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Material Support for the MEK Terrorists

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

NY Times: MKO bribed US politicians to get off terror list

The anti-Iranian Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) paid immense bribes to top American politicians to gain their support for delisting the group from the US terror watch list, a New York Times report says.

According to the NY Times report, former CIA and FBI officials as well as retired generals and well-known members of both political parties in the US were among those supporting the terror group.

The revelation comes as US State Secretary Hillary Clinton on September 21 sent the Congress a classified communication about delisting the MKO from the US terror watch list.

This comes as the group has been responsible for the deaths of thousands of Iranian civilians and officials.

The terror group has also been involved in the suppression of Iraqi Kurds and assisted former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Furthermore, the group had for the last 15 years been formally described by the US State Department as a "foreign terrorist organization.”

The Bush administration had claimed that one of its reasons for attacking Iraq in 2003 was Saddam Hussein’s support of "international terrorism," for which he mentioned Iraq’s "sheltering" of the MKO as a major example.

Nonetheless, conservative politicians in the US seek to portray the MKO terror group as a Democratic option for Iran’s future, the report noted.

Two officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in advance of an official announcement, said that Clinton’s decision to drop the group’s terror label was partly based on the group’s recent cooperation in moving more than 3,000 of its members from its longtime Iraq location, Camp Ashraf.

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

On Sunday a final convoy of 680 MKO members from Camp Ashraf arrived at the former site of Camp Liberty, located near the Baghdad airport.

The NY Times article reaffirms that the support of prominent American politicians for the MKO organization will undoubtedly play a role in the de-listing of the MKO organization as a terrorist group.

The long list of high-ranking US politicians supporting the MKO includes: former CIA Directors, R. James Woolsey and Porter J. Goss; former FBI director Louis J. Freeh; former US President George W. Bush’s homeland security secretary, Tom Ridge; Attorney General, Michael B. Mukasey; and President Barack Obama’s first national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones.

Many of MKO’s American supporters, yet not all, are said to have received fees of up to 15,000 to 30,000 USD to give speeches to the group, in addition to travel expenses to attend MKO rallies in Paris.

The former Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, Edward G. Rendell, admitted in March that he had received a total of 150,000 to 160,000 USD.

According to an American official, for the time being, about 100 of the group’s members are expected to stay at Camp Ashraf, with permission of the Iraqi government to oversee the group’s property there.

In the meantime, MKO members at the Camp Liberty site are being interviewed by United Nations officials who have granted refugee status to several hundred of them and are now looking for countries that are ready to accept them.

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Our (New) Terrorists the MEK: Have We Seen This Movie Before?

Yes, and what kind of mind-boggling corruption — of the worst kind — influence peddling by a “foreign power” (as defined by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to include foreign Our (New) Terrorists the MEK: Have We Seen This Movie Before?terrorist groups) — lies hidden behind the curtain? Could some members of the MEK “foreign terrorist organization,” their murderous history magically erased, be sent to a nice suburb somewhere to live as your next door neighbor as happens with the organized crime “witness protection program?” Or will the soon-to-be-legalized “terrorism” of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (or Mojahedin-e Khalq, usually referred to as MEK) find more utilitarian function in the mode of how U.S. neoconservative officials plotted with and used convicted con artist Ahmad Chalabi and his Iraqi expatriate group to gin up the false “intelligence” that served to launch the unjustified and counter-productive war on Iraq? Even worse, might this new MEK operation end up resembling the sequel to Charlie Wilson’s War?

Since we cannot seem to learn from history and therefore seem doomed to repeat our mistakes, all of the above could be true. In any event, the old movie script will require few changes.

From MAK to MEK

The popular 2007 movie Charlie Wilson’s War found a way to glorify a rather derelict Texas congressman’s exploits and secret appropriations to fund CIA covert assistance to Mujahideen “rebels” (one faction recruited and trained by Osama Bin Laden himself) based on the repeatedly discredited notion that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” As John Hanrahan points out, Hollywood and Tom Hanks also found a way to edit out the real truth: “that the U.S.-aided Mujahedeen’s ouster of the Soviets in 1989 ultimately led to civil war and the ultra-orthodox Islamic Taliban coming to power in 1996, an event that also enabled anti-Soviet fighter Osama bin Laden and his fledgling al Qaeda to set up a base from which to plan the 9/11 attacks.”

…Osama bin Laden arrived in the country…sent by then-Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faisal, where he set up the Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK) which helped finance, recruit and train mujahidin fighters. Bin Laden, the MAK, and the Afghan mujahidin in total received about half a billion dollars a year from the CIA, and roughly the same from the Saudis, funneled through Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI)

…Continued US sponsorship of the al-Qaeda-Taliban nexus in Afghanistan was confirmed as late as 2000 in Congressional hearings. Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on South Asia, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher — former White House Special Assistant to President Reagan and now Senior Member of the House International Relations Committee — declared that ‘this administration has a covert policy that has empowered the Taliban and enabled this brutal movement to hold on to power’. The assumption is that ‘the Taliban would bring stability to Afghanistan and permit the building of oil pipelines from Central Asia through Afghanistan to Pakistan’ — From “Our Terrorists” by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed in New Internationalist Magazine.

In other words, Charlie Wilson’s War seriously backfired and was a significant factor that gave rise to the 9-11 attacks. (Incidentally — and a big reason why there’s so little hope of anyone having learned from this sordid history — is that Dana Rohrabacher happens to be one of the main Congressmen who has now taken big sums of money from the MEK front groups!)

An October 2010 report (“Restoring Afghanistan’s Tribal Balance”) for the New World Strategies Coalition described U.S. covert support of the Mujahideen as follows:

During the ‘jihad’ against the Soviets, the Judeo-Christian West teamed up with violent Islamic radicals of the worst sort, against the Soviets, because they shared a common hatred for the godless communists. The same people American leaders once called ‘freedom fighters’ throughout the 80′s are now [in the current war] violent extremist jihadist terrorists who commit immoral acts and heinous human rights violations that all Americans should find deplorable. Of course, before 9/11 when these ‘terrorists’ were fighting against the Soviets, they were ‘our terrorists’ and such human rights violations and war crimes hardly ever made the press. Today, people aren’t really supposed to remember nor point out this interesting historical irony, especially within the media.

By fast forwarding 30 years and changing one vowel, (MAK to MEK) we see history repeating almost exactly. There’s ample evidence that Iranian MEK terrorists, “our new terrorists,” are responsible for conducting assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. U.S. officials confirmed the charges leveled by Iran’s leaders as well as the fact that the killings and bombings in Iran were financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service. In an exclusive report, NBC reported that:

The group, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, has long been designated as a terrorist group by the United States, accused of killing American servicemen and contractors in the 1970s and supporting the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran before breaking with the Iranian mullahs in 1980. The attacks, which have killed five Iranian nuclear scientists since 2007 and may have destroyed a missile research and development site, have been carried out in dramatic fashion, with motorcycle-borne assailants often attaching small magnetic bombs to the exterior of the victims’ cars. — From NBC Rock Center exclusive report February, 2012.

In April of this year, Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker article “Our Men in Iran” that members of MEK were also being trained in Nevada by U.S. Joint Special Operation Command for covert actions to topple the Iranian government.

The following comments are from former U.S. security experts Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett’s excellent analysis of the highly politicized flip-flop, “By Delisting the MEK, the Obama Administration is taking the Moral and Strategic Bankruptcy of America’s Iran Policy to a New Low“:

We have seen too many times over the years just how cynically American administrations have manipulated these designations, adding and removing organizations and countries for reasons that have little or nothing to do with designees’ actual involvement in terrorist activity… Yet, precisely because we know how thoroughly corrupt and politicized these designations really are, we recognize their significance as statements of U.S. policy.

Today, the Obama administration made a truly horrible statement about U.S. policy toward Iran… Just this year, U.S. intelligence officials told high-profile media outlets that the MEK is actively collaborating with Israeli intelligence to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists, see here; Iranian officials have made the same charge. Since when did murdering unarmed civilians (and, in some instances, members of their families as well) on public streets in the middle of a heavily populated urban area (Tehran) not meet even the U.S. government’s own professed standard for terrorism?

…Here, the Obama administration is taking an organization that the U.S. government knows is directly involved in the murder of innocent people and giving this group Washington’s “good housekeeping seal of approval.”… Count on this: once the MEK is formally off the FTO list — a legally defined process that will take a few months to play out — Congress will be appropriating money to support the monafeqin as the vanguard of a new American strategy for regime change in Iran.

In the 1990s, similar enthusiasm for Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress — who were about as unpopular among Iraqis as the MEK is among Iranians — led to President Bill Clinton’s signing of the Iraq Liberation Act, which paved the way for George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003. The chances for such a scenario to play out with regard to Iran over the next few years — with even more disastrous consequences for America’s strategic and moral standing — got a lot higher today.

Flynt Leverett served as a Middle East expert on George W. Bush’s National Security Council staff until the Iraq War and worked previously at the State Department and at the Central Intelligence Agency. Hillary Mann Leverett was the NSC expert on Iran and — from 2001 to 2003 — was one of only a few U.S. diplomats authorized to negotiate with the Iranians over Afghanistan, al-Qaeda and Iraq.

Governmental Influence Peddling Barely Hidden

A steady flow totaling in the millions of dollars during these last years has been revealed, funneled through various front groups to latter-day Charlie Wilson U.S. congresspersons, Washington lobbying firms and former high level Department of Justice, Homeland Security, military and U.S. counter-terrorism officials. Check out the excellent reports — here and here — of Chris McGreal, a Guardian investigative journalist based in Washington who really did some good research attempting to trace the sordid money trail, writing:

US policy change on banned Iranian group came after extraordinary fundraising operation to transform its image. Only a few years ago, US authorities were arresting pro-MEK activists. To the US government, the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (MEK) was a terrorist group alongside al-Qaida, Hamas and the Farc in Colombia. The MEK landed on the list in 1997 with American blood on its hands and by allying itself with Saddam Hussein along with a long list of bombings inside Iran.

But the organization is regarded very differently by a large number of members of Congress, former White House officials and army generals, and even one of the US’s most renowned reporters, Carl Bernstein. They see the MEK as a victim of US double dealings with the regime in Tehran and a legitimate alternative to the Iran’s Islamic government.

That difference is in no small part the result of a formidable fundraising operation and campaign to transform the MEK’s image led by more than 20 Iranian American organisations across the US. These groups and their leaders have spent millions of dollars on donations to members of Congress, paying Washington lobby groups and hiring influential politicians and officials, including two former CIA directors, as speakers.

In a highly sensitive political game, MEK supporters have succeeded in pressing the state department into removing the group from the list of terrorist organisations after winning a court order requiring a decision to be made on the issue before the end of this month. But its supporters were forced to tread a careful path so as not to cross anti-terrorism laws.

Only a few years ago, the US authorities were arresting pro-MEK activists and freezing the assets of front groups for “material support for a terrorist organisation”. Now members of Congress openly praise the group in apparent contradiction of the anti-terrorism legislation many of them supported. Nearly 100 members of the House of Representatives backed a resolution calling on the US government to drop the MEK from the terrorist list.

Most of the damning details, however, of what would probably be otherwise considered “material support for terrorism” will probably lie buried and stamped “Top Secret” in Treasury Department files forced closed when the presumptive targets of the investigation turned out to include over three dozen top U.S. officials and even many of the federal investigators’ former bosses and cronies: former Attorney General Michael Mukasey; former Assistant Attorney General and Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff; two former CIA Directors; former DOJ Attorney and Homeland Security Advisor to the President Frances Townsend; former U.S. Attorney and NYC Mayor Rudy Guiliani; former FBI Director Louis Freeh; former Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, etc. Clearly such powerful “political considerations” can trump the law and easily subvert even the U.S. terrorism laws constantly promoted since 9-11 as all-important but now turned on their head. So unless a brave whistleblower or two steps forward, we probably won’t know much more about the presumably forced closure of these criminal terrorism investigations for another 20 years or so until a federal judge finally rules in agreement with a FOIA request. Or unless new movie producers can force some leaks out to jazz up the old script.

“Terrorism” Propaganda: How to Play it Up or Play it Down

The last 11 years have seen almost uninterrupted, cynical exaggerating and distorting of the threat of Mid-east “terrorism” by our mainstream media (to scare us into doing dumb things like launching war on countries like Iraq that had no connection to 9-11) so it was strangely out of the norm for the Washington Post article to frame the de-listing of the MEK Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) as humanitarian intervention. Interestingly, the Post reporter also chose the term “label” to minimize the importance of the U.S. government’s designation-undesignation of a “FTO” in the case of the MEK.

So it’s just a “label” when Michael Mukasey and three dozen other high level political figures flaunted the law in support of a “foreign terrorist organization.” But would the Post say mere FTO “labels” justify launching thousands of US government investigations and prosecutions of ordinary, non-powerful, non politically-connected people for “material support”? There are 23 anti-war activists in the Mid-west who are still under Department of Justice investigation two years after their homes were raided by the FBI; and there are thousands of people serving long prison terms or, even worse, on “kill lists” to be summarily executed due, the Government would allege, to even a fleeting or tenuous connection to someone or some group on the US FTO list. Furthermore, no transparency, no judicial process has seemingly existed — until MEK’s big money lobbying campaign came along — to dispute the accuracy of such FTO “labels.”

An article at the Bill of Rights Defense Committee’s “Peoples Blog for the Constitution” entitled “Terrorist designation a problem? Befriend a politician” points out this terrible double standard:

The severe ramifications of this law have resulted in solitary confinement and a fifteen year sentence for US citizen Fahad Hashmi, who allowed a suitcase of raincoats at his apartment, and a 17 year sentence for Tarek Mehanna, who translated a text by a Saudi religious scholar. The removal of the MEK from the FTO list demonstrates not only the double-standard for enforcement of material support laws, but also the over-broad and heavy-handed criminalization of constitutionally protected activity.

When the overbroad law resulted in investigations of prominent politicians and former officials, the law was not modified to address First Amendment concerns, but instead maintained, while a specific organization was removed from the terrorist list to accommodate those politicians’ activities. The material support law should be changed so that it doesn’t criminalize association, expression, or other activity protected by the First Amendment, or efforts aimed to advance humanitarian goals.

Finally, consider how unbelievable and in-congruent for the MEK to have such a powerful lobby that it can reach its tentacles into U.S. political “leadership” like this, spending millions of dollars in exchange for political endorsements and yet be portrayed at the very same time, as the Post and other media does, as a poor group of refugees trapped in Iraq enemy territory in need of humanitarian intervention. Where would this refugee group which (for 15 years) has been designated a “foreign terrorist organization” get the millions it paid to U.S. officials and politicians for their assistance and influence-peddling? News articles do allude to the fact that the payments and the political pressure were in violation of U.S. law, but these articles fail to go into how and why federal investigators were apparently forced to drop their investigation of officials who received huge payments from the MEK.

The big money model for lobbyist success has paved the way for the coalition of MEK front groups to corrupt U.S. Government by funneling millions of dollars from who-knows-where to elected and appointed political figures to turn dark into light. Certainly there will now be other foreign-based front groups following this example in ever more flagrant disregard of what Justice Brandeis long ago warned us, about how government wrongdoing and contempt for (and subversion of) the law functions.

Contrast the portrayal of the need for “humanitarian intervention” on behalf of what was portrayed as defenseless women and children refugees in the MEK Camp in Iraq with the millions of dollars that have gone into PR propaganda firms, corrupt U.S. congresspersons and former high level DOJ, Homeland Security and counter-terrorism officials to essentially re-write the history of a violent terrorist group that worked for Saddam Hussein — who some of these same officials were, only a decade before, falsely implying was responsible for 9-11. Why did these millions of dollars not go to helping the MEK women and children move from Iraq if they are in such danger instead of going into corrupt U.S. political figures’ pockets?

If only the American people would wake up to this corruption, they might find themselves, at the very least, extremely confused that some of the same U.S. political figures who were so hell-bent to take out Saddam Hussein are now sponsoring one of Saddam’s main “terrorist” underlings. Don’t they remember Charlie Wilson’s War? Or what Friedrich Nietzsche said: “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”

by Coleen Rowley

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Terrorists No More: MEK

An Iranian group’s lobbying campaign to get removed from the U.S. list of terror organizations looks to be a success. But what does that say about the state of politics in Washington?

It’s no secret how a group gets designated as terrorists in the eyes of the U.S. government. Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act enumerates the authorities of the secretary of state in listing a group as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO). The act references the existing statutory definitions of terrorism, provides avenues for appeal of the classification, and otherwise lays out various processes for review.

Nowhere, however, does the act lay out the options for buying your way out of a designation. Luckily, the Iranian expat group Mojahedin e-Khalq (MEK) soon to be "delisted" as an FTO, according to multiple reports, has provided us with a roadmap. But first, a little background.

The MEK, an anti-shah, Islamist, Marxist Iranian opposition group that fell afoul of the Islamic Revolution early on, was designated — put on the terrorist list — in 1997. It earned the designation fair and square, having been involved in numerous attacks, including the hostage-taking and Terrorists No More: MEKmurder of Americans, according to a State Department report. Indeed, it was at times more hardline than the Ayatollahs: The group reportedly condemned the new Iranian government’s decision to release the American hostages in 1980 as "surrender."

More recently, the MEK has restricted its attacks to Iranian nationals. Those curious can check out this lengthy FBI report for all the gory details. Suffice it to say that these erstwhile Marxists have proven themselves remarkably adaptable: The leadership moved with ease from the shah’s Iran, onward to France and, once ousted from Paris, to a congenial perch in Baghdad, where the MEK was reportedly involved in Saddam’s extermination campaign against the Kurds and repression of Iraq’s Shia.

But the world is now a different place — Saddam is gone and the MEK claims it has reformed. Certainly, the embassy takeovers and the anti-American, anti-Israel rhetoric are gone. Now it appears that the MEK is merely a cult-like organization — intensely devoted to its leaders Massoud and Maryam Rajavi and virulently opposed to the Islamic Republic. Reports from former members suggest that followers require permission from the Rajavis to marry, that parents are separated from children, that communication with outsiders is banned, and that more senior followers are required to divorce to commit themselves more fully to the fight.

The State Department has long resisted efforts to remove the MEK from the terrorist list. As of 2004, the FBI had evidence that the group was still planning attacks against Iranian targets around the world. In addition — and this is no small caveat — successive secretaries of state in both Republican and Democratic administrations have recognized that delisting the MEK could throw a monkey wrench into efforts toward rapprochement with Iran. …

Setting aside the fact that the MEK worked hand in glove with other masterminds of the Islamic Revolution, Iranians are rightly wary of the fact that the MEK sided with the hated Saddam in his war against Iran. Indeed, the MEK has never appeared as the voice of democratic hope for the Iranian people, but merely a dictatorship in waiting. Washington, however, has been more suggestible.

The recent history of the MEK — also known in other guises such as the National Council of Resistance, the National Liberation Army, and the People’s Mojahedin of Iran — has featured various front groups that have lobbied aggressively for the removal of the MEK’s terrorist designation. These lavishly resourced groups have pursued a sophisticated and multi-dimensional campaign that reached from the state-by-state field offices to the toniest K St. lobbying shops. And their efforts have gained substantial momentum in recent years, leaning on former senior government officials and journalists to make their case.

On Capitol Hill, the MEK emphasizes its credentials as an opponent of the Iranian regime, allowing wannabe masters of the "great game" to imagine that this enemy of our enemy is our friend. Among Republicans and Democrats alike, there is seemingly little curiosity as to the MEK’s nature or its plans for Iran should it ever should come to power.

A who’s who of former government officials have led the way in advocating for the MEK in Washington’s corridors of power. There’s former New York City mayor and presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, former Vermont governor and Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean, President Barack Obama’s former National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones, and the former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Democrat Lee Hamilton. There’s also Mitt Romney advisor Mitchell Reiss and former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. Who says bipartisanship is dead in Washington?

Is every one of these men and women a principled supporter of the MEK, dedicated to the liberation of Iran? Seems doubtful. As their own records in government will attest, most did nothing for the MEK when in a position to do so. The more likely explanation is that at least some of these folks have been persuaded with money, most of it coming in the form of speaking fees. And there is lots of it. Where does it come from? The FBI won’t tell those on Capitol Hill who have asked; the MEK insists the money is from its donors.

The ethics of accepting money for a speaking gig from a designated terrorist group is dubious — but if it’s happening through non-designated fronts, it’s likely to be legally kosher. On the other hand, the Washington Postreportedin July that some of these speakers are also taking part in regular briefings and negotiations regarding the fate of Camp Ashraf, the MEK camp inside Iraq that the government in Baghdad is disbanding.

According to State Department sources, participants in those calls were advocates on behalf of the MEK, and were being used to relay messages to and from the group. If so, these individuals were acting as unregistered foreign agents for the MEK. The law is specific on this question: Acting on behalf of a foreign organization without properly registering with the U.S. government is a crime. The Justice Department is reportedly investigating former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell for his MEK ties, but few are sanguine the probe will go anywhere.

So what’s the lesson here? Pretty simple. Announce you’ve renounced terrorism. Buy a bunch of supporters. Lobby to get off the terrorism list. ET voila.

The tale of the MEK reflects poorly on all involved, from the State Department to Capitol Hill to undeclared lobbyists. Unfortunately, the designation of foreign terrorist organizations has become a highly politicized exercise in which some groups are designated for the right reasons (terrorism) and others are not labeled, despite clearly meeting the statute’s requirements. For example, the Haqqani network in Pakistan was only designated in September despite its long association with other terrorist groups and its own terrorist activities. At the very least, however, we will soon find out whether, freed of the opprobrium of its terrorist designation, the MEK will make any difference in our long-running battle with Iran. Somehow, I doubt it.

By Danielle Pletka, Foreign Policy

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The Hypocrisy and Looming Danger of De-Listing MEK

The Obama administration’s decision to remove the Iranian cult Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) from the State Department’s list of officially designated terrorist groups was a long time coming. But The Hypocrisy and Looming Danger of De-Listing MEKno single act by the administration so crystalizes the hypocrisy and recklessness of US postures towards Iran.

The MEK has a long history of terrorist activity going back to the 1970s and has the goal of overthrowing the Iranian government. Because of this goal, there has been a big money push by many influential people in Washington to get the group de-listed, presumably to make it eligible for US funding to act against the Iranian regime.

Please ignore the fact that these political elites that received payments from the MEK in order to advocate on their behalf appear to be in violation of laws prohibiting material support for “terrorists.” Also ignore the fact that George W. Bush included Saddam Hussein’s support for terrorists like MEK in his propaganda justifying the invasion of Iraq in 2003. “Iraq shelters terrorist groups including the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization,” reads a document in the archives of the White House’s website, “which has used terrorist violence against Iran and in the 1970s was responsible for killing several US military personnel and US civilians.” As recently as 2007, a State Department report warned that the MEK, retains “the capacity and will” to attack “Europe, the Middle East, the United States, Canada, and beyond.”

As Glenn Greenwald pointed out yesterday, whether the MEK is still an officially designated “terrorist” group has exactly zero to do with whether or not they carry out terrorism:

The history of the US list of designated terrorist organizations, and its close cousin list of state sponsors of terrorism, is simple: a country or group goes on the list when they use violence to impede US interests, and they are then taken off the list when they start to use exactly the same violence to advance US interests. The terrorist list is not a list of terrorists; it’s a list of states and groups which use their power to defy US dictates rather than adhere to them.

This was also exemplified earlier this month when the Obama administration decided to officially designate the Haqqani network a terrorist organization. The Haqqanis are a branch of the Taliban that launches attacks on occupying forces in Afghanistan. The Reagan administration funneled money and weapons to Islamic fighters in Afghanistan against the Soviets in 1980s. Back then, the Haqqani network were freedom fighters. Now the US says they’re officially terrorists.

And as Greenwald explains, “Saddam was put on it when he allied with the Soviets in the early 1980s, then was taken off when the US wanted to arm and fund him against Iran in the mid-1980s, then he was put back on in the early 1990s when the US wanted to attack him.”

Aside from the clear-as-day hypocrisy of this list, the decision to de-list MEK will have deleterious effects for US policy towards Iran. The Obama administration has stubbornly refused to reciprocate to Iranian concessions in the international negotiations over their nuclear program and has imposed harsh economic sanctions. The two things the administration had going for it was the fact that it was pretty clear to the world that they were blocking an immediate Israeli strike and also that negotiations are continuing, probably in an attempt to deal with it more freely after the US presidential elections. But now that the US has de-listed MEK and opened up the potential for more direct support of the group, which argues for the overthrow of the Iranian regime, how can the administration claim its policy is one of engagement and negotiations as opposed to subversion and aggression?

As Paul Pillar wrote yesterday:

The regime in Tehran will tacitly welcome this move (while publicly denouncing it) because it helps to discredit the political opposition in Iran—a fact not lost on members of the Green Movement, who want nothing to do with the MEK. The MEK certainly is not a credible vehicle for regime change in Iran because it has almost no public support there. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime will read the move as another indication that the United States intends only to use subversion and violence against it rather than reaching any deals with it.

So why de-list the MEK? The only credible answer is that the US aims to undermine the Iranian regime. And even though MEK has virtually zero support in Iran, and despite the embarrassing history the US has of aiding dissident groups in rival countries, Washington seems to view the MEK as instrumental in undermining Tehran. Furthermore, according to US officials, Israel has supported and is supporting the MEK to carry out terrorism in Iran and targeting Iranian nuclear scientists for assassination. Pillar says it might have been nice to mention this when the State Department was de-listing MEK, “But that, of course, would have required the politically inconvenient act of publicly addressing Israeli terrorism.” Better to just de-list MEK than to have Israel supporting an officially designated terrorist group.

MEK’s de-listing very well might come along with increased Israeli support for them…and increased US support.

By John Glaser

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Iranian exiles, DC lobbyists and the campaign to delist the MEK

US policy change on banned Iranian group came after extraordinary fundraising operation to transform its Images

To the US government, the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (MEK) was a terrorist group US policy change on banned Iranian group came after extraordinary fundraising operation to transform its Imagesalongside al-Qaida, Hamas and the Farc in Colombia. The MEK landed on the list in 1997 with American blood on its hands and by allying itself with Saddam Hussein along with a long list of bombings inside Iran.

But the organisation is regarded very differently by a large number of members of Congress, former White House officials and army generals, and even one of the US’s most renowned reporters, Carl Bernstein. They see the MEK as a victim of US double dealings with the regime in Tehran and a legitimate alternative to the Iran’s Islamic government.

That difference is in no small part the result of a formidable fundraising operation and campaign to transform the MEK’s image led by more than 20 Iranian American organisations across the US. These groups and their leaders have spent millions of dollars on donations to members of Congress, paying Washington lobby groups and hiring influential politicians and officials, including two former CIA directors, as speakers.

In a highly sensitive political game, MEK supporters have succeeded in pressing the state department into removing the group from the list of terrorist organisations after winning a court order requiring a decision to be made on the issue before the end of this month. But its supporters were forced to tread a careful path so as not to cross anti-terrorism laws.

Only a few years ago, the US authorities were arresting pro-MEK activists and freezing the assets of front groups for "material support for a terrorist organisation". Now members of Congress openly praise the group in apparent contradiction of the anti-terrorism legislation many of them supported. Nearly 100 members of the House of Representatives backed a resolution calling on the US government to drop the MEK from the terrorist list.

At the forefront of the campaign are several Iranian American organisations across the US. They are:

• The Iranian American Society of Texas. It paid more than $110,000 in fees last year to a Washington lobby firm, DiGenova & Toensing, to campaign for the lifting of the ban on the MEK and the protection of its supporters still in camps in Iraq.

The Texas group’s president, Ali Soudjani, has personally donated close to $100,000 to members of Congress and their political campaigns over the past five years because, he told the Guardian, of their positions on the MEK and Iran. Among the beneficiaries were Ted Poe, a member of the House foreign affairs committee, and Sheila Jackson Lee, who have been vocal supporters of delisting the MEK. The pair appeared at a House event at Congress earlier this year also attended by Soudjani at which Poe gave support to the MEK in calling for "freedom-loving Americans [to] support a regime change in Iran". Jackson Lee described the group as the "voices of freedom". Soudjani also gave to John Boehner, speaker of the House of Representatives as well as the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Obama Victory Fund.

• Colorado’s Iranian American Community. One of its leaders, Saeid Ghaemi, paid close to $900,000 of his own money to a Washington lobby firm, DLA Piper, for its work to get the MEK unbanned, the protection of its members in Iraq and human rights issues. Ghaemi’s brother, Mehdi, who is president of the Colorado group, paid $14,000 to fly a member of Congress, Bob Filner, to meet MEK leaders in Paris and attend the group’s rallies. In the weeks before Filner spoke at an event in support of delisting the MEK last year he was the recipient of several thousand dollars in donations from Iranian Americans living outside his district.

• The Iranian American Community of Northern California. It paid $400,000 over the past year to a Washington lobby group, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, to work on Capitol Hill to work for the removal of the MEK from the list of foreign terrorist organisations. The company assigned several former members of Congress to the account. The IACNC has also organised events in support of unbanning the MEK with appearances by Ros-Lehtinen and other prominent members of Congress as well as former White House officials.

Its director, Ahmad Moeinimanesh, has made personal financial donations to Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the chair of the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee even though her congressional district is on the other side of the country in Florida, as well as to her reelection committee. She has accepted more than $20,000 in political contributions from activists who support the MEK’s delisting.

The IACNC’s registered address is at a photocopying shop in Albany, California, owned by Behnam Mirabdal who has made financial donations to Ros-Lehtinen and Dana Rohrabacher, a subcommittee chairman who is among the most vigorous proponents of unbanning the MEK.

• The Iranian Society of South Florida (ISSF). The group came to the notice of US authorities eight years ago as one of the sponsors of a fundraiser in Washington ostensibly to help victims of the Bam earthquake which killed 30,000 people. The FBI concluded it was a front for raising funds for the MEK.

The ISSF’s president and vice-president, Bahman Badiee and Akbar Nikooie, have for years made regular donations to Ros-Lehtinen. The Florida congresswoman boasts on her website of receiving an award from the ISSF.

Nikooie also spent at least $130,000 in 2009 to pay a lobby firm, DLA Piper, to promote "human rights" in Iran, including pressing for the unbanning of the MEK in the US. Badiee contributed $3,200 to Ros-Lehtinen. He gave $2,000 to congressman Mario Diaz-Balart in March the day after he made a speech in Congress in support of the MEK.

The principal lobbyist on the account was the former leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, Dick Armey, who a decade ago wielded considerable power and played a major role in the Republican takeover of Congress. He went on to head the Tea Party-supporting group, Freedom Works.

Armey used his relationship with sitting members of Congress five years ago to press them to urge the then secretary of state Condoleezza Rice to unban the MEK and to support legislation that would effectively have resulted in US sponsorship of the group. He also lobbied the Pentagon, the White House and the state department in support of unbanning the MEK.

• The California Society for Democracy in Iran. Its founder and president is Nasser Sharif who has called for the US government to "engage the Iranian people and their organized resistance". Sharif is listed as donating thousands of dollars to Rohrabacher and Filner.

Sharif called the MEK’s banning an "injustice" in an article in the Orange Country Register in which he quotes Rohrabacher in support of his cause. He has organised events at which the speakers include Ros-Lehtinen, Rohrabacher, Filner and Poe.

Several of the groups also poured money into persuading leading politicians and former administration officials to speak on behalf of unbanning the MEK. Among those who have addressed meetings arranged by the Iranian American Community of Northern California are the former Democratic presidential candidate, Howard Dean; the former FBI director, Louis Freeh; the ex-attorney general, Michael Mukasey; and Tom Ridge, the former homeland security secretary. They have been joined by members of Congress including Ros-Lehtinen, Poe and Jackson Lee.

Sharif’s California Society for Democracy in Iran has organised meetings at which John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the UN; Andrew Card, President George W Bush’s chief of staff; Mukasey, Ros-Lehtinen, Rohrabacher and other members of Congress have spoken. Several prominent former officials have acknowledged being paid significant amounts of money to speak about the MEK. The former Pennsylvania governor, Ed Rendell, has accepted more than $150,000 in speaking fees at events in support of unbanning the MEK.

Among others who have spoken in support of delisting the group are two former CIA directors, James Woolsey and Porter Goss. Some speakers have been flown to Paris and Brussels.

The US authorities have at times scrutinised efforts in support of unbanning the group, including launching investigations in to whether they breached laws against financial dealings with banned organisations or legislation barring material support for terrorism.

Three years ago, seven people in California pleaded guilty to "providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organisation", and a parallel conspiracy charge, after fundraising for the MEK. Among other things the seven admitted to raising several hundred thousand dollars in collections at Los Angeles airport and other public locations in the name of a charity, the Committee for Human Rights.

Following an investigation by the FBI’s joint terrorism task force and the convictions, the US attorney’s office said "the CHR was simply a front organisation for MEK fund-raising operations in the United States" and that the money was going in part to support the group’s "terrorist activities".

"We cannot allow any terrorist organisation to fundraise on our shores or to steal money from our own citizens so that they can finance their own terrorism operations," said the prosecuting US attorney, Thomas O’Brien.

In 2004 Bush administration officials examined whether a fundraising event at a Washington DC convention centre, ostensibly on behalf of victims of the Bam earthquake, was in fact a cover for collecting money for the MEK. The organisers, the Iranian-American Community of Northern Virginia, described the $35 a head event as a "night of solidarity with Iran" and a "referendum for regime change in Iran".

Among those paid to speak at the event was Richard Perle, at the time a defence adviser to the Bush administration and a strong advocate of invading Iraq. Perle later said he was unaware of any connection to the MEK.

The organisers claimed the money was going to the Red Cross but even before the event was held the Red Cross said it did not want the proceeds because the fundraiser was political. The FBI concluded that the Iranian-American Community of Northern Virginia was a front for the MEK and the treasury department froze the funds raised by the event.

Those groups cosponsoring the fundraiser included several that the FBI described as MEK front organisations or as linked to prominent supporters. These included Iranian Society of South Florida, the Iranian-American Society of Texas and Colorado’s Iranian-American Community.

The Iranian-American Society of Northern Virginia is now defunct.

Soudjani pointedly said that the money was not intended to support the MEK but it’s unbanning "in the name of freedom and justice".

"The MEK is supporting a free Iran. That is what we are supporting," he said.

Sharif makes a similar argument.

"None of us are involved in illegal activities. All we’re doing is bringing the issue to the attention of members of Congress," he said.

Asked if his donation to Filner, who has a district about 2,500 miles from where Sharif lives, was because of his position on Iran and the MEK, Sharif said that it was.

"Yes. If you see members of Congress with a good position on Iran, you can support them. This is a voluntary thing. Members of the community do this. If they feel like members of Congress have a good position in supporting these issues they are willing to support those members of Congress".

Moeinimanesh and several other leaders of Iranian American organisations did not respond to questions. Neither did Ros-Lehtinen and other members of Congress did not respond to questions. But Rohrabacher did speak to the Guardian.

The California congressman said he is comfortable accepting donations from MEK supporters.

"If they want to contribute to me because I believe strongly in human rights and stand up in cases like this, that’s fine. I don’t check their credentials," he said.

Rohrabacher said he is not concerned at potentially being at odds with the law.

"When you have a person or an organisation that has been legally labelled something that is not just then you should take that label off. It doesn’t undermine efforts to label terrorists when they are indeed committing acts of terrorism," he said.

The congressman also denounced the treasury investigation of payments to speakers in support of the MEK.

"It seems to be me this is an example where somebody’s challenging a government policy and the government is trying to intimidate those who don’t believe in the policy into closing their mouths. Because someone is advocating a certain position, and it goes against government policy, it doesn’t mean the government should start focussing on them and try to find something they can hurt them with. That’s a damper on freedom of speech," he said.

Chris McGreal in Washington

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK decision: multimillion-dollar campaign led to removal from terror list

Revealed: the steady flow of funds to members of Congress, lobbying firms and former officials in support of Iranian group

Supporters of a designated Iranian terrorist organisation have won a long struggle to see it MEK decision: multimillion-dollar campaign led to removal from terror listunbanned in the US after pouring millions of dollars into an unprecedented campaign of political donations, hiring Washington lobby groups and payments to former top administration officials.

A Guardian investigation, drawing partly on data researched by the Centre for Responsive Politics, a group tracking the impact of money in US politics, has identified a steady flow of funds from key Iranian American organisations and their leaders into the campaign to have the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran removed from the list of terrorist organisations.

The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, is expected to notify Congress that the MEK will be removed from the terrorism list in the coming days.

The campaign to bury the MEK’s bloody history of bombings and assassinations that killed American businessmen, Iranian politicians and thousands of civilians, and to portray it as a loyal US ally against the Islamic government in Tehran has seen large sums of money directed at three principal targets: members of Congress, Washington lobby groups and influential former officials.

Prominent among the members of Congress who have received fund is Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the chair of the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee. She has accepted at least $20,000 in donations from Iranian American groups or their leaders to her political campaign fund.

Other recipients include Congressman Bob Filner, who was twice flown to address pro-MEK events in France and has pushed resolutions resolutions in the House of Representatives calling for the group to be unbanned. More than $14,000 in expenses for Filner’s Paris trips were met by the head of an Iranian American group who also paid close to $1m to a Washington lobby firm working to get the MEK unbanned.

A Texas Congressman, Ted Poe, received thousands of dollars in donations from the head of a pro-MEK group in his state at a time when he was a regular speaker on behalf of its unbanning at events across the US, describing the organisation as the ticket to regime change in Iran.

Mike Rogers, chairman of the House of Representatives intelligence committee, has also received the backing of individuals and groups that support the unbanning of the MEK. Rogers has been among the strongest supporters in Congress of delisting the group, sponsoring resolutions and pressing other members of Congress to support the cause.

A leading advocate of unbanning the MEK and chairman of the foreign affairs committee’s oversight subcommittee, congressman Dana Rohrabacher, has received thousands of dollars in donations from supporters of the banned group this year alone.

The Guardian sought comment from Ros-Lehtinen, Rogers, Filner, Poe and Rohrabacher. Only Rohrabacher responded.

He said he was comfortable accepting donations from MEK supporters but that the money has no influence on his position that it should be unbanned.

"I wouldn’t doubt that people would donate to my campaign if it’s something that they see as beneficial to them, to what they believe in, whether it’s the MEK or whether it’s anybody else," he said.

"The question is whether it’s the right position to take or not and whether it’s a benefit to the people of the United States as a whole. In this case I’ve no doubt that supporting the MEK under this brutal attack from the Mullah regime [in Tehran] is in the interests of what I believe in but also in the interests of the people of the United States."

Rohrabacher said the MEK’s past attacks on Americans, its bombing campaign in Iran that killed top politicians and civilians, and its support of Saddam Hussein were history and the group has turned its back on violence. He also denied that public support for a designated terrorist organisation might put him in conflict with the law.

"This isn’t a bad group. A long time ago, in their history, they certainly had a questionable time – 20, 30, 40 years ago. But I don’t know of any evidence they’ve engaged in terrorism for many, many years," he said. "They’re not a terrorist group simply because some bureaucrats in the state department say so."

Three top Washington lobby firms – DLA Piper; Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld; and DiGenova & Toensing – have been paid a total of nearly $1.5 million over the past year to press the US administration and legislators to support the delisting of the MEK and protection for its members in camps in Iraq.

Two other lobby groups were hired for much smaller amounts. The firms employed former members of Congress to press their ex-colleagues on Capitol Hill to back the unbanning of the MEK.

Scores of former senior officials have been paid up to $40,000 to make speeches in support of the MEK’s delisting. Those who have received money include the former chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, General Hugh Shelton; ex-FBI director Louis Freeh; and Michael Mukasey, who as attorney general oversaw the prosecution of terrorism cases.

The former Pennsylvania governor, Ed Rendell, has accepted more than $150,000 in speaking fees at events in support of the MEK’s unbanning. Clarence Page, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune, was paid $20,000 to speak at the rally. Part of the money has been paid through speakers bureaus on the US east coast.

Others accepted only travel costs, although in some cases that involved expensive trips to Europe.

In June, Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the US House of Representatives and Republican presidential candidate, flew to Paris to address a pro-MEK rally and meet its co-leader, Maryam Rajavi. He was criticised for bowing to her.

Congressman Rohrabacher has described the lobbying campaign as one of the most effective he has seen on Capitol Hill. It has galvanised powerful support for delisting the MEK far beyond those receiving political contributions, lobbying fees or other payments.

Ros-Lehtinen has been a vigorous proponent of recognition of the MEK, flying around the country to speak in support of unbanning the group and pressing the issue among fellow members of Congress. She has accepted an award from one group funding the campaign to delist the MEK. Other recipients of political donations, including Rogers, Filner and Rohrabacher, have also lobbied other members of Congress to support the unbanning. As a result, nearly 100 members of Congress have co-sponsored a resolution demanding the Obama administration to delist the MEK.

Last month, 17 former senior officials and US generals called on the state department to remove the group’s terrorist designation. Among them were General James Jones, Barack Obama’s former national security adviser; Tom Ridge, the former homeland security director; as well as Mukasey, Freeh and Rendell.

Some of the same politicians and former officials have also targeted newspapers and online publications in a campaign of opinion articles and letters aimed at changing the image of the MEK as a terrorist group.

The campaign has in part been funded by substantial donations from Iranian Americans and a web of organisations they lead from Florida to Texas and California.

The most generous benefactors include:

• Saeid Ghaemi, head of Colorado’s Iranian American Community, who paid close to $900,000 of his own money to a Washington lobby firm for its work to get the MEK unbanned.

• Ali Soudjani, president of the Iranian American Society of Texas. He gave close to $100,000 over the past five years to congressional campaign funds. His organisation paid more than $110,000 in fees to lobbyists last year.

• Ahmad Moeinimanesh, leader of the Iranian American Community of Northern California. The group paid $400,000 to a lobby firm. Moeinimanesh made personal donations to Ros-Lehtinen’s campaign even though her constituency is several thousand miles from where he lives.

Some of the payments have prompted an investigation by the US treasury department. It is examining the fees paid to Shelton, Freeh, Mukasey and Rendell, and possibly others, to see if they breach laws against "material support for a terrorist group". In cases involving links to other banned organisations, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, individuals have received long jail sentences for indirect financial support.

The original source of the considerable sums involved is not always clear as groups making political donations or funding lobby firms are not required to declare their origin. Previously the MEK has relied in part on funding from Iraq under Saddam Hussein.

Soudjani told the Guardian that the moneys were raised from Iranian Americans in the US. "The Iranian community is wealthy. It has more than $600bn in the United States. This is pennies for supporting freedom," he said.

Asked if his own donations to members of Congress was specifically because of their positions on the MEK, he replied: "Yes, it is."

However, Soudjani was careful to say that the support is not for the MEK as an organisation, which could open donors to investigation under anti-terrorism laws.

"We are not giving material support to the MEK. We are supporting freedom of speech for justice and peace in Iran," he said.

Chris McGreal in Washington

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

State Dept to Remove Iranian Rebel Group From Terror List

Years of Pricy Lobbying Gets Inaugural Group Off Foreign Terrorist Organization List

Adding hope to every other group that had found itself labeled a terrorist organization after a Years of Pricy Lobbying Gets Inaugural Group Off Foreign Terrorist Organization Listdecade of bloody anti-US attacks and killing a number of US military officers, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MeK), one of the inaugural members of the US State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, has been ordered removed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The MeK was founded in the 1960′s as a Marxist-Islamist sect, called a cult by many, with designs on ousting the Shah of Iran and replacing him. After the Shah was ousted, they allied with Saddam Hussein in his invasion of Iran, and remained in exile in Iraq for decades.

How did this group manage to turn around its fortunes and find a way off the US terror list? Money, and lots of it. The MeK has been soliciting top US officials for years to give them paid endorsements, and has been quite successful in buying praise, though former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell’s endorsement did get him investigated for terrorist ties.

In the end, with so many officials not only excusing the MeK’s past attacks but openly endorsing them as a replacement regime in the event of a war with Iran, officials said it was “politically difficult” for Clinton not to sign off on their removal.

Reflecting just how successful the “advertising” campaign has been for the group, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R – CA) praised the move, saying the group desires a “secular, peaceful, and democratic government.”

by Jason Ditz

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK using boldfaced names in bid to get off terror list

Among the foreign countries and overseas organizations that hire people to advocate for them in ‎Washington, D.C., one doesn’t expect to find a group that’s listed on the U.S. government’s ‎rosterMEK using boldfaced names in bid to get off terror list of foreign terrorists. But the Mujahedin e-Khalq — a cult-like Iranian group whose killing ‎of U.S. officials landed it on the terrorist list in ‎‏1997‏‎ — has been paying hundreds of thousands ‎of dollars to a high-profile team of former Members of Congress, political notables and ex-‎administration officials as part of its push to get itself removed from that very list.‎

Indeed, over the past two years, boldface names such as former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, ‎former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former Democratic National Committee Chairman ‎Howard Dean and retired Gen. James Jones, who was President Barack Obama’s first national ‎security adviser, have been paid as much as ‎‏$30,000‏‎ a speech to praise the MEK as a democratic ‎opponent of the regime in Tehran. Convinced of the group’s current commitment to human ‎rights, these and other luminaries rarely mention its assassinations of U.S. military advisers before ‎the ‎‏1979‏‎ Islamic revolution in Iran and its alliance with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein against ‎Tehran afterward.‎

‎“There is one organization and one alone that stands for immediate democratic change in Iran, ‎and that is the MEK,” Mukasey told a Paris rally a year ago. Others who have spoken in support ‎of the group at events in Washington, Brussels, London and Berlin are Andrew Card, who was ‎President George W. Bush’s chief of staff for five years; Anita McBride, a chief of staff to first ‎lady Laura Bush; former State Department Director of Policy Planning Mitchell Reiss and former ‎Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.‎

‎“We’re familiar with that passage ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,’” Ridge said at a ‎Washington event last July. “That is what the MEK stands for.”‎

It is illegal to provide direct assistance to terrorist groups. But those making speeches on behalf ‎of the MEK are booked and paid by speakers’ bureaus, which in turn are paid by MEK ‎supporters in the United States, who get their money from sources outside the United States.‎

The group enjoys support from Republicans and Democrats in the United States, and from Israel ‎and Saudi Arabia. Some critics of the MEK have compared the group’s lobbying effort to the ‎campaign for legitimacy by Ahmed Chalabi, an Iraqi Shiite who won the support of the Bush ‎administration and many in Congress as the leader of the democratic opposition to Hussein. ‎Chalabi helped spread what turned out to be false stories of the dictator’s nuclear weapons ‎program, which Bush used to justify the ‎‏2003‏‎ invasion of Iraq.‎

The MEK’s removal from the terrorist list would give the group greater legitimacy and permit its ‎members to raise funds openly in the United States after years of legally questionable fundraising ‎by supporters and front groups. And the two-year lobbying campaign may be bearing fruit. Last ‎month, the Obama administration took the first preliminary steps, behind the scenes, toward ‎delisting the MEK. The State Department is said to favor the move on the condition that the ‎group — which says it has renounced violence — evacuates a base in Iraq that it once used for ‎cross-border raids into Iran. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to make a ‎decision after the last of some ‎‏3,400‏‎ residents of the base, called Camp Ashraf, relocate to a new ‎transit camp at Baghdad’s main airport.‎

But experts on Iran warn that doing what the MEK wants could have serious repercussions. ‎Delisting the group would anger the FBI, which says the MEK was planning terrorist attacks ‎long after its stated renunciation of violence. Indeed, many Iran experts believe the recent spate ‎of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists was carried out by MEK operatives working for ‎Israel. Delisting would also complicate negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program among six major ‎powers and Tehran, which also regards the MEK as a terrorist organization. [..]

A History of Violence

The Mujahedin e-Khalq (in English, the People’s Holy Warriors) was founded in ‎‏1963‏‎ in Iran, ‎mixing Islam with communist ideology and calling for the violent overthrow of the country’s ‎pro-American leader, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. From ‎‏1973‏‎ to ‎‏1978‏‎, the group claimed ‎responsibility for the killings of six U.S. military advisers and an American oil executive in the ‎country. The group also played a major role in the infamous November ‎‏1979‏‎ seizure of the ‎American Embassy in Tehran, repeatedly calling for the execution of the hostages during the ‎subsequent ‎‏14‏‎-month ordeal.‎

But after the revolution, the group fell out with Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ruhollah ‎Khomeini. In ‎‏1981‏‎, Khomeini banned the group, which fled to Iraq. The MEK then formed an ‎alliance with Hussein, who provided the group with weapons and a military base at Camp ‎Ashraf, north of Baghdad.‎

From there, the MEK staged deadly raids across the border during the ‎‏1980-1988‏‎ Iraq-Iran war, ‎claiming credit for killing hundreds of Iranians, as well as a series of violent attacks on Iranian ‎diplomats overseas. In one MEK bombing, Iran’s current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali ‎Khamenei, permanently lost the use of his right arm. Hussein also used MEK forces to help crush ‎the Iraqi Kurdish uprising after the ‎‏1991‏‎ Persian Gulf War.‎

When U.S. forces invaded and occupied Iraq in ‎‏2003‏‎, Camp Ashraf came under their control. ‎The MEK’s Paris-based leaders, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, who had renounced violence in ‎‏2001‏‎, ordered their followers in Iraq to surrender their weapons. But a ‎‏2004‏‎ FBI report said ‎wiretaps of MEK members in Los Angeles, Paris and Berlin determined that “the MEK is ‎currently actively involved in planning and executing acts of terrorism.”‎

Former MEK members have described the group as a cult that promotes unquestioning obedience ‎to the Rajavis. They say the group demands celibacy, takes away members’ children and ‎pressures couples to divorce so they can devote their lives to the MEK. In ‎‏2003‏‎, several members ‎of the group self-immolated to protest the arrest of the Rajavis, who were quickly released. A ‎‏2009‏‎ report prepared by the RAND Corp. for the Pentagon said “nearly ‎‏70‏‎ percent of the MEK ‎population at Camp Ashraf have been recruited through deception and kept there against their ‎will.”‎

The group earned some notoriety in ‎‏2005‏‎ when it claimed credit for tipping off the United States ‎about Iran’s uranium enrichment activities at Natanz. But Iran experts say Israel, which has close ‎ties with the MEK, was the source of that information and used the group to disclose it. The ‎group’s purported role in uncovering part of Iran’s nuclear program and its public embrace of ‎secular democracy have earned it friends in Washington, particularly among neoconservatives ‎and security figures.‎

Those who have given paid speeches calling for the delisting of the MEK include former CIA ‎chiefs James Woolsey, Porter Goss and Michael Hayden, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton, ‎former FBI Director Louis Freeh, former Marine Commandant James Conway, and two former ‎chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Peter Pace and Hugh Shelton. “The current Iranian regime ‎does not need to be modified, does not need to be changed. It does not need to do anything but ‎be replaced. And it needs to be replaced by the resistance movement led by the MEK,” Shelton ‎told the Paris rally.‎

The MEK’s lobbying campaign has also attracted a growing number of senior Democratic ‎figures. In addition to Dean, paid speakers include Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic ‎Representative from Indiana and former co-chairman of the Sept. ‎‏11‏‎ commission, former ‎Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell and former Energy Secretary Bill Richardson.‎

The campaign has already won bipartisan support in Congress. Backers of the MEK’s efforts ‎include both House Foreign Affairs Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and Bob Filner ‎‎(D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee. “I know the MEK ‎supports a secular, democratic, non-nuclear Iran,” Filner told a BBC interviewer in April. “We ‎should be helping them in every way we can.”‎

Decision Looming

The State Department says any decision by Clinton on delisting the MEK now depends on the ‎willingness of Camp Ashraf’s remaining residents to depart. The United States is working with ‎the United Nations to resettle them in third countries. But around ‎‏1,200‏‎ MEK members at the ‎camp are resisting departure out of fear they’ll be returned to Iran.‎

‎Diplomats say a decision by Clinton to take the MEK off the list would not go down well in ‎Tehran. Iranian officials often accuse western governments of hypocrisy for sheltering MEK ‎members while condemning Iran’s support for Hezbollah and Hamas. A decision to delist might ‎cause Iran to harden its position on its nuclear program at the next round of negotiations with the ‎United States and five other world powers, which are pressing Iran to give up its stockpile of ‎‏20‏‎ ‎percent enriched uranium in return for lifting an embargo on civilian airline parts. Iran is ‎demanding a lifting of all sanctions in return for giving up the stockpile.‎

Karim Pakravan, an Iranian-born economist at DePaul University, notes that the MEK has ‎managed to portray itself to Congress as a legitimate Iranian opposition group “by an effective ‎campaign of propaganda and thinly disguised bribes to marquee political names on both sides of ‎the aisle.” Writing in an online forum on Iran, Pakravan says delisting would allow the MEK “to ‎use its massive foreign-financed war chest to try to crush all the other Iranian voices in the ‎United States and establish itself as THE democratic alternative to the Islamic Republic of Iran ‎in the eyes of a corrupt and naïve U.S. Congress. Such an outcome would be indeed a tragedy ‎for the democratic forces in Iran.” U.S. officials say Clinton will make her decision no more than ‎‏60‏‎ days after the last person is out of Camp Ashraf. But while a decision to keep the group on ‎the terrorist list is still possible, the secretary’s linking of her decision to the camp’s evacuation ‎makes it unlikely she will decide against delisting if the relocation is successful. The European ‎Union and Britain have delisted the MEK in recent years.‎

By Jonathan Broder ,CQ Roll Call Staff

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Should Carl Benstein go to prison for supporting terrorist MEK?

ProPublica’s Justin Elliott reports that "Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein" got $12,000 for a speech he gave at the Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan last February in support of removing the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) from the State Department’s list of "foreign terrorist organizations." Although it is unclear what ethical rule Bernstein, who writes for Newsweek and Vanity Fair, is supposed to have broken, Elliott treats this speaking engagement as vaguely scandalous, noting that Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page was rebuked by his employer for giving a similar speech in Paris last June without getting prior approval. But Elliott buries the real scandal: Such advocacy can be not only a professional faux pas but a federal crime, depending on the details and the government’s interpretation of a statute banning "material support" for terrorism.

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Does ProPublica Think Carl Bernstein Should Go to Prison for Giving a Speech?

The MEK, blamed for killing Americans in the 1970s and for a string of attacks on Iranian targets that ended in 2001, claims to have renounced violence and has filed a federal lawsuit asking to be reclassified. Judging from Elliott’s penultimate paragraph, it has a pretty strong case:

A federal appeals court in June ordered that [Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton must decide on the MEK’s status by Oct. 1. If she fails to take action, the court said it would delist the MEK itself. The order also criticized Clinton for putting off a decision on the MEK, calling the delay "egregious."

The MEK’s cause has attracted support not only from Bernstein and Page but from prominent political figures such as former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-R.I.), and former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell. All of them arguably committed felonies by speaking "for the benefit" of a terrorist organization, a kind of "service" that qualifies as "material support."

In its June 2010 decision upholding this broad ban on material support, the Supreme Court said "independently advocating for a cause is different from providing a service to a group that is advocating for that cause." Although the statute does not say so, the Court suggested that advocacy should be considered material support only when it is "performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization." But it is still not clear how much coordination is required to transform constitutionally protected speech into a felony punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

If the MEK had contacted Bernstein or any of the other speakers directly, even if it did not pay them, that presumably would count as impermissible coordination. As it is, Elliott notes (but not until the 17th paragraph), the Treasury Department is investigating whether any MEK front groups helped cover the speaking fees. "The MEK is a designated terrorist group," a department spokesman explains. "Therefore U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with or providing services to this group." As if to assist the government’s inquisition, Elliott does some digging of his own:

Who paid for the Waldorf Astoria event?

Bruce McColm, president of the Global Initiative for Democracy [formerly executive director of Freedom House], told ProPublica in an email: "Resources for the event were provided by the Iranian-American community in New Jersey, New York, Northern California and Texas."

McColm added that "[t]he financial arrangements for speakers were handled by the Iranian-American Community. For the legal at heart, there were no funds provided by NCRI/MEK or any other so-called front groups." NCRI stands for National Council of Resistance of Iran and is recognized by the State Department as an alias for the MEK….

The Global Initiative for Democracy was incorporated in Virginia last November. The Alexandria-based group’s mission statement says it "engages in wide ranging activities nationwide to promote the cause of democracy, human rights, religious tolerance, and cultural and artistic diversity in Iran as well as to ensure the safety and security of political refugees and asylum-seekers."

But much like other groups that have organized pro-MEK events, the Global Initiative for Democracy appears to be primarily focused on the MEK. The only other event detailed on the group’s website was a pro-MEK event held at a Washington hotel in May and featuring former ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton and former State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley, among others. News stories featured on the group’s website mostly involve the MEK.

Elliott appears to be insinuating that McColm’s organization is another MEK front group, which if true could expose Bernstein, Bolton, and Crowley to criminal charges based on their words of support. In this context, Bernstein, who tells Elliott his speech was "largely about using the designation of terrorist and subversive organizations as a smokescreen for other things," does not seem to be exaggerating much when he calls stories like this one "journalistic McCarthyism."

Jacob Sullum, Reason.com

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Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Can a designated terrorist group purchase the support of notable Americans

Can a designated Iranian terrorist group (MEK) purchase the support of notable Americans to champion their cause?

It has been often said that everything in Washington is for sale and that which is not for sale can be leased …

What do the following individuals have in common?

•Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey
•Former Congressman Patrick Kennedy (Rhode Island)
•Noted Author Carl Bernstein;
•Former Governor Howard Dean (Vermont)
•Former Governor Ed Rendell (Pennsylvania)
•Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (Illinois)
•Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani (New York)
•Retired General Henry Shelton
•Retired General George Casey
•Retired Lieutenant General David Deptula
•Former FBI director Louis Freeh

It appears that they are all attempting to informally lobby government officials by “questioning the listing of an obscure Iranian group called the Mujahadin-e Khalq (MEK) on the U.S. government list of officially designated foreign terrorist organizations.” Some of these people I formerly respected as incorruptible or patriotic. Now I can see they are money-grubbing whores who are willing to challenge the intelligence agencies of the United States for their personal benefit and profit. I am thoroughly disgusted by the democrats and the republicans on this list. As for the journalists who purport to be unbiased, it is just another sign of the loss of journalistic ethics and the support of a cause that is alien to the American dream.

How is it that any Americans want to assist any Iranian group?

At least according to Bernstein: “The speech, before a crowd an organizer put at 1,500, made Bernstein one of the few journalists who has appeared at events in a years-long campaign by MEK supporters to free the group from the official terrorist label and the legal sanctions that come with it. He told ProPublica that he was paid $12,000 for the appearance but that, ‘I was not there as an advocate.’”

Then: “Bernstein told the crowd that, ‘I come here as an advocate of the best obtainable version of the truth’ and as ‘someone who believes in basic human rights and their inalienable status.’ He also challenged the State Department, saying that if the agency ‘has evidence that the MEK is a terrorist organization, have a show-cause hearing in court, let them prove it.’”

Bernstein’s speech, reprinted on the website of another pro-MEK group under the title "The Kafkaesque Nature of Things," compared the presence of the MEK on the terrorist list to his parents’ experience belonging to a group that was on a U.S. government list of subversive organizations during the McCarthy era.

“So I know, like you, what it means to be designated a certain way and your cause and your purpose misunderstood, twisted, and turned into something that it is not," he said. "When, in fact, the evil, the terrorism, the real terrorism, is in the heart of Tehran, not in this room."

In an interview, Bernstein told ProPublica that the pro-MEK events are “obviously … part of a lobbying campaign” but his speech was “largely about using the designation of terrorist and subversive organizations as a smokescreen for other things.” He said that stories focusing on speakers at pro-MEK events rather than on “the substance of what the controversy is” amounted to “journalistic McCarthyism.”

Was it for the money or because liberals are soft on national defense and constitutionally (pun) and prone to serve as useful idiots for foreign sovereign causes?

For example, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, received $160,000 for appearing at seven pro-MEK rallies and conferences, his office confirmed to NBC in March. Each event typically involves five to 10 former officials who speak in favor of removing the group from the terrorist list. The typical fee for a speaker at one of the events has been in the $20,000 range, according to news reports. Pro-MEK groups are thought to have spent millions of dollars on the events in recent years.

What happened to one working journalist is a cautionary tale of how America may be subverted from within …

ProPublica reported in July that syndicated columnist Clarence Page had spoken at a large rally in Paris featuring MEK leader Maryam Rajavi; after we reached out to Page, he said he would reimburse his $20,000 speaker’s fee, and the Chicago Tribune reprimanded him for violating the company ethics code.

Here is a person who can slant stories and spin the truth … and he is being paid a great sum of money to advocate for a group that is listed by the United States government as a terrorist group. Why wasn’t he sanctioned by the government for providing aid and comfort to an enemy of the United States? Or is the liberal dominated Justice Department, headed by Eric Holder, too busy killing all of the pesky state legislation that protects the Constitution and the sovereignty of the United States?

Is Iran our enemy?

In the past few years, pro-MEK groups have marshaled considerable financial resources to bring high-profile speakers to an unending stream of rallies and other events in the U.S. and Europe. The pro-MEK campaign has taken on new prominence against the backdrop of the nuclear standoff involving the U.S., Israel and Iran, whose government is a sworn enemy of the MEK.

The group, sometimes described as cult-like by critics, is blamed by the State Department for killing Americans in several attacks in Iran in the 1970s and in attacking Iranian targets through the early 2000s. The MEK now says it has renounced violence and has sued to be removed from the terrorist list.

The public push in the U.S. is notable both because it has brought together a large bipartisan group of former top military officials and veteran politicians from both parties and also because of the large sums of money paid for those appearances.

My question …

Is this MEK group spinning themselves as an anti-Iran freedom fighting group to allow them to be removed from the terrorist watch list and the sanctions which would keep them from purchasing “dual use” technology or other materials that would bring aid and comfort to Iran? It would not be the first time that a front group did whatever was necessary for their cause.

Bottom line …

It is obvious, even to the casual observer that something evil is happening to our country. Pro-Marxist/Communist groups have subverted the political process, mostly involving the democrat party, and that rampant political corruption is going unchecked. Prominent politicians and others are openly espousing causes which, only a few decades ago, would have been regarded as enemies and such advocacy tantamount to sedition and/or treason.

We see major United States Corporations using foreign subsidiaries to “fullfill long existing contracts” with our enemies.[..]

We need to reform our government and the way our multi-national corporations do business. We cannot impose sanctions against an enemy and have them violated by a foreign subsidiary of any American company. Perhaps why so many companies are now incorporated in the Bahamas. Switzerland and elsewhere.

And we need to start right now in 2012 by removing President Obama and his fellow travelers from power in the Presidency, the Senate and the House of Representatives. We need to shut the revolving door between government and law firms known to be lobbyists for foreign powers. We need to put country over compromise, manhood over money.

It is time to take action at the voting booths. Before America is simply purchased and discarded by those who do not wish America well.

Steve ,One Citizen Speaking.com

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