Articles

Will the victims of MKO Cult be forgotten?

Notes on removing the name of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) from the US State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations (FTO)

The US State Department has recently come to the conclusion that the MEK is no longer a terrorist organization. The reason given is that the group has apparently not committed any terrorist act for more than a decade and has seemingly abandoned the use of violence to reach its political goals. The question this raises is, according to the US administration and the US judicial system, how many years are needed to consider the crimes of a terrorist group whitewashed? Certainly in a different international political situation with different interests, conditions would have differed. No doubt the US government would not adopt the same policy towards Al-Qaeda and would consider them terrorists for good.

But despite the claims made by the State Department, the leader of the group Massoud Rajavi has said again in the past week that armed struggle will never be removed from the ideology and strategy of the MEK, and the group has never even in theory distanced its thoughts from using violence. As far as the Iranian people are concerned they consider the group as terrorists and traitors and do not care what the US thinks about them. Removing the name of the MEK from the FTO does not give the group any credit in public opinion; on the contrary it discredits the list and brings discredit to the US administration and the State Department.

There is no doubt that the Rajavi cult has committed widespread acts of terrorism and claimed the lives of many civilians. The group also co-operated with the invading enemy and killed the defenders of Iran’s borders. This is the clearest betrayal of the nation according to any standards. The organization has also taken part in suppressing the Iraqi people along with the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, and more importantly the cult has violated the most basic rights of its own members and subjected them to mind manipulation.

The victims of the group are the people of Iran, the people of Iraq, and the very members of the cult. The families of these victims have a common demand. That justice should be served on the totalitarian leader of the cult in an international criminal court.

Although the State Department has tried to whitewash the criminal past of the group and its leader, the report admits that the basic human rights of the followers are systematically violated. It is understandable that the list of FTO is modified according to the US international interests, but it is worth bearing in mind that trying to give credit to the most hatred group in Iran’s history and working hard to save it from being demolished does not help restore the image of the US government in the eyes of the Iranian people who have always witnessed a hostile attitude.

(The last paragraph has been petitioned on the WHITE HOUSE for signatures – please go to the link below and sign it)

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/will-mek-victims-be-forgotten
/jR2RRqPC?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl

November 6, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq 's Function

MeK Efforts to chain members in Liberty

Based on information obtained, the MeK leadership is seeking to Stop and disturb UNHCR’s individual interview with the walled members in Camp Liberty. MeK Efforts to chain members in Liberty

Maryam Rajavi has told camp administrators that "even if one desperate goes out, all the organization’s efforts and political measures at outside would be foiled."

Remnants of Rajavi simultaneously have put two steps on agenda in order to inhibit detachment of members:

* Enlightening members that any interview invitation should be subjected to declaration of Liberty as a refugee camp that, as they allege, would be the only way to obtain mass asylum

* Resuming lobbying efforts in the US to pressure the UNHCR and haggle with the American side in order to declare Liberty as a refugee camp

According to the MeK leadership, declaration of Liberty as a refugee camp would provide their long-term presence in Iraq and they would have a chance to discourage the UNHCR officials in perusing file of transfer the group members out of this country.

If such an assumption realized, members, who become tools for developing this trick hoping to obtain mass asylum, will be told that the UNHCR due to political obstacles is not doing its job.

An important point here is Rajavi’s gang sensitivity about defectors and those who get able to leave the camp at this point. That the MeK treat them as disturbers of political actions of group abroad, especially in case of the US, is an alarm indicating that the group leaders will not suffice only to these tricks, but with the continued separation of members, they will increase pressure on protesters who demand breakaway; on the other hand, leaders of the MeK in every possible way with all kinds of excuses will struggle to limit powers of the UNHCR in order to avoid legal interference in the determination of members.

So, in these circumstances, any of those who manage to get out of the hellish organization of Mujahedeen, more than ever before, should embark on enlightenment and should inform the world of the MeK.

November 6, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Beyond Double Standards–and Hypocrisy

Double standards have always been with us, but I wonder if they haven’t reached new heights, along with hypocrisy, in the age of the “war on terrorism,” “humanitarian intervention,” and the proclaimed “responsibility to protect” (R2P), to be implemented by global interventionists who have institutionalized torture (or made it one de facto legitimate policy option), “extraordinary renditions” to torture regimes, the intensive use of drone bombings, including “double-tap” actions, and who have declared the entire earth a U.S. “free fire zone”?

These same drone organizers and apologists also speak almost daily about “our values” as they terrorize and kill, but see themselves as defending human rights and democracy and engaging in “self defense.” George W. Bush attacked Iraq in alleged (but completely contrived) fear of Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction,” but as soon as it became inescapably evident that this was a fraud, and that many thousands had already been killed based on this lie, Bush was allowed to be striving for freedom and democracy in Iraq, but for unknown reasons neglecting Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, and shrinking it in the homeland!

But his opening war-gambit-lie was salable to the New York Times and its colleagues, and to the intellectuals and pundits with influence. For example, on October 9, 2002, the saintly Elie Wiesel said on the Oprah Winfrey Show that “Anything is better than war. I am not for war. But we have to disarm that assassin”—namely Saddam Hussein, who, according to Bush, Cheney and Judith Miller, and hence Wiesel and Winfrey, possessed these WMD. Thus “War is the Only Option,” in the title of Wiesel’s subsequent commentary in The Observer (December. 22, 2002). It helps being a saint to be able to get away with such a blatant contradiction based on a lie.

After the WMD gambit was exhausted we had the gang quickly accepting the new “democracy promotion” objective in Iraq, because Bush said that was so, and was “risking all” in pressing on with it, as asserted by Michael Ignatieff in his New York Times classic, “Who Are the American People to Think That Freedom is Theirs to Spread” (October. 7, 2005). George Packer, writing in the New Yorker back in 2004, agreed with Ignatieff that “it’s clear that, however clumsy and selective the execution, Bush wants democratization to be his legacy. So when his critics, here and abroad, claim that his rhetoric merely provides cynical cover for an American power grab, they misjudge his sincerity and tend to sound like defenders of the status quo.” (“Invasion versus Persuasion, “ New Yorker, December 20, 2004.). So Packer, like Ignatieff, knows that Bush was sincere, but he is not a defender of the status quo and does suggest that we should “hold him to his own talk.”

The “terrorism” double standard has long been institutionalized, with establishment spokespersons internalizing the propaganda rule that we and the Israelis only “retaliate” to the terrorism of enemies and targets. The establishment pundits have been able to swallow a lot, and play dumb on a large scale, to stay with this usage. Thus Luis Posada Carriles, a member in high-standing of the Cuban refugee terror network, guilty of numerous terrorist acts, including the bombing of a Cuban airliner in 1976 with 73 resultant deaths, walks the streets of Miami today and is beyond extradition, whereas the United States is working hard to get Julian Assange extradited to this country for prosecution for whistleblowing on U.S. diplomacy and terrorist-war criminal acts. (His most notorious disclosure was of a U.S. helicopter team in Iraq remorselessly killing civilians and journalists on the ground, a revelation that clearly threatened U.S. national security.)

It should also be noted that while killer Posada is free, the Cuban Five infiltrators of Cuban terrorist groups in Florida who were seized in the United States in 1998 while trying to gain information on terrorist plots against Cuba, and shared some of this information with the FBI, have been imprisoned since 1998, their counter-terrorism efforts transformed into espionage.

These manifestations of a gross double standard, hypocrisy, and serious injustice, are ignored by the mainstream media and don’t interfere with the rule that the United States is fighting a “war on terror.”

The most recent display of the terrorism double standard is the State Department’s September 2012 removal of the Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK), from its list of designated terrorist organizations. The MEK worked earlier on behalf of Saddam Hussein and sometimes killed Americans, and reportedly has collaborated with the Israelis in assassinating Iranian scientists, but with the escalated U.S.-Israel low-level warfare against Iran, MEK can be moved into a new, more positive “freedom fighter” category. This has other amusing features. For one thing, MEK has very large amounts of money that it has spent in organizing protests and lobbying in Europe and the United States, the funding suspected to come from the freedom-loving Saudis and other governments hostile to Iran. Even while on the terrorist list, MEK was able to organize, propagandize and lobby in the United States and elsewhere in the West. It has also paid large sums to U.S. notables like Howard Dean, Tom Ridge, Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich and Ed Rendell to write and speak on their behalf. No prosecutions are in prospect for “material aid” to terrorists in this case.

One of the wonders of the war on terror is its massive use of airpower, increasingly drone warfare, and the U.S.’s ability to get this accepted in the West as a response to terror and not a case of terrorism itself. This has, of course, been accompanied by complementary apologetics: notably, that military targets are carefully chosen so that any “innocent” civilian deaths are not deliberate but unintended “collateral damage.” But if civilian deaths are predictable even if the specific victims are not known, the killings are deliberate and war crimes. Furthermore, the claims of care in targeting, and concern, and denials that civilian killings are sometimes quite acceptable, are false, but are taken as true by patriotic pundits and intellectuals (see my “Tragic Errors In U.S. Military Policy: Targeting the civilian population,” Z Magazine, September, 2002).

The long U.S. use of depleted uranium and cluster bombs is testimony to an anti-civilian bias in military operations, as is the long tradition of “we don’t make body counts.” The Iraq war of 2003 was begun with a “shock and awe” bombing program that was openly designed to terrorize the leaders and population and encourage surrender. The same was true of the 1999 escalation of the bombing of Serbia and increased orientation to attacking civilian facilities. But no matter: The United States does not terrorize, by patriotic and power definition.

It is also notable that studies which focus intensively on terrorism from the air are ignored or downplayed by the mainstream media. The fine book by Beau Grosscup on Strategic Terror: The Politics and Ethnics of Aerial Bombardment (Zed Books, 2006) was not reviewed in any mainstream source in the United States. The mainstream may be preoccupied with “terrorism,” but writings on the subject have to stay within the party-line orbit to get a hearing,

A real problem has been presented to the media by the September 2012 report produced jointly by a Stanford Law School and New York University School of Law team entitled Living Under Drones, and based on over 130 interviews carried out in Pakistan. The authors claim that the vast majority of victims of the drone war attacks are civilians, not “militants”—only 2 percent of those killed were identified as known “militants.” The Stanford-NYU authors explicitly deny the official claims of precise surgical strikes by the drones: “This narrative is false.” They also report that an important feature of the drone war is the regular use of a second missile strike shortly after the first strike—the combination euphemistically labelled a ”double tap”—killing many local onlookers and rescue workers coming to the aid of the first-strike’s victims. These secondary strikes “have discouraged average civilians from coming to one another’s rescue, and even inhibited the provision of emergency medical assistance from humanitarian workers.” The Director of the charitable organization Reprieve is quoted in the report as saying:

An entire region is being terrorized by the constant threat of death from the skies…. Their way of life is collapsing… kids are too terrified to go to school, adults are afraid to attend weddings, funerals, business meeting or anything that involves gathering in groups.

This sounds like a really dirty war OF terrorism, but while this is suggested in the London Independent (Jerome Taylor, “Outrage at CIA’s deadly ‘double tap’ drone strikes,” September 25, 2012), the New York Times had not yet mentioned the existence of the Living Under Drones document at the time of writing (September 30, 2012). This is not news fit-to-print rapidly and with prominence, as happens when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asserts that the government of Bashir Al-Assad would have ”blood on its hands” if it “refuses to allow this life-saving aid [that Clinton promises] to reach civilians” (Steven Lee Myers, “Nations Rebuke Leader of Syria as Assault Rages,” NYT, February 25, 2012. p 1; see also the long NYT article of March 3, 2012 on “Syria Blocks Red Cross From Taking Aid to Devastated Rebel Enclave in Homs”).

This brings us to some other double standard marvels. Iran is under steady attack and threat because of its alleged non-cooperation with the West and its UN instrument, the International Atomic Energy Agency, in their efforts to get Iran to terminate its nuclear program. Meanwhile, the United States can refuse to carry out its NPT promise to work toward the elimination of nuclear weapons, and Israel can build up a sizeable nuclear weapons arsenal with Western collusion outside of any IAEA jurisdiction, and both can threaten Iran on a daily basis, in a double standard that would be hard to surpass.

Similarly, Israel can ethnically cleanse Palestinians on a systematic basis for decades without any penalty from the “international community” which, in fact, gives consistent support to this immoral and illegal process. Only when a U.S. and Western target is accused of ethnic cleansing, as with Serbia in the 1990s, do the Western moralists, officials and their UN agents get aroused and move into action.

The hegemony of the double standard, and its partner, hypocrisy, flows from concentrated power, and their joint success in this modern age that, according to Steven Pinker, is one of the “Long Peace,” “recivilization” and the rise of our “better angels” after an unfortunate period like the 1960s. It is a marvelous illustration of the human capacity for self-deception.

• First published in Z Magazine, November 2012

Edward S. Herman is an economist and media analyst with a specialty in corporate and regulatory issues as well as political economy and the media.

by Edward S. Herman

November 4, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

The New Order in Renunciation of Terrorism

No statement of renunciation is needed as only definition of terms has changed

The terrorist organizations that for national causes decide to forswear violent campaign and practice of terrorism may be granted the opportunity to accomplish their political demands through peaceful avenues. The groups and organizations that claim to have renounced armed campaign are mostly judged by their actions rather than the words. There are groups that indeed mean what they say and declare it publicly for the world to see and judge. On the contrary, there exist groups that their non-proclaimed but quoted claims of renouncing terrorism corroborate the intention of evading a just judgment rather than adhering to non-violent practices to fulfill the rightful objectives.

The removal of Mojahedin Khalq Organization MKO/MEK/PMOI from the State Department’s FTO has been seen as the result of a costly campaign by members of Congress, Washington lobby groups and influential former officials to bury the MKO’s bloody history of bombings and assassinations that not only killed American military personnel and businessmen but also Iranian personalities and thousands of civilians. It was also assumed a hard campaign to portray it as a loyal US ally against the Islamic government in Tehran. In fact, there does exist a credibility gap between the taken decision and the existing fact about the nature of MKO; it is impossible to consider a heavily armed and militant group transformed into a pro-democratic campaigner overnight with no officially made statement.

Consider the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) for instance. Through an officially issued statement, UVF declared that “as of 12 midnight, Thursday 3 May 2007, the Ulster Volunteer Force and Red Hand Commando will assume a non-military, civilianized, role”. Formed as an armed group in Northern Ireland, it declared war on the IRA and made note of the fact that they were “heavily armed Protestants dedicated to this cause”. In the course of its forty-year long armed activities, UVF had been reportedly responsible for the killing of some 550 people. Whatever the cause, it had created a nightmare of terrorism threat that led to its proscription as a terrorist group. Although the group had already declared a 13-year long ceasefire, it was still known responsible for a variety of scattered murders and crimes.

Transformation from a terrorist to a civilian organization includes measures as stated in the group’s issued statement: “All recruitment has ceased; military training has ceased; targeting has ceased and all intelligence rendered obsolete; all active service units have been de-activated; all ordinance has been put beyond reach and the IICD instructed accordingly”. The statement seems to be a sensible recognition of a new political reality that the world is no more a place for armed or violent actions, rather any pro-democratic move is welcomed if the repentant armed groups really mean it.

The sole move to recognize MKO a pro-democratic group that has never renounced terrorism is a decision made by the US for political considerations. MKO is a terrorist group with a forty-year long history of violence and the most vicious terrorist activities against Iranian people. There is no exact number of the victims of its atrocities but it is believed to reach thousands. Then, when reconsidering MKO’s terrorist status, if these terrors and atrocities have been interpreted as democratic deeds in a process of civil campaigns, MKO needs no issued statement of renunciation as nothing has changed but definitions of terms. Thus, according to a new definition of democracy, any group has the right to shed people’s blood for the cause of a self-defined democracy and accredited interests. But who are to assume the responsibility for the shed bloods remain an unanswered question in such a new political order.

October 29, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Mujahadin-e Khalq: America’s protected terrorists gearing up against Iran

Unsatisfied in "crippling" Iran with sanctions, the US looks to be set for active operations there – and already has an in: a group called the Mujahadin-e Khalq, which in the near future could become the Persian equivalent of the Free Syrian Army. Mujahadin-e Khalq: America’s protected terrorists gearing up against Iran

On September 21, US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton passed Public Notice 8050, de-listing the Mujahadin-e Khalq (MEK) from the State Department’s Specially Designated Global Terrorist list, effective September 28.

What is MEK? Mujahadin-e Khalq is an Iranian Islamic militant organization in exile that advocates the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Since its inception in 1965 in Iran, the group conducted assassinations of US military personnel and civilians working in Iran in the 1970s, jubilantly supported the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979 and opposed the release of American personnel, calling for their execution instead, fought against the Islamic Republic together with Saddam Hussein during the Iraq-Iran War (1980-1988) and set up headquarters in Iraq at Camp Ashraf.

In recent years, according to various sources including NBC, MEK teamed up with the Israeli secret service to kill Iranian nuclear scientists. NBC reported that US officials confirmed that “the Obama administration is aware of the assassination campaign but has no direct involvement”.

In 1994, the State Department sent a damning 41-page report to Congress on why the MEK is a terrorist organization; that designation was enacted in 1997. The report concluded: “It is no coincidence that the only government in the world that supports the Mujahadin politically and financially is the totalitarian regime of Saddam Hussein.” Well, the MEK’s mission to overthrow Iran’s leadership has not changed since, but the US agenda has: In a vertiginous about-face, Washington became the powerful protector of the Mujahadin-e Khalq.

Over the past few years, a formidable fundraising operation and campaign to de-list MEK from the Specially Designated Global Terrorist register gathered some high-caliber US supporters including General James Jones, President Obama’s National Security Advisor from 2009 to 2010; Bill Richardson, Energy Secretary and UN ambassador in the Clinton administration and Obama’s Special Envoy to North Korea; Tom Ridge, the first Secretary of Homeland Security; General Wesley Clark, former supreme commander of NATO; Louis Freeh, former director of the FBI; three former directors of the CIA – Michael Hayden, James Woolsey and Porter Goss; Rudolph Giuliani, former Mayor of New York City; former UN Ambassador John Bolton; General Hugh Shelton, former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Mary Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2002; and many others.

Top Washington lawyers and lobbyists made the case for the terrorist group as well: Akin Gump, Strauss Hauer & Feld, Patton Boggs and others. Robert Strauss, of the firm of the same name, was US Ambassador to the Soviet Union during the critical months of August 2, 1991, through December 26, 1991. A senior member of the firm Tobi Gati was also head of the intelligence branch of the US State Department.

When speaking about terrorist groups, one might think of MEK as a ragtag bunch of cutthroats in shreds and tatters, confined to an unsanitary tent city. The truth is nothing of the sort. Watch this report by CNN’s Michael Ware dating back to 2007: You will see a marching army in crisp brand-new white-and-blue and khaki uniforms, entering a spacious parade ground framed by sculptures of lions. Camp Ashraf itself is one of the best-kept military facilities in Iraq and a sprawling city of 4,000 people, with shopping centers and hospitals, gardens, monuments, fountains and illuminations quite unexpected in the war-torn deserts of Iraq. The MEK is also armed with more than 2,000 well-maintained tanks, artillery, anti-aircraft guns and armored personnel carriers. Its supplies are guarded by US military police, and the camp itself is guarded by the American military.

Indeed, “The coalition remains deeply committed to the security and rights of protected people of Ashraf,” US Major General Gardner said, according to a Headquarters Multinational Force Iraq document dated March 11, 2006. Michael Ware calls the MEK “the US’ officially protected terrorists.” Another film of Australian origin shows Camp Ashraf’s own parliament and hundreds of tanks on the camp’s parade ground.

Well-versed in American political mores, the MEK’s leadership says the group is ‘pro-democracy.’ However, even the New York Times disagrees: In the middle of the 2011 de-listing campaign, it described MEK as “a repressive cult despised by most Iranians and Iraqis.”

‘Totalitarian cult’ is indeed the most frequent label applied to the MEK by people who come in contact with the group. And American support for MEK is not limited to military protection. Seymour Hersh, in his New Yorker piece“Our Men in Iran?” revealed that beginning in 2005, MEK fighters were trained in Nevada by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).

Why is Washington backing the MEK? As General Shelton said at a conference in February 2011, “When you look at what the MEK stands for, when they are antinuclear, separation of church and state, individual rights, MEK is obviously the way Iran needs to go. … By placing the MEK on the FTO [Foreign Terrorist Organizations] list we have weakened the support of the best organized internal resistance group to the most terrorist-oriented anti-Western world, anti-democratic regime in the region.”

In an interview with Germany’s WDR TV back in 2005, ex-CIA operative Ray McGovern explained the logic: “Why the U.S. cooperates with organizations like the Mujahadin, I think, is because that they are local, and because they are ready to work for us. Previously, we considered them a terrorist organization. And they exactly are. But they are now our terrorists and we now don’t hesitate to send them into Iran …. for the usual secret service activities: attacking sensors, in order to supervise the Iranian nuclear program, mark targets for air attacks, and perhaps establishing secret camps to control the military locations in Iran. And also a little sabotage.”

Karen Kwiatkowski, formerly with the Department of Defense, makes a long story short for WDR TV: “MEK is ready to do things over which we would be ashamed, and over which we try to keep silent. But for such tasks we’ll use them.”

Now is the time for Russia and the world community to take active political measures preventing the United States from launching another proxy war in the Middle East. The MEK is much better trained and prepared for war than the Syrian rebels were at the beginning of the conflict, or even today. The MEK has all the necessary capabilities to become the military arm of an American attack against Iran. This time – unlike in Syria – the world should not ignore the march to war, and must take steps to prevent it from happening again.

By eronika Krasheninnikova, Director General of the Institute for Foreign Policy Research and Initiatives in Moscow, for RT

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

October 27, 2012 0 comments

Auver-sur-Oise

Rajavis’ Cult and the Risk of Terrorism in France

In the neighborhood of Islamic Radicals in Northern Paris, a large area of French territory is under the unofficial mandate of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization. About one month ago, few Rajavis’ Cult and the Risk of Terrorism in France people could imagine that members of Muslim Rap band would bomb a Jewish super market, just a few kilometers further.

Besides, a radical Muslim, Muhammad Marah, from Toulouse, cruelly murdered a Jewish Rabi and his two children. Since last month, French news agencies have several times reported of the arrest of terrorist radicals in cities including Niece, Marseille, Toulouse, Paris and Strasbourg – according to the reports, arrested suspects are mostly France-born youngsters who have joined terrorist networks, or Christians who have converted to Salafi Islam. In other words, the origin of this terrorism pattern is undefined stemming from a spontaneous generation.

Some believe that such phenomenon is the outcome of Arabic Spring and Anarchistic tendencies running in Northern and Central Africa. Some others think of ancient reasons that are found in families and their not-so-adapted cultures. Anyway, today French people are facing the increasing threat of internal terrorism of terrorists who see themselves as Muslims like Ben Laden and their belief is very similar to that of religious people of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Al-Qaida.

But Salafis, whether related to Al-Qaida or Saudi- are not the only violent group in France. Mujahedin Khalq also consider themselves true Muslims and real opposition against Iranian government. They have the very volatile potential and motivation, according to those who lived with them. They have been living in large region in the North of Paris, running large scale propaganda to influence French community and personalities.

Iranians see the cult of Rajavi (the MKO) much more radical than Salafis of France and Europe. A look at the MKO activities indicates dangers threating European society’s particularly French Society.

In 1965 the main core of the MKO was formed by a number of religious people who advocated armed struggle against Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, America and Israel. Their major operations were the killing of 6 American citizens in which Massoud Rajavi, currently disappeared leader of the group, was direct instructor and theoricain of terror teams!

The group’s first terrorist acts were launched in the 1970’s eventually; a large majority of members and leaders of the cult were arrested. Founders and central members of the group were executed and Massoud Rajavi, the only survivor of core members, was sentenced to long-life imprisonment.

According to the recently-published memoirs of Parviz Sabeti, a high-ranking official of Shah’s Savak (Shah’s security and intelligence Service), Rajavi’s death sentence was abated to life imprisonment because of Sabeti’s interference, not because of his brother’s efforts in Europe. Sabeti reveals that Massoud’s brother Kazem Rajavi was Savak’s spy in Switzerland and directly in connection with him, he was working for shah’s Intelligence and Security organization. In the book, he reveals that Massoud Rajavi betrayed founders and central members of the group and he widely cooperated with Savak when he was imprisoned so his punishment was reduced.

A few years later, Massoud Raajvi, Mehdi Abrishamchi [ex-husband of Maryam Rajavi] and other leaders of the group who are now living in Ouver Sur d’Oise, Paris, were released following the Iranian people’s Revolution[in 1978].

The group found a new success thanks to huge waves of the revolution. It started organizing itself in Tehran and other cities of Iran ….

To be continued

By Mohammad Alavi,Translated by Nejat Society

October 23, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Palling Around With Terrorists: Obama Administration Embraces MEK

Four years after Sarah Palin famously accused then-candidate Barack Obama of “palling round with terrorists,” it can be said truthfully. Last Friday, news leaked that the U.S. State Department is going to remove the Iranian terrorist group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) from its list of foreign terrorist organizations.

MEK’s ideology is a mixture of Islam and Marxism with cult-like practices. The group once called itself “the People’s Holy Warriors of Iran.” They supported the Islamic revolution in Iran and later allied with the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. During the 1970s MEK conducted numerous

The Bush administration cited MEK as a reason to invade Iraq

attacks on American officials, including an attempted assassination of the U.S. ambassador in Tehran. Six Americans were killed. It has been listed as a terrorist organization since 1997. The MEK fought in the Iran-Iraq War, made use of chemical weapons, and brutally put down Iraqi Kurdish people in the early 1990s. The Bush administration cited Saddam’s support of MEK as a reason to invade Iraq, and the group was forcibly disarmed by the U.S. Army. In recent years, the MEK is believed to be involved in a wave of terrorist attacks against Iranian nuclear scientists.

The Obama administration’s decision was made with bipartisan support. MEK has many prominent U.S. political figures on its payroll, including Howard Dean, Rudy Giuliani, Wesley Clark, Bill Richardson, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, former National Security Advisers Frances Townsend and General James L. Jones, and former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell.

Note to all U.S. Attorneys: Everyone associated with MEK can be charged with providing material support for terrorism, a federal crime under the USA PATRIOT Act (18 U.S.C. §2339A and §2339B) punishable by 15 years in prison.

Now that the United States has de-listed the MEK as an international terrorist group, our government can overtly fund them to conduct terrorist attacks on Iran. According to some reports, MEK has received covert U.S. and Israeli assistance for years.

Glenn Greenwald:

[W]ith the MEK, we have a group that, at least according to some reports, appears to have intensified its terrorism, and yet they are removed from the list. Why? Because now they are aligned against the prime enemy of the US and Israel – and working closely with those two nations – and are therefore, magically, no longer “terrorists.”

Posted by Richard Warnick , Oneutah.org

October 22, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MKO: Cult-like terrorist Organization, listed or delisted

The decision of the US State Department to remove the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) from its list of foreign terrorist organizations created an atmosphere of ambivalence particularly in MKO: Cult-like terrorist Organization, listed or delisted the West. Public opinion in the West may face contradictory ideas regarding the decision. On the one hand well-paid supporters of the group view the decision as “correct” but “overdue” ,on the other hand, there are experts and journalists and of course Iranians who view it as an evidence of American double standards and hypocrisy.

Regardless what people –pros or cons –may think of the apparent reality: a group is no more considered “terrorist”, the true substance of the MKO as well as many other cult-like groups does not change. In the world of “legal” or “illegal”, “bad” or “good”, “terrorist” and “freedom fighters”, conventions never tell the truth.

Even in the Press Release of the spokesperson’s office of the DOS, you may see the ambivalence in the published decision:”With today’s actions, the Department does not overlook or forget the MEK’s past acts of terrorism, including its involvement in the listing of US citizens and an attack on US soil in 1992. The Department also has serious concerns about the MEK as an organization, particularly with regard to allegations of abuse committed against its own members.”[1]

While the DOS says”Yes” to the MKO, there is a “No” in the background informing its decision. It seems that the US government is not able to fully commit to that “Yes”. This was also implied in comments of a US official who spoke to Barbara Slavin and Laura Rozen of Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. They wrote in their piece titled” Iran Group MEK’s Delisting Does not Signal US Approval, ”The US official added that taking the MEK off the terrorist list would not connote US government approval. Responsible for the deaths of half a dozen Americans in the 1970’s and for killing hundreds of Iranians after 1979, the MEK is widely regarded as a cult that demands that its followers stay celibate and obey the commands of Mariam Rajavi, the wife of MEK leader Massoud Rajavi, whose whereabouts are unknown.”[2]

Another US official assured Elise Labott who first published the news of delisting on CNN, that US government is concerned about the group’s bad reputation. “While they represent themselves as a legitimate democratic group worthy of support, there is universal belief in the administration that they are a cult”, the official told CNN.”A delisting is a sign of support or amnesia on our part as to what they have done and it does not mean we have suddenly changed our mind about their current behavior. We don’t forget who they were and we don’t think they are now who they claim to be, which is alternative to the current regime.”[3]

One of the authors of the famous RAND report on the MKO, published in 2009, is Christina Wilkie who is also a Huffington Post correspondent. She has a different analysis on the group delisting. As she has widely investigated on the MKO and as she says she’s been reporting on the group for the Huffington Post, she has been threatened by members of the group and her email was hacked by them. However, she believes that the DOS’s “decision was a good one.” She makes it clear that she believes the MKO is a “militant cult of personality” and she doesn’t trust them but Clinton delisted them because she “understands that they’re a dangerous cult, and that all the other potential outcomes of the 30-year standoff between the MEK and the outside world would have likely been much, much worse.”[4]

Wilkie thinks that on top the list of risky MKO functions was mass suicide and to stop such a tragedy,” Clinton only had one major bargaining chip. In exchange for leaving Camp Ashraf, the secretary agreed to delist the group from the U.S. list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations,” this way she saved the lives of “ thousands of brainwashed MEK foot soldiers”.[5]

At least Wilkie admitts that the State Department officials feel some ambivalence about the terrorist substance of the cult of Rajavi: ”But the question facing secretary Clinton wasn’t whether the MEK could be trusted,” she writes. “Or even if the MEK’s members were still dangerous. Privately, US officials don’t pretend to know the answer to either one.”[6]

It seems that no pretext can ultimately enclose the dual approach of the US administration. In a Mint Press article, the author Martin Michaels describes the terror listing or delisting of Foreign Terrorist Organization as paradoxical. He refers to US administration’s decision to classify Wikileaks as the enemy of the State comparing the decision to that of delisting the MKO. He concludes, “The Selective branding of Wikileaks, the MEK or other organizations align with the interests of the US while the MEK may share some of the same goals, namely, regime change in Iran, the labeling indicates an underlying desire to justify alliances in the name of security.”[7]

By Mazda Parsi

References:

[1] US Department of State, Delisting of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq, Office of Spokesperson, September 28, 2012
[2]Slavin, Barbara & Rozen, Laura, Iran Group MEK’s Delisting Doesn’t Signal US Approval, Al Monitor, Septemeber2, 2012
[3] Labott, Elise, Clinton to remove Iranian exile group from terror list, CNN, September 21, 2012
[4]Wilkie, Christina, MEK is Bad News, But Delisting Them Was A Good Decision, the Huffington Post, October 1, 2012
[5]ibid
[6]ibid
[7]Michaels, Martin, Wikileaks And The MEK: The Paradoxical Labeling Of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, Mint Press News, October 1, 2012

October 20, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK: When terrorism becomes respectable

Department of State Public Notice ‎‏8050‏‎ dated September ‎‏21‏‎, ‎‏2012‏‎, reads thus:‎

In the matter of the designation of Mujahadin-e Khalq, also known as MEK, also known as ‎Mujahadin-e Khalq Organization, also known as MKO, also known as Muslim Iranian Students’ ‎Society, also known as National Council of Resistance, also known as NCR, also known as ‎Organization of the People’s Holy Warriors of Iran, also known as the National Liberation Army ‎of Iran, also known as NLA, also known as National Council of Resistance of Iran, also known ‎as NCRI, also known as Sazeman-e Mujahadin-e Khalq-e Iran, as a Specially Designated Global ‎Terrorist Pursuant to Section ‎‏1‏‎[b] of Executive Order ‎‏13224‏‎, as amended. Acting under the ‎authority of Section ‎‏1‏‎[b] of Executive Order ‎‏13224‏‎ of September ‎‏23‏‎, ‎‏2001‏‎, as amended ]"the ‎Order’] I hereby revoke the designation of the entity known as the Mujahadin-e Khalq, and its ‎aliases, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist pursuant to Section ‎‏1‏‎[b] of the Order. This ‎action takes effect September ‎‏28‏‎, ‎‏2012‏‎.
‎
Hillary Rodham Clinton,Secretary of State

With this stroke of the pen, as it were, the United States removed from its global terrorist list an ‎organization—Mujahedin-e Khalq [MEK]—that had been listed since ‎‏1997‏‎. A shadowy outfit, ‎MEK’s delisting was the result of a full-court press by a bipartisan group of policy influentials, ‎including General Hugh Shelton, former chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff; Lee Hamilton, ‎former congressman from Indiana; Bill Richardson, former governor of New Mexico; General ‎Wesley Clark, former supreme commander of NATO; and Louis Freeh and Michael Hayden, ‎former directors of the FBI and CIA, respectively.

In a speech at a conference in February ‎‏2011‏‎, Governor Richardson urged that MEK should be ‎removed from the terrorist list : "This is a movement that doesn’t want any money. This is a ‎movement that doesn’t want weapons," Richardson declared. "This is a movement that just wants ‎to be allowed to roam, to do your democratic thing." Equally opaquely, General Shelton said at ‎the same event: "When you look at what the MEK stands for, when they are antinuclear, ‎separation of church and state, individual rights, MEK is obviously the way Iran needs to go."

‎On one level, the ostensible reason for the United States’ delisting is that the Iraq-based MEK is ‎a force in exile dedicated to removing the current regime in Tehran. As General Shelton added, ‎‎"By placing the MEK on the FTO [Foreign Terrorist Organizations] list we have weakened the ‎support of the best organized internal resistance group to the most terrorist-oriented anti-Western ‎world, anti-democratic regime in the region." In the zero-sum game of U.S.-Iran relations, there ‎appears to be, then, a certain logic to the move. It is illuminating, however, to take a closer look ‎at this movement, through the eyes of some individuals lesser known than the heavyweight list ‎that supports their cause, but who might just be in a position to know more about it. These would ‎include Ray McGovern, an ex-CIA operative, who said of the MEK: "Why the U.S. cooperates ‎with organizations like the Mujahedin, I think, is because that they are local, and because they are ‎ready to work for us. Previously, we considered them a terrorist organization. And they exactly ‎are. But they are now our terrorists and we now don’t hesitate to send them into Iran….for the ‎usual secret service activities: attacking sensors, in order to supervise the Iranian nuclear program, ‎mark targets for air attacks, and perhaps establishing secret camps to control the military locations ‎in Iran. And also a little sabotage."

Or, from Karen Kwiatkowski, formerly with the Department of Defense: "MEK is ready to do ‎things over which we would be ashamed, and over which we try to keep silent. But for such ‎tasks we’ll use them." (For both these quotes, see "US Government’s Secret Plans for Iran," by ‎Markus Schmidt, John Goetz, WDR TV, Germany, February ‎‏3‏‎, ‎‏2005‏‎).

And what exactly are these "tasks"? According to the State Department’s original statement ‎designating MEK as a terrorist organization (in ‎‏1997‏‎, when the Clinton administration was trying ‎to engage Iran), MEK instigated a bombing campaign, including an attack against the head office ‎of the Islamic Republic Party and the Prime Minister’s office, which killed some ‎‏70‏‎ high-ranking ‎Iranian officials, including Chief Justice Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, President Mohammad-‎Ali Rajaei, and Prime Minister Mohammad-Javad Bahonar. In addition, MEK assassinations ‎range in date and targets from U.S. military personnel and civilians in the ‎‏1970‏s (hence the ‎original terrorist listing) to, almost certainly, the killing of at least five leading Iranian nuclear ‎scientists in recent months.

Complementing the lethal violence of the MEK is the organization’s bizarre internal dynamic. ‎Elizabeth Rubin of The New York Times visited its Camp Ashraf headquarters in Iraq in ‎‏2003‏‎, ‎and, in the course of the drumbeat of support for de-listing, posted an article in the Times on ‎August ‎‏13‏‎, ‎‏2011‏‎, "An Iranian Cult and its American Friends." Herein she describes a—"cult" is ‎the only appropriate term—headed by a woman named Maryam Rajavi and her husband, ‎Massoud. What she relates is eerily reminiscent of the doomed Jim Jones cult in Guyana in the ‎‏1970‏s—"a fictional world of female worker bees…staring ahead as if they were working at a ‎factory in Maoist China….Friendships and all emotional relationships are forbidden. From the ‎time they are toddlers, boys and girls are not allowed to speak to each other. Each day at Camp ‎Ashraf you had to report your dreams and thoughts….After my visit, I met and spoke to men ‎and women who had escaped from the group’s clutches. Many had to be reprogrammed. They ‎recounted how people were locked up if they disagreed with the leadership or tried to escape; ‎some were even killed."

So far, this is only a Jim Jones situation—which is bad enough—in that the tragedy affected only ‎the cult’s members. But, as Rubin also reports:‎

During the Iran-Iraq war in the ‎‏1980‏s, the group served as Saddam Hussein’s own private militia ‎opposing the theocratic government in Tehran. For two decades, he gave the group money, ‎weapons, jeeps and military bases along the border with Iran. In return, the Rajavis pledged their ‎fealty.

In ‎‏1991‏‎, when Mr. Hussein crushed a Shiite uprising in the south and attempted to carry out a ‎genocide against the Kurds in the north, the Rajavis and their army joined his forces in mowing ‎down fleeing Kurds. Ms. Rajavi told her disciples ‘Take the Kurds under your tanks, and save ‎your bullets for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.’ Many followers escaped in disgust.‎

Rubin concludes: "MEK is not only irrelevant to the cause of Iran’s democratic activists, but a ‎totalitarian cult that will come back to haunt us."

All of which begs the pressing question: Why the policy reversal? And why now? There are at ‎least three reasons, from the pragmatic to the venal. First, MEK’s presence in Iraq has been a ‎growing source of tension between the host country’s Shia government and the United States. As ‎a ‎‏2009‏‎ Rand Corporation report ("The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq: A Policy Conundrum") says:‎

From the early weeks of Operation Iraqi Freedom [OIF] until January ‎‏2009‏‎, coalition forces ‎detained and provided security for members of the MEK, an exiled Iranian dissident cult group ‎living in Iraq. From the outset of OIF, the MEK was designate d a hostile force, largely because ‎of its history of cooperation with Saddam Hussein’s military in the Iran-Iraq war and its alleged ‎involvement in his suppression of the Shia and Kurdish uprisings that followed the Gulf War of ‎‏1991‏‎.‎

The Rand report goes on:‎

The coalition’s decision to provide security for a foreign terrorist organization was very ‎controversial because it placed the United States in the position of protecting a group that it had ‎labeled a terrorist organization. Among many resulting complications, this policy conundrum has ‎made the United States vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy in the war on terrorism.‎

The Nour Al- Maliki government in Iraq, therefore, wanted the MEK out; but only by offering ‎the prospect of de-listing could the Obama administration persuade its rogue protectee to leave ‎Ashraf peacefully, as it has now done, to be processed for resettlement by the UN High ‎Commissioner for Refugees.

Second, the dance with the MEK is a commentary on our lack of engagement with Iran, despite ‎early promises for such by President Obama. According to a blog posting of September ‎‏24‏‎, ‎‏2012‏‎, ‎by Leila Kashefi, a Washington-based Iranian-American human rights activist: "It has been ‎incredible to watch members of a designated terror group walk the halls of Congressional office ‎buildings, mingling with Hill staffers and representatives. ‘The only Iranians we see are the ‎MEK’, said one staffer."

Third—and this is the least salubrious factor in the de-listing—despite General Shelton’s ‎protestations to the contrary, the MEK both wants and gets money, and uses it strategically. ‎How exactly the group receives its support is a murky, perhaps impenetrable question. A report ‎by the UK daily, The Guardian ("Iranian exiles, DC lobbyists and the campaign to delist the ‎MEK," September ‎‏21‏‎ ‎‏2012‏‎) attributes this to "a formidable fundraising operation and campaign ‎to transform the MEK’s image led by more than ‎‏20‏‎ Iranian-American organizations across the ‎US. These groups and their leaders have spent millions of dollars on donations to members of ‎Congress, paying Washington lobby groups and hiring influential politicians and officials, ‎including two former CIA directors as speakers." As the Financial Times summed up in a recent ‎editorial (Mujahedin mistake," September ‎‏25‏‎, ‎‏2012‏‎) "MEK has found the best friends money can ‎buy". (As a footnote, it goes without saying that neither of these press organs is typically ‎amicably disposed toward the Iranian regime.)

‎Others have been skeptical about the role of expatriate groups—citing their characteristic ‎frugality! Another, perhaps fanciful, explanation has been the largesse of Saddam Hussein ‎toward MEK in the ‎‏1990‏s, and shrewd stewardship of his funding. Or perhaps the multiple ‎aliases—self describing as "freedom fighters" or "democracy" activists—have diversified the ‎funding options. Whatever the nature of the money trail, according to the Guardian report, ‎‎"Several prominent former officials have acknowledged being paid significant amounts of money ‎to speak about the MEK. The former Pennsylvania governor, Ed Rendell, has accepted more than ‎‏$150,000‏‎ in speaking fees at events in support of unbanning the MEK." (Others who have ‎accepted fees include Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont, and Rudy Giuliani, former ‎mayor of New York City. See, for example, "Iranian group’s big-money push to get off US ‎terrorist list," Christian Science Monitor, August ‎‏8‏‎, ‎‏2011‏‎.) Nor do these friends in court appear ‎overly concerned with a process of background checking: For Representative Dana Rohrabacher, ‎‎"If they want to contribute to me because I believe strongly in human rights and stand up in cases ‎like this, that’s fine. I don’t check their credentials." [Guardian]

Finally, what are the consequences of the step to delist the MEK? In practical terms, the ‎liberation will enable the MEK to lobby the U.S. Congress for support in the same way as the ‎Iraq Liberation Act of ‎‏1998‏‎ allowed the Iraqi National Congress led by the exiled Ahmad ‎Chalabi to do so—a monumental policy error that led to the invasion of Iraq in ‎‏2003‏‎. In this ‎regard, history, as we know all too well, has a habit of repeating itself. Some ‎‏30‏‎-odd years ago, ‎we saw the mujahedin of another state as "allies" in a cosmic struggle. Welcome to the ‎Afghanistan of the Taliban, three decades on. It is the old adage "the enemy of my enemy is my ‎friend" taken to absurd extreme.

Lest there are doubts about the adverse ethical as well as policy consequences, consider the ‎response from the National Iranian American Council [NAIC], an organization opposed to the ‎current regime, dated September ‎‏21‏‎, ‎‏2012‏‎:‎

The NAIC deplores the decision to remove the MEK from the U.S. list of foreign terrorist ‎organizations. This decision opens the door for Congressional funding of the MEK to conduct ‎terrorist attacks in Iran, makes war with Iran far more likely, and will seriously damage Iran’s ‎peaceful pro-democracy movement as well as America’s standing among ordinary Iranians. The ‎biggest winner today is the Iranian regime, which has claimed for a long time that the U.S. is out ‎to destroy Iran and is the enemy of the Iranian people.‎

All in all, a sad saga—one of taking the moral low ground in pursuit of dubious policy objectives. ‎Let us give the last word to the Financial Timeseditorial, which sums it up rather well:‎

‎"The US government’s decision to take Mujahedin-e Khalq, the exiled Iranian organization, off ‎its list of terrorist groups is a vivid example of the influence of money and lobbying in ‎Washington. At worst it highlights the analytical fog that clouds many US policy heavyweights’ ‎view of Iran."‎

By David C. Speedie , Carnegie Council

October 18, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

A New Version of the US Policy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

October 18, 2012 0 comments

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