Material Support for the MEK Terrorists

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 List decade 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

September 22, 2012 0 comments

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 ‎roster 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

September 16, 2012 0 comments

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.

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

September 6, 2012 0 comments

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

September 6, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

John Bolton Shockingly Denies Being a ‘Terrorist Supporter’

The American Conservative’s Jordon Bloom ran into a befuddled John Bolton at the Republican National Convention yesterday and had a timely question for him:
John Bolton Shockingly Denies Being a ‘Terrorist Supporter’
He was on his way in to observe the speeches, and I knew he wouldn’t have much time to answer more than a question or two in passing. So I asked the most important one: given the definition laid out in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, was he at all concerned that his advocacy on behalf of the Iranian dissident group the MEK could be defined as material support for terrorism under the PATRIOT Act?

Bolton, visibly flustered at the suggestion that he is a terrorist supporter, disputed the premise before cutting me off:

“I don’t know what you’re up to, but you’re flatly wrong, and I’m busy, so if you’ll excuse me.”

He is indeed a busy man, but if he ever cares to take some time out of his day to explain why I’m wrong, my email is jbloom[at]theamericanconservative.com. Or he could take it up with Glenn Greenwald or Larison.

Oh, how I’d love such an inquiry from Bolton. Perhaps Jordan could also ask why Bolton’s former employer, 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 U.S. military personnel and U.S. civilians.” Is Bolton proud of this point of commonality between him and Saddam?

John Glaser

September 4, 2012 0 comments

Terrorist groups and the MEK

More MEK money fallout: Journalist paid $12,000 for speech

The Mujahadin-e Khalq – an Iranian exile group opposed to the current regime there and backed by Democratic congressman and San Diego mayoral candidate Bob Filner – has returned to the More MEK money fallout: Journalist paid $12,000 for speech news, this time with a report that ex-Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein was paid $12,000 to give a speech at an event held on behalf of the MEK’s ongoing battle to be taken off the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.

As previously reported here, Filner, long an outspoken advocate for the MEK, has taken two first class, all-expense-paid trips to MEK-related events in Paris, both paid for a shadowy group calling itself “Colorado’s Iranian American Community.”

We have repeatedly made requests to Filner’s office and campaign to provide more details about his Mujahadin-e Khalq-related travel, but neither he nor his aides have responded to our questions.

The online journalism site ProPublica.org reports today that Bernstein’s February address before 1500 people at New York’s Waldorf Astoria made him “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.’"

ProPublica goes on to note that the Mujahadin-e Khalq, “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. (Bernstein’s speech also referred to the “murderous bureaucracy” that runs Iran, “against whom the MEK has courageously fought.”)

"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."

In today’s ProPublica account, Bernstein is quoted as saying that "the pro-MEK events are ‘obviously … part of a lobbying campaign’ but [that] 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.’"

By Matt Potter, Sandiego Reader

September 3, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Watergate Journalist Spoke at Event Supporting MEK ‘Terrorist’ Group

On a Saturday afternoon last February, journalist Carl Bernstein got up on stage at the grand

Former Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein speaks during an event sponsored by The Washington Post to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Watergate on June 11, 2012. (Alex Brandon/AP Photo)

ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria [1] in Manhattan and delivered a speech 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.

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.”

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.”

Joining him on stage [2] at the Park Avenue hotel was a decorated group including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former congressman Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, and former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.

Bernstein’s speech [3], reprinted on the website [4] 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 [5] belonging to a group that was on a U.S. government list of subversive organizations during the McCarthy era.

In an interview, Bernstein told ProPublica that the pro-MEK events are “obviously … part of a lobbying campaign” but his speech [3] 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.”

ProPublica reported in July [6] 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 [7] for violating the company ethics code.

Bernstein is a contributing editor [8] at Vanity Fair and writes periodically [9] for Newsweek. A Vanity Fair spokeswoman said the magazine does not have a policy governing outside work of its contributors. A Newsweek spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. Bernstein has not written or spoken about MEK issues apart from the paid appearance at the Waldorf Astoria.

A news release [10] issued after the event by the organizing group, the Global Initiative for Democracy, ran under the headline “Bipartisan Group of U.S. Leaders Calls on State Department to Remove Iranian Dissidents From Terror List" and quoted Bernstein.

“What is news here is [that the failure to delist] is serving the purpose of the Iranian regime. That is news,” the release said, attributing the statement to “famed Watergate journalist [11] Carl Bernstein."

The group, sometimes described as cult-like [12] by critics, is blamed by the State Department [13] 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. (Bernstein’s speech also referred to the “murderous bureaucracy” that runs Iran, “against whom the MEK has courageously fought.”)

For example, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, received $160,000 for appearing at seven pro-MEK rallies and conferences, his office confirmed [14] 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 [15] spent millions of dollars on the events in recent years.

The Americans speaking at pro-MEK events have generally not included journalists, except for Page and Bernstein. It’s common for prominent journalists to have contracts with speaker bureaus and deliver lectures for pay; Bernstein said, “I speak before all kinds of groups.”

NBC reported [14] in March that firms representing two speakers who appeared alongside Bernstein at the Waldorf Astoria event — former FBI Director Louis Freeh and former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Hugh Shelton — had received subpoenas as part of a Treasury Department inquiry into the source of money for pro-MEK events.

The New York City-based Greater Talent Network, which represents [16] Freeh and reportedly received one of the subpoenas, also represents [17] Bernstein. The agency did not respond to phone calls, but Bernstein told ProPublica he has not been contacted about any legal action and he is not part of the group of pro-MEK speakers that has hired [18] former Solicitor General Seth Waxman to represent them in the matter.

Treasury Department spokesman John Sullivan told ProPublica the agency does not comment on potential investigations. “The MEK is a designated terrorist group; therefore U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with or providing services to this group,” he said. “The Treasury Department takes sanctions enforcement seriously and routinely investigates potential violations of sanctions laws.”

So who paid for the Waldorf Astoria event?

Bruce McColm [19], president of the Global Initiative for Democracy, 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 [20] by the State Department as an alias for the MEK.

McColm is a former executive director of Freedom House [21], a pro-democracy group he left in the early 1990s. In recent years, he has worked for [22] the government of Equatorial Guinea and served as a member of the Iran Policy Committee [23], which advocates putting support for the MEK at the center of U.S. policy toward Iran.

The Global Initiative for Democracy was incorporated [24] in Virginia last November. The Alexandria-based group’s mission statement [25] 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 [26] 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 [27] mostly involve the MEK.

A decision by the Obama administration on the MEK’s status is expected soon.

Citing two unnamed American officials, The New York Times reported [28] earlier this month that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was preparing to possibly redesignate the MEK as a terrorist group, partly because of the failure of the MEK to fully vacate the group’s home in Iraq, called Camp Ashraf [29], to a new location.

The Iraqi government wants hundreds of MEK members to leave the camp and, ultimately, the country. MEK members first found haven in Iraq in the 1980s during the rule of Saddam Hussein, who armed the group and, according to [30] the State Department, “deployed thousands of MEK fighters in suicidal, waves of attacks against Iranian forces” in the Iran-Iraq war. The group now has an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 members worldwide.

The most recent acts of violence committed by the MEK were “regular mortar attacks and hit-and-run raids against Iranian military and law enforcement personnel” near the Iran-Iraq border in 2001, according to the State Department’s annual terrorism report [31]. French authorities also arrested 160 MEK members in 2003 “at operational bases they believed the MEK was using to coordinate financing and planning for terrorist attacks.”

By law [32], an organization can be placed on the list of foreign terrorist organizations if it engages in terrorist activity or “or retain[s] the capability and intent to engage in terrorist activity or terrorism.” In the waning days of the Bush administration in 2009, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice denied [33] an MEK petition to be removed from the list.

The State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism, Ambassador Daniel Benjamin, told reporters [34] in July that the closure of Camp Ashraf would be a key factor informing the agency’s decision because “the history and the use of Ashraf is that of an MEK paramilitary base.”

“It’s where the MEK had its heavy weaponry and from which it carried out a number of military operations during the reign of Saddam Hussein,” he said. “The MEK’s relocation will assist the Secretary in determining whether the organization remains invested in its violent past or is committed to leaving that past behind.”

After several years of legal wrangling, a federal appeals court in June ordered [35] that 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 [36] “egregious.”

In a petition to the court, the MEK’s lawyers said the group’s leadership decided [37] to end all use of violence in 2001. It also pointed to decisions by Britain and the European Union in 2008 and 2009 to declassify the MEK as a terrorist group.

by Justin Elliott , ProPublica

September 1, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

An Attorney Serving as Advocate forTerrorists

Dr. Gerson questions impartiality and humanitarian intention of the UN to defend MKO

It is argued that material support laws could properly be used to prosecute lawyers who act and talk on behalf of groups designated foreign terrorist organizations. But the problem is that majority of attorneys who serve terrorists escape prosecution mainly because they are either too experienced in their job or hardly any of them acknowledges that he might indeed have found himself on the wrong side of the line. Oddly enough, some of these terrorist advocates are notable attorneys and professionals known to observe traditional, anti-terrorist ethical guidelines who have often won battles against terrorists.

Dr. Allan Gerson is recognized as the first attorney to have engineered a practical basis for suing foreign governments for acts of terrorism. After the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, he initiated the first civil suit against a foreign state (Libya) on behalf of families of the victims. In 1996, his efforts were instrumental in the passage of the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. However, although an expert in his own profession, Dr. Gerson is walking in the same path with a designated terrorist group, Mojahedin Khalq Organization MKO/MEK/NCR, and repeating its very same baseless claims. At least nobody expected him to slam a humanitarian guideline set by the United Nations so hard in favor of a terrorist group that is waging a psychological war against international institutions.

The United Nations issued a press release on July 24 stating that its mission in Iraq, UNAMI, has presented a “roadmap” to the Government of Iraq in dealing with the temporary relocation of the Camp Ashraf residents, members of the terrorist MKO, to Camp Liberty, a temporary transit facility near Baghdad airport. Some two-thirds of the residents, or 2,000 people, were relocated to the transit camp but MKO refused to transfer the remaining residents, some 1300 people, on a variety of invented excuses some of which are natural to meet because of the regional and poor living conditions that have long impacted the local people’s lives.

It took only four days following the released roadmap to see a published article under the name of Dr. Gerson in which he slammed the UN for a pure humanitarian cause to end the stalemate in the relocation process. As MKO has repeatedly done, he questions impartiality and humanitarian intention of the UN concerning the issue. For two reasons, Dr. Gerson disputes that the UN effort is humanitarian because “effort comes at the point of a gun. It is aimed at the MEK residents of Camp Ashraf who have been understandably reluctant to move to Camp Liberty until the basic humanitarian needs of food, water, electricity, shelter and facilities for the disabled are met”.

Then, he claims that “If the UN commitment were ‘strictly humanitarian,’ it would never have supported the move of the residents from the Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty. No purpose is served by such a move. For decades, the MEK lived peacefully at their home of Camp Ashraf, a small city that they built by themselves”.

Dr. Gerson seems to be uninformed of historically plain facts. MKO has never stated a willingness to leave Camp Ashraf known to be its ideological and military bastion allocated by Saddam. It is a legal demand by the Iraqi government and the local people, to whom the land belongs, to close the camp and return the lands to their real owners. For sure, occupiers are reluctant to return what they have seized. It is not a mere dispute over a simple matter of relocation from a camp to another; the problem is MKO’s reluctance to leave rather than the existing common shortages it claims. The ideal solution MKO appreciates is the one that disapproves any relocation from Ashraf.

The group is well aware of the fact that relocation from Ashraf means a permanent expulsion from Iraq sooner or later. But staying at the “small city that they built” even if seemingly in limbo means a permanent or decades long stay until they will be delisted from the State Department Foreign Terrorist Organization list since, as Dr. Gerson explicitly points out, “No country will be eager to take people who remain on that list. And indeed, no country has stepped forward despite the fact that some 300 residents have already been given refugee status by the UNHCR”. What is really bothering MKO is losing the lifelong opportunity of maintaining Camp Ashraf after a unanimous decisiveness for relocation of its members. And Dr. Gerson in his defense of a terrorist group has sold his principles; he tries to look sympathetic as well as promising because he is presently involved with other attorneys in representing MKO to be removed from the State Department List of FTO.

By N. Morgan

August 1, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Caught in a Bad Alliance

The Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) is in the news again. Images of Newt Gingrich bowing to the Iranian dissident group’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, after speaking to MEK members at a Paris rally, Caught in a Bad Alliance and Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page’s unauthorized, paid speech at the same event have brought renewed attention to the MEK’s expensive (and possibly illegal) lobbying operation in Washington.

Gingrich and Page aren’t the only high-profile figures the MEK has enlisted in its bid to get off the State Department’s foreign terrorist organization list. The group has persuaded a number of onetime officials, including former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former Homeland Security Adviser Francis Fragos Townsend, former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, to argue its case. These public figures have taken money, in some cases more than $30,000 per speech, to speak on the group’s behalf. As a result, the U.S. Treasury Department has begun to look into the fees, because, according to the Supreme Court, “advocacy performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization” constitutes the federal crime of “material support of terrorism.” The speakers have also failed to register as lobbyists under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, and there is an increasing push for criminal investigations.

As it turns out, however, many of the public figures openly admit that they did not know much about the MEK when they agreed to attend the events. Many were invited by suspected MEK front groups with names such as the Organizing Committee for Convention for Democracy in Iran and the Iranian American Community of North Texas, and they approached the ex-officials through their agents. Former chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and co-chair of the 9/11 Commission Lee Hamilton, who also spoke in support of the MEK, told The New York Times, “I don’t know a lot about the group.” Clarence Page told ProPublica that he thought he was giving a talk on promoting democracy and regime change in Iran.

Accidentally or not, though, the speakers were helping to raise the profile and legitimize the aims of a cult group that will not bring democracy to Iran and has no popular support in the country. And while the latest news stories on the MEK highlight its immediate goal of getting off the terrorist list, they miss the group’s real aim: to have the United States install the MEK as Iran’s new government. That would mean war. The MEK may deny wanting violent regime change, but the only conceivable way it could become the next government in Tehran would be at the head of a U.S. invasion force.

Once upon a time, the MEK did enjoy some measure of popular support in Iran. But after getting shoved aside by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s party after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the MEK spent the next two decades launching terrorist attacks against the new regime and its military, harming bystanders in several instances. The MEK joined sides with Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), moving to camps in Iraq in 1986 and fighting against Iranian conscripts. Frustrated that Saddam failed to install it in power in Tehran by the end of the war, the MEK attempted its own invasion of Iran (using more of Saddam Hussein’s military munificence), resulting in the death of thousands of its members. These acts destroyed the MEK’s credibility among Iranians. Trapped in the Iraqi desert, the group’s leaders transformed the MEK into a cult after the failed invasion—engaging in such practices as mandated divorce and celibacy, sleep deprivation, public shaming, separation of families, and information control—and continued its terrorist attacks in Iran.

Now the MEK, through its Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, has ramped up its public-relations campaign to convince the outside world that it is the biggest Iranian opposition group, one dedicated to the values of Western liberal democracy. (It just happens to have a parliament-in-waiting and a president-elect—Rajavi, of course.) To bolster its case, the MEK inflames fears of a nuclear Iran, consistently claiming that the country has an ongoing nuclear-weapons program, notwithstanding the opposite, unanimous opinion of U.S., European, and Israeli officials and the Iranian supreme leader’s fatwa against building one.

It remains to be seen if the MEK’s costly lobbying campaign will pay off. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has until October 1 to decide whether to keep the MEK on the foreign terrorist organization list; otherwise, a federal court will automatically delist it. That’s just a few short weeks before the presidential election. Republican candidate Mitt Romney claimed in December that he had never heard of the MEK. Nevertheless, he is using the question of Iranian nukes—kept in the public eye by the MEK and its shills—in a desperate effort to make President Barack Obama look weak on national-security issues. Romney has also surrounded himself with a hawkish national-security team that includes several MEK supporters, such as Bush administration veterans like former U.N. Representative John Bolton, who believes that engagement with Tehran is “delusional” and that “the only real alternative to a nuclear Iran is pre-emptive military force”—the sooner the better. Bolton’s writings suggest that he hopes that the so-called P5+1 talks over Iran’s nuclear program will fail. (The next round of negotiations is next week.)

But the MEK’s supporters and other hawks who insist on wanting regime change in Iran need to understand that, in this case, the enemy of my enemy is not my friend. The MEK is a bad ally. It has been a bad ally in peace, and it would be a bad ally in war and reconstruction. Aligning ourselves with the MEK would undermine any attempt at credibility among Iranians because it would make us look like dupes. The public figures who have spoken in support of the MEK are dangerously mistaken when they describe the group as “a force for good, and the best hope we have” (Rendell) and “a massive worldwide movement for liberty in Iran” (Gingrich). On the contrary, this deceptive foreign cult is pouring millions of dollars into an effort to steer the United States toward war.

Jeremiah Goulka, The American Prospect,

July 21, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK: Working with Terrorists for US Hegemony in Iran

The two-tiered American justice system is in full effect as felonious political actors advocate and promote the Iranian terrorist group Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) in order to pursue US hegemony in the region.

In 2010, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the case Holder v. Humanitarian Law that providing material support in coordination with a designated foreign terrorist organization is a felony punishable by 15 years in prison. If you or I took money from the MEK to advocate lifting the terrorist designation, how long do you think it would take to be hooded, shackled and indefinitely detained under the National Defense Authorization Act?

Abby Martin of Media Roots and RT reports on the current efforts to convince the State Department to de-list MEK as a foreign terrorist organization.

A wave of American leaders have illegally lined up to get their slice of the MEK bankroll for speaking on their behalf. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Hugh Shelton said, "Why would we not want to put the weight and power of this country behind an organization that we know stands for the same principles we stand for, and that is the best-organized, best-led organization to take on the current Iranian regime?" Louis Freeh, former Director of the FBI stated that “MEK is leading the fight for freedom in Iran. Just as our military forces fight for freedom on the battlefields, you fight in a more difficult and much more dangerous place."

The end-game of all this bought and paid for rhetoric is a writ entered on June 1, 2012 to the United States Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. asking Hillary Clinton, the U.S. Secretary of State to review the designation of MEK as a foreign terrorist organizations within four months or by default the designation will be removed.

These naïve politicos with imperialist illusions of Iranian regime change want to jump in bed with the MEK who vocally supported the U.S. embassy takeover in Tehran in 1979 and vehemently called for the execution of diplomats in 1981. The very same MEK that attempted to kidnap US Ambassador Douglas MacArthur in 1971, wounded Air force General Harold Price in 1972, assassinated US Army Comptroller Louis Lee Hawkins in 1973, assassinated US Air Force officers Paul Shaffer and Jack Turner and assassinated American employees William Cottrell, Donald Smith and Robert Krongard in 1976. The very same group that hijacked a plane in 1971 and bombed and killed 70 members of the Iranian parliament including Chief Justice Mohammad Beheshti, the second highest ranking official in Iran at the time. MEK also reportedly celebrated the 9/11 terrorist attacks, as well as helped carry out the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists last year.

American justice calls on the following Americans to surrender and submit to interrogation so it can be determined what degree of material support they provided officially designated terrorists: Tom Ridge, Wesley Clark, Michael Mukasey, Frances Townshend, James Jones, Peter Pace, Hugh Shelton, Louis Freeh, Michael Hayden, Anthony Zinni, Rudi Giuliani, Howard Dean, Andy Card, Bill Richardson, Lee Hamilton, John Bolton and all other Americans that feel they can operate above the law. All money received for speaking engagements should be returned, resignations should be tendered and pleas should be entered.

The arrogant criminal hypocrisy is absolutely surreal as American politicos subvert the draconian laws they perpetrate upon the rest of America. Swift sanctions are necessary to ensure the general public that all Americans live under one set of laws. So far the defenses offered by these haughty elitists are their right to free speech, which is specifically limited by the Holder Supreme Court case. Their argument is that the MEK will make a fine marionette for American imposed regime change in Iran. But Americans don’t want war or regime change in Iran—America wants representatives with common sense and ethics to be focused on this country. Let the Iranian people determine their own leadership and destiny.

Chris Martin for Media Roots

***

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

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

MEDIA ROOTS

July 15, 2012 0 comments

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