Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh has been following these allegations for years. Only now, however, does he appear to have pieced the whole story together — or perhaps the subject has taken on fresh urgency as the result of a vigorous lobbying effort, which spans both political parties, to have MEK aka MKO/PMOI taken off the list of terrorist organizations and given open support.
But the juicy story here is that an indisputably designated terrorist group is sponsored by Israel and a heavy bunch of former US politicians. The MKO runs ads on American TV channels and newspapers.[3] The ads imperatively call on Secretary Clinton to delist the group. Deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists were carried out by the MKO which is armed, trained and funded by Israeli Mossad, US officials told NBC News..
How these individuals who claim to be opposed to terrorism and so often point to the tragic events of September 11, 2001 as justification for the erosion of our freedoms can turn around and openly support a designated terrorist organization[MKO/MEK/PMOI] is beyond comprehension…It is unclear if he was paid and if so, how much he actually received, but Giuliani charges up to $100,000 for every speaking engagement so one must assume it didn’t come cheap.
The State Department is now in the process of determining whether the MEK should be removed from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, a designation that was given to the MEK 17 years ago, when the department first began such designations. In the 1970s, the MEK aka MKO/PMOI assassinated three U.S. military officers and three American contractors
MEK’s supporters have included Andrew Card, Howard Dean, John Bolton, Rudy Giuliani, Bill Richardson, Wesley Clark, and many others. And the MEK has treated some of them very nicely. According to a March report by NBC’s Michael Isikoff, pro-MEK speakers can earn up to”$30,000 or more per talk and first-class flights to European capitals.”(The office of former Pennsylvannia Governor Ed Rendell, just one such speaker, told Isikoff that he’d earned $160,000 in 2011 ..
America has had a long-standing love affair with terrorists. Support for terrorist groups and governments has been part and parcel of American policy. According to William Odom, President Reagan’s former NSA Director, terrorism is a tactic with the having a long record of supporting terrorists. But what is unique and novel about romancing the MEK is the political elite’s brazen public display of support for the group[MKO/MEK/PMOI],..
Where does an organization based in an Iraqi refugee camp for the last 25 years get so much money? While MEK has organized rallies and campaigns to have it delisted as a terrorist group in the past, it has never, by all accounts, spent the amount of money it has over the past year.Currently, there are rumors that the Israeli secret service is paying MEK to carry out assassinations..Israel would not be the first government to pay for MEK’s military expertise
The MEK aka MKO/PMOI has forsaken its anti-Western and radical Islamist roots, and promotes itself as a secular, democratic government-in-waiting – to its Western backers. But at its base in a refugee camp in Iraq it enforces strict discipline – celibacy, limited sleep, no electronic communication, forced divorce for married members, and a personality cult surrounding its leader . Human Rights Watch has accused it of severe human rights violations.
in determining whether MEK belongs on the Terrorist list, what conceivable difference should it make whether MEK is cooperative in moving from Camp Ashraf as the U.S. Government wants? What does their cooperation or lack thereof have to do with whether they are a Terrorist organization? The answer, of course, is that the U.S. list of Terrorist organizations (like its list of state sponsors of Terrorism) has little or nothing to do with who are and are not actually Terrorists..
Was it a thoughtful statement or for any untold reason, for outsiders Clinton’s remarks were somehow viewed as an indication that the US is close to removing the terrorist group from its blacklist. But inside the group, Mrs. Clinton’s words were grabbed at as an offer that led MKO under the delusion that now it had an upper hand for any bargain over the lives of the residing members at Ashraf. Maybe she was looking for a fast and peaceful solution ..