Sound reasons verify that Mojahedin Khalq (MEK, MKO, Rajavi cult) does qualify as a terrorist group
Mr. Michael Mukasey, former Attorney General
Your speech on April 6 in Washington, regardless of any political or apolitical urge, contained points open to debate mainly because of your unsound reasoning as one who holds a sensitive professional position. But here is one that suffices to challenge your professional position. In a part of your speech we read:
The FBI went into Camp Ashraf to vet each of the people there, found in each case that none had any terrorist connections.
Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) has been designated a terrorist organization by the US State Department for 15 years. It is not important at all if by these words you mean to conclude MKO does not qualify as a terrorist group, but since you give no further explanation, we assume you mean it and deem it necessary to remark a few self-evident points.
Was the State Department’s designation of MKO, mainly for the group’s involvement in the assassination of six American citizens in 1970s, merely because of the assassins’ organizational or individual identity? None of the evidences in the State Department’s statement in which MKO is found responsible for tens of bombings and assassination of many civilian and official individuals is bond to the name of individual perpetrators. And was the decision to put MKO on the list the result of a merely political calculation or a collection of irrefutable evidences from MKO’s own sources? For sure you should know the answers better than the others.
It is said that White House interest in establishing political relations with Iranian government led to the inclusion of MKO on the terrorist list. If that is the case, does not it question the legitimacy of many American institutional and academic research and investigations all trusted for relying on leading and prominent experts and researchers? Then, will you ever trust any similar study and analysis of the kind for any other alleged group?
Believe it or not, it is odd and unconventional to place a group on the terror list simply for some individual members regardless of its political, ideological and struggle manifesto and infrastructures. According to your logic, then, none of the members of a terrorist group like al-Qaeda or MKO can be arrested and investigated for their membership. You cannot split members from an organization. It is under the influence and teachings of a violent organization that a recruit perpetrates violence and carries out the orders of assassinations, bombings and killings of civilians.
Furthermore, as a judge, you may have access to many filled terrorist charges against at least sixty Ashraf residents whose involvement in terrorist activities has been already verified. It is enough to refer to many published sources and military statements issued by MKO itself to be convinced that it has boldly and proudly accepted the responsibility for more than 12 thousand cases of assassination. Then, what will happen to your professional prestige if the informed people begin to suspect your legal authority when your words sound so naïve in dealing with such irrefutable and evident facts?
It is hard to believe that you, as a man of the law, may err in your judgment about terrorism in general unless we accept that you were reading from ready and pre-dictated passages handed to you by MKO only to act as its mouthpiece with no added personal judgment. And it is a proven fact since the group’s typically used language and unfounded allegations and claims are evident in your speech. For instance, you claim that “In 2003 when coalition forces invaded Iraq and encountered the residents of Ashraf, they willingly surrendered any means of self-defense they had.” Do you really believe in these words or is it a claim dictated by MKO?
There are hard facts to challenge the claim as does the RAND research done in 2009 when it refers to the event as a cease-fire rather than to surrender the arms. As the research remarks: “The April 15 “Local Ceasefire Agreement of Mutual Understanding and Co-Ordination” was simply a truce. Like any truce, it provided the “suspension of military operations to the extent agreed upon by the parties.”
A raised question that is really disappointing is that what are the reasons behind the support of people like you for a terrorist group with no political and social weight and support. The fact is that MKO is a terrorist cult for certain, whether it is on any terrorist list or not, and none of the struggles of people like you can change its notorious reputation and image. An important point to add, not only MKO assassinates people physically but also creeps up on the unenlightened to draw them either into its line or otherwise assassinate their character and prestige. Of course, you have not been an exception.