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Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

MEK Terrorist Group Lobbies Congress for De-Listing

Maryam Rajavi, leader of the MEK The Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an Iranian Marxist-Islamist group opposed to the government there, is lobbying the Obama administration to have its name removed from a list of foreign terrorist organizations.

MEK has been on the State Department’s terrorist list since 1997, although even prior to that it was accused of killing Americans in Iran in the 1970s and supporting the regime of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

One of Washington’s top lobbying firms, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, has been hired by MEK supporters (the Iranian American Community of Northern California) to remove the organization from the Foreign Terrorist Organizations list. Lobbyists working on behalf of MEK include former congressman Vic Fazio (D-California) and Hal Shapiro, a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton, whose State Department originally put MEK on the list.

MEK has also garnered support from the political odd couple of Howard Dean and John Bolton, along with former Republican Attorney General Michael Mukasey and Democratic ex-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson.

Supporters claim MEK should no longer be designated a terrorist group because it renounced the use of violence in 2001. The European Union did remove the MEK from its terrorism list in 2009.

Opponents of the de-listing point out that an FBI report from 2004 showed the group continued to plan terrorist acts at least three years after it renounced terrorism.

allgov.com

July 3, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Lobbying for MKO terrorists

Daniella Pletka of the Enterprise Blog wrote an article on MKO’s lobby in the United States and its lobbying efforts to get support for its removal from FTO list of US Department of State. Her illuminating post on MKO terrorists’ lobby in her country, as usual encountered with a deluge of Ad hominem attacks by MKO agents.

In her post Ms. Pletka offers evidences on MKO cult-like nature and dictatorial system:

The Hill reported on Sunday that the U.S.-designated terrorist group the Mujahedin e Khalq (aka the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, aka the National Council of Resistance) has acquired lobbying help from Democratic powerhouse Akin Gump to support its removal from the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list.
To be fair to Akin Gump, plenty of GOPers have taken up cudgels for the MEK, though the direct cash payoff to them is less clear.
The MEK has for years lobbied aggressively via a myriad of front groups to be taken off the terrorism list. Shrewd lobbyists, they have moved well beyond their street corner and airports campaign (“support Iran’s starving children”) to “grassroots” organizations and hired guns. And I get why they don’t want to be on the terrorism list; it comes with a spate of sanctions and restrictions that are odious to most groups no matter their intentions. But what of their partisans? Do they know the MEK? If not, check out Michael Rubin’s piece on the MEK or this FBI report from 2004, the list of murdered Americans, the money laundering, the cult-like behavior, the … terrorism. Is it all a lie? Has the MEK seen the light? Or is this a way of trying to oust the foul regime in Tehran?

She ends the post by posing some controversial questions:
And here’s another question: Where’s the FBI and the Justice Department? A terrorist group is lobbying in the United States. It’s paying top political fixers to make its case. It’s paying speaking fees to former government officials. Where’s the money from? How’s it being transferred? And would it be okay for Hezbollah to do this? Al Qaeda?

Following the fallacious attacks by sympathizers of the cult of Rajavi, Danielle Pletka posts another piece to respond on June 16. She confirms her arguments by addressing the commenters individually:

Yesterday, I wrote a post on the Mojahedin E Khalq, a U.S. designated terrorist group that has, through supporters, hired a big Dem lobbying firm to help them get off the State Department’s terrorism list. And as expected, I got a deluge of comments to the post. Here are some highlights: Apparently, according to commenter CNGS, some “intelligent folks” get that the MEK, a “group with a shinning [sic] record of close t[o] a half century of struggle against the Sheik and the Shah, having irrigated the tree of liberty with the blood of more than 120,000 martyrs,” is the best alternative to the mullahs now ruling Iran. After all, according to AH, the “MEK was put on terrorist list because of some lobbyist in Washington.”
… as for the lobbying that got the MEK on the list, all I can say is that they should have been on the list years before. Killing Americans in terrorist attacks merits a listing. Read the FBI report. I linked to it yesterday, here it is again. READ IT.

Then there were some other comments, in Alexgeorge1’s vein: He thinks that we “neocons better answer for the debacle you created in Iraq, handing that country to the terrorist mullahs of Iran on a silver platter.” Apparently, I also do wrong to reference my colleague Michael Rubin, whom Shahab accuses of writing “yellow journalism at best.” A few just helpfully offered “shame” on me.

Some comments in response; take them in the vein of helpful hints to the policy and etiquette impaired:

—Calling me names isn’t going to win me (or anyone) over to your cause.

—Organizations that used to be headquartered in Baghdad taking money from Saddam Hussein should probably shy away from the topic of Iraq. It might appear you miss dear old Saddam.

—Suggestions that the MEK was put on the terrorism list to appease Iran are well placed, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be on the terrorism list.

—Just because well-known people have taken up the cudgels for the MEK doesn’t whitewash the stain of American blood nor address the question of the group’s own record of Islamism, cult-like behavior, murder, terrorism, or money-laundering. I note that no one denied those points in my original piece.

June 19, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Blind support for MEK terrorists damages American diplomacy

There is something fundamentally wrong about the way the United States views the rest of the world and interacts with it. I would cite two incidents from the past week: In a Tuesday press conference at the White House with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Obama fielded a series of questions on the US economy’s impending “double dip recession” and other domestic issues, leaving Merkel standing by and looking completely useless. I have never quite understood why the American President somehow believes that a press conference to introduce a visiting head of state is an appropriate forum for questions totally unrelated to the bilateral relationship or the visitor. It smacks of an arrogance that is completely unrestrained by either common sense or civility.

On Friday Congressman Dana Rohrabacher of California led a delegation from the House Foreign Affairs Committee in a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. During an hour and 40 minute meeting, Rohrabacher informed al Maliki that his committee is investigating the killing by Iraqi troops of 35 Iranian dissidents in April. Rohrabacher called it a likely crime against humanity. Rohrabacher also asked Iraq to repay some of the costs of the 2003 US invasion and the subsequent occupation. An Iraqi government spokesman responded that Iraq would pay not “a cent” and the Foreign Ministry then demanded that the delegation leave Iraq. The Iranians in question are members of the Mujaheddin e Khalq (MEK), an Iranian terrorist group that found shelter in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. It has been listed as a terrorist organization by the US government for the past ten years and has been implicated in the killing of Americans.

It seems that Rohrabacher and some fellow wingnuts to include Ileana Ros Lehtinen, the committee chairman, have a soft spot in their hearts for MEK because it is an enemy of the regime in Tehran. They have tried a number of times to get it delisted as a terrorist organization. Not coincidentally, the congressmen who are fond of MEK are also passionate supporters of Israel. My enemy’s enemy…

The point is that Rohrabacher and Obama fail to be guided by the Bobby Burns dictum to see ourselves as others see us. What Iraqis, whose country was invaded and in large part destroyed by the US, see is an arrogant and ignorant moron wrapped in congressional hubris who has done grave damage to them and is now asking that they should pay for it and even be indicted for war crimes when so many American crimes went unpunished. Germans watching the Obama-Merkel performance will understand that the US President was speaking to a media crowd that is so poorly informed and self-absorbed that they could not even come up with any decent questions for a respected and important visitor.

Philip Giraldi, American Conservative

June 18, 2011 0 comments

Iraq

Protest against the MEK intensifies security treats in Iraq

The recent protest against the Mujahedeen Khalq organization {MKO} in the Diala province has raised more security concerns in Iraq. The protesters who gathered at the front of the Ashraf camp called on the government to deport the members of the MKO from the Diala region because they were found to be supporting an armed group in the region, a group which is believed to be destabilizing the secured atmosphere in the province.

It is believed that the members of the Mujahedeen Khlaq organization have been living within a fenced residence in Diala for several years. Diala itself is a region located in the Northern region of Bagdad, the activities of the MKO dated back to the 1960s when they resisted some of the actions and rule of the former Iranian ruler, and since then the group was driven into exile in 1979 under the Iranian revolution but the group has found solace in Iraq where they re-grouped and started its operation on a new ground. After the United States invasion of Iraq in the gulf war, he MKO group were disarmed but its members were offered the refugee status by the United Nations.

Security concerns has been a major source of worry for the Iraqi government in recent time and with the elimination of the head of Al-Qaeda network- Osama Bin Laden, the security concern has increased especially with the anticipation of reprisal attacks from the terrorist group, it will be important for Iraq to step up its security against both local and international insurgencies as such will be one of the best possible ways of allaying the fears of potential investors in the Iraqi Dinar, it will also help the country sustain its rather fragile peace and maintain its position among the leading Middle eastern countries.

This is the right time for the Iraqi government to now step up its actions against the MKO group as well as other armed groups which are directly or indirectly linked with any other armed group in or outside of the Iraq territories, the tightening of securities in and outside of Iraq will create an enabling environment for more investment companies to thrive and even expand their operations in the country, an increase in investment in the country will definitely lead to an increase in Dinar which in turn will increase its value.

Tampadinar.com

June 12, 2011 0 comments

European Union

European lawmakers: Try MKO members for crimes against humanity

In a statement, legislators from various factions in the European Parliament have called for the trial of approximately fifty MKO terrorists in camp Ashraf in Iraq for “crimes against humanity.”

The statement was issued in response to comments made by MKO sympathiser and Vice-President of the European Parliament Alejo Vidal-Quadras, who accused Barbara Lochbihler, the Chair of the European Parliament’s delegation for relations with Iran, of making “unfounded accusations against” Ashraf residents and the MKO, referring to her comments as “a disgraceful attempt to attack this democratic opposition movement at a crucial time”.

The PMOI is known by a number of different names including Mojahedin-e-Khalq Organisation (MEK) or (MKO), The National Liberation Army of Iran (the group’s armed wing) and the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a front group for the PMOI.

In April 2011, the Iraqi military raided terrorist group’s headquarters at Camp Ashraf, sixty kilometers north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. The United Nations says 34 people were killed during the raid on the camp at which some 3,500 cult members are stationed.

Shortly after this raid, German MEP Barbara Lochbihler wrote a letter to fellow MEPs and maintaining “the claim by Ashraf residents to be cut off from water supplies was incorrect.” She stated that the “inhabitants of the camp [were] themselves victims of this totalitarian cult”.

In their most recent statement, the MEPs called for a fair trial for the fifty people in the camp wanted by the Iraqi authorities for alleged “crimes against humanity.” “Instead of boosting the PMOI, with all its criminal activities, we should urge the High Representative and the member states to help to find a humanitarian solution for the remaining camp residents (screening by the UNHCR and individual resettlement) and a fair trial for the approximately 50 persons in the camp wanted by the Iraqi authorities for alleged crimes against humanity.”

The letter was signed by members from the parliament’s European People’s Party (EPP); Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists & Democrats (S&D); Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE); the Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA) and European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL).

The statement added: “The PMOI was protected by Saddam Hussein who hosted them from the mid-1980s until his demise. They collaborated in his internal repression against the Kurds and Shiites and have since that time had a military camp known as Camp Ashraf. When the US disarmed the camp in 2003 it housed over 3000 PMOI fighters.”

The MEPs also cautioned fellow legslators that the terrorist group had “developed a very strong lobby in the European Parliament over the last couple of years claiming to be the only serious Iranian opposition group.”

They said the recent bloodshed at Camp Ashraf “should not … distract us from an objective and level-headed analysis of the PMOI’s track record,” urging “all members [of parliament] to seriously consider the history, actions and behaviour of the PMOI before signing any declarations or letters of support in favour of this group in the future.”

“Their method is very simple: they mobilise MEPs’ justified outrage at the nuclear issue, the human rights violations and they very character of the Iranian regime, but instrumentalised such opinion for a different purpose – the political legitimation of the Mudjahedin organisation itself.”

In their letter, the lawmakers criticise the lack of attention to the “massive human rights violations inside” the terrorist group. “According to overwhelming evidence the former militant group has turned into a repressive sect far removed from the respectable image the representatives of this group display when visiting the European Parliament.”

“The human rights violations the leaders are committing against the group’s members are amply documented, starting with Human Rights Watch (HRW) and many witness reports of ex-members who were able to flee (including testimonies in the European Parliament).”

In a serious blow to the European Union’s credibility and standing in the eyes of Iranians, in 2009, the union removed the death cult from its list of terrorist groups and lifted restrictions on the group’s funds.

However, according the statement by MEPs, the European Court of Justice’s decision to remove the PMOI from the EU terrorist list in 2009 was based “on a formality,” taking note of the fact that “Member States who asked them to be included on the list refused to transmit the evidence on which their request was based to the court.”

“This ruling does not make any statement as to the group’s practice of internal repression.”

The MEPs voiced their concern over how PMOI sympathisers within the parliament had developed an “infatuation” with the cult, arguing, “The support the PMOI receives from members of Parliament allows its leadership to perpetuate their absolute power over the rank and file, of which most are believed to want to desperately leave the group. The hundreds of members who have managed to escape from Ashraf and have been screened by the UNHCR bear witness of their plight.”

The statement maintains the cult “lost all its credibility with the Iranian people when they formed an alliance with the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.”

“The only actor inside Iran who nowadays accords any importance to the group,” the MEPs say, “is the Iranian government.[..]

In the 80s, the group joined forces with the invading army of Saddam Hussein and developed an intimate relationship with the Iraqi dictator during Iran’s eight-year war with Iraq. The MKO’s grisly crimes against the Kurds and Marsh Arabs in Iraq, as well as their traitorous alliance with one of Iran’s greatest enemies, have turned them into one of the most despised groups in the country.

by Cyrus Green – oyetimes.com

May 19, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Will Giuliani invite MEK “freedom fighters” to relocate in Manhattan?

The MEK issued a statement late last week that not only casts serious doubt on their claims to have renounced terrorism but demands that they be allowed to come to the U.S.
The group cites a disarmament deal they negotiated with the U.S. as the basis for the demand:

The Ashraf residents, in their two-day negotiations with (former Commanding General of U.S. Forces in Iraq) General Odierno on 9 and 10 May 2003, announced that after their disarmament, upon conditions that the US is incapable of giving them protection in Iraq, they are ready to go to the US.

The referenced deal, negotiated after the toppling of the MEK’s chief patron Saddam Hussein, apparently requires the United States to relocate MEK members in Iraq to the U.S. or E.U.:

…it is up to the US, in return to [sic] their disarmament and in accordance with the agreement signed with each of the residents, to transfer every one of them without exception to the US or European Union member States.

The fact that the MEK is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization would prevent them from legally coming to the U.S., but an assortment of prominent U.S. politicians, lobbyists, and consulting firms are working to reverse that terror designation. However, the MEK statement also raises new questions about whether the group has truly renounced terrorism as they have claimed:

Hence, if in the future similar to the past, the goal of establishing various committees in Iraq’s Prime Ministry is for the sole purpose of the residents’ repression, killing and closing down Ashraf, there will be no choice left for Iran’s freedom fighters other than resistance at any price.

So now that the MEK is threatening “resistance at any price” and demanding relocation to the U.S., the question is: will U.S. officials supporting MEK, some of whom have acknowledged receiving “substantial amount” of cash, invite these “freedom fighters” into their own backyards?

Perhaps Rudy Giuliani, who told an MEK conference in Paris last year that “the United States should not just be on your side…it should be enthusiastically on your side,” knows of a good place in Lower Manhattan to relocate the group. Never mind that MEK leaders Massoud and Maryam Rajavi reportedly celebrated September 11th by broadcasting the attacks at Camp Ashraf. Rudy apparently has no problem with the Rajavis’ declarations following September 11th that, “if (Al Qaeda) could do such a sophisticated military operation we must be able to do so in a much better manner,” and, “wait and see the fruits of our revolutionary Islam!”

Or maybe Congressman Ted Poe (R-TX), the lead sponsor of a resolution calling for MEK to be removed from the U.S. terror list, could invite the group to Texas. I’m sure he would enjoy informing his constituents in Liberty County that 3,500 Marxist-Islamist “freedom fighters” will be moving in down the street.

Or who knows, maybe the MEK’s U.S. supporters will be given pause by these new revelations, not to mention previous findings of torture and cult-like practices at Camp Ashraf. Maybe they will be convinced to focus not on legitimizing the MEK’s leaders but instead on the estimated seventy percent of Camp Ashraf residents that RAND estimates were brought there against their will and would leave MEK if given the chance.

But don’t hold your breath. If officials are being paid “substantial” amounts of money to advocate on behalf of MEK and have a change of heart, they might have to give the money back.

NIAC INSight

April 28, 2011 0 comments

Germany

German HRC calls on Ashraf Camp Leader to forego violence

German Human Rights Commissioner calls on Ashraf Camp Leader to forego violence and grant access to Camp residents

press release German Human Rights Commissioner calls on Ashraf Camp Leader to forego violence and grant access to Camp residents
Human Rights Commissioner on the situation in the Iraqi Camp Ashraf
date of issue20.04.2011

Markus Löning, the Federal Government Commissioner for Human Rights Policy and Humanitarian Aid at the Federal Foreign Office, issued the following statement today (20 April):

“According to information confirmed by the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI), 34 people were killed and numerous others injured when Iraqi security forces forcibly entered Camp Ashraf.

I find this deeply regrettable, and I urge the Iraqi government to immediately commence an independent investigation into these events and to enable the injured to receive medical care. Iraqi security forces are called upon to proceed responsibly and with a sense of proportion, and without endangering any more lives.

At the same time I appeal to the leaders of Camp Ashraf to forego violence and to grant an independent investigation commission full access to the camp. The leaders of Camp Ashraf must enable all of the injured to receive medical care, and must ensure full protection of the rights of the camp’s inhabitants. This includes the right to leave the camp.”

Some 3500 members of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MKO) and their family members currently live in Camp Ashraf. During the Iran-Iraq War, the MKO fought under Saddam Hussein against Iran. They are viewed as a strictly hierarchical organization which has never distanced itself from terrorist violence. It has often been reported that inhabitants of the camp have been prevented by their leaders from leaving Camp Ashraf.

The camp came under US control after American forces disarmed the MKO’s military units in 2003; responsibility for Camp Ashraf was handed over to Iraq at the beginning of 2009. The Iraqi Government is eager to establish full state sovereignty over Ashraf, and to dismantle the camp structures.

German Human Rights Commissioner, auswaertiges-amt.de

April 24, 2011 0 comments

USA

Should Washington Embrace the MEK?

Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamini analyzed the West’s policy regarding Mujahedin Khalq as a terrorist designated group by the US State Department. The writer begins his article by posing a controversial question:

What should be U.S. policy towards an Iranian opposition group known as the MEK, or, correctly, the Mujahideen-e-Khalq?

Al-Tamimi finds it an appropriate time to ask the above-mentioned question following the recent clashes at Camp Ashraf where Iraqi security forces control members of terrorist MKO Cult. The following is an excerpt of his analysis on the issue:

..The question of support for the MEK was also highlighted by commentators such as Hussein Ibish, in the controversy over the Peter King hearings on radicalization among American Muslims. Specifically, Ibish argued that the hearings would be undermined and open to accusations of hypocrisy, as prominent advocates of the hearings such as Rudy Giuliani and Francis Townsend have been supporters or defenders of the MEK and have sought to remove the group’s name from the State Department’s list of designated terrorist organizations.

Ibish’s point is valid; the MEK should not be declassified as a terrorist group, or for that matter receive any U.S. backing, for several reasons.

First, the group’s claims to espouse secular liberal-democracy are little more than a farce. Its underlying ideology is an amalgam of Marxism and Islamism, resulting in what is essentially a totalitarian cult. As Human Rights Watch documented through interviews with former MEK members in 2005, dissent in the movement is not tolerated. Those in the group who criticize the leadership face solitary confinement and torture in secret MEK prisons for years on end. As is often true in that region, the MEK’s actions speak louder than its rhetoric-to-Westerners. If one wants to believe that the MEK has reformed, one might as well trust Hamas’s occasional declarations to the Western media that it is willing to recognize Israel’s existence according to the pre-1967 borders, although it is a hostile belligerence, rather than a willingness t compromise, that characterizes Hamas’s policies..

In keeping with its revolutionary ideological roots, the MEK has a long history of terrorism, notably in its support for the seizure of the U.S. embassy in 1979 by followers of Ayatollah Khomeini in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution. The organization’s subsequent falling out with the new Iranian regime in 1981 had nothing to do with ideological differences, but rather power politics. Upon seeing its influence marginalized by Khomeini, the group launched a series of terrorist attacks on clerics, ministers and civilians within Iran. Later, the MEK was granted a base in Iraq by Saddam Hussein, and there is strong evidence that the MEK assisted the Baathist regime in brutally suppressing the Kurdish uprisings in the north and the Shi’a revolt in the south after the First Gulf War. The only reason the MEK has not carried out any terrorist attacks in recent years is that it was disarmed in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
[..]
The other major problem is the question of practicality. Those who argue for backing the MEK because it would allegedly help destabilize the regime in Tehran give no specific recommendations, meanwhile affirming that they do not endorse the MEK as future rulers of Iran. Supporting the MEK, however, would presumably entail some form of rearmament.
[..]Is there reason to think that the MEK would not seize power in the ensuing vacuum as their rightful reward? In such an event, from the perspective of U.S. interests, we would be back at square one. The MEK’s ideological principles, hardly different from those of the current regime, dictate a policy of striving for regional hegemony. Why, for example, would the MEK, after coming to power, wish to discontinue the nuclear program?

Although the U.S. government should urge the Iraqi government to treat MEK members humanely, it must not remove the group from the list of terrorist organizations, or work with it in any way. Instead, we should welcome the UN Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) announcement last week that it will send a special investigator to monitor human rights in Iran. At least the US could put pressure on the UNHRC to send a special investigator to monitor and report on human rights in Iran.[..]

by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi – hudson New York

April 20, 2011 0 comments

Iraq

Deadline Set For Iranian Dissidents To Leave Iraq

The Iraqi government has set the deadline for members of Iranian dissident group being housed at Camp Ashraf in Diyala province to leave the country, stressing that they will be removed from the country by the deadline using "all means" available.

"The council of ministers has committed to implement an earlier decision about disbanding the terrorist group People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI), by the end of this year at the latest, and the necessity of getting it out of Iraq," Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said late Monday. "They need to leave Iraq by the end of the year. Iraq is not the choice for them,"

Indicating that the Iraqi government was "taking into consideration the wish of the PMOI members to choose the country in which they wish to reside," Dabbagh added: "We have to find a nation where they can go, and we will look to the U.N. to help."

Dabbagh also declared that the Iranian dissidents would be expelled from the country "by using all means, including political, diplomatic, and co-operation with the United Nations and international organizations."

The development comes days after violent clashes erupted at Camp Ashraf last Friday after Iraqi security forces raided the camp after its occupants allegedly threw rocks at the security forces during a "riot."

Iraqi government said later that three people were killed in the raid and denied allegations that its troops had opened fire at the occupants of the camp during the raid. But the PMOI alleges that Friday’s military operation at the camp killed at least 34 people and left more than 300 others injured.[..]

The Iraqi government has since announced that it has launched an investigation "to look into the real details of the operation, to know how many people exactly were killed, the reasons for the deaths and the date of the deaths".

Camp Ashraf, located in Diyala province to the north of Baghdad, has served as a refugee base for members of the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), an exiled Iranian opposition group, for almost two decades.

The PMOI was founded in 1965 to oppose the Shah of Iran, but the group later turned against Iran’s regime that ousted the Shah in the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Camp Ashraf was opened in the 1980s after then-President Saddam Hussein allowed the PMOI to set up bases in Iraq. Saddam also armed the group’s military wing, the National Liberation Army of Iran, to fight along side Iraq troops in the 1980-88 war against Iran.

The U.S. troops disarmed the PMOI fighters in 2003 and confined the nearly 3100 residents to the camp. The U.S. military placed the camp’s residents under its protection, before Iraqi forces took over its security from the U.S. earlier this year.

RTTNews

April 13, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Consorting with a Cult (Mujahedin Khalq)

One of the most persistent, and mysteriously supported, campaigns in support of a really reprehensible organization has been waged on behalf of the Iranian cult-cum-terrorist-group known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq. The campaign appears to have been stepped up lately, with the immediate objective being to get the MEK taken off the official U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations. Panels have been organized in Washington at which some big-name figures have given paid speeches endorsing the group—such as former Congressman Lee Hamilton, who says he was paid a “substantial amount” to appear on such a panel last month. A combination of pecuniary interests and scant knowledge about the nature of the group may explain some of the support for delisting. A destructively simplistic, zero-sum attitude regarding policy toward Iran explains some more of it. Representative Brad Sherman (D-CA), one of the members of Congress who favors removing the MEK from the list, says that the group should not be considered a terrorist organization because “they are enemies of enemies of the United States.” No, Congressman, even enemies of the United States have enemies that are terrorist groups.

One should recall the main features of the MEK’s record. It began its terrorist history during the 1970s when, in the course of trying to undermine the shah’s regime, it assassinated six U.S. citizens. It supported the takeover of the U.S. embassy and the holding hostage of U.S. diplomats, The group broke with the revolutionary regime only after it lost a struggle for power. It subsequently threw in its lot with Saddam Hussein and in effect became an arm of Saddam’s security forces. Its members live today at a camp in Iraq where, according to journalists, human rights organizations, and foreign diplomats, its cult-like habits are readily apparent. Members who have managed to exit the group tell of being brainwashed and being held in the camp for years against their will. It is hard to identify what this group, whose ideology always has been a strange mixture of Marxism and Islamic fundamentalism, stands for other than the group leaders’ continued control over its members.

To think of the MEK as some kind of policy tool to use against Tehran is both foolish and bizarre. Any positive move toward the group would do absolutely nothing to advance any conceivable U.S. objective regarding Iran. The MEK has virtually no support within Iran, mostly because of its operating on behalf of Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War and not just because of the terrorist attacks it has conducted within Iran since the war. [..]

Any favor done to the MEK would not only needlessly complicate any possibilities for reaching understandings with Tehran, on nuclear programs or anything else, but also needlessly antagonize many members of the Iranian public. It would present the United States as a blatantly inconsistent hypocrite on matters of counterterrorism and human rights. Anyone who allows himself to get mixed up in a campaign to legitimize the MEK deserves to be embarrassed.

The National Interest – By Paul R. Pillar

Paul R. Pillar is director of graduate studies at Georgetown University’s Security Studies Program and a former national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia. He is a contributing editor to The National Interest where he writes a daily blog.

March 17, 2011 0 comments

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