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The US and the MEK: the enemy of my enemy is NOT my friend

Has any other maxim led to greater error and remorse than the twisted logic that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend?” Yet the irony is that this malevolent cliché is actually the most charitable interpretation for why a large and bipartisan group of prominent Americans is currently lobbying on behalf of the bizarre Iranian terrorist cult the Mujahedeen e-Khalq, or MEK.

This unlikely coalition is pressuring the US government to change its policies towards the main MEK base, “Camp Ashraf,” in Iraq and thwart American and Iraqi plans for resolving that issue. More ominously, the group is pressuring to have the MEK removed from the list of designated foreign terrorist organizations.

The somewhat less charitable explanation is that many of the American MEK supporters have been paid tens of thousands of dollars for speeches and other services. Because all material dealings with the MEK are serious felonies, the Treasury Department has recently issued subpoenas to some of its key US supporters, including former Pennsylvania Governor Ed The US and the MEK: the enemy of my enemy is NOT my friend Rendell, former Department of Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Hugh Shelton. Rendell’s office, for example, admits he has received $160,000 for such efforts over the past year.

Other prominent MEK supporters include Republican notables such as the former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend, former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, many of whom are self-styled anti-terrorism crusaders. On the Democratic side, MEK backers include former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, and former Senior Allied Commander of NATO Wesley Clark.

The MEK is on the terrorism list for good reason. According to a State Department report published in 1997, the organization “assassinated at least six American citizens, supported the takeover of the US Embassy [in Tehran], and opposed the release of the American hostages.” Since then, the organization has been implicated in numerous terrorist attacks inside Iran and elsewhere, and for many years its main sponsor was Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

A further, and more disturbing, motivation for this indefensible championing of the MEK was recently revealed by NBC News. It reported that US officials said “deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists are being carried out by an Iranian dissident group [the MEK] that is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service.”

For some, it seems, although the MEK may be a terrorist group, it has the “right targets,” and therefore should be supported rather than banned.

But the MEK is not simply a run-of-the-mill dissident group employing terrorist tactics. It is a bizarre and dangerous cult run by a strange and fanatical couple, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, that reportedly keeps its members in total isolation, forbids marriages and imposes divorces, and engages in disturbing “self-criticism” sessions. Its ideology is a twisted syncretism of Shia fundamentalism, Marxism and feminism run amok. Numerous observers have aptly compared its mindset to that of the Khmer Rouge.

[..] For a simple primer on how the MEK conducts itself, readers should consult Elizabeth Rubin’s 2003 New York Times report, “The Cult of Rajavi.”

The Treasury Department is to be commended for launching a long-overdue investigation into the MEK’s well-funded US lobby, as well as its large payments to exceptionally prominent Americans who certainly ought to know better. Some have claimed ignorance about the MEK’s history and practices. However, any 10-year-old with an Internet connection could discover the truth about this nefarious organization within minutes of casual browsing.

Were the State Department to de-list the organization as a terrorist group, the official American approach to international terrorism would be shorn of any pretense of principle. Moral clarity on terrorism would be abandoned in favor of the logic of “they’re our terrorists, so they’re acceptable,” simply on the basis that their targets are the regime in Tehran and its nuclear program, possibly under Israeli state sponsorship.

For far too long, MEK front organizations have operated with impunity in the United States. Prominent Americans have accepted cash payments that with regard to other designated terrorist groups would have long since led to major prosecutions. Rather than de-listing the MEK from the terrorism list, the United States government should vigorously pursue its investigation into those Americans who have accepted payments from its front organizations.

By legitimizing the MEK, Washington would lose almost all credibility when it comes to opposing terrorism. The enemy of my enemy is by no means necessarily my friend. That way madness lies.

IBishblog

April 30, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

American Terrorism

American-trained terrorists are carrying out terror attacks in Iran, killing Iranians and destroying Iranian oil pipelines. While pontificating ad nauseam about the need to make the world safe from radical Islam, President George W. Bush’s regime was training terrorists. The training went on from 2005 until 2007, while America was supposedly knee-deep in the so-called “War on Terror.”

Writing for The New Yorker, journalist Seymour M. Hersh says a group of Iranians associated with Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK, were being trained in terror operations by the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) at the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site. MEK, a Marxist-Islamist group listed by the U.S. State Department as a terror organization, is linked to the assassination of six Americans in the 1970s. It also participated in the revolution that led to the overthrow of the American puppet Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, in 1979 (who was placed in power by the CIA).

So what are these American-trained MEK terrorists up to now? They are carrying out terror attacks in Iran, killing Iranians and destroying Iranian oil pipelines. Five Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated since 2007.

MEK denies its involvement, but last month NBC News quoted two senior Barack Obama Administration officials as confirming the assassinations were carried out by MEK with assistance from Mossad, the Israeli secret service organization. MEK, with United States and Mossad assistance, has also disrupted Iranian oil pipelines, Hersh reported.

“The M.E.K. was a total joke,” a senior Pentagon consultant told Hersh, “and now it’s a real network inside Iran. How did the M.E.K. get so much more efficient?” he asked rhetorically. “Part of it is the training in Nevada. Part of it is logistical support in Kurdistan, and part of it is inside Iran. M.E.K. now has a capacity for efficient operations that it never had before.”

How long before this comes back to bite us? Remember that Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terror network were created and trained by the CIA.

The so-called war on terror is not what it seems. America and America-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are arming and providing assistance to terrorists in Iran. America, NATO and NGOs are doing the same with al-Qaida terrorists in Syria. And they armed and provided air cover to al-Qaida terrorists in Libya.

Why shouldn’t the U.S. State Department place the United States on its list of state sponsors of terror alongside Cuba, Syria and North Korea?

By Bob Livingston ,Personal Liberty

April 30, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK: Washington’s favorite terror cult

The Mujahedin-e-Khalq–sometimes referred to as the MEK, the MKO, the PMOI, the NCRI or, perhaps more fittingly, “The Cult of Rajavi”–is a strange terrorist group by anyone’s reckoning.
MEK: Washington's favorite terror cult
They wear identical khaki uniforms and headscarves, singing songs to their cult leaders, Massoud Rajavi and his wife Maryam. They adhere to an eclectic mix of ideological influences, having been variously described as Marxists, messianic Shiites, and even secular democrats. And they are a US State Department designated terrorist organization that has been responsible for bombings, attempted plane hijackings, political assassinations, and indiscriminate killings of men, women and children.

But this is not your average terror group.

These are not like the blue jeans-wearing, cash-paying, constitution-loving, third-party-candidate-supporting, picture-taking terrorists that the Department of Fatherland Security have been warning the American public about for years now.

These are not the three-year-old boys in wheelchairs that the upstanding men and women of the TSA have been patting down as potential bomb-wearing suicide jihadis since 9/11.

No, these are the kind of terrorists that the Afghan mujahedin were back when they were the “freedom fighters” fighting the Ruskies in the 80s. Before they became the Taliban of today.

These are the kinds of terrorists like Saddam Hussein was when he was our man in the Middle East, gassing his Kurdish population with US-supplied weapons. Before he refused to disarm his non-existent stockpile for Bush and Blair.

These are our kind of terrorists.

What the beltway insiders leave out of their analysis is that the MEK has been a violent, radical, terrorist group from its inception.

The group was involved in violence in the 1970s that included the murder of several Americans. The group supported the taking of American hostages in Tehran in 1980. They fled to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war in the 80s, and were given protection by Saddam Hussein in return for help in attacking Iranian targets and brutally suppressing a Kurdish uprising.

More than a terror group, however, or an ideologically driven armed force, the MEK is a cult of personality. Led by Massoud Rajavi and his wife, those who are recruited into the organization have a similar story to tell of their recruitment, brainwashing, and obedience to Rajavi.

Since the US occupation of Iraq in 2003, the strategic value of an Iranian group willing and capable of performing attacks and destabilization efforts has been seen as strategically important to the west, which has been desperate to curb Iran’s quest for Middle Eastern predominance in the post-Saddam power vacuum.

A 2009 Brookings Institution report entitled “Which Path to Persia?” wrestled with the idea of using MEK as a tool for destabilizing the Ahmadinejad government.

“Undeniably, the group has conducted terrorist attacks…” the report concedes. “At the very least, to work more closely with the group (at least in an overt manner), Washington would need to remove it from the list of foreign terrorist organizations.”

As a result, the US has enjoyed a close relationship with this organization over the past decade, despite it still being officially designated a terrorist group.

From 2003, US troops directly guarded the group’s members at Camp Ashraf in Iraq. A lobbying effort began, complete with extravagant speaking engagements attended by high-ranking former US officials, to get the MEK de-listed as a terrorist organization in Europe and the US.

In 2007, the group was struck from Britain’s terror group register. The EU followed suit in 2008.

Also in 2008, Seymour Hersh reported that the US State Department was funding and arming the group through officially authorized covert funds.

In recent months, large rallies have been organized in support of the effort to delist the group and glossy television ads have even begun airing to raise public awareness of the issue.

In the latest round of US-government sanctioned support for a designated terrorist organization, the public is being warned about an impending humanitarian disaster amongst the group members at Camp Ashraf. If the MEK is not de-listed, the story goes, the US will not be able to offer the group’s members adequate protections.

Intriguingly, though, more reports have surfaced in recent months linking the group to bombings inside Iran, the bombings of Israeli targets in New Delhi and Bangkok earlier this year which Israel immediately blamed on Iran, and even the assassinations of Iranian scientists that have been plaguing Iran’s nuclear program in recent years.

Earlier today I had the chance to talk to veteran investigative journalist Pepe Escobar about the MEK and their real place in this ongoing war of terror.

Ultimately this is a story about hubris. The hubris of a political elite who think that they are still living in a dinosaur media environment, a pre-Internet age where people have no other access to information than what is being told to them that day by their newspaper or by Walter Cronkite.

In that former paradigm, the rolling out of an agenda was so much easier for the establishment. Almost like a soap opera, all they had to do was set the scene, establish the villain, show us who the good guys were and get us to root for them. They’d do the rest.

In this day and age, it’s perfectly transparent to see what is happening now, and when aging, out-of-touch neocons go to bat for insane terror cults to try to get them delisted, we can see right through those transparent, cynical moves.

The MEK is just another tool in the West’s arsenal to wield against the villain of the month. As long as they are useful in bombing, attacking and otherwise causing carnage in Iran, the West will be happy to use them as pawns in their chess game. They will be given a full-court press, and the people will be made to know that these are the “good guys.”

As soon as they have outlived their usefulness, they will be dropped in the trash like yesterday’s newspaper.

In this new Internet-enabled paradigm, though, the game has changed, whether the political establishment knows it or not. Oh, they can still de-list MEK and build them up in the dinosaur media as crusaders of freedom, and they probably will.

But this time, we won’t be buying it.

By James Corbett

April 29, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

US provided material support for MEK foreign terrorists in Nevada

U.S. Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) helped train, arm, equip and arrange for travel of members of the Iranian opposition group Mujahideen-e-Khalq (M.E.K.) at a secretive site in Nevada from 2005 to at least 2007, as reported by Seymour M. Hersh at The New Yorker.

M.E.K. has been listed as a “foreign terrorist organization” since 1997.

It is a felony in U.S. law to knowingly provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization.

Five Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated since 2007.

Early last month two senior Obama officials said that the attacks were the work of M.E.K. and that the group is "financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service [i.e. Mossad]."

In 2002 M.E.K. publicly revealed that Iran had begun enriching uranium at a secret underground location and the information was provided by Mossad, according to then-head of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei.

From The New Yorker:

The M.E.K.’s ties with Western intelligence deepened after the fall of the Iraqi regime in 2003, and JSOC began operating inside Iran in an effort to substantiate the Bush Administration’s fears that Iran was building the bomb at one or more secret underground locations. Funds were covertly passed to a number of dissident organizations, for intelligence collection and, ultimately, for anti-regime terrorist activities. Directly, or indirectly, the M.E.K. ended up with resources like arms and intelligence.

The training in the U.S. took place at the secretive Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site, located about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

A retired four-star general told Hersh that the Iranians received standard training for about six months that included bomb making, communications, cryptography, small-unit tactics and weaponry.

Last month the senior Obama officials lied to the American public about any U.S. involvement in the M.E.K. assassinations, but a former senior intelligence official told Hersh that the U.S. provides intelligence for M.E.K. operations. “The US broke international laws, helped finance terrorism that was responsible for the death of innocent civilians in Iran”, said Bob Smith of Charlotte, N.C. in a telephone conversation, who claims the Special Forces units involved in training the MEK terrorists came from Ft. Bragg, N.C.

"How can the U.S. train those on State’s foreign terrorist list, when others face criminal penalties for providing a nickel to the same organization?”, says Allan Gerson, a Washington attorney for the M.E.K., pointed out the total hypocrisy of simultaneously listing the group as a terrorist organization and training them. I wonder what that says about a lawyer who defends them?

The People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK, also PMOI, MKO) founded in September 5, 1965 by a group of leftist Iranian university students as an Islamic and Marxist political mass movement. MEK was originally devoted to armed struggle against the Shah of Iran, capitalism, and Western imperialism. In the aftermath of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the MEK and the Tudeh Party at first chose to side with the clerics led by Ayatollah Khomeini against the liberals, nationalists and other moderate forces within the revolution. A power struggle ensued, and by mid-1981, MEK was fighting street battles against the Islamic Revolutionary Guards.[7][8][9] During the Iran-Iraq War, the group was given refuge by Saddam Hussein and mounted attacks on Iran from within Iraqi territory. Government sources claim that over 17,000 Iranians were killed by the MEK.

The group claims to have renounced violence in 2001 and today it is the main component organization of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an "umbrella coalition" calling itself the "parliament-in-exile dedicated to a democratic, secular and coalition government in Iran. The group has had thousands of its members for many years in bases in Iraq, but according to the British Broadcasting Corporation "they were disarmed in the wake of the US-led invasion and are said to have adhered to a ceasefire."

The United States, Canada, Iraq and Iran have designated the MEK a terrorist organization.

“The US used taxpayer funds to train these terrorists”, said one Charlotte, N.C. veteran. “I would like to see those prosecuted for this crime”, he said. The veteran stopped short of calling for prosecution of members of the Pentagon and senior military officials who carried out what was an “illegal act”. “Soldiers follow orders sometimes. They cannot disobey. They should be excused for their crimes. I more interested in the senior military commanders who went along with this”, he said.

“The possibility that anyone will be prosecuted for helping train terrorists is highly unlikely”, said one retired FBI agent from Charlotte, who declined to be named in this report. “I don’t like what our government does sometimes but I am in no position to do anything about it”, he said.

This is generally the attitude of people I talked to about this incident. From officials at Ft. Bragg who refused to discuss it, to former Special Forces members who claim they just follow orders, to Administration officials who indicated the US is right for funding people who murder and kill people in Iran. They all offer excuses.

On December 14, 2006, Time Magazine published an article about MEK and reported: "In 2003, French anti-terrorist police raided Maryam Rajavi’s place in Auvers-sur-Oise, securing millions of euros and taking Maryam Rajavi and some of her collaborators into custody. Several of Rajavi’s followers set themselves on fire to protest her arrest, confirming official French concerns about the cultish nature of the group."

On September 14, 1981, Time Magazine published an article about MEK and reported: "The Mujahedin platform focused on anticapitalist, anti-Western slogans. It demanded the nationalization of all foreign businesses run by Iranians and continuation of the anti-imperialist struggle, especially against the U.S. Western intelligence sources doubt that the Mujahedin, though superbly organized, have as many followers as they claim. "They are not a popular movement," one analyst asserts. "Their ideology is not understood by the masses. They are capable, of carrying out terror operations but not of governing Iran."

On April 21, 1997, Time Magazine published an article about MEK and reported:

"There is a cult of personality around Massoud Rajavi and Maryam Rajavi that is unhealthy,"

says Michael Eisenstadt, an Iran expert at the Washington Institute on Near East Policy. "If they were to achieve power, it is unlikely they would give it up."

On August 28, 1988, New York Times published an article that after chemical attacks by MEK against western Iranian cities, Alireza Jafarzadeh as then public spokesman for MEK in the United States said:

“Mujahedeen have learned to take proper tactics when and if necessary. We have always adjusted tactics in our fighting. The form of fighting is secondary."

The Mujahedeen claimed to have inflicted 40,000 Iranian casualties.

On July 13, 2003, New York Times published an article that in 1991 when Saddam Hussein used the MEK and its tanks as advance forces to crush the Iraqi Kurdish people in the north and the Iraqi Shia people in the south, Maryam Rajavi as then leader of MEK’s army forces commanded:

"Take the Kurds under your tanks, and save your bullets for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards."

On December 14, 2006, Time Magazine published an article about MEK and reported: "By the mid-1980s, the group (MEK) had cozied up to Saddam Hussein, who provided them with funds and a compound, Camp Ashraf, north of Baghdad. The U.S. government has accused the group of helping Saddam brutally put down Iraqi Kurdish people in the early 1990s, and of launching numerous attacks inside Iran."

On January 5, 2009, Time Magazine published an article about MEK and reported: "Despite its position on the U.S. terrorist list since 1997, and reports by former members of abusive and cultlike practices at Ashraf, the MEK has gathered support from some surprising places abroad — especially since the U.S. invasion — by pitching itself as a viable opposition to the regime in Tehran. "They have been extremely clever and very, very effective in their propaganda and lobbying of members of Congress," says Gary Sick, a Persian Gulf expert at Columbia University’s Middle East Institute and the author of All Fall Down: America’s Tragic Encounter With Iran. "They get all sorts of people to sign their petitions. Many times the Congressmen don’t know what they’re signing." But others, Sick adds, "are quite aware of the fact that this is a designated terrorist organization, and they are quite willing to look the other way for a group that they think is a democratic alternative to the Iranian regime."

On May 18, 2005, Newsweek published an article about MEK and reported: "Human Rights Watch alleges that the Iranian exile group known as Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) has a history of cultlike practices that include forcing members to divorce their spouses and to engage in extended self-criticism sessions. More dramatically, the report states, former MEK members told Human Rights Watch that when they protested MEK policies or tried to leave the organization, they were arrested, in some cases violently abused and in other instances imprisoned. They were held in solitary confinement for years in a camp operated by MEK in Iraq under the protection of Saddam Hussein. MEK representatives in the United States and France, where MEK is headquartered, did not respond to NEWSWEEK phone calls and an e-mail requesting comment. The new Human Rights Watch report does allege strange and sometimes brutal behavior by the group’s leaders and internal security apparatus. According to Human Rights Watch, following this 1988 military defeat, the Rajavi’s leadership of MEK became increasingly authoritarian and cultlike. According to an MEK defector’s memoir, Rajavi claimed to have a mystical relationship with a prophet known as Imam Zaman, who is Shia Islam’s version of the long-awaited Messiah. In order to better cement their relationship with their leader, and hence ultimately their Messiah, Rajavi then instructed his followers to divorce their spouses. The group had already established a practice of "self criticism," under which members were asked to undergo their own personal "ideological revolution" by confessing personal inadequacies in cultlike confession sessions. Human Rights Watch says the testimony of former MEK prisoners paints a grim picture of how the organization treated its members, particularly those who held dissenting opinions or expressed an intent to leave the organization. Other witnesses told Human Rights Watch claimed it was the practice of MEK interrogators to tie thick ropes around prisoners’ necks and drag them along the ground. One witness told investigators: "Sometimes prisoners returned to the cell with extremely swollen necks–their head and neck as big as a pillow." In a statement accompanying its investigative report, Joe Stork, a Human Rights Watch expert on the Middle East, commented:

".. it would be a mistake to promote an opposition group that is responsible for serious human rights abuses."

In 2004, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) listed the MEK as a terrorist entity (see: http://www.american.com/archive/2011/FBI%20-%20REPORT.pdf

Among the charges the FBI accused the MEK of committing was murder of US citizen Paul Grimm, a Texaco executive in 1978 and participating in the student takeover of the US embassy in Iran. A list of the charges would take 42 pages to list.

The FBI field office in Charlotte, N.C. refused to comment on news reports of Special Forces training MEK terrorists. According to a spokesman “The US doesn’t commit terrorist acts and US Special Forces don’t train terrorists”, the FBI agent declined request to be named in this report and hung up on us. The US Justice Department have not responded to email asking for a comment in this matter…

See also article: Hersh: US facilitates MEK terror in Iran

Robert Tilford – Examiner.com

April 29, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK:the Israel tool to keep the War Book open

If you liked the USS LIBERTY, the Lavon Affair, and the 5 dancing Israelis on 9/11, you’re simply going to LOVE the MeK

Given the current climate in America, where all political creatures—both small and great—bear that infamous ‘mark’ indicating their 100% bona fides as hired guns for the Jewish state, it can If you liked the USS LIBERTY, the Lavon Affair, and the 5 dancing Israelis on 9/11, you’re simply going to LOVE the MeK only mean one thing when suddenly lots of them are found chorus-lining a cause whose sole beneficiary happens to be that same aforementioned ethno-theocratic enclave that has never considered America’s best interests to be anything of a priority…

…bad weather’s a comin’…

Remember, (as if we could forget) this is the same gang that schmoozed the American people into sending their sons and daughters off to fight and die in a needless (and illegal) war against Iraq that’s killed millions, destroyed the American economy and—following a close 2nd after Israel–made the United States the most-hated country on the planet…The same gang that justifies the $30 million a day the Jewish state receives in US taxpayer money (separation of church and state anyone???) on the basis that it’s ‘an investment in American security’…

And, of course, the same gang that told (tells) us with a straight face that the 9/11 attacks had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with America’s blind and unyielding support for that ethno-theocratic enclave who gets her kicks by perpetrating serial violence against those unfortunate enough to be living in close proximity to her, but rather because ‘DEM MOOZLEMS’ hate us for ‘our freedoms’…

With such a history then, no one should be particularly surprised when self-proven criminals position themselves for even more morally-obnoxious behavior.

After all, at the end of the day, that’s the way it is with ‘bad eggs’…Their behavior is a cancer of sorts that can neither stay put nor be self-contained, and must instead be constantly oozing into new cracks and crevices where it’s never gone before and where propriety forbids it.

And likewise with this ‘new and improved’ evil and the bad weather it portends, namely the current move by some politically-well-connected schmuckity-mucks to get an infamously-known terrorist organization reclassified in such a way that it’s then free to do what it does best, which is—surprise, surprise–perpetuating terrorism.

The group in question is the Mujahedin e Khalq, (MeK) designated by the government of Uncle Sam to be a terrorist organization since the early 1990s. An Iranian exile group, it received ‘honorable mention’ as a FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organization) by the USGOV not only because as a group it murdered in cold blood as many as 17,000 fellow Iranians, but several Americans as well.

In its repertoire of political violence, the MeK is credited with blowing up schools, mosques, churches, libraries, government buildings and various market places, in addition to the various ‘personalized’ assassinations it has performed, including (as assumed by those ‘in the know’) the 5 Iranian nuclear scientists murdered in recent years.

As such, the MeK being duly listed as an FTO by the USGOV means that receiving money from or advocating on behalf of this group is a federal offense, punishable by fine and/or imprisonment, just as it would be (and has been) for individuals convicted of providing ‘material support’ for other FTOs such as Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, etc.

And now, in underscoring just what a truly bizarro world we find ourselves living in, we have a whole gaggle of individuals—high profile ones at that–engaging in what can only be termed very open, blatant and in-your-face violation of this criminal statute, getting paid very handsomely in the process and without (as of this moment) so much as a polite tap on the shoulder from the long arm of US law enforcement…

And when we say ‘high profile’ we mean as high as an elephant’s ear, a short list of which includes—

–Former New York City Mayor and federal prosecutor Rudy Giuliani…

–Former US Attorney General Michael Mukasey…

–Former Joint Chiefs Chairman Hugh Shelton…

–Former NATO Commander General Wesley Clark…

–Former FBI Director and federal prosecutor Louis Freeh…

–Former Philadelphia Mayor and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell…

–Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean…

–Former Pennsylvania Governor and Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge…

…again, to name but a few…

This in and of itself is highly problematic, for the simple reason that these well-educated individuals—some of them lawyers to boot—know full well about the laws forbidding them from doing exactly what they’re doing and yet, very cooly and confidently, they are doing it nonetheless. In at least one case we have the former Attorney General for the United States, Michael Mukasey, at one time singularly responsible for prosecuting those who violate US law, daring the U.S. Justice Department to come after him and his partners in crime, adding insult to injury by repeating George Bush’s infamous line ‘Bring it on’.

The obvious fin sticking out of the waterline in all this making the situation so menacing is indeed the very high profile these individuals enjoy. It is a general rule of thumb that politicians are self-serving cowards with absolutely no moral rudder and who won’t risk having their bacon fall into the fire unless the chance of material loss for such is 0% and the likelihood of profit hovering somewhere near 100.

Therefore, a gaggle of them throwing their chips in simultaneously on what would normally be considered very risky business can only mean one thing—the fix is in and they know it.

In short, they are ready, willing and able to engage in A VERY PUBLIC display of criminal activity, literally before the eyes of the world, because they have been reassured beforehand that the wheels of justice have had the air let out them and that nothing untoward will come their way by doing so.

As bad as this is however, having former Mayors, Governors, Attorneys General, Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs and Secretaries of Homeland Security, with malice aforethought brazenly violating U.S. law with regards to material support for terrorism, it gets much worse, as the list of supporters gets longer (and more ominous) by the day.

Besides the aforementioned chorus line of former something-or-others who aren’t at risk of losing any political office to either impeachment or a lost election, we now have an even more dangerous spice being added to the already-poisonous stew, namely rabidly pro-Zionist voices from within what we might call ‘the inner circle’ of organized Jewish interests giving their 2 shekel’s worth as far as ‘un-delegitimizing’ the MeK.

In particular we have Alan Dershowitz, infamous for many things obnoxious to civilized society but in particular loud-mouthing for the release of convicted Israeli spy Jonathon Pollard, singularly responsible for as many as 1,000 deaths and for setting America’s national defense back in a manner not outdone even by the Rosenbergs. Next in line is Elie Wiesel, high priest and carnival barker of Holocau$tism and all its precepts as well as lead prosecutor for anyone daring to question the Jewish narrative viz a viz WWII. And, last but certainly not least, there is Irwin Cotler, former Canadian Minister of Justice, former Attorney General of Canada, one-time chief counsel to the Canadian Jewish Congress and once-upon-a-time personal legal advisor to Natan Sharansky, Jewish supremacist extraordinaire who never encountered a slaughter of Arabs he didn’t like.

Now, the criteria making this latter aspect in pushing to have the MeK legitimized so dangerous is that all the three aforementioned very powerful Jewish political voices also sit on the Board of Advisors to an infamously-known adjunct of Israeli intelligence known as the Middle East Media Research Institute, MEMRI.

MEMRI is the brainchild of—

(1) Yigal Carmon, a former colonel in Israeli military intelligence, and

(2) Meyrav Wurmser, the Israeli-born wife of David Wurmser.

Those who recognize the name David Wurmser in relation to all the chaos taking place in the Middle East certainly should, for in addition to being V.P. Dick Cheney’s chief Middle East advisor he is also one of the chief capos responsible for drawing up the ‘Clean Break’ document written for Netanyahu laying out in frightening detail all the war, regime change and unrest seen in the Middle East since 9/11.

As an interesting and highly-relevant side-note, Wurmser was also the subject of an FBI investigation related to his espionage activities for—surprise, surprise–Israel.

MEMRI’s chief purpose is to fan the flames of conflict between the West and Israel’s enemies by providing ‘translations’ of various articles and broadcasts within the Arabic and Farsi speaking world. We use the word ‘translations’ in quotation marks here because it is well-known in both intelligence and media circles across God’s green earth that MEMRI is often (always) found playing fast and loose with the facts in jinning up a picture that bears little resemblance to fact-based reality.

Those who may not recognize the acronym ‘MEMRI’ nevertheless know its work intimately, for it is this outfit directly responsible for the deliberately-mistranslated ‘wipe Israel off the map’ statement attributed to Iranian Prez Ahmadinejad that has now doubtless been verbally regurgitated millions of times the world over.

So, the fact that we now have added to the chorus line 3 individuals–for all intents and purposes acting as representatives of an adjunct to Israel’s Mossad–agitating for legitimizing a USGOV-designated terrorist organization puts the entire picture in a completely different light.

In short, this is NOT a drill people.

We can now see plainly that the push to have this group freed of all legal impediments to it being able to travel freely and raise money is a top priority as far as Israel is concerned. Whereas the warm-up act featured American politicos schmoozing the audience so as to give it an ‘American’ character rather than an Israeli one, now we have the ‘main event’—meaning the Jewish state herself–stepping forward and giving the entire endeavor its Kosher stamp of approval as well.

As far as dorsal fins go, this entire drama in pushing to have the MeK legitimized indeed says a lot about what is going on beneath the surface.

In the first case, there is the brazen contempt for the rule of law by individuals who have made pandering to the patriotism of the American people something of a vaudeville act. For individuals of the aforedescribed caliber to be coming forward—IN FRONT OF CAMERAS, MICROPHONES AND MULTIPLE WITNESSES—where everything they do and say can be used against them in a court of law, and yet without the slightest hint of concern for any prosecutorial blowback in them throwing their lot in with an officially-designated terrorist organization shows how impotent the system is whenever Israeli interests are involved.

Not that we should be that surprised, when, after all, it was this same system that absolved Israel of her deliberate attack on the USS LIBERTY that resulted in 34 American servicemen being killed, and the same system that sent back the only arrestees on the morning of 9/11—the 5 dancing Israelis–who later admitted on Israeli television that they were Mossad and that they had been sent to America to ‘document the event’.

Indeed, Ariel Sharon was not shystering anyone when he quipped years ago that ‘We control America, and the Americans know it.’

But the one thing, the one question that should keep all persons ‘round the world awake at night, fearing for the events of the following day, is that 3-letter word that will eventually speak volumes as to the exact nature of the true paradigm at work in all this—

Why???

WHY, is Israel so interested in having the MeK removed as a terrorist organization, so much so that she is willing to throw some of her ‘best’ people out there? What’s the upside for her?

Well, again, let us consider what the MeK does and why it is listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the USGOV—

Terror…

As demonstrated by the events and aftermath of 9/11 and as Israel understands all too well, terrorism works. A frightened people, traumatized by an event or a series of them, are as easy to corral as sheep. All anyone need do is consider the disasters wrought against the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan as proof of this fact.

So, at a time when the intellectually-paralyzing effects of 9/11 are beginning to wear off, when Americans are looking forward to closing the book on a decade of war and getting back to the business of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, it may very well be that what Israel needs in order to keep that book open and start a new chapter in her ‘Clean Break’ series is a 9/11, Pt II.

The trouble is, as a result of her KNOWN direct involvement in 9/11 and a growing awareness on the part of not only concerned citizens worldwide, but more importantly, intelligence and law enforcement services in various countries considered targets for Israel’s notorious penchant for blowing things up and then blaming it on someone else, she and her agents cannot move as freely as they once did. They are watched, they are followed, hell, sometimes they are not even permitted entry into certain countries.

But individuals—highly trained individuals (as Seymour Hersh recently reported in an issue of the New Yorker) from the recently legitimized MeK can travel. In fact, they are in a special class all their own, given their status as ‘persecuted’ political refugees, since the Iranian government would hang them as soon as they entered that country.

The MeK can travel, and in the process, the members of this terrorist organization can put all that training they received from Israel and the U.S. to good use, such as in–

–Blowing up schools, mosques, churches, libraries, government buildings and various market places, just as the MeK did in its own country and against its own countrymen. If the perpetrators are caught, they have Iranian names and–given the mind-control conditioning already established as a particular aspect of MeK membership—would confess to having carried out these acts of terrorism on American soil (or wherever) at the behest of the Iranian government.

After all, that is what the MeK does. They are a 3,500-member army of Manchurian Candidates, trained in assassinations, explosives and the use of terror against civilian populations. The fact that innocent women and children may be involved means nothing. Only 1 0r 2 events where schools have been shot to pieces or blown up with dozens of dead children and the next thing you know the American people are SCREAMING for more war, and of course, against the country showcasing as the next chapter of Benjamin Netanyahu’s ‘Clean Break’ series—Iran.

Last year, Elizabeth Rubin, a New York Times Magazine contributor reported from Camp Ashraf, Iraq, where the MeK is currently marooned, writing an Op-Ed where she criticized the MEK’s American advocates and characterized the group as “a totalitarian cult that will come back to haunt us.”

And indeed, that appears to have been the plan all along.

By Mark Glenn , The Ugly Truth

April 28, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Rendell and Ridge: From “Militant” Labelers to Terrorist Enablers

A new chapter has been added to the shale gas industry’s eco-terrorism, counterinsurgency and psychological operations saga.

In March, NBC News investigative reporter Michael Isikoff revealed that many prominent U.S. public officials are on the payroll of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK), a group labeled by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization. These U.S. officials are lobbying hard to Rendell and Ridge: From “Militant” Labelers to Terrorist Enablers remove the MEK from the list.

Under U.S. Supreme Court precedent, after the recent Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project decision — a controversial decision itself — it is a federal crime to provide “material support” for a designated terrorist organization. But legal niceties are apparently of nil concern to those on the dole of the MEK, a list that includes several big name political figures, according to a report written by former Bush Administration attorney and RAND Corporation analyst Jeremiah Goulka. A sample is below:

•Former Gov. Ed Rendell (D-PA)
•Former Gov. Tom Ridge (R-PA), who was also the former head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush
•Former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was also a Republican primary candidate for President in 2008
•Former Gov. Howard Dean (D-VT), formerly the head of the Democratic National Committee and a Democratic primary candidate for President in 2004

Many other powerful people are on the bipartisan list, as well.

Rendell — as one example — received $160,000 on his MEK-funded speaking tour. He and others are now under a legal investigation and were issued a subpoena by the U.S. Department of Treasury for taking cash from a designated terrorist group.

Rendell and Ridge: From “Militant” Labelers to Terrorist Enablers
In the fall of 2010, while Ed Rendell was Governor and Tom Ridge was Strategic Advisor of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, the media discovered that Pennsylvania’s Office of Homeland Security (DHS) was monitoring and filing intelligence reports on citizens speaking out against the then nascent shale gas industry’s presence in the Marcellus Shale basin. In one bulletin, PA Homeland Security refers to “militants” and “environmental extremists” who dare to question the fossil fuel industry’s practices.

That incident came and went, with many believing it was an isolated incident. It wasn’t. Far from it, in fact.

PSYOPs, Insurgents, and “Eco-Terrorists” in the Marcellus and Eagle Ford
The industry was again caught red-handed in the fall of 2011 when DeSmogBlog, with the help of Earthworks’ activist Sharon Wilson, uncovered a bombshell story.

The short version: at an October 2011 Houston, TX conference for shale gas industry public relations professionals, PR flacks for gas industry corporations Range Resources and Anadarko Petroleum Corporation revealed that they utilize psychological warfare tactics on concerned stakeholders in the areas in which they are fracking, and that they see themselves fighting a counterinsurgency war against these stakeholders, who in this fight are viewed as “an insurgency.”

Then in February, The Public Herald reported that, during an August 2011 team reporting trip at Tioga State Forest in Troy, PA, some of its journalists were accused by Seneca Resources truck drivers as being “trespassing eco-terrorists.” That’s ironic given that Tioga is a public park operated by PA’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Seneca proceeded to threaten to detain these journalists without legal authority to do so and also attempted to seize the camera of The Herald‘s reporting crew.

The Herald stated in response,

“To be labeled as, or even associated with, an ecoterrorist is no small thing…Clearly, a need for government to protect the people within the United States from real acts of aggression or violence has been usurped by private interests when journalists, or the public, can be so easily labeled as ‘ecoterrorists.’”

There’s more. On February 28, The Washington Post reported that the FBI is labeling anti-fracking activists in Texas’ Eagle Ford shale basin, in the city of Denton, TX, as “eco-terrorists.”

“Even as environmental and animal rights extremism in the United States is on the wane, officials at the federal, state and local level are continuing to target groups they have labeled a threat to national security, according to interviews with numerous activists, internal FBI documents and a survey of legislative initiatives across the country,” wrote The Post.

The Hypocrisy Reeks
An insurgent, by definition in U.S. lexicon, is another name for a “terrorist.”

While citizens concerned about the impacts from fracking and reckless gas industry practices are being labeled “eco-terrorists” and “an insurgengy,” those responsible, directly or indirectly for having them labeled as such, are shilling on behalf of a State Department-designated terrorist organization.

The hypocrisy here reeks any way you slice it.

By: Steve Horn , Firedoglake

April 24, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

U.S. Training MEK Terrorists to Kill Iranians

Just like his predecessor, President George W. Bush, Barack Obama and his Israeli allies are working together to train foreign terrorists—sometimes even in the United States—to assassinate Iran’s scientists and military leaders, while talking loudly about diplomacy and a desire to negotiate with Tehran.

The most startling revelations about the secret war against Iran, now almost a decade in the making, have centered on a Bush-Cheney policy set in motion in 2003. According to journalist U.S. Training MEK Terrorists to Kill Iranians Seymour Hersh, the policy authorized the use of a classified military site in the Nevada desert for the training of selected fighters from the Mujahideen e-Khalq (MEK).

Before and after the collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime, the MEK had thousands of anti-Iranian fighters in a camp north of Baghdad. MEK leaders promoted a leftist philosophy and called for the overthrow of the Iranian regime. Under Saddam’s protection, the group helped his forces murder thousands of Kurds in northern Iraq. It also maintained links to Europe, with offices in Paris, but more significantly it had ties to Israel’s Mossad and the CIA.

Bush and Cheney saw advantage in using MEK to attack targets in Iran. At the Nevada site, and also in an undisclosed Israeli facility, MEK fighters were trained in the arts of assassination, bombing and surveillance. And they were not the only terrorists given training. Members of Jundullah, a Sunni group based in Pakistan and linked to the Taliban, were flown to Nevada with Iranian Kurds specially selected by Mossad. In effect, Washington was running a terrorist camp on U.S. soil—just a few years after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

While it is impossible to know how long the training of terrorists continued in Nevada, or if it is still happening somewhere on U.S. soil, there is no doubt that Obama and Netanyahu have expanded their covert war against Iran. There are even reports U.S. Special Forces have been running missions in Iran until foreign terrorists are ready to take their place.

MEK fighters have also been trained at secret Middle East sites by Special Forces teams from Britain, the U.S. and Israel and have been supplied at U.S. taxpayer expense with state-of-the-art weaponry and surveillance gear. In particular, the terror cells planning the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists were taught to use small explosive packages normally reserved for American and Israeli Special Forces.

Recently, the secret war took on a political dimension when leaked diplomatic cables revealed that Japanese diplomat, Yukiya Amano, who now heads the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAE ), had assured Washington before his appointment to the IAEA that he is “solidly behind” an anti-Iran policy. Senior nuclear experts believe he has not only backed poor Israeli intelligence on Iran but has adopted a pro-Washington stance.

But not all has gone well with Obama and Netanyahu’s terror plans. Iran’s intelligence apparatus recently rolled up a foreign terrorist network that was preparing to carry out bombings and assassinations. Initial evidence indicates the terrorists had been trained over the past decade by Israel and its anti-Iran allies.

By Richard Walker , American Free Press
——
Richard Walker is the pen name of a former N.Y. news producer.

April 24, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Take MEK claims of Iran’s nuclear capability with a grain of salt

Alireza Jafarzadeh’s recent commentary ("Iran’snuclear genie is out of the bottle," April 16) is eerily reminiscent of the manipulations of Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi who shamelessly fed the US government false information with the express aim of advocating a military invasion of Iraq in Take MEK claims of Iran's nuclear capability with a grain of salt 2003 in order to promote his own personal political and economic fortunes.

Just as Mr. Jafarzadeh openly sides with the exiled Iranian terrorist group Mujahedin-e Khalq, Mr. Chalibi lived in London while leading an umbrella Iraqi opposition group (the Iraqi National Congress) pushing for U.S. militaryintervention to overthrow Saddam Hussein’s regime. Among many illicit activities, including financial fraud, the INC provided gullible senior U.S. government officials and pundits with fabricated and bogus intelligence reports concerning Iraq’s (non-existent) WMD programs. Mr. Jafarzadeh’s unsubstantiated allegations from an exiled group with a self-serving political agenda stand in direct contrast to the official assessment of the U.S. intelligence community that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons.

Readers should beware of being duped yet again by those seeking another costly foreign intervention under false premises.

Christopher Bolan, Carlisle, Pa. / Baltimoresun

April 24, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Who Will Convict the US Gov. for Material Support of Terrorism?

This past week saw the conviction of Tarek Mehanna for “material support of terrorism,” a special charge these days for those with Arabo-Muslamic sounding names. A charge that earned Mehanna 17.5 years in prison.

Aside from the problematic nature of the case, (Mehanna’s digital history proves he did not fit the picture of the eager-to-be-entrapped-or-turned-informant-wannabe-AlQaede-esque-terrorist, also Mehanna was essentially convicted of “translating documents”), there is another saliently unsurprising point that has been brought to the fore: the hypocrisy of the US government and the elite political class.

Hypocrisy amongst politicians? Like, what’s new, right?

Political hypocrisy is a given in our cynical culture, a daily fact of life. We are so used to the double standards when it comes to ‘crime and punishment’ that many of us are blind to it when it occurs.

So, the US government can train terrorists in the Nevada desert that it’s own State Department has designated part of a “foreign terrorist organization” and no one blinks an eye:

Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) conducted training, beginning in 2005, for members of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq…M.E.K. has remained on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations—which meant that secrecy was essential in the Nevada training. “We did train them here, and washed them through the Energy Department because the D.O.E. owns all this land in southern Nevada,” a former senior American intelligence official told me. “We were deploying them over long distances in the desert and mountains, and building their capacity in communications—coördinating commo is a big deal.” (A spokesman for J.S.O.C. said that “U.S. Special Operations Forces were neither aware of nor involved in the training of M.E.K. members.”)

Before Seymour Hersh uncovered the sordid fact that the US government was directly involved in the training of terrorists in Nevada, it was well known (though under-reported), that there was a bi-partisan involvement of current and former government officials in both lobbying and receiving money from the MEK:

Congressmen (including Democrats) and former government officials have met with the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an organization that was designated a terrorist group in 1997 when the list was first compiled, and is STILL ON THE LIST–for now.

MEK has a very aggressive and organized lobby effort in Washington D.C. According to one House staffer, the MEK is “the most mobilized grassroots advocacy effort in the country — AIPAC included.” Their mission is to be delisted as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO), push the USA to foment war with Iran, i.e. “regime change,” and have themselves installed into power. Sound familiar?

Again, the hypocrisy is glaring, and as we pointed out in the past, exposes some crucial points:

1.) It is a felony to provide a designated terrorist organization with “material support,” which many elected officials it can be argued have been doing!

2.) “Numerous Muslims inside the U.S. have been prosecuted for providing ‘material support for Terrorism’ for doing far less than these American politicians are publicly doing on behalf of a designated Terrorist group.” Read Glenn Greenwald’s piece for a far from comprehensive list of Muslims who have been charged for doing far less than what these politicians did!

What should we do? Sit idly by while those with power flaunt the rule of law and treat the rest of us like subjects and serfs unworthy of equality before the law? Have we ceded “immunity” to the powerful political class in consequence of their law-breaking?

Recently, the Department of Treasury has announced that it is investigating three former high ranking officials for receiving money from the MEK:

The Department of Treasury is investigating payments to three former top-ranking government officials for speaking on behalf of a group on the U.S. terrorist list…Former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, former FBI Director Louis Freeh and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Hugh Shelton.

While this is welcome news, it does put the government in the embarrassing position of investigating prominent officials for supporting terrorists while having simultaneously trained the exact same terrorists! The question is, who is going to investigate the government for training MEK operatives in the Nevada desert?

The three officials being investigated were not the only ones receiving money and perks in exchange for lobbying on behalf of the MEK. There are at least “nearly two dozen prominent former officials who have received up to hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees in exchange for their efforts on behalf of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK).”

This is why I propose a grassroots effort, starting with an online petition and campaign calling for the Department of the Treasury to expand its investigation of officials who have been aiding the US State Department designated “foreign terrorist organization” the MEK.

Those who will be the subject of this petition are as follows:

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey: Lobbied on behalf of, or met with and received money.
Former homeland security advisor Fran Townsend: Lobbied on behalf of, or met with and received money.
Former White House chief of staff Andy Card: Lobbied on behalf of, or met with and received money.
Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Hugh Shelton: received about $20-30,000 per speech and a variety of perks, including first-class airfare to European cities.
Former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge: Lobbied on behalf of, or met with and received money.
Former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani: Lobbied on behalf of, or met with and received money.
Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean: Lobbied on behalf of, met with and received money.
Former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell: received about $20-30,000 per speech and a variety of perks, including first-class airfare to European cities.
Former FBI Director Louis Frieh: received about $20-30,000 per speech and a variety of perks, including first-class airfare to European cities.
Former Governor of New Mexico Bill Richardson: Received money.
Former General Wesley Clark: Lobbied on behalf of, met with and received money.
Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif.: Lobbied on behalf of, met with and received money.
Former Congressman Tom Tancredo, R-Col.: Lobbied on behalf of and met with.
Ted Poe, R-Texas: Lobbied on behalf of and met with.
Dennis Moore, R-Kan.: Lobbied on behalf of and met with.
State Department Ambassador Daniel Fried: participated in phone calls “urging the pro-MEK members to pass along messages to MEK leaders in Paris.”
Former Sen. Robert Torricelli: Lobbied on behalf of, or met with and received money.
Former Sen. Evan Bayh: Lobbied on behalf of, or met with and received money.
Former CIA Director Porter Goss: Lobbied on behalf of, or met with and received money.
Former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers: Lobbied on behalf of, or met with and received money.
Former National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones: Lobbied on behalf of, or met with and received money.

If this Department of Treasury investigation has any real teeth behind it, and is not just a mechanism to provide the illusion of justice, it will be comprehensive and thorough, including all those who received money, lobbied on behalf of or met with the MEK. Isn’t that what we have seen with those convicted of “material support of terrorism” for doing far less than these politicians?

by Garibaldi , loonwatch.com

April 21, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Why are the US allowed to train MEK terrorists?

If you have any lingering doubt that the US-lead and British-supported "War on Terror" is a propaganda label for a cynical and violent campaign of political and economic self-interest, consider the revelations published by investigative journalist, Seymour Hersh, for New Yorker online. He reveals that during the Bush Administration, starting in 2005, US Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) were training forces of the Mujahideen e-Khalk (MEK), a dissident Iranian group who were and still are on the US terrorist list. This training took place on US soil, Nevada, and in secret, covering communication, cryptography, small arms and weaponry.

It is currently a criminal offence to provide "material support" to any organisation on the US terrorist list and, this includes mere advice. Thus, if you personally advise a terrorist organisation to put down its weapons and pursue peaceful means, you are still, according to US law, providing material support and committing a very serious crime.

And, yet, JSOC were actually training members of a designated terrorist organisation on US soil, presumably, with Presidential approval. No-one has been charged for this crime and no investigations are being promised by the Obama Administration.

Whilst the training of MEK stopped before Obama entered office, the alliance between top-ranking US officials and MEK did not. Follow recent revelations, the Treasury Department has commenced an investigation into evidence that two dozen former high-ranking US officials were paid thousands of dollars by the MEK to speechify and lobby (as much as $30,000 for a speech) on their behalf in the US corridors of power. As Glenn Greenwald writes in his blog at salon.com:

"These officials include several prominent George W. Bush Administration anti-terror officials like Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge, Homeland Security advisor Frances Fragos Townsend, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, UN ambassador John Bolton; as well as former Republican Mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani; former Democratic governors Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania and Howard Dean of Vermont; ex-FBI Director Louis Freeh; and retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Hugh Shelton. These former officials have given speeches at home and abroad urging the State Department to remove the MEK from the FTO list."

This eye-opening list of the recent US “great and good” reveals the utterly subjective approach to Washington’s interpretation of terrorist – as well as their contempt for law (law is something that applies to ordinary people, not the powerful). It has been argued that the MEK do not deserve to be on the terrorist list, having officially renounced violence. The group are accused of having killed three US Army Officers and three US civilians in the 1970s. Now, however, they and their promoters claim that they are a liberal government-in-exile, campaigning for the downfall of the Iranian regime and bring democracy to that country.

However, it would appear that the MEK are still involved in violent attacks, as proxies for Israel and, perhaps, the US. An NBC report into the recent string of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists cited US officials claims that they were carried out by the MEK, at the direction of the Israeli secret service, Mossad. Given the US government’s unshakeable solidarity and funding of Israel, regardless of illegal activity, most commentators acknowledge that the US, though not, perhaps, being directly involved, had some awareness of the assassination campaign, possibly, Seymour Hersh suggests, providing intelligence to Mossad.

Were these assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists terrorist acts? Despite its wide use and devastating consequences (you are stripped of your right to a fair trial and, even your life, if you are accused of being a senior member of a terrorist organisation), the accusation of "terrorist" does not have a clearly defined meaning. However, given that the MEK attacks were on civilians (scientists are not combatants), that no evidence exists that Iran, as agreed by Israeli and US intelligence, are currently pursuing a nuclear weapons programme and, that Iran does not, therefore, pose Israel or the US an imminent threat, the acts clearly violated international law – and, needless to say, basic humanity.

If there was an objective definition of terrorism, the nuclear scientist assassinations must surely fall with it – and therefore, implicate the US government in terrorist activities. However, no such definition exists. As the US officials’ support and training of the MEK reveals, a terrorist is a person or that the US decides should be a terrorist.

It is clear, therefore, that not only were the US military training a terrorist organisation but that training and support has been used to commit acts of murder in Iran. This is acceptable to the US government because the Iranians are the "bad guys" and anyone who attacks them, be it terrorist organisation or extremists, are "good guys". US law might complicate this simple binary world view – but the law is not important, it can be ignored when it becomes troublesome. After all, no Bush administration government official has been prosecuted for the now established illegal Iraq war, torture tactics or warrantless phone-tapping of US citizens. Why should US elites worry about supporting terrorists?

References
Seymour M. Hersh: Our Men in Iran – New Yorker blog
Glenn Greenwald: MEK and its Material Supporters in Washington – Salon.com
Glenn Greenwald (Youtube video): Terror and Terrorism are Meaningless Propaganda Terms – University of California Television

Novelfootsteps.blogspot.com

April 21, 2012 0 comment

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