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MeK and That Dastardly T-Word

In the news section, Jason Ditz tells us that the State Department is preparing to remove the Iranian dissident group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MeK) from their official list of terrorist organizations. This, after years of praise and advocacy from elite members in American politics, from Ed Randell to John Bolton to Howard Dean and Rudy Giuliani. These types of people collected payments from the MeK for their advocacy to get the group removed from the State Department’s list, which amounts to “material support” for terrorist groups, a felony. Of course, such well-connected, high-society types don’t get prosecuted for unlawful behavior unless it involves betraying the sanctity of marriage. And the fact that the U.S. government secretly trained MeK fighters in recent years and is now being employed by Israel to conduct acts of terrorism inside Iran probably won’t increase the likelihood of such prosecutions.

Interestingly, Glenn Greenwald has dug up the following bit of history. A document written by the Bush administration in the lead up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, still in the archives of the White House’s website, seeks to justify the war on the basis of Saddam’s support for the very “terrorist” group we are now supporting!

Iraq shelters terrorist groups including the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), which has used terrorist violence against Iran and in the 1970s was responsible for killing several U.S. military personnel and U.S. civilians.

This makes flagrantly clear that, as Greenwald writes, “the application of the term ‘Terrorist’ by the U.S. Government has nothing to do with how that term is commonly understood, but is instead exploited solely as a means to punish those who defy U.S. dictates and reward those who advance American interests and those of its allies (especially Israel).”

For another example, think back to the height of Obama’s war in Libya. Preeminent AEI jingo Marc Thiessan tried to justify ousting Gadhafi because, of course, he was a committed terrorist. After all, Theissan wrote, Gadhafi was:

the man who blew up Pan Am 103 over Scotland, killing 270 people; destroyed a French passenger jet over Niger, killing 171 people; bombed the La Belle discotheque in West Berlin, killing two U.S. soldiers and injuring more than 50 American servicemen; established terrorist training camps on Libyan soil; provided terrorists with arms and safe haven…

See how easy that is? Theissan and other supporters of the war went through this rap sheet repeatedly, refusing to highlight the fact that the NATO-backed rebels had direct ties to al-Qaeda and had themselves committed serious acts of “terror.”

So a terrorist is whoever our military and political leadership say it is. Until they begin to collude with them, then they’re not terrorists anymore.

By John Glaser

May 16, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Likely victory for MeK shills

Former U.S. officials, paid to advocate for a designated Terror group, are now on the verge of succeeding Likely victory for MeK shills

A bipartisan band of former Washington officials and politicians has spent the last two years aggressively advocating on behalf of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MeK), an Iranian dissident group that has been formally designated for the last 15 years by the U.S. State Department as a “foreign Terrorist organization.” Most of those former officials have been paid large sums of money to speak at MeK events and meet with its leaders, thus developing far more extensive relations with this Terror group than many marginalized Muslims who have been prosecuted and punished with lengthy prison terms for “materially supporting a Terrorist organization.” These bipartisan MeK advocates have been demanding the group’s removal from the Terror list, advocacy that has continued unabated despite (or, more accurately, because of ) reports that MeK is trained and funded by the Israelis and has been perpetrating acts of violence on Iranian soil aimed at that country’s civilian nuclear scientists and facilities (also known as: Terrorism).

Now, needless to say, the State Department appears likely to accede to the demands of these paid bipartisan shills:

The Obama administration is moving to remove an Iranian opposition group from the State Department’s terrorism list, say officials briefed on the talks, in an action that could further poison Washington’s relations with Tehran at a time of renewed diplomatic efforts to curtail Iran’s nuclear program.

The exile organization, the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MeK, was originally named as a terrorist entity 15 years ago for its alleged role in assassinating U.S. citizens in the years before the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran and for allying with Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein against Tehran.

The MeK has engaged in an aggressive legal and lobbying campaign in Washington over the past two years to win its removal from the State Department’s list. . . . Senior U.S. officials said on Monday that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has yet to make any final decision on the MeK’s status. But they said the State Department was looking favorably at delisting MeK if it continued cooperating by vacating a former paramilitary base inside Iraq, called Camp Ashraf, which the group had used to stage cross-border strikes into Iran.

This highlights almost every salient fact about how Washington functions with regard to such matters. First, if you pay a sufficiently large and bipartisan group of officials to lobby on your behalf, you will get your way, even when it comes to vaunted National Security and Terrorism decisions; if you pay the likes of Howard Dean, Fran Townsend, Wesley Clark, Ed Rendell, Rudy Giuliani, Tom Ridge and others like them to peddle their political influence for you, you will be able to bend Washington policy and law to your will. As Andrew Exum put it this morning: “I guess Hizballah and LeT just need to buy off more former administration officials.”

Second, the application of the term “Terrorist” by the U.S. Government has nothing to do with how that term is commonly understood, but is instead exploited solely as a means to punish those who defy U.S. dictates and reward those who advance American interests and those of its allies (especially Israel). Thus, this Terror group is complying with U.S. demands, has been previously trained by the U.S. itself, and is perpetrating its violence on behalf of a key American client state and against a key American enemy, and — presto — it is no longer a “foreign Terrorist organization.”

Third, this yet again underscores who the actual aggressors are in the tensions with Iran. Imagine if multiple, high-level former Iranian officials received large sums of money from a group of Americans dedicated to violently overthrowing the U.S. government and committing acts of violence on American soil, and the Iranian Government then removed it from its list of Terror groups, thus allowing funding and other means of support to flow freely to that group.

Fourth, the rule of law is not even a purported constraint on the conduct of Washington political elites. Here, the behavior of these paid MeK shills is so blatantly illegal that even the Obama administration felt compelled to commence investigations to determine who was paying them and for what. As a strictly legal matter, removing MeK from the Terror list should have no effect on the criminality of their acts: it’s a felony to provide material support to a designated Terror group — which the Obama DOJ, backed by the U.S. Supreme Court, has argued, in a full frontal assault on free speech rights, even includes coordinating advocacy with such a group (ironically, some of this Terror group’s paid advocates, such as former Bush Homeland Security adviser Fran Townsend, cheered that Supreme Court ruling when they thought it would only restrict the political advocacy of Muslims, not themselves).

The fact that the Terror group is subsequently removed from the list does not render that material support non-criminal. But as a practical matter, it is virtually impossible to envision the Obama DOJ prosecuting any of these elite officials for supporting a group which the Obama administration itself concedes does not belong on the list. The removal of this group — if, as appears highly likely, it happens — will basically have the same effect, by design, as corrupt acts such as retroactive telecom immunity and the shielding of Bush war crimes and Wall Street fraud from any form of investigation: it will once again bolster the prime Washington dictate that D.C. political elites reside above the rule of law even when committing violations of the criminal law for which ordinary citizens are harshly punished.

* * * * *

Speaking of the assault on the free speech rights of Muslim critics of the U.S. under the guise of “material support” prosecutions (an assault which also erodes free speech rights for everyone), Michael May has a great long article in The American Prospect on the horrendous, free-speech-threatening prosecution of Tarek Mehanna, whose extraordinary sentencing statement I published here.

UPDATE: In 2003, when the Bush adminstration was advocating an attack on Iraq, one of the prime reasons it cited was “Saddam Hussein’s Support for International Terrorism.” It circulated a document purporting to prove that claim (h/t Hernlem), and one of the first specific accusations listed was this:

Iraq shelters terrorist groups including the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), which has used terrorist violence against Iran and in the 1970s was responsible for killing several U.S. military personnel and U.S. civilians.

So the group that was pointed to less than a decade ago as proof of Saddam’s Terrorist Evil is now glorified by both political parties in Washington and — now that it’s fighting for the U.S. and Israel rather than for Saddam — is no longer a Terror group.

By Glenn Greenwald

May 16, 2012 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

Defection from MKO Growing

A growing number of Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) members are leaving the terrorist group as MKO ringleaders are busy with a compulsory relocation from the Northern Diyala Defection from MKO Growing province to a Baghdad camp where they are sheltered transiently before being expelled from Iraq, reports said on Tuesday.

A report by the Persian-language Neday-e Haqiqat (the Voice of Truth) website said that another MKO member took the opportunity provided by the group’s relocation from Camp Ashraf in Northern Iraq to Camp Liberty and escaped on Monday.

Alireza Khamoushi, the ninth MKO member to flee the group in just the last one month, had been imprisoned and tortured before fleeing the camp.

The defected members describe improper psychological conditions and strict cult rules and restrictions as their main reason for fleeing the terrorist group.

Some defected members of the group had earlier unveiled that MKO ringleaders are using every means within their reach, including execution, to prevent the members’ defection from the group.

The defected members revealed that the main ringleader of the group, Maryam Rajavi, issues the execution orders personally and condemns to death all the dissidents who refrain from obeying her orders and all those who plan to defect from the MKO.

According to the report, the MKO ringleaders have prevented the members of the group from meeting their relatives for the last two years in a bid to prevent their defection and escape from the camp.

Also in March 2011, another defected member of the MKO revealed that the female members of the group have been living under captivity for more than 25 years and are not even allowed to appear in public places alone.

"It can be firmly said that 95% of the women in Ashraf Camp (the terrorist group’s resort in Iraq) have not even been allowed to step in Iraq’s public and recreational places alone all throughout the last 25 years," the defected member said.

The former member of the MKO also revealed that nearly 70% of the female members of the terrorist group are single and have not been allowed to marry anyone in or outside the group.

And only a total 10% of the married members have been allowed to have children, he added.

Many of the MKO members abandoned the terrorist organization while most of those still remaining in the camp are said to be willing to quit but are under pressure and torture not to do so.

A May 2005 Human Rights Watch report accused the MKO of running prison camps in Iraq and committing human rights violations.

According to the Human Rights Watch report, the outlawed group puts defectors under torture and jail terms.

Numerous articles and letters posted on the Internet by family members of MKO recruits confirm reports of the horrific abuse that the group inflicts on its own members and the alluring recruitment methods it uses.

The most shocking of such stories includes accounts given by former British MKO member Ann Singleton and Mustafa Mohammadi – the father of an Iranian-Canadian girl who was drawn into the group during an MKO recruitment campaign in Canada.

Mohammadi recounts his desperate efforts to contact his daughter, who disappeared several years ago – a result of what the MKO called a ‘two-month tour’ of Camp Ashraf for teenagers.

He also explains how the group forces the families of its recruits to take part in pro-MKO demonstrations in Western countries by threatening to kill their loved ones.

Lacking a foothold in Iran, the terrorist group recruits ill-informed teens from Iranian immigrant communities in Western states and blocks their departure afterwards.

The MKO, whose main stronghold is in Iraq, is blacklisted by much of the international community, including the United States.

Before an overture by the EU, the MKO was on the European Union’s list of terrorist organizations subject to an EU-wide assets freeze. Yet, the MKO puppet leader, Maryam Rajavi, who has residency in France, regularly visited Brussels and despite the ban enjoyed full freedom in Europe.

The MKO is behind a slew of assassinations and bombings inside Iran, a number of EU parliamentarians said in a recent letter in which they slammed a British court decision to remove the MKO from the British terror list. The EU officials also added that the group has no public support within Iran because of their role in helping Saddam Hussein in the Iraqi imposed war on Iran (1980-1988).

May 16, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Hillary’s Terrorists

Hillary Clinton is about to delist a dangerous terror group

On May 21, 1975, Col. Paul Shaffer, a military attaché to the US mission in Iran, kissed his wife Hillary Clinton is about to delist a dangerous terror group and two children goodbye, and entered a waiting car with his colleague, Lt. Col. Jack Turner, whose wife was getting their three children ready for school. It was the last time the families of these two US servicemen would see them alive.

As the Iranian driver pulled into a side street to avoid traffic a car blocked their passage and another car rammed them from behind. Three gunmen appeared and fired at the two Americans pointblank, killing them instantly: the three escaped in a third car, leaving a leaflet on the blood-drenched seat. The leaflet denounced “US imperialism” and bore the imprint of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), or “People’s Crusaders,” a Marxist-Islamist group led by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi.

All in all, the MEK killed 6 Americans in Iran: Lt. Col. Louis Lee Hawkins, an Army comptroller, cut down by gunman in front of his Tehran home, and William Cottrell, Donald Smith, and Robert Krongard, all employees of Rockwell International. They wounded Air Force Gen. Harold L. Price, and tried and failed to kidnap the US ambassador, Douglas MacArthur II. After the Iranian Revolution, the MEK supported the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran, opposed the release of the diplomats – calling a mass demonstration in protest – and demanded their execution.

Today, the MEK is campaigning to be taken off the US State Department’s list of terrorist organizations – and they’re on the brink of success. According to the Wall Street Journal:

“Senior U.S. officials said on Monday that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has yet to make any final decision on the MeK’s status. But they said the State Department was looking favorably at delisting MeK if it continued cooperating by vacating a former paramilitary base inside Iraq, called Camp Ashraf, which the group had used to stage cross-border strikes into Iran.”

What the article fails to mention is that those “cross border strikes into Iran” took place during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, when the MEK enjoyed the patronage of Saddam Hussein: MEK cadre fought on the Iraqi side during that conflict. They also were useful to Saddam in repressing internal enemies of the regime: after the 1991 Gulf war, MEK fighters were used by Saddam to crush uprisings in the south and in Iraqi Kurdistan. Maryam Rajavi told her followers: “Take the Kurds under your tanks, and save your bullets for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.”

MEK has been described as a cult, most notably in a scary report by Human Rights Watch, a fascinating Al Jazeera video report, and in a remarkable piece by Elizabeth Rubin in the New York Times. Rubin relates the testimony of Salahaddin Mukhtadi, an Iranian historian living in exile, who says dissident MEK members “are locked up if they disagree with anything. And sometimes killed.” In the MEK cult, having particular friendships is strictly forbidden: sitting and talking together is considered a crime, especially when the subject is one’s past life before joining the cult. Wives are ordered to divorce their husbands, celibacy is mandatory, and families are broken up: nothing must come between the members and their devotion to the cause. Forced confessions and “criticism sessions” occur on a daily basis, in which participants are subjected to group abuse called “ideological cleansings.”

After the American invasion and occupation of Iraq, Massoud Rajavi ordered his followers to greet the Americans as liberators – and promptly went into hiding. He has not been seen since, but is said to retain his control over the cult, using his wife, Maryam – who has been proclaimed the self-styled “President” of Iran by the group –as a front. The US government took charge of the MEK facility, known as Camp Ashraf, and, although the Bush administration continued to characterize the group as a terrorist organization, President Bush cited Massoud’s cult as the source of “intelligence” on Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. Prominent neoconservatives began agitating for utilizing the MEK the way the Bush administration had used Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress, but efforts to openly put them on the CIA payroll stalled, along with the administration’s war plans. Somebody in the Bush administration must have figured out that funding and supporting a terrorist group that had killed Americans would not sit well while we were conducting an international “war on terrorism.”

However, it turns out the Bush administration secretly brought MEK cadre to the US for military training, including communications intercepts and other clandestine cloak-and-dagger stuff: the program supposedly ended just before the Obama administration took office. Apparently the MEK were turned over to the Mossad, who utilized them to carry out the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists in Iran.

The MEK’s campaign to get their terrorist group legitimized has been characterized by large cash payments to prominent politicians and public figures in both parties: the list of MEK endorsers reads like a political Who’s Who of Washington bigwigs. The payments are ostensibly for speaking engagements at MEK rallies, but the size of these disbursements – ranging upward from $50,000 – indicates some good old-fashioned bribery.

There is an awful lot of MEK cash sloshing around the halls of Congress, and the cultists haven’t been shy about handing it out. Whether the Clinton Foundation or some Clinton-affiliated “charity” has partaken of the MEK’s largesse is presently unknown, but, as they say at the National Enquirer, “inquiring minds want to know.”

It’s fair to ask: where is all this unaccounted for cash coming from? While the Rajavi-ites use the familiar methods employed by cults to strip their members of all their assets – see the Al Jazeera video for a heart-rending account of how a major MEK spokesman ripped off his own elderly parents – it seems likely that, during their sojourn as Saddam Hussein’s favorite assassins, the MEK received compensation from the Iraqi dictator for slaughtering the Kurds and other regime opponents so efficiently and ruthlessly. Which means people like former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell, who has shilled for the MEK, and former Democratic party chairman Howard Dean, are recipients of Saddam’s gold.

Like so much of US foreign policy, the idea that the US would legitimize a crazed cult like the MEK sounds like the plot of a bad thriller. Yet it’s all about the timing: as the US-Iran nuclear talks loom, the prospect of our State Department in effect legalizing the MEK and its activities in the US is an open provocation that could possibly shut down the sensitive negotiations – and pave the way for war with Iran. No doubt hardliners within the Obama administration are using the MEK issue as a backdoor way to torpedo the Baghdad talks: whether they will succeed remains to be seen. As one State Department official told the Wall Street Journal: “To make that assertion on your own that the MeK will be removed is a realistic one. But in policy making you never know for sure what will happen.”

I have to add that the MEK, while claiming to have “renounced” terrorism, exists in an atmosphere seething with violence, and my own experience with them has borne this out. Whenever I have written about them I have invariably received emails from MEK supporters laden with explicit threats of violence. This is to be expected from members of a psycho cult, but in the case of the MEK it’s not like they’ve never killed any Americans before. Just ask the families of Paul Shaffer, Jack Turner, Louis Lee Hawkins, William Cottrell, Donald Smith, and Robert Krongard.

Antiwar.com

May 16, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The MEK and the USA: It’s Complicated

Since 1997, the Iranian opposition group known as the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) has been designated by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization. Yet prominent U.S. officials from Howard Dean to Rudy Giuliani have come out in support of the MEK, arguing that the group has turned its back on violence and should have its terrorist designation revoked. For this vocal body of American supporters, the MEK’s commitment to secular, democratic government could help turn the tide against Islamic rule in Iran.

The issue, however, is muddied by MEK’s decidedly violent and even anti-American past. Originally an Islamic group, in the 1970s the MEK evolved into a Marxist organization dedicated to violent struggle against the U.S.-backed Shah of Iran. Responsible for at least six assassinations of American diplomats, the MEK enthusiastically supported the Iran Revolution in 1979, yet afterwards resisted the new Islamic rule and began a campaign of bombings, kidnappings, and assassinations targeting Iranian officials. The group fled to Iraq in 1986, allying with Saddam Hussein until the 2003 American invasion, after which it sought accommodation with U.S. forces.

Clearly, the MEK’s amenability to U.S. interests reflects only the group’s latest incarnation. Nonetheless, opponents of the MEK’s terrorist designation are willing to overlook prior transgressions if it means gaining a supposedly non-violent ally in the battle to undermine Iran.

There are several problems with this line of thinking, however. For one, withdrawing the MEK’s terror designation would undeniably exacerbate tensions with Iran. Though last month’s nuclear talks went relatively well, this situation could nosedive quickly with tacit American support for the MEK. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was himself a victim of an attempted assassination by the MEK in 1981. Iraq too is hostile towards the MEK, considering that for years the organization was supported by Saddam Hussein and may have participated in state repression.

It’s also not apparent that the MEK could achieve much in Iran, at least not as a legitimate political force. The MEK is widely despised by the Iranian people, including Iran’s reformist Green Movement, not least because of allegations that the MEK fought alongside Saddam in the Iran-Iraq War. It’s preposterous to think that an organization with so little public support could actually foster democratic government. American support for the MEK would only harm the encouragingly positive relations between the U.S. and the people of Iran.

Regardless of the political ramifications, the MEK may still actually qualify as a terrorist organization. The State Department states that the group still has the capability and intent to engage in terrorist acts. Indeed, there are allegations that the recent assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists betray a Mossad-MEK alliance of sorts. Though some MEK members in Iraq have relinquished their weapons to American troops, the organization still has a global network of trained operatives and bomb-makers who have not reliably demonstrated a commitment to non-violence.

Though the United States and the Mujahedeen-e Khalq may share a common enemy, this is hardly a sufficient reason for the U.S. to remove the MEK’s terrorist designation. The Iranian people have tellingly disavowed the MEK, a group that incidentally has never been brought to justice for assassinating American citizens or its role in the Iran Hostage Crisis. Thus for both political and ethical reasons, it’s clear that the MEK should remain a designated terrorist organization.

by Sean Feely – Diplomacist

May 15, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq as an Opposition Group

ISIS rejects MEK claims on Iran pursuing nuclear weapons

The Institute for Science and International Security says a new report on Iran’s nuclear activities by the dissident National Resistance Council of Iran, a branch of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, should be regarded with skepticism.

Reuters reports that in a six-page report, the PMOI says that Iran is actively trying to build a nuclear bomb, having hired 60 engineers and scientists.

“We have to be extremely skeptical of whatever [the NRCI] says,” said David Albright, the head of ISIS. “[They are] an activist group with a huge incentive to say there is a nuclear weapons program that is making great progress.”

The PMOI is a dissident Iranian group that has been actively fighting against the Islamic Republic since it was established after the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

Albright added that available evidence shows that Iran “doesn’t have a structured, coherent, active nuclear weapons program.”

Iran has continuously maintained that it has no ambition to develop nuclear weapons and insists that its nuclear activities are all peaceful.

May 15, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

MKO terrorists receive funds from Saudi Arabia, Israel

A Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization defector says the terrorist group receives funding from Saudi Maryam Sanjabi,MKO defector Arabia and Israel, emphasizing MKO’s role in the suppression and massacre of Iraqis under the former Baath regime.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with Ashraf News website in the Iraqi capital Baghdad on Saturday, Maryam Sanjabi said there is evidence about the relations and cooperation between the MKO and the Saudi kingdom.

She added that the group has used the tactic of establishing relations with Jordanian lawmakers in order to expand their activities in Jordan with the help of Riyadh.

She also called on the remaining MKO members in camp Liberty in Iraq to think rationally and take advantage of the Iraqi government and UN decisions about their re-settlement in another country.

MKO members have now a better chance of escaping in the wake of their transfer from Camp New Iraq, formerly known as Camp Ashraf, situated about 120 kilometers (74 miles) west of the border with Iran, to the Camp Liberty, the former MKO leadership council member said.

The group fled to Iraq in 1986, where it enjoyed the support of Iraq’s executed dictator Saddam Hussein, and set up its camp near the Iranian border.

The organization is known to have cooperated with Saddam in suppressing the 1991 uprisings in southern Iraq and carrying out the massacre of Iraqi Kurds. The group has also carried out numerous acts of violence against Iranian civilians and government officials.

May 14, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

MKO puts out propaganda report claiming Iranian secretly advancing NW

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) – the political arm of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK or MKO) often known as the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI), a terrorist

Terrorist group puts out propaganda report claiming Iranian secretly advancing nuclear weapons program

organization trained by the United States and the Israeli Mossad to carry out assassinations and other covert operations in Iran – has put out another propaganda report dealing with the Iranian nuclear program.

In their latest report, which a top U.S. nuclear expert already said should be treated with great skepticism according to Haaretz, claims that there are 60 scientists and engineers currently playing a role in the alleged Iranian nuclear weapons program.

Of course, in reality, the United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has confirmed that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons on multiple occasions. Similarly, the United States intelligence community does not have any evidence indicating that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons.

Even the Israeli military chief Benny Gantz shares this position, making the claims from the NCRI highly suspicious at best.

The NCRI’s track record is far from one which would inspire confidence in the accuracy of their claims.

Since the revealed that uranium enrichment was occurring at the Natanz facility in 2002, they have essentially been unable to produce anything other than propaganda intended to push the international community into attacking Iran and/or ousting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Even Haaretz has to highlight that the latest report is filled with details which “could not be verified” and it indeed “appeared timed to encourage a tougher line at talks with Iran the UN nuclear watchdog will have in Vienna on Monday and Tuesday and six world powers will hold in Baghdad on May 23.”

The six page report was shown to Reuters and it cited sources allegedly in the Iranian government and military who claim that a massive team of around 60 individuals are actively pursuing research related to nuclear weapons across 11 agencies, all operating in secret under the control of the defense ministry.

One can make any manner of wild claims while citing supposed insider sources. As long as the details can’t be verified – and thus, cannot be falsified – they can never be challenged.

Unfortunately, some people seem to apply this knowledge selectively, in some cases choosing to give credence to claims made with no evidence while categorically dismissing such claims in other cases.

“Information […] shows that the clerical regime has expanded the organization responsible for nuclear weapons development,” said the report. “This finding reveals a complete and elaborate, and highly […] secret research structure and a network for procurement of the required parts and equipment.”

“So far, the identities of 60 directors and experts working in various parts of the New Defense Research Organization and 11 institutions and companies affiliated with it have been detailed,” the report added.

Now, this mind sound compelling, but the simple fact is: not a single one of these claims can be substantiated.

If I told you my high-level government contacts inside the Pentagon told me that all canines are actually hybrid robot-aliens sent to siphon the psychic energy of humans, would you believe me?

While that obviously sounds absurd to many people, there is just as much evidence to support claims such as these as there is to support the claims made by this terrorist group.

Interestingly, the document took a tactic right out of the U.S. government playbook – creating diagrams supposedly showing the hidden command structure, scientists and engineers involved in this alleged secret program.

These sound much like the completely fraudulent diagrams and drawings created in order to trick people into buying the justification for invading Iraq.

The NCRI has called on the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to carry out a “robust probe” into the Iranian nuclear program and all involved.

While it is often claimed that Iran is blocking an IAEA investigation, this approach is ludicrous given that Israel refuses to allow any of their facilities to be inspected.

The antagonistic Israeli approach to the Iranian nuclear program is far from constructive and is blatantly hypocritical to the point of absurdity.

Hopefully the West can begin to use at least something resembling reason and logic in this situation, or else I fear we might be heading towards a confrontation the likes of which the world has never seen.

As always I hope, above all, that I am completely wrong and that these tensions quickly dissolve and the world can move forward into an era free of incredibly destructive nuclear weapons technology.

Did I forget anything or miss any errors? Would you like to make me aware of a story or subject to cover? Or perhaps you want to bring your writing to a wider audience? Feel free to contact me at admin@EndtheLie.com with your concerns, tips, questions, original writings, insults or just about anything that may strike your fancy.

By Madison Ruppert ,Editor of End the Lie

May 14, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

MKO make efforts to turn TTL to a “Refugee Camp”

The development of Iraq after the move of the fifth group of MKO members to Temporary Transit location (Camp Liberty), show that the group hasn’t succeeded to reach its aims at Camp liberty. MKO make efforts to turn TTL to a “Refugee Camp”

It is obvious that the MKO’s demands from Iraqi government are just a cover to hide its tricks to maintain the organizational bars around the group at the new camp. Every time the UN mission moves a group of MKO members, the leaders write some boring, long letters to UN General Secretary and especial deputy of US State department on Camp Ashraf appealing against Iraqi government in order that they cause disorder in the transmission process of other Ashraf residents and that they would be able to achieve their goals at TTL.

But, despite all MKO efforts to impede the move to TTL, Iraqi government is determined not to fulfill MKO’s unrealistic demands which do not apply internationally recognized standards for a temporary transit camp and also the MKO’s intentions are no more covered for UN authorities and the State Department’s representative.

Day after day, the MKO’s deceitful tactics discredit them more and more in the international community.

Regarding that the MKO’s main topic in its propaganda about Camp Liberty is that” the camp does not meet standards” ,one should notice the comments by Special representative of the UN, Mr. Martin Kobler and special representative of the State Department Mr. Daniel Fried.

On Wednesday, March21, 2012, Mr. Kobler reported to the meeting of the Foreign Affairs committee on the work of UNAMI (United Nation’s Assistance Mission for Iraq) and UNHCR in Iraq and the situation of the MKO at Camp Ashraf and TTL. In response to Mr. Kobler’s report, the meeting director said:”regarding the descriptions you reported about Liberty, it is much better than refugee camps in Europe…”

Daniel Fried also confirmed Kobler’s report, saying that the information the united States has of the situation in Camp Ashraf and Liberty is consistent with Kobler’s description.” the conditions at Camp Liberty are not nearly as bad as described by the MEK,” Fried said,” the key to success is not discussions about the conditions at Camp Liberty but the progress of the work of UNHCR.”

Besides, on April29, Mr. Fried kept the same position to reply exhausting letters sent by the MKO before the resettlement of the fifth group in TTL. “All those who wish the residents of Ashraf a peaceful future outside of Iraq can help by encouraging the MEK to make the decision it needs to make,” Fried said. “The responsibility for the next decision rests with the MEK … a peaceful solution is at hand, but they’ve got to take it.”

It seems that the current situation doesn’t give a clear view of what the MKO leaders wanted to gain at TTL. They know well that sooner or later they have to admit the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Iraqi government and UN on December25, 2011.

Thus, what is now the main objective the MKO pursues at this stage is to make Camp Liberty recognized as a refugee camp by the UN.

In accordance with such an objective, on April 29,the MKO TV Channel ,Simaye Azadi broadcast a TV show titled “the document of added agendas – articles of the MOU agreed by Iraqi government and Mr. Martin Kobler” in which they brought up the ten days of letter writing between the MKO, the UN and the US representatives on Camp Ashraf. The ending paragraph of the letters was: ”…on the other hand lawyers and legal experts of Ashraf … asked the UN secretary and UNHCR to end the uncertain legal conditions of Liberty under the name of Temporary Transit Location .. .and to announce Liberty as a refugee camp under the identified laws for political refugees, according to the international laws and conventions and refugees rights.”

Besides, the MKO ends its statement issued on May1st against the ICRC like this: "…now the main question asked by Iranian society and families who have been picketing near central office of ICRC in Geneva for over a year; is that why ICRC keeps silent on the status and rights of their loved ones and why it doesn’t say a word to define juridical conditions of the Camp called “Temporary Transit Location?"

And ultimately the MKO TV channel declared in its news show on May 2nd: ”Attorneys of Ashraf and Liberty including professor Guy Goodwin –Gill, expert on refugee rights and international law, at the university of Oxford and the university of Guinness wrote a letter addressing Antonion Guterres, UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Goodwin Gil called UNHCR to take two immediate actions: first: To guarantee international protection for refugees at Camp Liberty and second: to facilitate the process of reviewing their refugee status and their resettlement in third countries."

International protection can only be fulfilled by official announcement of camp Liberty as a refugee camp by UNHCR.

It should be noticed that according to the articles of the MOU signed by Iraqi government and UNAMI on the last Christmas day, Liberty was considered as a Temporary Transit location for temporary relocation but Rajavi aims to turn the TTL into an official refugee camp under the flag of the UN.

To prolong its organizational life, the MKO needs an isolated place maintaining its organizational bars until the day they can arrive third countries. That‘s why TTL with its current condition doesn’t solve the MKO leader’s problems unless the flag of the UN is raised there.

The MKO leaders’ call for “minimum assurances” –recently changed into “minimum humanitarian standards” – and the ownership of movable and immovable properties, in a new way, seeks to complicate the issue of the group’s expulsion from Iraq more and more.

By delaying the process of expulsion and by driving Iraqi government and the UN to extremities, the MKO leaders might achieve their ultimate goal which is to turn TTL into a permanent refugee camp under the UN flag. Thus, they might be able to build a new Ashraf in Camp Liberty.

In the MOU signed by UNAMI and Iraqi government, Camp Liberty is determined as a temporary transit site. This exactly means that TTL is not an asylum seeking camp and UNHCR doesn’t recognize it as a camp. The plan also states that Iraqi government is responsible for protection of this Transit Location under the supervision of UNHCR.

Therefore, the MKO’s demand doesn’t meet the agreement of December 25th, 2011 and Iraqi government will never yield to such a condition.

The MKO leaders know that the resettlement of TTL residents in third countries cannot be done immediately and requires a long-term process. So the only way to keep members behind the bars of the cult and to conceal cult-like practices of the organization is to go under the UN flag neutralizing the rule of Iraqi government in maintaining its sovereignty over TTL. For the time being this is the most favorable option for the MKO.

Regarding the conditions one can realize the reason for too much time killing and letter writing by the group. It is preparing the ground for further construction work in TTL.
The MKO shouldn’t be allowed to marginalize Iraqi government by lobbying and using tricks to neutralize the MOU of December 25th.
Conclusion:

1. It is clear that concerning current condition of TTL, defection of members is something natural. The MKO leaders make efforts to stop defections. So, today they try to have more severed control over the camp. It is worth mentioning that the abusive language the group leaders use against authorities of ICRC – according to the NCRI statement on May1st, 2012 – is the evidence of their difficult situation in TTL.
The culture of using verbally abusive words and personality destruction against opponents is not limited to the MKO former members and the Iranian government. This culture not only involves Mr. Kobler as UN representative but it also entangles the authorities of ICRC. Addressing them as the agents of Islamic Republic, the MKO leaders prevent ICRC from doing their legal duties. This culture is only shared by the cult of Rajavi. It is originated in the ideology of the cult.

2. As it is seen in the MKO demands, with announcing TTL as a refugee camp, the place would no more be under the control of Iraqi government. The fulfillment of such a demand is the MKO’s desire because it would be a serious step to maintain the organizational bars around the cult under the flags of the UN

By Seyed Hojat Seyed Esmaeeli, the MKO former member ,
Translated by Nejat Society

May 13, 2012 0 comments

Former members of the MEK

3 other MKO members flee from camp Liberty

Three other members of the terrorist Mojahedin Khalq Organization fled from Camp Liberty [Temporary Transit Location], a former U.S. military base near the Baghdad International Airport, the Persian service of the Fars News Agency reported on Wednesday.

It had been decided that 3200 MKO members living in Camp New Iraq be relocated to Camp Liberty [TTL] in eight groups, each consisting of 400 members.

The Iraqi government has recently evacuated the fifth batch of 416 members of the group from Camp New Iraq.

May 10, 2012 0 comments

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