The U.S. divides terrorism into good and bad versions. Those terrorist activities which are against the national interests of the United States are regarded as bad while those benefiting the U.S. government are placed in the good category. This problematic approach has in fact legitimized the crimes committed by many terrorist groups
This week saw two separate but equally important events which cut’s to the core of this debate. The first important event is the ruling of the European court of human rights ruling, that Abu Hamza Al-Masri should be extradited to the United States. Abu Hamza stands accused of trying to set up a terrorist training camp…The second important event has been the de-listing of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MKO or MEK)
The State Department delisted MKO credited with a decade long inactivity in terrorism and also for peacefully leaving its paramilitary base, Camp Ashraf. But how can an innately violent and terrorist group, gone into a state of inactivity for many reasons, claim it has forsworn terrorism without a single alteration in its old principles it stresses to maintain?
The consequences of de-proscribing the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) by the US State Department, had become the top priority of his cult, have been discussed and analyzed in various ways..But as far as the suffering families of the members of the MKO are concerned, who have no request except to visit their loved ones and be sure about their physical and mental wellbeing, this development gives them fresh hope. Perhaps …
The war on terror seems to be a tactical expression to rationalize the colonial intrusions of the US throughout the world. When in 2003, the Bush administration sought to justify its invasion on Iraq; they accused Saddam Hussein of sponsoring of international terrorism.The big change in US approach towards terrorism of the very MKO aka MEK/PMOI indicates that…
The six people the MEK/MKO/PMOI killed in the 1970s are still dead. They were dead when the State Department designated the MEK as a foreign terrorist organization and they have been dead all the years since and they won’t get any less dead when the State Department removes the MEK from its FTO list. The MEK is the organization that once allied with Saddam Hussein; that historical fact hasn’t changed…
Perhaps, removing the MeK/MKO/PMOI from the US DOS list will make it possible for its members to interact more freely with the ICRC, or return to their families in Iran with more ease… if the MeK actually decided to stop its overt activities as well as covert terrorist operations against Iran and accept a more democratic structure in order not to be listed as a terrorist organization again, it would perhaps die in a few years.
it is not clear whether Washington actually sees the MEK/MKO/PMOI as a possible asset and a viable ally in the event of direct confrontation with Iran as the window for a diplomatic compromise rapidly narrows. The delisting was perhaps just an effort to annoy Tehran or, more important, to appease the anti-Iran establishment amid the current US presidential election campaign.
In spite of MKO’s widespread terrorist operations of bombing and assassination inside Iran and its later out-of-the-border organized hit and run operations perpetrated in the last three decades as well as its broadly launched military operation like that of the Eternal Light, it seems that the organization has never been considered a serious threat for the Iranian regime…
Hillary Clinton announces anti-Tehran group People’s Mujahedeen of Iran aka MEK/MKO/PMOI is no longer on State Department’s list of terror organizations.In Washington, it seems, the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter is a multimillion-dollar public relations campaign.