Material Support for the MEK Terrorists

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.

“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 [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."

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 [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.”)

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.

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

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

America’s own terror group Mojahedin Khalq

Huffington Post publishes, and then deletes, a post by a MeK spokesman. What does this tell us about Terrorism?

Yesterday morning, The Huffington Post published a post by Hossein Abedini, who was identified in the byline as a “Member of Parliament in exile of Iranian Resistance.” His extended HuffPost bio says that he “belongs to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran” (NCRI). The NCRI is the political arm of the Mujahideen-e Khalq, (MeK), the Iranian dissident group (and longtime Saddam ally) that has been formally designated by the U.S. State Department since 1997 as a Terrorist organization, yet has been paying large sums of money to a bipartisan cast of former U.S. officials to advocate on its behalf (the in-hiding President of the NCRI, Massoud Rajavi, is, along with his wife Maryam Rajavi, MeK’s leader). Abedini, the HuffPost poster, has been identified as a MeK spokesman in news reports, and has identified himself the same way when, for instance, writing letters to NBC News objecting to negative reports about the group.

Yesterday’s HuffPost piece by Abedini touted a recent rally, held on June 23 in Paris, which, he claimed, was attended by “over 100,000 Iranian exiles and supporters of the Iranian resistance from five continents.” The news report cited by Abedini actually says that “tens of thousands” of Iranians participated, and — reflecting what seems to be MeK’s bizarrely unlimited budget — they were transported by “more than a thousand buses . . . from all over Europe.” Abedini boasted that the rally’s keynote speaker was MeK leader Rajavi (whom he calls “the President-elect of the Iranian Resistance”) — it was a MeK rally — and quotes her at length demanding the removal of MeK from the list of Terror organizations

As usual for a MeK event, Abedini was able to tout more than a dozen former high-level U.S. political officials from both parties who spoke to the rally, many of whom (if not all) have been repeatedly paid large sums of money for their MeK speeches. According to Abedini, this latest rally included many of the usual MeK shills: former GOP New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania Ed Rendell, former Democratic New Mexico Governor and U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson, former GOP U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, former GOP Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former Democratic State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley, and several retired U.S. Generals.

Shortly after the HuffPost piece appeared, several people on Twitter, the first of which (I believe) was the Iranian journalist Hooman Majd, noted that The Huffington Post had published a propaganda piece from a designated Terror group and wondered whether they would do so for all such Terror groups such as Al Qaeda. After several others, including The New York Times‘ Robert Mackey and myself, noted the oddity that HuffPost was publishing pieces from a designated Terrorist group, HuffPost deleted the piece. If one goes now to the URL where the post first appeared, one finds this: “Editor’s Note: This post is no longer available on the Huffington Post” (the post can still be read in its cached version). No explanation is given for the deletion, but a HuffPost spokesperson, Rhoades Alderson, last night responded to my inquiry about it as follows:

It was published by mistake. By policy, we don’t publish blog posts by people affiliated with designated terrorist organizations. The blog editor who published it was unaware that NCRI is MEK’s political arm. When the mistake was discovered the post was removed.

Despite this “policy,” the same post by Abedini remains on the HuffPost’s UK site. Moreover, HuffPost has previously published numerous pieces from Abedini including one linking the Syrian and Iranian “resistance” and demanding Western support for both, another branding Iran the “epicenter of terrorism,” and other posts spouting the MeK line. All of those posts by Abedini remain on the HuffPost site.

To be clear, I don’t find HuffPost’s conduct — either in publishing posts from MeK spokespeople or removing them — to be objectionable. That’s not the point here. I personally believe it’s better to hear from all groups and to have all viewpoints aired rather than trying with inevitable futility to suppress them, but if HuffPost really does have a policy against publication of “people affliated with designated terrorist organizations,” then — just like laws criminalizing the providing of “material support to Terrorist organizations” — it should apply equally to MeK and those who work with it (including MeK’s list of paid D.C. political celebrities).

[In the wake of 9/11, the U.S. Government instructed American media outlets not to broadcast any statements from Osama bin Laden on the ground that he might embed in his statements coded signals to his followers to activate sleeper cells on American soil — perhaps he would use the nose wiggle employed by Bewitched’s Samantha Stevens to unleash her magic powers — and many American media outlets (needless to say) dutifully complied. It seems clear that the real reason for suppression of those Al Qaeda statements was to ensure that Americans, who were understandably asking "Why Do They Hate Us"? in the wake of 9/11, would be prevented from hearing Al Qaeda’s actual grievances about U.S. aggression so that they could instead be told that They Hate Us for Our Freedom; George Bush on September 21, 2001: "Americans are asking ‘Why do they hate us?’ . . . They hate our freedoms: our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other". It’s far preferable, in my view, to allow all views to be aired, but a ban on Terror groups and their supporters should be equally applied.]

What makes this HuffPost event notable is that it is inconceivable that they would publish posts from spokespeople or paid advocates for other designated Terrorist groups which do not command widespread support among Washington’s elites — such as, say, Al Qaeda, or Hamas, or Hezbollah. MeK is treated differently because they are Our Terrorists. NBC News reported that “deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists are being carried out by an Iranian dissident group [MeK] that is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service,” while The New Yorker‘s Seymour Hersh detailed in April that the U.S. has provided extensive training to MeK operatives, on U.S. soil. This entire MeK controversy has, as vividly as any event in a long time, illustrated the core truth of Terrorism and the laws against it: the entire concept has no purpose in American political discourse and law other than to delegitimize and criminalize support for groups which use violence in opposition to American violence and aggression, while sanctioning and enabling those groups which use such violence to advance America’s interests.

MeK used to work in close cooperation with Saddam (during the time Saddam was America’s decreed Enemy, rather than Ally), so they were therefore Bad: Terrorists. Indeed, in 2003, when the Bush administration was advocating an attack on Iraq, one of the prime reasons it cited was “Saddam Hussein’s Support for International Terrorism,” and it circulated a document purporting to prove that assertion, in which one of the first specific accusations listed was this:

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

So just nine years ago, Saddam’s links to MeK were cited by the U.S. Government as proof that he sheltered Terrorist groups. Now, the MeK works for the interests of (and in cooperation with) Israel and the U.S., so suddenly, they are now Good, and the most Serious Beltway officials are free to openly take money from and advocate for this Terror group (as a result, the MeK is, predictably, highly likely to be rewarded by being removed by the Obama administration from the Terrorist list). They are basically the Ahmad Chalabis of Iran: despite being widely despised in Iran for their support for Iraq in its war against Iran, they are being deceitfully held out as the True Pro-American, Pro-Israel, Pro-Western-Intervention Voice of the Iranian People (paid MeK shill Howard Dean actually argued that the U.S. should recognize MeK’s leader as the legitimate President of Iran).

That HuffPost responded to yesterday’s pressure by removing the MeK post and citing its policy against publishing those “affliated with designated terrorist organizations” is valuable in the sense that it highlights the absurd travesty of “Terrorism” in U.S. politics. For legal purposes, at least, MeK is every bit the Terrorist organization that Al Qaeda is, yet they are now Our Terrorists, and are thus heralded and rewarded rather than scorned.

* * * * *

It was recently revealed that Clarence Page, the long-time Chicago Tribune columnist, was paid $20,000 to speak at this same MeK rally in Paris, along with travel expenses; once that was revealed, The Chicago Tribune reprimanded him and he announced that he would return the fee. It’s just extraordinary how much cash is flying around and ending up in the pockets of prominent and influential Americans in order to shill for this Terror group.

On a different note, The Guardian’s Iranian columnist, Saeed Kamali Dehghan, today details how sanctions against Iran are severely harming ordinary Iranians while doing little to undermine the government or its nuclear research program. The foreign policy analyst Reza H. Akbari points out the same thing here.

Finally, a new Pentagon report to Congress stresses, as the Federation of American Scientists put it, that “that while developing offensive capabilities, Iran’s military posture is essentially defensive in character” – specifically, “Iran’s military doctrine remains designed to slow an invasion; target its adversaries’ economic, political, and military interests; and force a diplomatic solution to hostilities while avoiding any concessions that challenge its core interests.” Let’s repeat that: quite understandably, “Iran’s military posture is essentially defensive in character.”

By Glenn Greenwald,

July 12, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Lobbyists for listed Iranian terror group face new scrutiny

Retired US politicians, generals, and officials have been lobbying on behalf of the Iranian group MEK, listed as a terrorist group by the State Department.

Some of the biggest names in American politics and foreign policy have been accepting money from a State Department designated terrorist organization in recent years and lobbying the US government to bring the group in from the cold. Lobbyists for listed Iranian terror group face new scrutiny

A scandal? Hardly. That famous generals, politicians, and other retired officials have supported the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) has been public knowledge for some time. But their freedom to act on behalf of a group that has murdered Americans, and sought to create an amalgam of Islam and Marxism to take over Iran after the overthrow of the Shah in 1979, has nevertheless been striking. The internet is filled with their speeches, many of which were paid for with hefty fees, praising the group’s Maryam Rajavi, the self-styled "president" of Iran.

A list of notables as long as your arm are on the MEK bandwagon: Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani; ex-Homeland Security boss Tom Ridge; Newt Gingrich; former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean; former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell; former head of the 9/11 commission Lee Hamilton; former Obama National Security Adviser James Jones; ex-CIA Director James Woolsey; and retired generals Wesley Clark and Peter Pace.

That’s just a brief sampling (the Monitor’s Scott Peterson did an extensive investigation into the MEK’s American supporters last year). US citizens aren’t supposed to be helping out groups designated as terrorists by the government, but that’s not how it works in this case.

Consider by contrast the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation. The group was prosecuted in 2007 for funneling money to Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist group that is also on the State Department’s terror list. The charity sought to defend itself by saying that it was only providing humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, which is governed by Hamas. The prosecution and the jury didn’t see it that way, however, and five members of Holy Land were convicted, with two of the officials given 65-year jail terms.

While ex-US officials are receiving money from the MEK, rather than providing it, the tolerance of the close work with the group has been a Washington oddity for some time. There’s some "enemy of my enemy is my friend" logic around this (the MEK hates the current Iranian regime), and some of its advocates view it is a government in waiting for Iran (much as they viewed Ahmad Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress a decade ago). But the group has limited support inside Iran, and the Green Movement views the MEK with as much suspicion as the Iranian government does.

Now, a growing number of questions are being asked about the activism for the MEK.

A Washington Post article last week wonders if the officials could be prosecuted based on the Foreign Agent’s Registration Act (FARA), which requires US citizens lobbying for foreign powers in the US to disclose their roles and officially register with the government. The article quotes David Cole, a scholar of constitutional law at Georgetown, as saying FARA should probably apply to the friends of the MEK. And continues:

Federal lobbying law defines a foreign “agent” as someone who acts “at the order, request, or under the direction or control, of a foreign principal, or of a person any of whose activities are directly or indirectly supervised, directed, controlled, financed, or subsidized in whole or in part by a foreign principal.” It covers activities that include acting as a publicity agency or political consultant or representing the interests of the foreign group “before any agency or official of the government of the United States.”

“The only defense would be if you can claim that you’re doing it on your own, unpaid,” said a retired senior U.S. official and expert on lobbying law, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss hypothetical cases covered by the statute. “But if you’re getting money from the same group to make speeches, it’s pretty hard to make the case.”

There have been just the slightest stirrings of legal action recently. In June, NBC News cited unnamed sources alleging that "speaking firms representing ex-FBI Director Louis Freeh and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Hugh Shelton have received federal subpoenas as part of an expanding investigation into the source of payments to former top government officials who have publicly advocated removing" the MEK from the State terrorist list. "The investigation, being conducted by the Treasury Department, is focused on whether the former officials may have received funding, directly or indirectly, from the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, or MEK, thereby violating longstanding federal law barring financial dealings with terrorist groups."
The article cited an "Obama administration official" (unnamed, of course) as confirming the probe.

Will any of this lead anywhere? Probably not. It’s hardly news that US law is applied unevenly when it comes to lobbying and connected retired officials. As for the MEK coming off the terrorist list? They remain there today as much as anything to avoid complicating negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, with many US officials concerned that a positive gesture to the group would do more harm than good to US interests. The status quo seems likely to prevail, at least under this administration.

Former presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich is one of the MEK and Ms. Rajavi’s greatest admirers, and made the case for her group at its annual conference in France this June, which was attended by a passel of former US officials.

Mr. Gingrich referred to the MEK leader as "President" Rajavi, and told her enthusiastic supporters he was wowed by one of her recent speeches.

He said he hoped "that some people in the State Department might see the reality that this is a massive, worldwide movement for liberty in Iran and not anything like the State Department’s descriptions and I think what you did yesterday was historic and extraordinary and needs to be driven home so that everybody that makes foreign policy decisions in the United States understands just how big this movement is getting … and how bipartisan the American support for it is."

It’s been a very long time since the MEK has carried out a terrorist attack, and it hasn’t murdered a US citizen since the mid-1970s, when they killed two US officers attached to the US embassy in Tehran and four American contractors working in Iran. But the group worked closely with Saddam Hussein during his war with Iran in the 1980s, and was involved in the crackdown against his Kurdish and other domestic political opponents.

It retains an unsavory, cult-like reputation in many circles. Camp Ashraf in Iraq, its base of operations when the MEK was in business under Saddam Hussein, was for many years controlled entirely by the group. Former members have complained of being ordered to dissolve their marriages (because they distracted them from supporting Rajavi and her husband), to give up their personal property to the group, and of being physically prevented from leaving the organization by her loyalists.

Newt Gingrich’s bow to Rajavi was more than a little ironic. While the gesture, as it generally is, was gracious, he hasn’t been shy about making politics over other people’s body posture in the pass. When he was still running for president in March, Gingrich released an ad attacking Obama for bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia.

By Dan Murphy

July 10, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The Greed, Cluelessness, and Poor Judgment of the MEK’s American Advocates

U.S. News recently published a long article on the pro-MEK lobbying effort and the terrorist group’s American advocates. Here Karim Sadjadpour offers an explanation for why so many Americans have embraced the group:

Sadjadpour, the Carnegie analyst, finds it remarkable that so many politicians have supported a group with so much baggage. “In some cases it’s greed, in some cases it’s cluelessness, in some cases it’s remarkably poor judgment, and often it’s all of the above,” he said of the political support.

What I still don’t quite understand is how so many high-ranking and prominent people could be genuinely clueless about a group that they are supporting on a regular basis. It would be more understandable if they were simply motivated by anti-Iranian animus and chose to align themselves with the most distasteful allies possible. That wouldn’t make their cavorting with terrorists any less disgraceful, but it would make sense in a very cynical way. What doesn’t make any sense is how so many prominent figures could be so thoroughly ignorant about the background of an organization whose cause they are promoting. At some point, the ignorance defense isn’t credible. Since the MEK’s American advocates obviously know so little about the group’s history, why should anyone else trust their judgment when they say that the group shouldn’t remain on the FTO list?

The Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page would have to be included in the poor judgment category, and unlike the others his involvement has been a one-time event. Here was an interesting part of his recent column that addressed his attendance at the MEK gathering last month:

“Why are they picking on you?” asked one of many outraged emails from supportive readers in a similar vein. “Why aren’t reporters going after the other big names who are raking in big money for speeches like this?” The quick answer: They don’t work for newspapers.

In fact, some reporters, including Justin Elliott, have been publicizing the pro-MEK activism of former officials, politicians, and retired military officers for many months. These reporters have been “going after” pro-MEK advocates for quite a while, so it’s absurd to think that Page received more scrutiny than anyone else. The reason that these other individuals haven’t been censured by anyone is that they are generally no longer answerable to any employer or organization. In that sense, they are free to lend their support to a terrorist group in a way that someone in Page’s position isn’t. Even though they would all seem to be offering “material support” to a terrorist group, there is no real danger that any of them would face charges.

The new report also digs a bit more into the lobbying effort’s finances:

Much of M.E.K.’s support, Gobadi says, comes from the Iranian diaspora. While he doesn’t name the group’s U.S. supporters, the Senate disclosure database reveals the Iranian American Community of North Texas and Iranian American Community of Northern California have been most active. Dozens of similar community groups came into existence after the U.S. government shut down a partner office of the M.E.K. in D.C. in 2003, but many have since disappeared. Requests for comments from both community groups were not returned, but it’s clear that they have had enormous fundraising and sway.

IACNT and IANCC paid the lobbying firms in Washington thousands of dollars to get signatures for the congressional resolution. They paid the speakers lobby thousands of dollars to get Rendell, Giuliani and Crowley, participants said.

P.S. The Post reported late last week that MEK advocates may be in violation of lobbying regulations (via Andrew):

In recent weeks, new questions have been raised about whether private meetings, conference calls and other contact with officials at the State Department and elsewhere in the administration over the past year require the advocates’ registration as lobbyists or agents of a foreign entity.

Under federal law, advocates for foreign organizations are required to register as lobbyists and provide details about their clients and income. But the MEK supporters have not registered, which would require disclosing the amounts they are paid and the identities of officials with whom they meet.

Update: The Post article includes another good quote from Sadjadpour:

“I see them as a cross between Hezbollah and the Branch Davidians,” [bold mine-DL] said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “It is legitimate to debate whether the MEK meets the Justice Department’s legal definition of a terrorist organization. But it is outright false to claim that they are a legitimate, democracy-minded opposition group with a wide base inside Iran.”

This false claim that they represent Iran’s democratic opposition is exactly what pro-MEK advocates say about the group all the time.

By Daniel Larison

July 9, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Lobbying for MKO terror group by US officials under investigation

A major lobbying campaign by prominent US politicians and former top officials to promote the globally recognized Iranian terror group Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) has raised legal questions.

A major lobbying campaign by prominent US lawmakers and former top officials in support of the anti-Iran terrorist group, Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), has raised legal questions on the legitimacy of such top-level advocacy.

American advocates of the terrorist group, notorious for terror bombings and assassinations of scores of Iranian officials and civilians as well as siding with executed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran in the 1980’s, have met with senior officials of President Barack Obama’s administration to push for MKO’s removal from the State Department’s terrorist list and special treatment of its members at a military camp in Iraq, The Washington Post reported Friday.

According to the report, public appearances on behalf of the MKO by such high-profile American politicians as former national security adviser to Obama administration, James Jones, former New York mayor and Republican presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani, and ex-governor of Pennsylvania Edward Rendell had already triggered a Treasury Department probe into whether the tens of thousands of dollars received as payments for such publicity efforts violated US anti-terrorism laws.

New questions have been raised in recent weeks on whether the private meetings, conference calls and other communication with administration officials over the past year would require the MKO supporters to register as lobbyists or agents of a foreign entity.

Despite arguments by MKO advocates that they are ‘legitimately’ acting to facilitate US policy decisions, experts on lobbying regulations insist that contact with administration officials “easily meet the definition of lobbying under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, a law that has sometimes led to criminal charges,” says The Post.

The new questions, the report adds, pose the latest challenge for the MKO, which has been listed by the US State Department as a terrorist organization since 1997 and was linked to the deaths of six Americans in the 1970’s.

This is while, the anti-Iran MKO terror group and its umbrella organization, the National Council of Resistance, have been engaged in high-priced campaigning in the US for years to get off the terrorist list, including the purchasing of advertisements in The Washington Post and other major mainstream publications (at an average cost of over $50,000 per day).

A US federal appeals court, meanwhile, has given Secretary of State Hillary Clinton until October to make a decision on whether to remove the MKO from its list of international terror groups.

The Post report further reveals that the anti-Iran terror group has enlisted “some of the biggest names in US politics and national security,” including former homeland security secretary Tom Ridge, former Joint Chiefs chairman Hugh Shelton, former FBI director Louis Freeh, former UN envoys John Bolton and Bill Richardson, former US attorney general Michael Mukasey, former speaker of US House of Representatives and recent Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich, as well as Mitchell Reiss, a former State Department official who has been one of the top foreign policy advisers to the current Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney since 2008.

Rendell, Giuliani, Mukasey as well as Gingrich were among 16 high-profile US officials that flew to Paris last month for a pro-MKO event. In a video published by the terrorist group, Gingrich is seen bowing to MKO’s co-leader Maryam Rajavi. Afterward, according to the report, “Gingrich appealed for ‘decisive action’ by the United States on the group’s behalf.”

Furthermore, in a speech on behalf of the terrorist organization in late May, former homeland security secretary during the late George Bush administration Tom Ridge called for “regime change” in Iran, claiming, “The heart of this effort, we all believe, is to recognize democratic opposition – it is the [MKO].”

The Post report, however, goes on to quote an Iran expert as saying, “It is outright false to claim that they (MKO) are a legitimate, democracy-minded opposition group with a wide base inside Iran.”

Prominent MKO surrogates in the US have acknowledged accepting “travel expenses” from unspecific “MKO-allied groups” as well as payments of $10,000 to $40,000 for each speaking engagement. Rendell, meanwhile, has acknowledged accepting over $150,000 in expenses from “supporters” of the MKO. He also admits that before engaging in public speaking on their behalf, “he knew very little” about the terrorist group.

The US daily further reports that Treasury Department officials have interviewed several of MKO’s supporters to determine whether they violated US law by providing support to an organization on the US terrorist list. While refusing to specifically comment on the case, Treasury spokesman John Sullivan described MKO as a “designated terrorist group,” adding, “Therefore, US persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with or providing services to this group.”

Other US officials familiar with the terrorist organization say, however, that the probe into paid lobbying for the MKO “remains on hold while awaiting a formal decision on its terrorist status.” Clinton, meanwhile, told US Congress in May that the State Department would favor removing MKO from its terrorist list if it complies with UN efforts to relocate its members in Iraq to a new temporary location.

US officials, according to The Post, have expressed concerns about rising tensions and an ensuing violence between Iraqi authorities and MKO members if the terrorist group members refuse to vacate the Camp Ashraf military base by the July 20 deadline.

July 8, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Iranian Terrorist Group M.E.K. Pays Big to Make History Go Away

Come October 1, a federal appeals court decision will force the State Department to decide whether the exile-Iranian group Mujahadin-e Khalq, or M.E.K., belongs on the list of designated foreign terrorist organizations.

As recently as 2007, a State Department report warned that the M.E.K., retains "the capacity and will" to attack "Europe, the Middle East, the United States, Canada, and beyond."

The M.E.K., which calls for an overthrow of the Iranian government and is considered by many Iranians to be a cult, once fought for Saddam Hussein and in the 1970s was responsible for bombings, attempted plane hijackings, and political assassinations. It was listed as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. Iranian Terrorist Group M.E.K. Pays Big to Make History Go Away

If the State Department does decide to delist M.E.K., whose name means "People’s Holy Warriors of Iran," it will be with the blessing of dozens of congressmen.

A congressional resolution that urges Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to remove M.E.K. from the State Department list of foreign terrorist groups was signed by 99 politicians, including Rep. Darrell Issa, a California Republican, Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat from Washington, D.C., and Alabama Republican Sen. Spencer Bachus.

Those signatures may have been obtained with real money to grease the wheels. A U.S. News investigation found that three major lobbying firms were together paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by U.S.-based Iranian-American community groups with ties to the M.E.K. to drum up support for the resolution.

Victoria Toensing of DiGenova & Toensing, a lobbying shop famous for its involvement in the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal, was paid $110,000 in 2011 to lobby for the resolution. The firm Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld dedicated five lobbyists to getting signatures for the resolution, and was paid $100,000 in 2012 and $290,000 in 2011 to do so. Paul Marcone and Association similarly lobbied for the resolution, and received $5,000 in 2010 and $5,000 in 2011 for its efforts.

"It’s a worthy cause," said Toensing, who believes the M.E.K. has reformed from its violent past. "Have you ever seen a more bipartisan disciplined group as the one that supported this issue?"

(Akin, Gump, et al. declined to comment to U.S. News. Paul Marcone said despite its history, the M.E.K. "has every right to petition the government on resolutions.")
While dozens of congressmen have signed on to the delist resolution, those no longer holding office appear to be even more supportive of the group.

Last week, at a Paris rally for the M.E.K., Newt Gingrich was captured on camera bowing to the Iranian exile-group’s leader, Maryam Rajavi. (The M.E.K.’s political arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, has its headquarters in Paris).
Also in attendance were former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley, and former Bush U.N. Ambassador John R. Bolton.

Video of the rally in Paris shows what appear to be tens of thousands of M.E.K. supporters waving flags and holding up pictures of Rajavi, who has called democracy "the spirit that guides our Resistance." Some assert the M.E.K. would prefer Iran to become a Marxist state, as it was founded by Marxist-Islamist Iranian students in the 1960s.

"The MEK are trying to portray themselves as a popular and democratic opposition to the current Iranian regime," said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The reality is that they’re neither popular nor democratic."

A prominent Iranian journalist, who did not want to be named for fear of repercussions from the M.E.K., said that despite the group’s attempts to present itself as the main Iranian dissident group, the majority of the Iranian diaspora "does not want to get close" to it. A 2011 New York Times story said most Iranians and Iraqis see the M.E.K. as a "repressive cult."

The "cult" descriptor isn’t just popular opinion. A 2009 Rand study of the M.E.K. described the group as having "cultic practices" and "deceptive recruitment and public relations strategies."

Patrick Clawson, director of research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which has been described as a pro-Israel group, describes the M.E.K. this way: "It’s a cult. There’s no other way to put it."

Clawson, who has spent time with M.E.K. members abroad and their supporters in the U.S., says politicians have been "misled" by "these charming individuals."

"They tell what seems at first glance to be a believable story," he said. "People in cults are charming sometimes. I mean, Scientologists convince movie stars."

There’s no doubt the M.E.K. knows how to charm. When reached by U.S. News & World Report, the spokesman for the National Council of Iran (the M.E.K.’s Paris-based political arm), Shahin Gobadi, spent an extraordinary amount of time answering questions, both over the phone and by E-mail.

"I have sent you a lot," he said, after an E-mail arrived containing 17 attachments. "But I am happy to send much more."

Gobadi repeatedly said that the M.E.K. was working for a democratic future for Iran, emphasizing freedom of speech, abolition of the death penalty, equality for women, and peaceful coexistence with the rest of the world.

"The designation of the M.E.K. as a foreign terrorist organization was … a goodwill gesture to the murderous regime in Iran as part of a policy of appeasing the mullahs," Gobadi said, skimming over the group’s violent past. "Various senior U.S. officials have acknowledged this reality."

Among these officials is former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean, who once called for Rajavi to be recognized as Iran’s president.

As happened at the Paris rally last week, a number of politicians also deliver energetic speeches on behalf of the M.E.K.

Rendell, who has given at least eight supportive speeches, has made $150,000 for his efforts.

The Treasury Department is currently investigating Rendell along with several former senior government officials for giving M.E.K. speeches for money, as transactions with a terrorist group are against the law. Treasury spokesman John Sullivan said that the department "takes sanctions enforcements seriously," but would not give a timeline for when the investigation would be complete.
Rendell says his support for M.E.K. is humanitarian-based, as thousands of the group’s members currently live in exile in a refugee camp in Iraq.

The humanitarian situation is undoubtedly real—Camp Ashraf has been attacked several times since the U.S. transferred control back to the Iraqi government in 2009. In April of last year, Iraqi security forces reportedly stormed the camp and killed 31, wounding 320 more, though news reports vary widely. The M.E.K.’s various websites are heavily Camp Ashraf-focused.

"Ithink our reneging on protecting Camp Ashraf is nothing short of disgraceful," Rendell said, calling it.

Ask any politician who has supported the M.E.K., though, and they are unlikely to be able to tell you very much about the group or its history.

Both Rendell and Giuliani, who has spoken at M.E.K. events in Paris, Geneva, and New York, and who was in Paris twice last week to advise the group, said they knew little about the group before their paid speaking gigs began.

Giuliani said he first learned about the group from former FBI head Louis Freeh, who told him the M.E.K. were a group of revolutionaries, not terrorists. Then, Giuliani said, he "did research." "And every time I go to one of these meetings, I am more convinced," he said.

Former State Department spokesman Crowley, who has been paid to speak at at least four M.E.K. events, acknowledged that the exile group has in the past "on more than occasion been on the wrong side of history." But Crowley said he became increasingly "intrigued" with the group during his time at the State Department, whose location on C Street the M.E.K. regularly visits. He said he believes "their pursuit now is peaceful."

Sadjadpour, the Carnegie analyst, finds it remarkable that so many politicians have supported a group with so much baggage. "In some cases it’s greed, in some cases it’s cluelessness, in some cases it’s remarkably poor judgment, and often it’s all of the above," he said of the political support.

While Gobadi repeatedly told U.S. News that the group is peaceful, a number of news reports allege that the M.E.K. may have been involved in a string of nuclear scientist assassinations over the last several years, with monetary and other aid from the U.S. and Israeli governments.

"On the premise that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, funding, arming or training M.E.K. is an important strategic tool for Israel and the U.S.," Dilshood Achilov, assistant professor of Middle East politics at East Tennessee State University, told the International Business Times of the nuclear scientist assassinations.

Gobadi called the allegations "absolutely absurd" and "directly from the textbook of the mullahs’ Intelligence services."

But the New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh this April gave credence to possible ties between the M.E.K. and the U.S. government, publishing a short piece that said the U.S.’s Joint Special Operations Command had trained members of the M.E.K starting in 2005. According to Hersh’s sources, the training stopped sometime before President Obama took office. But "some American-supported covert operations continue in Iran," Hersch wrote, under the headline, the M.E.K. "Our men in Iran?"

Gobadi insists they aren’t anyone’s men. He says the M.E.K has "not received any funding or weapons from any foreign country and does not seek" it. "The Iranian crisis has an Iranian solution," he said.

Much of M.E.K.’s support, Gobadi says, comes from the Iranian diaspora. While he doesn’t name the group’s U.S. supporters, the Senate disclosure database reveals the Iranian American Community of North Texas and Iranian American Community of Northern California have been most active. Dozens of similar community groups came into existence after the U.S. government shut down a partner office of the M.E.K. in D.C. in 2003, but many have since disappeared. Requests for comments from both community groups were not returned, but it’s clear that they have had enormous fundraising and sway.

IACNT and IANCC paid the lobbying firms in Washington thousands of dollars to get signatures for the congressional resolution. They paid the speakers lobby thousands of dollars to get Rendell, Giuliani and Crowley, participants said.

And they funded a series of sleek ads that have aired on channels like Fox calling for a delisting of the M.E.K.

While it initially looked as though the M.E.K. would be delisted in October, new comments from the White House suggest the group won’t be.

In June, a senior administration official told reporters in a conference call that the M.E.K. may have "over-interpreted" recent events to its favor. "It appears that MEK leaders believe that the Secretary has no choice now but to delist them," the official said. "That is, quite plainly, wrong."

Gobadi said he can’t predict the outcome, but can only be hopeful the "unlawful designation" can come to an end.

Despite hundreds of thousands of dollars in effort, that may be impossible while doubts over the group remain.