants.
The U.S. special envoy for Camp Ashraf, Daniel Fried, said that the information that the United States has of the situation in Camp Ashraf and Liberty is consistent with Kobler’s descriptions. The conditions at Camp Liberty are not nearly as bad as described by the MEK.
Kobler appealed to the MEK, to refrain from propaganda and complained that the constant, unnecessary rhetorical attacks by the MEK and its supporters are hindering the UN and the Iraqis in their work.
Fried said the key to success is not discussions about the conditions at Camp Liberty, but the progress of the work of the UNHCR.
In a conversation with Mr Kobler following the meeting, we had the opportunity to inform him of our "Back to the Family" initiative and asked him to work to ensure that in individual discussions with the UNHCR the Ashraf residents are made aware as soon as possible that contact with their family members is available.

March 24, 2012 0 comments

The MEK Expulsion from Iraq

Iraq begins the Third Round of Expelling Mojahedin Khalq

Iraq on Monday night took a further step to expel hundreds of Iranian dissidents who received support from Saddam Hussein but who are no longer welcome as relations improve between the Shi’ite-ruled neighbours.

The Iraqi government aims to evict the People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI), which opposes the clerical rulers of neighbouring Iran and fought with Saddam’s forces in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.

On Monday night buses moved 400 residents from Camp Ashraf – built under Saddam and which remained under the protection of U.S. forces – to a former U.S. military base in Baghdad, said Uday al-Khadran, mayor of the nearby town of Khalis.

The Iraqi government moved similar numbers of Ashraf residents to the temporary processing centre at Camp Liberty on February 18 and March 8 as part of its plans to expel them from the country.

There are now about 1,200 PMOI members at Camp Liberty and 2,000 still at Camp Ashraf. They say they fear for their safety now that U.S. troops have withdrawn from Iraq.

Residents agreed in February to move to the new camp, where the United Nations intends to process them for refugee status in other countries, but they complain that the conditions at the new base are dire. They say they have not been permitted to bring many of their personal belongings.

Behzad Saffari, a resident who moved to Camp Liberty last month and acts as a legal adviser there, said one of the new arrivals died of heart failure overnight shortly after the journey, after enduring 48 hours without sleep.

"At the movement it is a prison, with the saturation of police forces and no freedom of movement," Saffari said via telephone, since Camp Liberty is off limits to journalists.

He said others due for relocation were refusing to move to Camp Liberty until Iraqi police were withdrawn from the camp.

There is no suggestion that PMOI members will be sent back to Iran but finding refuge outside Iraq is made more complicated because the United States lists the group as a terrorist organisation. The PMOI carried out attacks decades ago including against U.S. targets but says it has long since renounced violence and shares the West’s opposition to clerical rule in Iran.

The European Union removed the PMOI from its terrorist blacklist in 2009 after being ordered to do so by a court.

(Reporting by Peter Graff in Baghdad and a Reuters correspondent in Baquba, Iraq; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Ben Harding)

March 24, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Worldview: Why single out Rendell on MEK?

Give Ed Rendell a break.

Yes, the Treasury Department is investigating the speaking fees received by the former Pennsylvania governor on behalf of an Iranian exile group that’s on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. Rendell told the New York Times he had received about $150,000 for seven or eight speeches that called for taking the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK, off the list (even though he clearly knew little about the organization).

But why is Treasury targeting only Rendell? There’s an astonishing list of high-level former officials – from both parties – who’ve embraced the MEK cause, for which they’ve collected big bucks, along with trips to pro-MEK conferences in Brussels, London, Berlin, and Paris.

And why have so many prominent men linked their names to an outfit with such a shady, and cultish, reputation – a group that has killed Americans and done dirty work for Saddam Hussein?

The MEK is lobbying hard for the State Department to take it off the terrorist list. (A decision is supposed to be made by the end of March.) It has won support, on the Democratic side, from former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, former U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli, and retired Gen. James Jones, President Obama’s first national security adviser. And of course, Rendell.

As for Republicans, boosters include former CIA Directors James Woolsey (a big backer of the Iraq war) and Porter J. Goss; former FBI Director Louis Freeh; former Attorney General Michael Mukasey; former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani; and President George W. Bush’s first homeland security chief, former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge. Never mind that Bush renewed the MEK’s terrorist designation four times.

Add to the list a number of retired generals, along with John Bolton, foreign-policy adviser to Newt Gingrich, and Mitchell Reiss, who advises Mitt Romney.

What were they all thinking?

Maybe it was the money. Or perhaps they were conned by an incredible MEK lobbying effort carried out through a series of front groups. That effort lavished money on prime-time TV, and full-page newspaper ads, which portray the MEK as a democratic group leading the fight for Iran regime change.

Apparently none of these pooh-bahs ever asked about the source of their honoraria. "Nobody has ever been able to figure out where the money comes from," says Iran expert Barbara Slavin, the Washington correspondent for al-Monitor.com, a new website on the Mideast. Rumors abound that funds come from Gulf countries opposed to Iran, or from Israel, which reportedly has close contacts with the MEK, or from Iranian exiles.

Nor do MEK boosters appear to have researched the group’s violent history, which should have been well-known to many of them.

The group began as a Marxist-Islamist group supporting Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei; it killed six Americans in the 1970s. In the 1980s, having broken with the Tehran regime, it sought refuge in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. The Iraqi leader used MEK forces to attack Iran in a brutal war that lasted a decade, and to kill rebellious Kurds and Shiites.

For that reason, the MEK is despised inside Iraq, where U.S. officials are trying to resettle 2,800 remaining MEK fighters. The Iraqis want to evict them from their base at Camp Ashraf.

More critically, the group is also despised inside Iran. "In the eyes of the Iranians, they embedded with the enemy. They were traitors," says Iran expert Vali Nasr. They are regarded likewise across the Iranian political spectrum. The idea that the group has vast support inside Iran is simply untrue.

When Ridge labeled the MEK the "most effective opposition movement" of the Iranian people, he was talking nonsense, a sad commentary on what he didn’t learn as homeland security chief. Moreover, the MEK reportedly operates like a cult, forcing members into celibacy and exacting total obedience to the MEK’s leader, the Paris-based Maryam Rajavi.

All that may not matter to some MEK boosters, like Giuliani. He recently declared on Fox News that the MEK should be named Time Magazine "person of the year." His reason: According to an NBC-News report, the group was trained by Israel’s Mossad to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists. The MEK was also reportedly used by Israel to leak intelligence about a secret Iranian nuclear facility.

What Giuliani and other advocates ignore is that – whatever the MEK’s role in covert activities – the group does not have the support of the Iranian people. Delisting it may permit it to lobby more openly for support from gullible backers. It may help those who are seeking an exile group to tout as the vehicle for Iran regime change. (Does no one remember the saga of the Pentagon’s favorite Iraqi exile, Ahmed Chalabi?)

But delisting the MEK won’t help pro-democracy forces in Tehran. Nor will it help curb Iran’s nuclear program.

Ed Rendell should have known better than to support this group of exiles. But so should a lot of former U.S. officials with far less excuse for being so blind.

Trudy Rubin, Philly.com

March 18, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

The Hired Recruits of a Terrorist Cult

MKO hires businessmen to start a bargain over the suffering residents of Ashraf

Once the Nazi Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, said “The rank and file are usually much MKO hires businessmen to start a bargain over the suffering residents of Ashraf more primitive than we imagine. Propaganda must therefore always be essentially simple and repetitious. The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly… it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over”. And it is really a recipe for disaster if a terrorist cult clings onto this Nazi precept in its propaganda activities.

The recent revelations concerning the speaking fees paid to the former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell as a supporter of a designated terrorist group MKO, only one of a group of senior former American officials and military commanders walking on the same line, are sad news to hear especially when you come to realize that these advocates have been a part of an administration that voiced a global war on terrorism. It is hard to believe that they did not know how a military base, Camp Ashraf, emerged out of a desert in the dictatorial reign of Saddam and how it was turned into a cult bastion. And both sides know well what the other side needs and demands.

MKO is looking for the middlemen and businessmen to start a bargain and voice what has been gone unheard for its inclusion in the terror list. The leaders of MKO living in Paris have a low opinion of Ashraf residents as the members of the organization but the best levers to bargain. Being the victims of a terrorist cult for at least 25 years, now the residents enslaved in Ashraf are hostages for a bargain to impose the will of being removed from the terrorist list and the American and European paid middlemen have volunteered to voice it. In fact, the cliché phrases and sentences they parrot in arranged conferences and rallies are exactly what their employers, and the manageresses in particular, have dictated to them. They are confined to two points; “remove MKO from the terrorist list, help Ashraf residents”.

Out of presenting justifications for receiving huge sums of easy money or being conned by an incredible MKO lobbying effort carried out through a series of front groups, none of these nearly two dozen high-profile speakers can justify how they happened to volunteer for bargaining the lot of some hundred suffering souls. Through any taken opportunity in the past, there has been an attempt by ex-members and other experts to tell the world of the concerns about the members not living but enslaved and held in Camp Ashraf against their own will. Maybe the world couldn’t but they could see how the organization was exploiting insiders as human shields to safeguard its own entity rather than being the least concerned about the members themselves.
There has come an opportunity for these enslaved residents to taste freedom after their relocation from Ashraf cult bastion to Temporary Transit Location TTL. But the power of money along with the cultist tactics of MKO is impeding their freedom. The very those people who claim to be a defender of human rights, oppressed people and women in particular are now turning their back on suffering residents and walking against their principles and slogans. Somehow they seem to have been influenced by the brainwashing mechanisms of MKO, demands and principles instilled into them by the force of money. The job was done. They had nothing more to do but to mount the propaganda stage of MKO to enthusiastically repeat and repeat the words put into their minds and months. Under such influence, nobody is ever permitted nor thinks of the predicament of whom, under the hollow slogans of being the pioneers and heroines of freedom and democracy, suffer crushing physical and psychological pressures even worse than those enslaved in the outside world. It is a pity that the so-called advocates of freedom and democracy chant anti-human, pro-cultist and pro-terrorist slogans under the dollar shower of a terrorist cult.

March 18, 2012 0 comments

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