Sattar Orangi

A New Version of the US Policy

The US follows a new version of policy by delisting the convicted murderers of Americans

Some believe that the lobbying effort by current and former US officials led to the removal of the A New Version of the US Policy Mojahedin Khalq Organization MKO/MEK/PMOI from the State Department FTO. Others say it was a result of huge sums of spent money and another party affirms it was a decision by the US State Department in order to clear legal obstacles in the way of overtly arming and funding the terrorists in pursuit of a proxy war with Iran. Covert support for the blacklisted MKO has been ongoing since long under the Bush administration, and as Seymour Hersh’s “Preparing the Battlefield,” reported, MKO had been considered a possible proxy armed and financed to wage war inside Iran:

“The M.E.K. has been on the State Department’s terrorist list for more than a decade, yet in recent years the group has received arms and intelligence, directly or indirectly, from the United States. Some of the newly authorized covert funds, the Pentagon consultant told me, may well end up in M.E.K. coffers. “The new task force will work with the M.E.K. The Administration is desperate for results.” He added, “The M.E.K. has no C.P.A. auditing the books, and its leaders are thought to have been lining their pockets for years. If people only knew what the M.E.K. is getting, and how much is going to its bank accounts—and yet it is almost useless for the purposes the Administration intends.”

Granting that all these reasons are somehow justifiable to remove MKO from the FTO blacklist, the main question raised is why was the group ever put on the list? Maybe many Americans are unaware of the fact that MKO was initially formed as an anti-American militant group chanting anti-imperialist slogans and focusing all its might to fight and terminate any US-led economic and military enterprise in Iran at any price, even by murdering or sabotage activities.

According to the recorded facts on which the State Department relied to blacklist MKO, regardless of carrying out decades of brutal terrorist attacks, assassinations, and espionage against the Iranian government and its people, the group had targeted a number of Americans inside Iran including the attempted assassination of USAF Brigadier General Harold Price, the successful assassination of Lieutenant Colonel Louis Lee Hawkins, the double assassinations of Colonel Paul Shaffer and Lieutenant Colonel Jack Turner, and the successful ambush and killing of American Rockwell International employees William Cottrell, Donald Smith, and Robert Krongard as well as attempted kidnapping of US Ambassador Douglas MacArthur II.

The Iranian people need no justification for the US- made decision to delist MKO as they still and forever despise its ring-leaders as traitors and terrorists. But how the US can present any justification for the duplicity of unleashing the murderers of its own citizens while they were serving their country in another land is another question for the Secretary of the State to answer. Is it a new kind of policy to differentiate between American citizens? American people still remember, if the current and former officials have forgotten, that at the time an American military operation was attempted to put an end to the hostage crisis and to rescue the Americans held at the US Embassy in Tehran. Noteworthy, the hostage crisis was also intensified by the very same members of MKO who played their role to aggravate the situation to turn it into a real crisis. In its new version of policy, the US lets the killers and terrorists, according to released factsheets, free as a humanitarian bid!

If that is how Washington insiders care for the nation, and if interfere in other countries is a priority over internal and national interests, then, in whom should American people trust for national security and protection?

October 18, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

The Blood Stained Hands of a Terrorist Group ;MEK

The US State Department has clearly announced that it “does not overlook or forget the MEK’s past acts of terrorism”; it means a lot to many who have known Mojahedin Khalq Organization MKO, MEK, NCR, PMOI with a half century of recorded violence. And the only ones who refuse to face the reality that nothing can wash the innocents’ bloods off the criminals hands are the group’s own leaders. In an interview following MKO’s removal from the list of designated FTO, Maryam Rajavi brazenly said “It now has become evident for everyone that these (terror) allegations were untrue”.

As people say, a leopard cannot change its spots, but it seems that in this eccentric modern world that politics overshadow our lives, it is possible to contrive ways to whitewash the spots. That is true of MKO and its delisting. Being an armed group from its very day of formation, MKO can never renounce utilization of violence as the adopted means to achieve its non-democratic ends. Even the very same people who have delisted it say “We do not see the MEK as a viable opposition or democratic opposition movement. We have no evidence and we have no confidence that the MEK is an organization that could promote the democratic values that we would like to see in Iran”. But its paid American advocates insist to instill that the group is pro-democratic with potentiality of establishing democracy for Iranian people while Iranian people believe hardly the group can spell the term ‘democracy’ or is aware of its principles.

Based on many existing evidences, and because of its adopted strategy and ideology, MKO cannot possibly foreswear terrorism and has never publicized such a claim as the State Department amplifies the point. In spite of MKO’s widespread terrorist operations of bombing and assassination inside Iran and its later out-of-the-border organized hit and run operations perpetrated in the last three decades as well as its broadly launched military operation like that of the Eternal Light, it seems that the organization has never been considered a serious threat for the Iranian regime. But the consequence of such irrefutable charges of militarism and terrorist atrocities for MKO was to be globally recognized as a terrorist group.

However, the good part is that the history and the recorded facts can never be distorted. But some Western countries tried to when they made a sudden U-turn and decided to declare that MKO was no more a terrorist organization; they still continue their negligence and unclear stances toward MKO due to political considerations. People have eyes to see and intelligence to distinguish an unleashed, whitewashed leopard from a real one.

October 6, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The Scandal Breaker Involved in Scandal

The Watergate hero may face a bad end if his support for MKO exposes him to prosecution
It seems that Carl Bernstein’s career is tied with scandals, either disclosing or being engaged in them. The Washington Post reporter, who exposed the Watergate scandal, seems to be attracting more attention these days than his journalistic career after breaking the news that he had received money to talk in support of the leftist terrorist Mojahedin Khalq Organization MKO/MEK/PMOI in last February. Bernstein is one of the few journalists, along with syndicated columnist Clarence Page who was rebuked by his employer for giving a similar speech in Paris last June, who has appeared at events in a years-long campaign by MKO supporters to convince the State Department to remove the group from FTO list and the legal sanctions that come with it.

Although he says little about his political commitment, by his direct enthusiastic support he is indirectly animating the Old Left once his parents were committed to. Bernstein’s parents were among the thousands radicalized during the 1930s and joined the Communist Party while living in San Francisco in 1942. Whether in the party or out, they spent their lives within the broad Old Left community.

Naturally, children of Communists eventually come to terms with their parents. Bernstein, however, saw the decision by his parents to join the party as recklessly endangering the family’s prospects, including his own. He preferred to remain a committed, secular Jew and devoted his energy to an apolitical Jewish youth organization. But his strong advocacy for a leftist terrorist group is shedding further light on his political drift, a man with leftist blood still in his veins.

The man who discovered The Watergate political scandal in 1972 and played a central role in bringing down Richard Nixon, became the focus of a personal scandal when it was disclosed that he had affairs with Margaret Jay, the daughter of former Prime Minister James Callaghan and the wife of ex-British Ambassador Peter Jay. However, his latest scandal of advocacy for a leftist MKO indicates that the passage of the time has contributed to arrive at a new “version of the truth”. In a part of his made speech at the MKO’s marshaled event he said: “I come here as an advocate of the best obtainable version of the truth, and as someone who believes in basic human rights and their inalienable status.”

For sure, Mr. Bernstein is not a naïve journalist. Then, he is either on the side of terrorists or has reached a new definition for “truth” and “human rights”. He should be reminded of the group’s merciless killings without sparing, the terrorists who in their proclaimed violent struggle killed the scores of hundreds and who for the blood of its leaders let there be floods of blood of the bourgeoisie, believing to be Iran’s fledging Red Army. Let’s not talk of cultic manipulation of the group as the most evident manifestation of violating the human rights. At least as an experienced journalist Mr. Bernstein must have been informed of MKO’s atrocities covered in overseas papers.

However, he may even have to spend his journalist, public and personal repute as well as being probably prosecuted for “the best obtainable version of the truth”. The latest scandal Mr. Bernstein is embroiled in is leading him to the scandalous engagement of committing felonies by speaking for the benefit of a terrorist organization, a kind of service that qualifies as a terrorist material support and a federal crime. A bad move for the Watergate hero, it may lead to a bad end for him if his enthusiastic support exposes him to prosecution for providing “material support” to a terrorist organization.

September 9, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq as an Opposition Group

MKO Mounting Offensive in Defiance of Rules

Action is needed to forestall the real tragedy in the making at Camp Ashraf

In the face of a government’s travails occasioned by the need to uproot terrorism to restore order, peace and resolve conflicts, it has become necessary for the Iraqi government to caution the international community on the need to curb terrorism and to stop playing politics when dealing with such sensitive issues. This call becomes necessary against the backdrop of an extended dispute over the expulsion of the terrorist Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ NCR) long hosted and nurtured by the ousted Saddam. Since the fall of the dictator, MKO has been a major source of friction between the Iraqi government, decisive to expel it on an arranged agenda, and other sides, the UN and the US, mediating to solve the predicament through a peaceful and humanitarian solution.

The outcome, however, has been an ever-increasing, blatant gesture of defiance by MKO to comply with either side; just in the middle of an agreed plan to relocate MKO’s members from its military bastion, Camp Ashraf, to a temporary Transit Location near Baghdad to undergo a UN observed refugee process, the group made an arbitrary decision and refused to let the remainders be transferred. No convoys have left Camp Ashraf since May 5 and between 1,200 to 1,400 MKO members are still there and during the three-month halt, MKO has turned a cold shoulder on all calls, urges and warnings in an effort to enforce group to resume the process. And how can a government decisive to uproot terrorism stop a terrorist group that threatens to put its preserved terrorist and cultist potentiality into practice or provoke violence?

MKO’s suicide operations are methods of application within the group and the best working option whenever it deems it necessary to impose its wills and demands. We have only to remember the most significant episodes of such operations perpetrated by MKO in the last decades just in the heart of the European countries when its members set themselves on fire and forced the French government to submit to its demand. And the US, as the part interested to peacefully end the critical issue of relocation, is more aware of the group’s potentiality to put the words into action. In its latest report on July 31 releasing the list of the designated FTO, the State Department’s Office of Coordinator for Counterterrorism once more reaffirms and stresses the preserved potentiality of suicidal self-immolation when the report makes a reference to an example of the actual activities.

In 2003, French authorities arrested 160 MEK members at operational bases they believed the MEK was using to coordinate financing and planning for terrorist attacks. Upon the arrest of MEK leader Maryam Rajavi, MEK members took to Paris’ streets and engaged in self-immolation. French authorities eventually released Rajavi.

But a question still remains that, despite these assertions about MKO’s high potentiality in resorting to violence, why the US and the UN criticized the Iraqi government for bloody clashes that MKO members provoked in Camp Ashraf in 2011, clashes that resulted in many casualties from the both sides, and are pressing the Iraqi government that “violence should, at all costs, be avoided”. They express concern over use of force by Iraqi, while the partiality to MKO has since encouraged it to resist any decision concerning the closure of Ashraf without being held accountable for defying any rule of law and agreement.

The circumstantial evidences indicate MKO is not reluctant to prepare the stage for a third round of violent confrontation. Again we are hearing words that another human tragedy is possibly unfolding in Ashraf or Liberty and that, no effort has to be spared to avert and prevent it. The Iraqi government has never stated that it intends to use force to close Ashraf although its patience is said to be “wearing thin” and has announced in an international conference that the additional time for the members of MKO to remain in Iraq has come to an end and will not be extended. MKO has nothing more to lose. The present makeup of the residents in Camp Ashraf, mostly the ranking and commanding cadres of the group, fuels the suspicion of preparedness for launching a serious or even bloody offensive in defiance of all plans, roadmaps and decisions. Words and warnings are enough; action is needed to forestall what is feared to be the real tragedy in the making at a place called Camp Ashraf.

August 9, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The Reason behind Lining in Support of MKO

The only reason that makes advocates line in support of MKO is money and nothing more

No doubt, the existing criminal and counter-terrorism laws are not adequate to sufficiently deal The Reason behind Lining in Support of MKO with the ever-rising sophistication of terrorism because terrorists are now widespread, well-networked, with support links all over the democratic societies. Majority of terrorist groups active in exile far from their home countries tend to exploit the very values of democracy in host countries and take advantage of unplugged loopholes to a surprising level. These terrorists or ideologically violence-oriented groups acting in democratic disguise especially take advantage of all kinds of freedom, namely expression, movement and association, available in democratic systems and the existence of free media that gives them the adequate publicity they need. And the only means that provides for these non-democratic groups to avail themselves of the advantageous potentialities is money, an abundant revenue of which never reduces and whose sources remain a secret.

Devoted to a long career of violent warfare to topple regimes in Iran, first the Pahlavi’s regime and then the succeeding Islamic Republic, Mojahedin Khalq Organization MKO/MEK/NCR declared an overt bloody war against the established Islamic Republic when the group was denied an undue claimed share in the new ruling institutions. In fact, MKO failed to win a public trust in parliamentary and presidential campaign. Instigating a wave of revolt throughout the country, MKO ended with a statement declaring an all-out war against the regime that disturbed the county with a nightmare of successive heinous terrorist operations that left thousands of civilians and official heads dead.

The flight of its leaders to Iraq and alliance with Saddam highlighted greater aspects of its bellicose, anti-national nature. The extensive collaboration with the Iraqi dictator is an undeniably recorded global fact. Even more, MKO was one among many pinpointed causes to justify the invasion of Iraq by America and its allies. Recognizing Saddam as a sponsor of terrorist groups and harboring them in Iraq, the White House in its statement Saddam Hussein’s Support for International Terrorism asserted that “Iraq shelters terrorist groups including the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), which has used terrorist violence against Iran and in the 1970s was responsible for killing several U.S. military personnel and U.S. civilians”.

Although now disarmed in Iraq, MKO’s terrorist potentiality has never diminished as its ideological mindset has never changed. Demonstrating a typical type of terrorism, MKO is in the best way taking, or maybe allowed to take, advantage of democratic capacities in democratic countries where it is active under multitudes of front organizations for undemocratic ends. Of course, it is hard to believe that MKO is much smarter than many of its advocates and advertised high profile supporters many of whom occupied key posts in the administrations that enlisted MKO as a terrorist group. Then, what is the cause behind their enthusiastic support for its removal? Either their conscience is bothering them for a past unjust decision or there is another reason.

Thanks to the big amount of money MKO pockets and spends, the both sides are satisfied to continue a close cooperation based on the opinion that “money is the sinew of love as well as war”. Then, the appropriate way to reach at a point of agreement is money regardless of its demoralizing effects. And the only reason that makes advocates line in support of MKO is money and nothing more. Majority of them are ex-politicians now turning into businessmen making big money out of their past career that makes no difference at the present.

When Rudy Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York City, for instance sits chatting and laughing with Maryam Rajavi, leading MKO in Europe, in fact he is playing the role of a businessman in charge of Giuliani Partners, a security consulting business, whose business philosophy is “dedicated to helping leaders solve critical strategic issues, accelerate growth, and enhance the reputation and brand of their organizations in the context of strongly held values”.

When acting in the position of a businessman, none of these ex-politicians likes to lose the opportunity of gaining the easy money, but as experienced men of politics majority of these advertised high profile supporters are aware of the fact that the group lacks the minimum democratic capacities it chants. As former politicians, they are sure that MKO would never put into practice a single democratic principle; practically it is proven by the way it treats its own members in Iraq.

Speaking in behalf of MKO at the Senate Kennedy Caucus room, in part of his remarks the retired Col. Wesley Martin, who headed the US antiterrorism force in Iraq and got to know the MKO as the first US commander in charge of Camp Ashraf, said that the residents of Camps Ashraf and Liberty “Only want two things as designated by President Franklin Roosevelt, they want freedom from want and they want freedom from fear. Is that too much to ask?” But he knows better than any military expert close to MKO that the two have always been the core of controversy in group’s inter-organizational relations; under the prevalent fearful atmosphere of a cult, the insiders have long been deprived of availing the minimum rights of expression, movement and association. What MKO has learned in the democratic world is to repeatedly chant democratic slogans, but it has never developed the capacity of practicing them.

July 26, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

MKO Fails to Win the Global Trust

MKO fails to convince the world that it has actually forsworn its shameful, anti-human past

In recent weeks, it has become an everyday routine for the press to release news and reports of the US officials urging the MKO residents in Camp Ashraf to leave there to end the critical humanitarian life the residents face in the hot, unbearable weather of Iraq. But, it will not be wrong to say that the current impasse in the relocation of more convoys from the paramilitary Camp Ashraf to the Temporary Transit Location TTL near Baghdad airport is mostly due to the encouragement Mojahedin Khalq Organization MKO/MEK receives from a number of former and retired politicians. Of course the support lent does not necessarily mean that these advocates heartily believe in the cause of what the designated terrorist group struggles for, rather, it is a type of resolved political business in which they are fed on substantially spent funds of the group.

Except a few who are tasked with walking with the group for political causes and interests, majority of the advocates are beguiled into the highly profitable job of being a mouthpiece of a seemingly pro-democratic, freedom-seeker group for a few minutes. While not every advocate and speaker accept payment, MKO umbrella groups spend millions of dollars on speaking fees and arrangement of rallies and events since the group’s activities are forbidden under its real names and titles. Everything seems ok and no fraud is committed since all payments and expenses are already covered. It is only after someone has agreed to speak or after he has made a speech at an event sponsored by this group that he is informed or learns that he has been enthusiastically underpinning a designated terrorist cult that is doomed to collapse.

Take one of those who appeared at a rally held in Paris on 23 June for instance. The Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page was paid $20,000 to speak for nearly 5 minutes at the rally in support of MKO to be removed from the State Department’s list of designated foreign terrorist organizations. His talking points to this group besides his belief that they should no longer be considered a terrorist group were:

* “Thanks for inviting me to speak up for values I believe we share: Freedom, democracy and respect for human rights for men and women across racial, ethnic and religious lines.

* “I believe we share a desire for regime change in Iran to a more fair and democratic society.

* “The historical record shows – and a variety of experts have told me – how the MEK has been America’s ally in our war against terrorists, but as former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card has said, the State Department appears to have been left behind with outdated information. Now a federal court has said the State Department should check its relevance.

* “You have allies to whom you should reach out in common cause as long as you advocate the values all decent human beings share. As long as you work for freedom, equality, human rights and democracy, you are not working alone.”

Although an experienced journalist, the highlighted remarks indicate that Mr. Page was either badly misinformed or was following footsteps of already misled officials and politicians whose views were also based on misinformation. Page’s words are just the very same principles MKO has been trying to fabricate in its disinformation campaign over the last decade, but the fact is that it has no belief in the principles it has propagated. In a testimony before the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on July 7, 2011, Ray Takeyh says that MKO can neither abandon terrorism nor is commitment to democracy in deed nor word:

Terror has always been a hallmark of MEK’s strategy for assuming power. Through much of its past, the party exulted violence as a heroic expression of legitimate dissent. One of the central precepts of the party is that a highly-dedicated group of militants could spark a mass revolution by bravely confronting superior power of the state and assaulting its authority. Once, the masses observe that the state is vulnerable to violence, than they will shed their inhibitions and join the protest, thus sparking the larger revolution. Thus, the most suitable means of affecting political change is necessarily violence. Although in its advocacy in Western capitals, the MEK emphasizes its commitment to democracy and free expression, in neither deed nor word has it forsworn it violent pedigree.

Nowhere in the history it is record that MKO has been America’s ally in any cause. In contrast, it has been a sworn adversary of the United States as the predatory capitalist and imperialist. MKO’s long-lasted animosity towards the US and its change of attitudes and language is best depicted by Ray Takeyh:

The core of MEK’s ideology has always been anti-imperialism which it has historically defined as opposition to U.S. interests. The MEK opposed the Shah partly because of his close associations with the United States. MEK’s anti-American compulsions propelled it toward embracing an entire spectrum of radical forces ranging from the Vietcong to the PLO. Given its mission of liberating the working class and expunging the influence of predatory capitalism, the United States has traditionally been identified as a source of exploitation and injustice in MEK literature. As the organization has lost its Iraqi patron and finds itself without any reliable allies, it has somehow modulated its language and sought to moderate its anti-American tone. Such convenient posturing should not distract attention from its well-honed ideological animus to the United States.

And how MKO could have been America’s ally in its war against terrorism when the main cause for invading Iraq was Saddam Hussein’s committing or supporting terrorism, or allowing terrorist organizations to operate in Iraq. In the statement released by the White House entitled Saddam Hussein’s Support for International Terrorism, it is well asserted that “Iraq shelters terrorist groups including the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), which has used terrorist violence against Iran and in the 1970s was responsible for killing several U.S. military personnel and U.S. civilians.”

Some people utter the words without paying the least attention to their meanings and in support of whom they are spoken. Freedom, democracy and respect for human rights are internationally advocated words for mankind in general but abused by a terrorist cult with no respect for their real meaning. To win the trust of the world to show that it has actually forsworn its shameful, antihuman past MKO has to start from its within by complying with an international decisiveness to help it close a military camp that stands as the relic of a close collaboration with a fallen dictatorship. Unfortunately, it has failed so far.

July 12, 2012 0 comment

The MEK to launch Armed Struggle

Glorification of An Undemocratic Start

On the anniversary of starting armed warfare MKO celebrates the event under a democratic disguise

It is now three decades when the mass demonstrations of Mojahedin Khalq Organization Glorification of An Undemocratic Start MKO/MEK shook Tehran and many other Iranian provincial towns on 20 June 1981. The outcome was Mojahedin’s declaring a ruthless armed warfare against the newly born regime of Islamic Republic the day after. The day marks a turning point in group’s terrorist pedigree although many believe that it drafted the blueprint of waging an all-out war against the regime soon after the Islamic revolution and the initiation of Iran- Iraq war; it was only looking for a dear opportunity.

The frenzy firestorm on June 20 set MKO on the no return path of initiating an armed move that expanded a wave of terror by launching armed operations, carrying out daily attacks against civilians, assassinating officials and blasting bombs. The horrible nightmare of MKO’s blind operations haunted Iranian people day and night’s life and marks a post-revolution black spot in Iranian contemporary history. However, MKO hardly denounces actions deemed as terrorism in its own narrow vision and refers to them as “revolutionary resistance”.

It is for more than a decade that, for certain political causes and a change in tactics, MKO’s revolutionary resistance has undergone a dramatic shift in action and its propaganda machine and media mainly focuses on a pro-democratic coloring and reflecting democratic tendencies. In fact, any show of democracy orchestrated by MKO is tantamount to a demonstration of its innate potentiality of the revolutionary resistance.

It is now for a few years that just on the anniversary of June 20, MKO celebrates and glorifies the event under a democratic disguise and slogans; this year it is at VillePinte, Paris on 23 June. The advertising slogan is “Protection for Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty”. MKO chants the slogan while it is the main cause of escalating tension in both camps. Those entrapped in the camps need no universally claimed protection, since the UN is decisive in refugee determination process and to convince other countries to accept members, but cooperation of the group to end their predicament. The process of relocation of members from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty has been ceased as MKO leaders are inventing unsound excuses.

MKO’s anti-social nature never changes however it replaces the masks and as English maxim says, the wolf may lose his teeth but never his nature. June 20 is breath of life into MKO’s armed and revolutionary resistance. It has to be commemorated and glorified but with Western favored tint of democracy. The host speaker of the event, Maryam Rajavi, has merely changed, if not wearing under, her military outfit for colorful, stylish ones. And the only ones she never cares for when she calls for their protections are the residents of the two camps living in limbo.

June 24, 2012 0 comment

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Delisting MKO Terrorists for Humanitarian Causes!

The emergency issue to be dealt with at the moment is survival of suffering members of MKO

It is a common understanding that terrorists continue their aggressive and parasitic life through The emergency issue to be dealt with at the moment is survival of suffering members of MKO violating human rights and breaching the principles of democracy. A modern type is using the pretext of human rights and democracy against adversaries and opponents whenever it suits. It is not surprising to see them proposing annihilation of human beings and supporting the most tyrannical and brutal approaches in order to reach their selfish, anti-human interests. It is not also surprising to see that terrorists who are committing the most horrible crimes, or have the potentiality, are sponsored by the states and supported by the advocates that not only appreciate their bellicose, aggressive attitude of opposition but are also nice to them so long as they are serving as useful servants.

Mojahedin Khalq Organization MKO/MEK/MKI/PMOI strategy of armed warfare that constitutes its organizational infrastructure from its very formation has confronted the organization with a new challenge in spite of its widespread propaganda to convince the West it has made revisions. But it seems that MKO gets much advantage out of an equivocal attitude. In many occasions, MKO has admitted the necessity of armed struggle as an ideological necessity that constitutes the violent ontology of MKO. And that is what the western advocates of MKO expect it more than its chanting slogans of democracy particularly when they are reportedly in a warlike array for hostile purposes against the Iranian regime.

Reported to have spoken on Capitol Hill, General Thomas McInerney USAF (ret) alongside former CIA officer Clare Lopez demanded the US to abandon diplomatic efforts with Iran and to remove MEK from the terrorist list, and prepare for all-out war. They argued that the time had passed to resolve the nuclear issue with Iran, and the US should instead actively pursue regime change by military and covert means. He called for the Obama administration to remove the MEK from the Foreign Terrorist Organization list, which under current law prohibits the United States from working with the group:

“The MEK is being thrown under the bus by the Obama administration. The Clinton and Bush administration also threw them under the bus. It is criminal what has been done there and how we have treated these people who have been such valuable allies to us.”

In their debate over whether to go to war with Iranian regime, hawks once more draw MKO along to pat as a valuable ally, and no doubt it has proved to be. Crime, as they define it, is not the atrocities perpetrated by the terrorists their own administrations have blacklisted for undeniable and sound evidences; it is dismissing the rewards they had promised to provide notwithstanding the undisputable slaughter of many thousands of lives recorded in the group’s nearly half-decade long history of armed struggle.

The hawks’ suggestion to delist MKO as the valuable allay in the battle against Iran once more verifies the fact that some other colleagues definitely put the finger on in the State Department’s report presented to Congress on MKO in 1994, stressing that “They [Mojahedin] established an organization dedicated to armed struggle”. The blatant truth is that they are in need of no human rights activists or seekers of democracy, however hollow the slogans are. They are in need of some names in their propaganda warfare to bully the adversary, however hollow the name is.

MKO is only a name manipulated in a political game to warranty interests, although it does anything in its power to survive, being it blatant violation of human rights and breaching the principles of democracy. To be fair, delisting MKO never helps to liberate its enslaved members but serves the interests of its sponsors and advocates. The emergency issue to be dealt with at the moment is survival of many hundred suffering members of MKO abused at the hands of the group as the pretext of human rights violation.

June 17, 2012 0 comment

The MEK Expulsion from Iraq

MKO Facing a Dilemma in Iraq

MKO will eventually yield to the universal demand of fully relocation to the temporary transit center

The problem with Mojahedin Khalq Organization MKO/MEK is that it defines any made gesture of MKO Facing a Dilemma in Iraq humanitarian, goodwill or sympathy towards it as a granted statutory right that has to be recognized and fought for universally. The relationship between the group’s American advocates and the leadership, now led by the Paris-based Maryam Rajavi, has led both to pursue strategies that neglect the dire risks of sabotaging the agreed move from Camp Ashraf to the temporary transit center near Baghdad.

In fact, the UN and the State Department’s efforts to peacefully solve the humanitarian crisis of Ashraf residents is made difficult due to the MKO’s strong base of support amongst the sympathetic American supporters whose words are seized as recognized rights. In recent weeks, some former officials and politicians, many of whom admit to being paid by MKO or one of its many affiliates, have mounted a sophisticated media campaign accusing the UN and the US of forcing dislocation of the group to live in subhuman conditions against its will at the temporary transit center, an accusation the group badly needs to feed its propaganda machine and to refuse sending the remaining groups as planned.

However, MKO is dragging its heels waiting for a miracle to happen, but he is also reluctant to assassinate the opportunity that seemingly opens up following the closure of Camp Ashraf. Probably MKO will yield to the universal demand of fully relocation to the temporary transit center. That is at least for three reasons.

Despite still being officially considered a terrorist group, the US has sort of taken MKO under its wing, first by opening up a former US base in Iraq for its members to be settled until they are sent to a third country that might receive them. But as they cannot stay at the base permanently, and as they may not be welcome by a third country because the group is on the US terror list, the US may de-list it, and will possibly interfere to be settled in an allied country. The Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has already given the green light:

“Given the ongoing efforts to relocate the residents, MeK cooperation in the successful and peaceful closure of Camp Ashraf, the MeK’s main paramilitary base, will be a key factor in any decision regarding the MEK’s FTO status”.

Second, an attorney for MKO urged a three-judge panel on the US Court of Appeals to compel the State Department to comply with a previous order, and to make a decision on de-listing of the group in a timely manner. Robert Loeb, the State Department’s lawyer, argued that lack of total unfettered access to MKO’s base demands more deliberation and time to reach a final decision. Loeb argued questions still remain whether the group harbor weapons inside the base and thus retain the “capacity” to launch attacks. Once the base is completely emptied, a decision on MKO’s status could be made within 60 days after relocation completes.

That is the point even the curt considered when it issued the latest order giving the Secretary of State four months to issue a final determination or it would grant MKO’s writ of mandamus setting aside the FTO designation. The final part of the ruling clearly states that:

“We arrive at the four-month deadline in part because four months should allow enough time for the completion of PMOI’s move from Camp Ashraf, the monitoring of which the Secretary claims will be exceptionally useful for its determination, id. at 20-21, as well as time to complete the process of analysis, judgment and explication.”

Thus, anything depends on vacation of Camp Ashraf and the golden opportunity that is the key to its survival is just lies within the walls of transit center. Will it lose it for prolongation of a situation stuck in limbo in Iraq?

June 9, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Why Should We Be Concerned about MKO?

MKO blatantly denounces Mr. Kobler for violating the red line drawn by the group

Once after hearing the killing of Osama bin Laden, the Indian Foreign Minister urged the international community to continue to work towards eliminating “safe havens” for terrorists in neighborhood: “The world must not let down its united effort to overcome terrorism and eliminate the safe havens and sanctuaries that have been provided to terrorists in our own neighborhood. The struggle must continue unabated”. Regardless of being manipulated by this state or that power as a threatening tool against any adversary government for whatever political reason, a terrorist group is a terrorist group carrying a certain global definition that has verifiably spread a shadow of nightmare over a society or retains the potentiality to repeat. Then, does any logic accept to listen to ungrounded carping and excuses made by a globally designated terrorist group whose members are desperately hopping and crying for a universal move to set them free? The predicament of MKO’s members is not different.

Why should the world be so concerned about the unreasonable demands of the leaders, not the members, of the terrorist cult of MKO? The unanimous global move to close its military bastion stationed in an outlying region of Iraq and to relocate its insiders to a location near the capital to have the whole structure under the control and to facilitate the process of expulsion seems to be a proper way not only to curb the threat of terrorism but also to expedite a humanitarian determination to liberate the insiders. And that is obvious that the group tries and plays many tricks and makes ungrounded excuses to thwart the global will and imped the process.

So it will not be strange to see or hear that MKO focuses its ire on somebody or some institution to brazenly force a party, regardless of any promises to cooperate, to copulate to its terrorist calls and demands. Do not believe it? Here is a most recent example. In a letter to the UN Secretary General and leaders of the US and the EU, a leading member of the group calling himself the representative of Ashraf and Liberty residents, expressed great concern over the trip of Mr. Kobler, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in Iraq (SRSG), to Iran. Does the trip of a ranking UN representative concern a terrorist group? You will be even more shocked to hear that he indirectly denounces Mr. Kobler for violating “the red line of drawing the Iranian regime in the dossier of its dissidents at Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty”. Of course, the terrorist group is the one who has drawn the red-line and considers it a must policy for others to follow.

But it is not the whole story. In his letter, the mentioned representative implicitly rebukes Mr. Kobler for refraining to reply the letters of the group demanding for the details of his trip and “from providing a simple rebuttal of what was announced by the Iranian regime”. That is true that MKO typically moves on an ongoing path of forging some political weight it is totally deprived, but to warn a government and international bodies for any reason, concerning Mr. Kobler’s trip in this case, is the most blatant form of defiance against the unanimous decisiveness against the threats of a terrorist cult: “The Iranian Resistance strongly protests and warns the Government of Iraq and Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on any such matter”.

To draw a conclusion, as the affluence of MKO’s advocates for delisting a designated terrorist group overweight those calling for a united front to combat the threats of terrorism, as there is no united effort to overcome terrorism and eliminate its widespread safe havens and sanctuaries, then for the pleasure of the group and to avoid the consequence of its warnings, a suggestion seems working: the representatives of Iraqi government and other concerned international bodies confer with a MKO’s mission before taking any decision that might fret or enrage the organization.

May 27, 2012 0 comment

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