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Former top-ranking US officials accused of shilling for MEK terrorists

Allegations come as international community is working to remove group from secret Iraqi hideout

Former chairman, joint chiefs of staff General Hugh Shelton attends the Symposium to mark the 33rd Anniversary of the Iranian Revolution at The Waldorf-Astoria on February 11, 2012.

Among those caught in the investigation of about 40 people and subpoenaed by the Treasury Department are former FBI Director Louis Freeh and the former Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Hugh Shelton, the sources said.

The investigation is looking into whether the former officials received hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees from the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, or MEK, which would violate federal law which bars financial transactions with groups on the State Department’s list.

When asked about the allegations, Shelton told NBC that he and the other officials were "pretty miffed."

"None of us involved in this would say a good word about anyone suspected of being a terrorist," he said

He added that he supports MEK though, which he told NBC is a legitimate resistance group fighting to overthrow the government in Iran, a country he referred to as "America’s number one enemy".

But the group, which found itself on the State Department’s list after allegedly killing six Americans in the 1970s, carried out a series of bombings and assassinations against the Iranian regime in the 1980s and was also a big supporter of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. After Hussein’s death, they were accused of being a thorn in the side of Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government as they tried to mend ties with Iran.

Sources told NBC that former government officials received fees of more than $30,000 a talk and were flown first class to Europe. The officials claimed that they were told the fees came from wealthy Americans or foreign supporters of the group — but not the group itself.

Many of the speaking arrangements were made through speaking booking firms, according to the report.

"This is about finding out where the money is coming from," an Obama administration official familiar with the probe said. "This has been a source of enormous concern for a long time now. You have to ask the question, whether this is a prima facie case of material support for terrorism."

Though the MEK has lobbied for years to get off of the State Department’s list, experts say they were too dependent on the whims of their Paris-based leadership and are known to change strategies, motives and endgames without warning.

There’s no guarantee, experts warned NBC, that they won’t return to terrorism without warning.

"It’s extraordinary that so many distinguished public servants would shill for a group that has American blood on its hands," one senior official told the network.

The subpoenas come only days after Foreign Policy magazine reported that the multimillion-dollar lobbying campaign on behalf of (and paid for by) the MEK has hurt an international effort to move the group from a secretive hideout on the Iraqi-Iranian border to a new home — to avoid a bloody clash with the Iraqi military.

The Iraqi military has entered the hideout two times before, resulting in bloody clashes.

The U.N. and State Department’s efforts have been made increasingly difficult as a result of the advocates, FP reported.

“This is hard enough without paid advocates making it worse,” one official told the magazine

Nina Mandell, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

March 17, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MKO’s Dollars Challenging “Material Support”

Policy of spending lavish money for organizational achievements is a top priority within MKO

The gravy train on which some prominent Americans rode seems to be perforce halted in an outstation. The US Treasury Department appears to have begun an inquiry to see whether the speaking fees paid by Mojahedin Khalq Organization MKO to its American advocates who have spoken on its behalf are illegal. In an earlier report by The Washington Times, Edward G. Rendell, the former Democratic governor of Pennsylvania and an outspoken supporter of MKO, has been subpoenaed by the Treasury Department. He is asked to turn over information on his relationship with the designated terrorist group. Of course, Mr. Rendell is only one among the long list of former officials, including former directors of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and many more, who have accepted fees to speak on behalf of MKO in Paris and Geneva as well as appearing in online videos and participating in arranged rallies. Mr. Rendell asserts that he has been paid between $150,000 to $160,000 for seven or eight speeches in support of MKO and calling for its removal from the terrorist list.

And it is not the first and will not be the last time that the media expose such scandals and it did not come as a shock for many of those who are privy to the ploys and crafts of the terrorist group. But the importance lays in the fact that it is the first time the Treasury Department reacts and summons an advocate to probe into the case.

For years, the conferences held in European countries as well as expensive newspaper and television advertisements have been organized by MKO’s alias and advocacy groups in the United States, one of which to name is the Iranian-American Community of Northern California. MKO has set a big table of dollars for anyone who cannot resist easy money in exchange to scarify his/er reputation and only to voice the words dictated to him. The spell of the received money and luxurious, expenses-paid trips being broken, few of these loyalists and backers seem to have faith in the nonsenses they publicized and then begin to look for justification of advocacy for the group. In a voice mail message left with the Inquirer Mr. Rendell stated: “I got involved because they asked me. I did extensive research and I looked at the other people who were involved and they were generals and former elected officials. I had great confidence in them”. By these words, one might doubt the legitimacy and efficiency of these personalities in holding sensitive past government posts and policy makings.

The truth many are unconscious is that MKO is an excellent master of crafting slogans to win the hearts of pro-democratic politicians, parliamentarians and activists. It fills their minds with buzzwords like “liberty”, “human rights”, “democracy” “women” and the like to convince them that it is struggling to advocate democracy for Iran and Iranian people. And of course, few of these bipartisan are acquainted with or have accurately studied about its past terrorist careers, crimes and atrocities not only against Iranian people but also against Americans in Pahlavi’s reign and the Iraqi people in Saddam’s dictatorial era.

Frankly speaking, the policy of spending lavish money for organizational achievements is an adopted top priority within MKO and all ranking commanders are fully briefed on the issue. Once in 2007 Mehdi Abrishamchi, Maryam Rajavi’s ex-husband, in a direct TV program stated that “let me tell you frankly that so far as it concerns us [MKO], we never let any of the organization’s political projects come to a halt for financial restrictions”. The dilemma MKO is facing at the time being for sure requires great expenses to designate quota of jobs to be done and words to be voiced by the high-profile European and American supporters. And the offered Euros and dollars are so beguiling that hardly any of them dare to resist.
Sattar Orangi, Mojahedin.ws, March 16, 2012
http://www.mojahedin.ws/en/?p=15829

March 17, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

UN & Obama Supporting Islamo-Marxist Terror Group MEK in Iraq

The Obama administration and top former officials are reportedly violating federal law by offering support to the Iranian Mujahedin-e Khalq , a notorious Islamic-Communist terror group that has murdered senior American personnel and is officially designated a “foreign terrorist organization” by the U.S. State Department.

The U.S. government is, among other support measures, currently helping to relocate members of the MEK to a former American military base in Iraq. It is also assisting the group to settle around the world as refugees in a controversial deal brokered with help from the new Iraqi regime and the United Nations. UN & Obama Supporting Islamo-Marxist Terror Group MEK in Iraq

Outraged critics called the administration’s support for the terrorist group an act of “high treason” and “overt criminality.” But paid lobbyists, including politicians and top U.S. officials, have been waging an intense propaganda campaign on behalf of the MEK.

Incredibly, the organization’s supporters claim the transfer of MEK members to the former American base is unacceptable. The terror group’s leadership and its allies are demanding that members either be allowed to stay where they are or be relocated near the Jordanian border instead.

Several thousand members of the group had been living for decades near the Iranian border in Iraq’s “Camp Ashraf,” which analysts and officials have described as a militarized "cult" compound. And from 2003 until recently, the terror group was there under the protection of American forces.

The protection agreement with the U.S. government came after the group lost its former protector, Saddam Hussein, in the wake of the American invasion. Now, however, U.S. forces are officially out of Iraq and the new regime is supposed to be in charge.

Iraqi officials have recently tried — unsuccessfully — to evict the terror organization’s members from the camp. The efforts resulted in bloodshed, according to news reports. But the process of moving them finally began last month and is now well underway.

In an alleged bid to avoid further confrontations between the terror group and the new regime ruling Iraq, months of negotiations between the UN and American and Iraqi officials resulted in a plan to transfer the MEK members temporarily to “Camp Liberty,”[TTL] a former U.S. military base near Baghdad.

The terror group and its prominent American lobbyists, however, are crying foul, describing the former American installation — which was certified by the UN — as a sort of “substandard” prison. And an international controversy of sorts about the issue is growing.

The MEK, also known as the People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI), was founded in a bizarre effort to blend economic Marxism with the values and beliefs of Islam — and impose the system by force. The group also helped Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini during the Islamic revolution that overthrew the U.S. government-backed Shah of Iran. But the warm relations soured soon after that.

America and capitalism have historically been the organization’s primary enemies. Violence and terror, meanwhile, were the means used to wage war. But after a series of terror attacks within Iran left top officials and hundreds of others dead, the Iranian regime unleashed a crackdown — attempting to dismantle the terrorist network once and for all.

The MEK was eventually designated a foreign terrorist organization in 1997 under the Clinton administration. But in recent years, the terror group has toned down its anti-American rhetoric and adopted a friendlier public-relations approach — spending millions of dollars on lobbyists and even dabbling in politics. Supporters hope to have the U.S. terror designation dropped eventually.

The group’s history, however, includes assassinations of more than a few senior U.S. military personnel, terror attacks on American installations, murder of civilians, and much more. Iranians and Iraqis have been victimized even more frequently.

The designated terrorist organization once fought alongside Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s forces too, collaborating with the tyrant against the Iranian regime in the Iran-Iraq war. It even helped Hussein to quash domestic dissidents within Iraq as well.

Iraqis and Iranians, of course, remember the MEK’s partnership with the former despot in suppressing uprisings by rebel groups and slaughtering Iranians. And the bitter memories have led to growing hostility against the terror group among Iraq’s new rulers.

Since Hussein was overthrown by U.S. forces, the new government in Iraq has also become increasingly close to the Islamic regime in Iran. So, a conflict has erupted over the status of MEK members living inside Iraq as officials demand that Camp Ashraf be permanently shut down.

In recent weeks, convoys comprised of several hundred MEK members each have started arriving at Camp Liberty [Temporary Transit Location] from the group’s previous paramilitary compound near Iran. The second group of about 400 arrived last week. And thousands more are expected in the not-too-distant future.

Meanwhile, U.S. taxpayers are reportedly paying to improve the terror organization’s new temporary residence while the UN works to shuttle them out the country. According to news reports, the MEK members are supposed to be processed at Camp Liberty[TTL] as they await UN-sponsored relocation to other countries as refugees.

But the group’s leaders and their well-paid Western lobbyists have asked for Iraqi law enforcement and security personnel to be expelled from the camp while demanding upgrades to the facilities. And they have found sympathetic supporters around the world.

The Islamo-Marxist terror organization — which much of the press now identifies as a group of “dissidents,” “exiles,” and “refugees” — has especially found favor among advocates of war and regime change in Iran. Numerous reports and experts say the U.S. and Israeli governments have actually been working directly with the group for years, in violation of federal laws, to assassinate Iranian scientists, gather intelligence, and even carry out terror attacks on various targets.

But of course, Obama administration officials would hardly be the first to violate U.S. laws — which the Supreme Court upheld at the government’s request — by supporting the designated terror organization. Top neo-conservatives such as former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and ex-Attorney General Michael Mukasey have been lobbying feverishly on behalf of the group too, along with a broad roster of former politicians and U.S. officials.

Former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, ex-Homeland Security boss Tom Ridge, former FBI chief Louis Freeh, ex-CIA Director Porter Goss, former National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones, former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, and many other prominent Americans have joined the battle to aid the MEK as well. So have officials throughout Europe.

And over the last few months, a strange brouhaha has erupted between the Obama administration and the MEK’s highly placed roster of vocal lobbyists. Instead of focusing on the fact that it is a serious breach of federal law to provide virtually any form of support to a designated terrorist organization, former U.S. officials are alleging — very loudly, even purchasing full page ads in major newspapers — that the federal government is not doing enough to coddle the terrorists.

An article in Foreign Policy, citing an anonymous Obama administration official working on the issue, reported that the terror group is actually trashing Camp Liberty itself in a bid to make conditions appear worse than they are. The official also said the MEK’s high-profile U.S. lobbying activities are making it more difficult — potentially even dangerous — for the Obama administration to properly help the terrorists reach “good solutions.”

“We have a plan that has a chance to work and the Iraqis want it to work,” the administration source was quoted as saying. “Whether the MEK wants a resolution or wants a confrontation is something we’re still debating. It’s that bad."

Apparently investigators with the U.S. Treasury Department’s terror branch have started to probe at least one former official for accepting the terrorist group’s money in exchange for lobbying. Former Pennsylvania Gov. Edward Rendell said recently that he received a subpoena seeking documents related to his ties with the MEK.

A Treasury spokesman refused to either confirm or deny that the department was investigating. “But the MEK is a designated terrorist group, therefore U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with or providing services to this group,” the spokesman was quoted as saying by the Washington Times, which broke the story on March 9.

As part of the covert war on Iran, the U.S. and Israeli governments have reportedly been arming, training, and funding the MEK for years — as well as other known terror groups such as the al-Qaeda affiliate known as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) during the recent “regime change” in Libya. And providing support to a designated foreign terrorist organization remains a serious crime, punishable by steep fines and long prison sentences. Whether anyone will be held accountable, however, remains to be seen.

by Alex Newman , The New American

March 15, 2012 0 comments

Human Rights Abuse in the MEK

Women, the Scapegoats of Rajavi’s Cult

Female MKO members are easy scapegoats to be victimized by the cult of Rajavi
Women, the Scapegoats of Rajavi’s Cult
It is a global responsibility to support women vulnerable to any form of threat and the international woman’s day is the best occasion to remind the responsibility. But it is much discouraging when you see that the she-guru of a notorious terrorist cult takes advantage of the occasion to conceal her group’s ill-mannered, undemocratic fashion.

In a conference held in Paris on March 10, Maryam Rajavi made a speech in the presence of women gathered from several continents and called for support of female members of the group settled in two locations in Iraq, the military camp of Ashraf and the Temporary Transit Location TTL. The conference was held at a time when the majority of the group’s female members, nearly one third of it, are suffering the harsh conditions and treatments of the recognized terrorist cult.

In her speech, Rajavi said: “Women in MKO suffer crushing physical and psychological pressures under the hollow slogans of being the pioneers and heroines of freedom and democracy”. There is no doubt about the first phrase of her sentence, but, alas, the bare truth about MKO is that “freedom and democracy” have no meaning and place.

In the contemporary history, no cult has overexposed women using them instrumentally as much as MKO. Although Mojahedin have adopted the false ideological and strategic slogan of setting women free form social, conventional, religious, and historical bonds, yet in practice women have been subject to a kind of modern slavery under the cover of freedom through mental and physical convincing mechanisms. Massoud Rajavi, the absent leader of the group, has focused all his efforts in recent years to misuse various social, cultural, religious, and ethical backgrounds to subjugate women. In this regard, he has exploited the emotional attachments and nature of women as well as their ethical, religious, and traditional constraints to increase their dependence on the organization preventing their leaving from the organization.

Meanwhile, promoting women in leadership cadre of the organization is one of the tricks for intensifying the various aspects of this slavery. In the context of a modern slavery bastion, as MKO leaders acknowledge, the main role of MKO’s female rank and file is to be used as human shields for protecting leadership. The published expose and memories by the separated members indicate that the women in MKO have been abused as easy and accessible instruments in the hands of Rajavi to be victimized whenever necessary. Up to that time their role is safeguarding the military bastion of Ashraf as the ideological and strategic container of MKO.

However, the issue of misusing MKO female members has been ignored due to Rajavi’s covering it under the banner of the emancipation of women. The former members have repeatedly referred to the significance of women for Rajavi. He is well aware that the special characteristics of these women like their emotional attachments, lack of support and ethical and religious constraints has excluded the possibility of their leaving from the organization. Besides, they are under the instilled spell of an imaginary threat if they leave the organization. Maryam Rajavi is right when she says “Women in MKO suffer crushing physical and psychological pressures”, yet here the question arises that who poses these pressures and threats?

During the earlier events and conflicts in camp Ashraf, it was observed that these women were used as human shields to prevent the entrance of Iraqi police to camp and also to win the sympathy of the world toward the residents. What is of the significance in the full-scale propaganda blitz of MKO is the insistence on the necessity of saving the life of women members, while hardly you can see any move by the organization to guarantee the welfare, security and freedom of female members. And how many women have been spotted among the two relocated groups from Ashraf to TTL while, as asserted by almost any international convention, the sick people, women and children have the priority of any relocation from a harsh to a better location?

As the female MKO members are easy scapegoats to be victimized, Rajavi seems to be determined to preserve them as human shields for defending Ashraf. In this regard, taking necessary measures for setting Rajavi’s victims free from cultic relations is of highest priority for Iraqi government and the international bodies. And our main responsibility is making the public opinion and the concerned bodies aware of this imminent disaster. MKO female members have been the most ill-fated and vulnerable stratum of the cult of Mojahedin in the past and recent years and now after years of suffering and misuse, they are supposed to be used as Rajavi’s bargaining chips out of any encountered impasse.

March 15, 2012 0 comments

The MEK; Baath Party Accomplice

Are MEK Politicos Taking Saddam Hussein’s Blood Money?

There are many misconceptions about the MEK so I checked in with several Iranian born experts on Iran. All of them are distressed that American politicians are advocating for the MEK. They also Laura Goldman doubt that the money paid to the politicos comes from the Iranian Diaspora because most expatriate Iranians do no support the MEK.

Raisool Nafisi, a Washington political consultant, said, "The MEK is a terrorist group. It is a cult of religious automatons. MEK is a terrible dictatorship, whose culture requires complete worship of its leaders, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. The Rajavis require complete subservience and strictly control the thinking, activities and dress of MEK members. Members are punished if they try to leave."

Reports from Rand and Human Rights Watch corroborate that the MEK abuses its own members.
Are MEK Politicos Taking Saddam Hussein's Blood Money?
He continued, "MEK, a leftist theocracy, would be worse than the present regime. Americans that are supporting MEK because of their antipathy towards the current regime and their rumored involvement with the Israelis are being extremely short sighted. If they gained control of Iran, they would create anti-democratic regime."

Rendell may actually be taking blood money from Saddam Hussein.

Nafisi said, "When the head of the Iraqi Secret Police was interrogated, he confessed that Saddam Hussein was giving the MEK $30 million a month, more than $350 million in total."
Nafisi steered me to the previous New York Times reporting on the MEK. "The New York Times accurately described the conditions in the camp and the treatment of women."

That New York Times reporter, Elizabeth Rubin, who toured the camps and wrote an extensive magazine article on the MEK, has condemned in recent days the recent outpouring of support for the group.

Trita Parisi, who wrote “Treacherous Alliance-The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States” and “A Single Roll of the Dice-Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran," said, "US officials recently confirmed to NBC News that the MEK is carrying out assassinations against Iranian scientists, directly contradicting the MEK’s claims to have forgone terrorism and violence. The report also cites law enforcement who say ‘in 1994, the MEK made a pact with terrorist Ramzi Yousef a year after he masterminded the first attack on the World Trade Center in New York City.’ According to officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity,Yousef built an 11-pound bomb that MEK agents placed inside one of Shia Islam’s greatest shrines in Mashad Iran on June 20, 1994. At least 26 people, mostly women and children, were killed and 200 wounded in the attack."

Laura Goldman, Naked Philadelphian

March 15, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Washington’s high-powered terrorist supporters

We now have an extraordinary situation that reveals the impunity with which political elites commit the most egregious crimes, as well as the special privileges to which they explicitly believe they — and they alone — are entitled. That a large bipartisan cast of Washington officials got caught being paid substantial sums of money by an Iranian dissident group that is legally designated by the U.S. Government as a Terrorist organization, and then meeting with and advocating on behalf of that Terrorist group, is very significant for several reasons. New developments over the last week make it all the more telling. Just behold the truly amazing set of facts that have arisen:

In June, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 6-3 ruling in the case of Holder v. Humanitarian Law. In that case, the Court upheld the Obama DOJ’s very broad interpretation of the statute that criminalizes the providing of “material support” to groups formally designated by the State Department as Terrorist organizations. The five-judge conservative bloc (along with Justice Stevens) held that pure political speech could be permissibly criminalized as “material support for Terrorism” consistent with the First Amendment if the “advocacy [is] performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization” (emphasis added). In other words, pure political advocacy in support of a designated Terrorist group could be prosecuted as a felony — punishable with 15 years in prison — if the advocacy is coordinated with that group.

This ruling was one of the most severe erosions of free speech rights in decades because, as Justice Breyer (joined by Ginsberg and Sotomayor) pointed out in dissent, “all the activities” at issue, which the DOJ’s interpretation would criminalize, “involve the communication and advocacy of political ideas and lawful means of achieving political ends.” The dissent added that the DOJ’s broad interpretation of the statute “gravely and without adequate justification injure[s] interests of the kind the First Amendment protects.” As Georgetown Law Professor David Cole, who represented the plaintiffs, explained, this was literally “the first time ever” that “the Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment permits the criminalization of pure speech advocating lawful, nonviolent activity.” Thus, “the court rule[d] that speech advocating only lawful, nonviolent activity can be made a crime, and that any coordination with a blacklisted group can land a citizen in prison for 15 years.” Then-Solicitor-General Elena Kagan argued the winning Obama DOJ position before the Court.

Whatever one’s views are on this ruling, it is now binding law. To advocate on behalf of a designated Terrorist group constitutes the felony of “providing material support” if that advocacy is coordinated with the group.

Like most assaults on the Constitution in the name of Terrorism during the Obama presidency, criticism of that Court decision was rare in establishment circles (that’s because Republicans consistently support such assaults while Democrats are reluctant to criticize them under Obama). On the day the Humanitarian Law decision was released, CNN‘s Wolf Blitzer interviewed Fran Townsend, George Bush’s Homeland Security Advisor and now-CNN analyst, and Townsend hailed the decision as “a tremendous win for not only the United States but for the current administration.” Here’s how that discussion went:

BLITZER: There is a related case involved that the Supreme Court came out with today and I want to talk to you about this. The Supreme Court ruling today in the fight against terrorism . . . .The 6-3 decision by the Supreme Court, the justices rejecting the arguments that the law threatens the constitutional right of free speech. You read the decision, 6-3, only three of the Democratic appointed justices decided they didn’t like this. They were the minority. But the majority was pretty firm in saying that if you go ahead and express what is called material support for a known terrorist group, you could go to jail for that.

TOWNSEND: This is a tremendous win for not only the United States but for the current administration. It’s interesting, Wolf, Elena Kagan the current Supreme Court nominee argued in favor of upholding this law. This is an important tool the government uses to convict those, to charge and convict, potentially convict those who provide money, recruits, propaganda, to terrorist organizations, but are not what we call people who actually blow things up or pull the trigger.

BLITZER: So it’s a major decision, a 6-3 decision by the Supreme Court. If you’re thinking about even voicing support for a terrorist group, don’t do it because the government can come down hard on you and the Supreme Court said the government has every right to do so.

TOWNSEND: It is more than just voicing support, Wolf. It is actually the notion of providing material support, significant material support.

BLITZER: But they’re saying that if material support, they’re defining as expressing support or giving advice or whatever to that organization.

TOWNSEND: That’s right. But it could be technical advice, bomb-building advice, fundraising.

So Fran Townsend lavishly praised this decision — one that, as Blitzer put it, means that “If you’re thinking about even voicing support for a terrorist group, don’t do it because the government can come down hard on you.” And while Townsend was right that the decision requires “more than just voicing support” for the Terrorist group, the Court was crystal clear that such voicing of support, standing alone, can be prosecuted if it is done in coordination with the group (“the term ’service’ [] cover[s] advocacy performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization“).

But look at what is happening now to Fran Townsend and many of her fellow political elites. In August of last year, The Christian Science Monitor‘s Scott Peterson published a detailed exposé about “a high-powered array of former top American officials” who have received “tens of thousands of dollars” from a designated Terrorist organization – the Iranian dissident group Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) — and then met with its leaders, attended its meetings, and/or publicly advocated on its behalf. That group includes Rudy Giuliani, Howard Dean, Michael Mukasey, Ed Rendell, Andy Card, Lee Hamilton, Tom Ridge, Bill Richardson, Wesley Clark, Michael Hayden, John Bolton, Louis Freeh — and Fran Townsend. This is how it works:

Former US officials taking part in MEK-linked events told the Monitor or confirmed publicly that they received substantial fees, paid by local Iranian-American groups to speaker bureaus that handle their public appearances.

The State Dept. official, who is familiar with the speech contracts, explains the mechanism: “Your speech agent calls, and says you get $20,000 to speak for 20 minutes. They will send a private jet, you get $25,000 more when you are done, and they will send a team to brief you on what to say.”

As but one example, Rendell, the former Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania and current MSNBC contributor, was paid $20,000 for a 10- minute speech before a MEK gathering, and has been a stalwart advocate of the group ever since.

Even for official Washington, where elite crimes are tolerated as a matter of course, this level of what appears to be overt criminality — taking large amounts of money from a designated Terrorist group, appearing before its meetings, meeting with its leaders, then advocating on its behalf — is too much to completely overlook. The Washington Times reported on Friday that the Treasury Department’s counter-Terrorism division is investigating speaking fees paid to former Gov. Rendell, who, the article notes, has “become among [MEK’s] most vocal advocates.” According to Rendell, “investigators have subpoenaed records related to payments he has accepted for public speaking engagements” for MEK. As the article put it, ”some observers have raised questions about the legality of accepting payment in exchange for providing assistance or services to a listed terrorist group.” Beyond the “material support” crime, engaging in such transactions with designated Terrorist groups is independently prohibited by federal law:

David Cole, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, noted that “any group that’s on the list is also, by definition, on the Treasury Department’s list for specially designated global terrorists.”

“Anyone in the United States is prohibited from engaging in any transaction with such an entity,” he said.

While Mr. Cole stressed his personal belief that individuals have a “First Amendment right to speak out freely” for an organization like the MEK, he said that “it is a crime to engage in any transaction, which would certainly include getting paid to do public relations for them.“

Rendell has a lot of company in the commission of what very well may be these serious crimes — including the very same Fran Townsend who cheered the Humanitarian Law decision that could be her undoing. After someone on Twitter wrote to her this weekend to say that she should be prosecuted (and “put in GITMO indefinitely”) for her “material support” of MEK, this is how — with the waving American flag as her chosen background — she defended herself in reply:

How reprehensible is the conduct of Fran Townsend here? Just two years ago, she went on CNN to celebrate a Supreme Court decision that rejected First Amendment claims of free speech and free association in order to rule that anyone — most often Muslims — can be prosecuted under the “material support” statute simply for advocacy for a Terrorist group that is coordinated with the group. And yet, the minute Fran Townsend gets caught doing exactly that — not just out of conviction but also because she’s being paid by that Terrorist group — she suddenly invokes the very same Constitutional rights whose erosions she cheered when it came to the prosecution of others. Now that her own liberty is at stake by virtue of getting caught being on the dole from a Terrorist group, she suddenly insists that the First Amendment allows her to engage in this behavior: exactly the argument that Humanitarian Law rejected, with her gushing approval on CNN (“a tremendous win for not only the United States but for the current administration“; This is an important tool the government uses to convict those . . . who provide [] propaganda, to terrorist organizations”).”

What is particularly repellent about all of this is not the supreme hypocrisy and self-interested provincialism of Fran Townsend. That’s all just par for the course. What’s infuriating is that there are large numbers of people — almost always Muslims — who have been prosecuted and are now in prison for providing “material support” to Terrorist groups for doing far less than Fran Townsend and her fellow cast of bipartisan ex-officials have done with and on behalf of MEK. In fact, the U.S. Government has been (under the administration in which Townsend worked) and still is (under the administration Rendell supports) continuously prosecuting Muslims for providing “material support” for Terrorist groups based on their pure speech, all while Fran Townsend, Ed Rendell and company have said nothing or, worse, supported the legal interpretations that justified these prosecutions.

The last time I wrote about these individuals’ material support for MEK, I highlighted just a few of those cases:

A Staten Island satellite TV salesman in 2009 was sentenced to five years in federal prison merely for including a Hezbollah TV channel as part of the satellite package he sold to customers;
a Massachusetts resident, Tarek Mehanna, is being prosecuted now ”for posting pro-jihadist material on the internet”;
a 24-year-old Pakistani legal resident living in Virginia, Jubair Ahmad, was indicted last September for uploading a 5-minute video to YouTube that was highly critical of U.S. actions in the Muslim world, an allegedly criminal act simply because prosecutors claim he discussed the video in advance with the son of a leader of a designated Terrorist organization (Lashkar-e-Tayyiba);
a Saudi Arabian graduate student, Sami Omar al-Hussayen, was prosecuted simply for maintaining a website with links “to groups that praised suicide bombings in Chechnya and in Israel” and “jihadist” sites that solicited donations for extremist groups (he was ultimately acquitted); and,
last July, a 22-year-old former Penn State student and son of an instructor at the school, Emerson Winfield Begolly, was indicted for — in the FBI’s words — “repeatedly using the Internet to promote violent jihad against Americans” by posting comments on a “jihadist” Internet forum including “a comment online that praised the shootings” at a Marine Corps base, action which former Obama lawyer Marty Lederman said ”does not at first glance appear to be different from the sort of advocacy of unlawful conduct that is entitled to substantial First Amendment protection.”

Yet we have the most well-connected national security and military officials in Washington doing far more than all of that right out in the open — they’re receiving large payments from a Terrorist group, meeting with its leaders, attending their meetings, and then advocating for them in very public forums; Howard Dean, after getting paid by the group, actually called for MEK’s leader to be recognized as the legitimate President of Iran – and so far none have been prosecuted or even indicted. The Treasury Department investigation must at least scare them. Thus, like most authoritarians, Fran Townsend suddenly discovers the importance of the very political liberties she’s helped assault now that those Constitutional protections are necessary to protect herself from prosecution. It reminds me quite a bit of how former Democratic Rep. Jane Harman — one of the most reliable advocates for Bush’s illegal spying program — suddenly started sounding like a life-long, outraged ACLU member as soon as it was revealed that her own private communications were legally surveilled by the U.S. Government.

One can reasonably debate whether MEK actually belongs on the list of Terrorist organizations (the same is true for several other groups on that list). But as a criminal matter, that debate is irrelevant. The law criminalizes the providing of material support to any group on that list, and it is not a defense to argue after one gets caught that the group should be removed.

Moreover, the argument that MEK does not belong on the Terrorist list — always a dubious claim — has suffered a serious blow in the last couple of months. An NBC News report from Richard Engel and Robert Windrem in February claimed that it was MEK which perpetrated the string of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, and that the Terrorist group “is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service” (MEK denied the report). If true, it means that MEK continues to perpetrate definitive acts of Terrorism: using bombs and guns to kill civilian scientists and severely injure their wives. Yet Townsend, Rendell, Dean, Giuliani and other well-paid friends continue to be outspoken advocates of the group. Even the dissenters in Humanitarian Law argued that the First Amendment would allow “material support” prosecution “when the defendant knows or intends that those activities will assist the organization’s unlawful terrorist actions.” A reasonable argument could certainly be advanced that, in light of these recent reports about MEK’s Terrorism, one who takes money from the group and then advocates for its removal from the Terrorist list “knows or intends that those activities will assist the organization’s unlawful terrorist actions”: a prosecutable offense even under the dissent’s far more limited view of the statute.

But whatever else is true, the activities of Townsend, Rendell, Dean, Giuliani and the rest of MEK’s paid shills are providing more than enough “material support” to be prosecuted under the Humanitarian Law decision and other statutes. They’re providing more substantial “material support” to this Terrorist group than many people — usually vulnerable, powerless Muslims — who are currently imprisoned for that crime. It’s nice that Fran Townsend suddenly discovered the virtues of free speech and free association guarantees, but under the laws she and so many others like her have helped implement and defend, there is a very strong case to make that her conduct and those of these other well-connected advocates for this Terrorist group is squarely within the realm of serious criminal behavior.

Glenn Greenwald,

March 13, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The Folly of American Pro-MEK Advocates

Josh Rogin reports on the latest development in the MEK story:

However, according to an Obama administration official who works on the issue, it’s actually the MEK that is trashing Camp Liberty — literally. According to this official, the U.N. has reported that MEK members at Camp Liberty have been sabotaging the camp, littering garbage and manipulating the utilities to make things look worse than they really are. While there are some legitimate problems at the camp, the official admitted, the U.N. has been monitoring Camp Liberty’s water, sewage, and food systems on a daily basis and the conditions are better than the MEK is portraying.

It doesn’t exactly come as a shock that the MEK is misrepresenting the facts about the conditions at Camp Liberty, since the group misrepresents itself on a regular basis. Pro-MEK advocates in the U.S. and Europe worked diligently for years to blur the differences between the welfare of the civilians at Camp Ashraf and the issue of the MEK’s listing as a foreign terrorist organization. The goal of this was to exploit the plight of Ashraf residents (or, more accurately, prisoners of the group’s leadership) to build support for removing the group from the FTO list. Now that the legitimate humanitarian concerns about conditions at Ashraf are being addressed, these same advocates are portraying Camp Liberty as a prison or “concentration camp.” The reason for this is not to improve conditions for the people at Camp Liberty, but to continue using humanitarian appeals to make itself seem more sympathetic as an organization that it is.

The pro-MEK advocates are complicating a difficult situation, and they are actually undermining the prospects for a peaceful resolution to the MEK’s presence in Iraq. Then again, this is what one would expect from paid stooges:

“The Americans who ought to know better and claim to be on the side of good solutions are really damaging it. Either they are too lazy or too arrogant to actually do their homework. They don’t spend the time to learn facts, they just pop off. They accept the MEK line without question and then they posture,” the official said. “We have a plan that has a chance to work and the Iraqis want it to work. The MEK … it’s not clear. And in this situation they are being badly advised by the people whose names appear in these ads.”

“Whether the MEK wants a resolution or wants a confrontation is something we’re still debating. It’s that bad,” the official said.

By Daniel Larison

March 13, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Speaking Fees From MEK Come Under Government Scrutiny

The Washington Times reported Friday that the counterterrorism arm of the Treasury Department is probing speaking fees paid to Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell (D) by supporters of the Iranian opposition group Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), which the U.S. government considers a terrorist organization.

But Rendell is far from the only former government official who has publicly acknowledged accepting speaking fees from supporters of the MEK, which has been lobbying to get the group off the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The Huffington Post put together a list of 33 speakers at various MEK related meetings and conferences, though not all of them had accepted payments.

MEK supporters include a former director of the FBI, the former U.S. Attorney General, former military leaders and former high-ranking elected officials of both political parties, many of whom were paid thousands of dollars for short public speeches. The list of officials advocating for MEK to be taken off the list — which the group often helpfully provides in media packets at MEK rallies — includes Michael Mukasey, Patrick Kennedy, Rudy Giuliani, Andy Card, Howard Dean, Lee Hamilton, Bill Richardson, Tom Ridge, Wesley Clark, Fran Townsend and John Bolton.

As Glenn Greenwald points out, it may not even matter if every speaker at an event was paid since a 2010 Supreme Court decision upheld a law which banned advocacy that was “performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization.”

A State Department spokesman wouldn’t confirm that a subpoena had been issued to the office of an attorney for William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, which handles Rendell’s speaking engagements. “But the MEK is a designated terrorist group; therefore, U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with or providing services to this group,” the spokesman told the Washington Times.

NBC News reported that MEK was involved in the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists.

TPM sat down with a former spokesman for the MEK last year, who defended the group from charges that it has encouraged a cult of personality around MEK leader Maryam Rajavi and her husband, has supported violence in the past.

Ryan J. Reilly

March 13, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Mojahedin Khalq, True Mercenaries

The media spotlight having uncomfortably focused on the MEK’s alleged involvement in Israeli linked assassinations of Iranian scientists in recent weeks, the MEK has given up for the time Mojahedin Khalq, True Mercenaries being on advertising for their original purpose of killing and martyrdom. Instead they have turned up the volume on what France 24 dubbed their ‘battle by press release’.

There can be few journalists in the world who have an interest in Iran and have not been subjected to the MEK’s famous confetti, or ticker-tape, campaign of press releases. After terrorism, the MEK’s expertise is in propaganda. (Being ridiculously well funded is of course another, lesser investigated area of this group’s range of expertise.)

Over in Iraq, long term home to the MEK’s foreign terrorist base, the group’s members – formerly known as Saddam’s private army – are being moved from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty(TTL) before they are removed from Iraq altogether.

In response to this imagined affront, the MEK has pursued two tactics in its battle by press release – the first was to demand they be sent to a defunct refugee tent camp at the Jordanian border – and in direct contradiction to this to bleat about the terrible inhumane conditions at Camp Liberty (TTL) – former home to up to 5,000 US army personnel, which must surely earn the MEK the new soubriquet of the ‘MEK Princess Corps’.

But as the pleas for help have fallen on deaf ears and its camp looks set for closure, the MEK has more recently woken up to the need to distract from this existential crisis.

They have turned up the volume of press releases. But that is not all, taking a cursory look at the articles and stories engendered by this exercise, we see that the MEK is apparently advising anyone and everyone on what should be done about Iran. You would imagine the MEK is the expert of choice on everything to do with Iran.

But on closer scrutiny it is clear that none of this advise has come from the MEK’s own analysis or knowledge or from any verifiable or valuable information sources inside Iran – which the MEK simply does not have.

Instead the plethora of messages all contradict one another.

In one article the MEK swears at Nouri al Maliki accusing him of being an ‘agent of the Iranian regime’. Then in another article they refer to him as ‘brother al Maliki’. On one hand the MEK are aligned to Israel, at the same time they are associated with Saddamists from the former Iraqi dictatorship regime. The MEK have been linked with Mossad and the CIA, and also allegedly work with Iran’s ultra right intelligence gangs.

In Washington D.C. the MEK cosy up to the neoconservatives, Israeli lobby and regime change pundits to press for military strikes and war against Iran. The MEK’s black/white version of events infects the Republican electoral campaign with a crass warmongering stance.

Conversely, in Europe and the Persian Gulf States, where such a stance is highly unpopular, the MEK instead claim that the sanctions are working and that they should be given a chance to work further. The Democrats must be pleased to hear such posturing echoing way over across the ocean.

The MEK vilify the Green Movement but praise them as well.

If these contradictions arose from a clever manipulation of world politics they might be worthy of note. But this must be the only mercenary group in the world which offers its services to all sides of the equation, including those which are deadly enemies. Instead of the soft hum of smooth politicking, all we really hear is the loud ‘kerching’ of more money landing in Rajavi’s coffers.

Maybe this is why the MEK have so rapidly lost credence and relevance in the Iran debate – even those who use them are discovering they really can’t be trusted.

Anne Singleton, Author of "The life of Camp Ashraf" and "Saddam’s Private Army"

March 13, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

Ed Rendell, Investigated In MEK Speaker Fees, Backs ‘Terrorist’ Group

WASHINGTON — Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell acknowledged this week that the Treasury Department is investigating payments he accepted to speak in support of an Iranian exile group on the U.S. government’s list of foreign terrorist organizations.

Groups in the U.S. related to Iran’s Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) have spent millions on highly paid American speakers, including Rendell, as part of a lobbying campaign to remove the group from the foreign terrorist organizations list. It’s illegal for U.S. citizens to accept payment from foreign terrorist organizations.

Rendell, a Democrat, defended his acceptance of payments from MEK-related groups, even after the Washington Times reported that federal agents subpeonaed financial records last month from his agent, William Morris Endeavor.

Rendell said his support of the MEK was an issue of conscience, not simply a chance for him to make easy money. "I did my research extensively on this issue before I ever agreed to speak on it," he told the Washington Times. "And I am 100 percent convinced that the MEK shouldn’t be on the foreign terrorist organization list." Rendell left office in January 2011 after two terms as Pennsylvania governor. He has since joined a number of investment groups and appears regularly on MSNBC. Before he was elected governor, he was chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He couldn’t be reached Monday by The Huffington Post.

Rendell’s "extensive research" claim appears to contradict what he told the audience at his very first MEK-related speaking engagement — a July 16 conference at the Willard Hotel in Washington attended by this reporter. There, on a bipartisan panel of former administration officials, all receiving at least $20,000 for their appearances, Rendell said he had received the speaking invitation only five days before. Typically, top-tier speakers like Rendell are booked months in advance.

When he first read the offer, Rendell said he told his representative to turn it down because, as he said, "I don’t know hardly anything about this subject." Rendell said he instructed his agent to send the message, "I would have loved to come, but I don’t think I’m qualified to come."

To Rendell’s surprise, sponsors of the MEK conference weren’t concerned with his lack of knowledge. Rendell said he was "compelled and interested by the level" of the other panelists, including Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor, and Anita McBride, the former chief of staff to Laura Bush. This, Rendell said, was why "I decided to come down" to Washington.

In the four days between Rendell’s acceptance of the engagement and his appearance, he told the audience he had received information from at least four sources. "Firstly, from your representatives over the phone," he said. "Secondly, from the materials you sent me. Thirdly from a discussion [Howard Dean and I] had with some of your representatives earlier this morning. And fourthly, from listening to these panelists."

Since July, Rendell has received payment for at least six pro-MEK speeches in the U.S. and Europe — money he said comes from "citizens, both American citizens here and Iranian expats in Europe who believe in the cause.”

The MEK was founded in Iran in 1963, loosely based on Marxist principles. The group carried out bombings in Iran in the 1970s and 1980s, killing some Americans and prompting its inclusion on the U.S. foreign terrorist organizations list when it was first released in 1997.

Asked recently about the origins of the large payments the pro-MEK groups make for high-ranking former officials including himself, Rendell told the Washington Times he doesn’t actually know where the money originates, except that "there’s a very significant group of American citizens" who support the MEK. "How they pledge their money and send it in and aggregate it to pay us, I don’t know,” he told the newspaper.

Christina Wilkie

March 13, 2012 0 comments

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