Material Support for the MEK Terrorists

NDAA Provisions attacking Freedom of Speech Struck Down

A federal judge has ruled unconstitutional portions of this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which provided for indefinite imprisonment for journalists and activists who reported Juan Cole on organizations deemed ‘terrorist’ by the US government.

Judge Katherine Forrest ruled,

“The statute at issue places the public at undue risk of having their speech chilled for the purported protection from al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and ‘associated forces’ – i.e., ‘foreign terrorist organizations.’ The vagueness of Section 1021 does not allow the average citizen, or even the government itself, to understand with the type of definiteness to which our citizens are entitled, or what conduct comes within its scope.”

The vagueness is such that prominent figures such as Rudy Giuliani have palled around with the MEK (Mojahedin-e Khalq or People’s Holy Jihadis) of Iran, which was on the terrorism watch list for years, with no adverse reaction from the government. But now the Israel lobbies have succeeded in getting the MEK, which has a secret alliance with Israeli intelligence, removed from the list! So could you meet them before? Report on their views? Now? Note that remaining on the list is Lebanon’s Hizbullah, a national liberation organization that got back Lebanese territory from an illegal Israeli invasion and occupation that killed tens of thousands of people.

If we let the US government determine to whom we can speak and what we can say, assuming our words represent no clear and present danger of provoking violence, we may as well just trade in our US passports for an Iranian one.

You know, the Right Wing in Congress has been pulling this stuff for decades, and it only stops when the real Americans put their feet down. Ted Kennedy used to just rule this kind of bullcrap out of bounds in the Senate. But apparently Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi just don’t care, and neither does Barack Obama. There are a whole series of bad decisions that the three of them could have stopped if they had bothered.

May 19, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Report: MEK to be taken off US terror list

Months of lobbying by prominent Democrats and Republicans and an assist from a high-powered lobbying firm that specializes in sanitizing the records of dictators seem to have paid off for Mujahideen-e-Khalq. The Obama administration is preparing to remove the Iranian exile group from the State Department’s official list of terrorist organizations, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday:

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

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

De-listing MEK comes at an opportune time for several high-profile public officials. A number of former officials who allegedly recieved money in exchange for advocating for MEK are reportedly the targets of a federal inquiry into whether they violated US anti-terrorism laws, which forbid even non-violent advocacy on behalf of listed terrorist groups. MEK has American blood on its hands, but today the group is reportedly a huge help to Israel in assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists—perhaps part of the reason it is being delisted. Memo to terror groups: If you want to get off the US terrorism list, make sure you kill the "right" civilians and offer generous speaking fees.

This whole affair hints at a double standard in enforcement: High profile politicians can advocate for listed terror groups without fear, but someone like Tarek Mehanna, the Bostonian who was convicted of material support for terrorism in part for posting Al Qaeda propaganda on the Internet, can look forward to long prison terms.

By Adam Serwer

May 17, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

One Country’s Terror Group, Another’s Useful Tool?

Tuesday marks the second day of talks between Iran and the IAEA regarding Iran’s nuclear One Country’s Terror Group, Another’s Useful Tool? program. Media coverage on the region this week has also centered on the hanging of a member of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad by Iran. Majid Jamali Fash, was executed for killing one of Iran’s nuclear scientists in 2010. While this news is in deed pertinent, another story from Iran has received less media attention and could have long-term implications for the State Department’s handling of terror groups moving forward.

A heavy hitting, bi-partisan lobbying effort has petitioned Secretary of State Hilary Clinton for the past two years to remove the organization called Mujahideen e-Khalq (or MeK) from the State Department’s terrorism list, presumably as part of a house cleaning of a military base in Baghdad. The Wall Street Journal reports that officials say Secretary Clinton has yet to make any final decision on the MeK’s status, but allege that the State Department was looking favorably at delisting MeK if it continued cooperating by vacating a former paramilitary base inside Iraq, called Camp Ashraf, which the group had used to stage cross-border strikes into Iran.

MeK was originally named as a terrorist entity 15 years ago for its alleged role in assassinating U.S. citizens in the years before the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran and for allying with Saddam Hussein against Tehran.

“Real News” opened Tuesday setting the table on where the Iran talks are now, and discussed MeK and whether “one country’s terror group, another’s useful tool?” Journalist and Middle East affairs expert Lisa Daftari joined the panel.

by Christopher Santarelli , The Blaze

May 16, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Hillary’s Terrorists

Hillary Clinton is about to delist a dangerous terror group

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Antiwar.com

May 16, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MeK and That Dastardly T-Word

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By John Glaser

May 16, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Likely victory for MeK shills

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * * * *

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

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

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

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

By Glenn Greenwald

May 16, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK and the unspeakable chaos of the rule of law

Via Glenn Greenwald, Daneil Denvir writes about former Governor Ed Rendell trying to explain why he shouldn’t be indicted for providing “material support” to the Iranian cult terrorist group MEK:

One 10-minute speech earned Rendell $20,000, and he frequently flew to Europe to call for MEK’s removal from the terror list. That would appear to fall within the extraordinarily broad definition of “material support” used by theObama administration.

Rendell calls that “ludicrous.” He says, “The only thing we’ve done is spoken out on their behalf. And you certainly can’t in any way encumber free speech in America. You know that ? you’re a journalist.”

I do sort of know that?you shouldn’t be able to encumber free speech. But the Supreme Court did just that, and Muslims have been prosecuted for doing less: a satellite TV salesman sentenced to five years for broadcasting Hezbollah’s TV channel; a man indicted for favorable web comments on shooting U.S. soldiers.

…“Whatever one’s views are on this ruling, it is now binding law. To advocate on behalf of a designated Terrorist group constitutes the felony of ‘providing material support’ if that advocacy is coordinated with the group,” writes Salon blogger and constitutional law attorney Glenn Greenwald. “They’re providing more substantial ‘material support’ to this Terrorist group than many people ? usually vulnerable, powerless Muslims ? who are currently imprisoned for that crime.”

…“If you indict me, [Rendell explained] I hope you know, you have to indict 67 other Americans who did the same thing, including seven generals … [who] served in Iraq. You’d have to indict James Jones, President Obama’s first NSC chief adviser, you’d have to indict former Attorney General [Michael] Mukasey, former FBI Director Louis Freeh … the whole kit and caboodle.” That caboodle is voluminous and high-powered, including Tom Ridge, UN Ambassador John Bolton, Rudolph Giuliani and Howard Dean, among others.

Seriously, don’t tease me…

“You tell me that anyone has the right to restrict my freedom of speech and I’ll tell you you’re dead wrong,” Rendell insists.

I wish I were wrong. The Supreme Court’s three dissenters protested that the decision “gravely and without adequate justification injure[s] interests of the kind the First Amendment protects.” So it does. It’s a frightening law and a horrible ruling that pulverizes First Amendment free speech protections. But as long as political nobodies face prosecution for speech crimes, so should elites. Indict Rendell ? and Ridge, Mukasey, Giuliani, etc. ? or repeal this law.

See here for background on the push inside elite U.S. circles to get the MEK delisted from the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.

It should be well known that the law simply doesn’t apply to elite members of the American political community. But I just think it’s fascinating that Rendell actually used the argument that, if you indict him, you’ll have to then apply the law to other important people! At least 67 of them! Oh, the unspeakable chaos!

By John Glaser

May 5, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Rendell and Mujahedin Khalq

It’s no surprise that providing “material support” to a terrorist group is against the law. But a 2010 Supreme Court decision, Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, concluded it’s not just illegal to

Indict Rendell: Political elites fall on wrong side of bad law

ship grenades or suitcases of cash. “Advocacy performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization” is also a felony.

Why, then, nearly two months after it was revealed that the Treasury Department is investigating former Gov. Ed Rendell for receiving money from a terrorist group to undertake just that sort of advocacy, has he not been indicted by the Department of Justice?

In recent years, Rendell had delivered speeches in support of Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an Iranian Marxist-Islamist group that resides in an Iraqi desert base and that the U.S. designated a terrorist organization for killing Americans during the 1970s.

Rendell calls that “ludicrous.” He says, “The only thing we’ve done is spoken out on their behalf. And you certainly can’t in any way encumber free speech in America. You know that ― you’re a journalist.”

I do sort of know that―you shouldn’t be able to encumber free speech. But the Supreme Court did just that, and Muslims have been prosecuted for doing less: a satellite TV salesman sentenced to five years for broadcasting Hezbollah’s TV channel; a man indicted for favorable web comments on shooting U.S. soldiers.

Rendell wouldn’t comment on specific cases, but he rightly noted that the First Amendment protected Communist Party activity during the Cold War. So it did, and it does seem incomprehensible that American law could now criminalize speech in support of a war enemy. But as the War on Terror creeps into its eleventh year, presidents Bush and Obama have erected a monstrous national security state and, in the process, rendered American civil liberties unrecognizably feeble.

“Whatever one’s views are on this ruling, it is now binding law. To advocate on behalf of a designated Terrorist group constitutes the felony of ‘providing material support’ if that advocacy is coordinated with the group,” writes Salon blogger and constitutional law attorney Glenn Greenwald. “They’re providing more substantial ‘material support’ to this Terrorist group than many people ― usually vulnerable, powerless Muslims ― who are currently imprisoned for that crime.”

Rendell, however, contends that he’s protected because the funds, as far as he knows, were “raised by individual Iranian expat groups” in the U.S. and Europe.

“Please,” Greenwald tells me. “Iranians who love MEK pay the fees in order to keep a thin layer of separation―any real investigation will find the source of those funds.”

Finally, Rendell says the law should not apply here: The State Department has urged him to dialogue with the MEK. And MEK’s blue-chip American supporters ― could they all have broken the law?

“If you indict me, I hope you know, you have to indict 67 other Americans who did the same thing, including seven generals … [who] served in Iraq. You’d have to indict James Jones, President Obama’s first NSC chief adviser, you’d have to indict former Attorney General [Michael] Mukasey, former FBI Director Louis Freeh … the whole kit and caboodle.” That caboodle is voluminous and high-powered, including Tom Ridge, UN Ambassador John Bolton, Rudolph Giuliani and Howard Dean, among others.

“You tell me that anyone has the right to restrict my freedom of speech and I’ll tell you you’re dead wrong,” Rendell insists.

I wish I were wrong. The Supreme Court’s three dissenters protested that the decision “gravely and without adequate justification injure[s] interests of the kind the First Amendment protects.” So it does. It’s a frightening law and a horrible ruling that pulverizes First Amendment free speech protections. But as long as political nobodies face prosecution for speech crimes, so should elites. Indict Rendell ― and Ridge, Mukasey, Giuliani, etc. ― or repeal this law.

By Daniel Denvir ,City Paper

May 5, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

I-Team: Training MEK Terrorists at the Former Nevada Test Site

LAS VEGAS — The contractors who run the Nevada National Security Site, formerly the Nevada Test Site, have been scrambling to find new missions to keep the facility alive. And with its wide open spaces and secure borders, it’s the perfect place for covert training.

But how would taxpayers feel about using public dollars to train foreign insurgents, including some who are officially considered to be terrorists?

It’s never really clear how these things can turn out, and sometimes such operations can backfire. For example, in the mid-80s, America trained and armed Afghan rebels to fight against the Russian army. Those same Afghans later joined the Taliban and have used the training we gave them to kill American soldiers.
The first units of the MEK to show up in Nevada in late 04, early 05, and it was months and months of training
Nationally known journalist Seymour Hersh reported this month that the U.S. government paid to train Iranian provocateurs, presumably to cause trouble for the current government of Iran. But it turns out the government considers these guys to be terrorists.

The test site has emerged in recent years as a top training facility for all sorts of classified programs, including special ops teams and anti-terror units, and it appears foreign operatives are part of the mix.

"The first units of the MEK to show up in Nevada in late 04, early 05, and it was months and months of training," investigative reporter Seymour Hersh said.

The Pulitzer Prize winning reporter broke the story in early April, alleging that a rabidly anti-Iranian faction known as the Mujahedeen e-Khalq, or MEK, was at Area 12 on the test site for months of Special Forces training. Area 12 has been used many times as a base for sensitive operations, including training for the agents who guard American nuclear bombs. It has barracks and facilities to house scores of troops, or in this case, insurgents.

According to Hersh, the training focused on high-tech communications tactics, the kind that involves spy drones, as well as explosives training and enhanced interrogation techniques, which might explain why Nevada saw so many flights of so-called rendition planes during the same period.

While Area 12 may have been the base for MEK, it is likely the special ops training took place in Areas 18 and 19, where the terrain is remarkably similar to that of Iran. Hersh reported that the MEK training was overseen by the Joint Special Operations Command.

A spokesman for that group said the report is "not true at all, that the command was not involved in training MEK." So, if it took place, another agency, possibly the CIA, gave a cover story to the contractors who run the test site.

It’s not the first time southern Nevada has been used for insurgency training. In the mid-80s, dozens of Mujahedeen leaders from Afghanistan were trained in explosives, sniper techniques, and other guerilla tactics out in Sandy Valley by decorated Green Beret Colonel Bo Gritz, the real life model for the movie Rambo. They were then unleashed on Russian forces in Afghanistan.

And just after the events of September 11, the CIA trained Iraqi exiles known as the Scorpions at the test site.

"The CIA was considering sabotage, assassinations, and other aggressive actions to try and provoke a war with Saddam and destabilize his regime, all of this long before Congress authorized the invasion of Iraq," said Michael Isikoff, the author of "Hubris."

The big surprise is not that training took place in Nevada, but who was being trained. MEK is listed by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization, and for good reason. For years, it was a paramilitary arm of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, carrying out bombings and assassinations.

In the 70s, MEK assisted in the takeover of the American embassy and the Iranian hostage crisis. It is widely blamed for murdering American military personnel and contractors in Iran and is widely despised.

"They are pretty much universally reviled by ordinary Iranians who doesn’t like their own government but really don’t like the MEK because they fought alongside Saddam during the Iraq war," said Jamal Abdi with the National Iranian American Council.

Hersh believes the training of MEK ended with the Obama administration but the operatives educated in Nevada are currently active in Iran and are believed responsible for a string of assassinations of Iranian scientists.

In the U.S., MEK is spending huge sums to buy political support so it can be removed from the terror list and perhaps take over if the Iranian government is overthrown. Abdi says American support for MEK is a dangerous idea.[..]

Former Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge is among the three dozen or so American politicians who accepted big money from MEK supporters to say nice things about the group. Calls for comment from Ridge were not returned.

There are prominent people in both parties who think MEK might be the United State’s best option if there is a regime change inside Iran. But again, fomenting that kind of change is dicey business.

By George Knapp, Chief Investigative Reporter / Matt Adams, Chief Photojournalist – 8newsnow

April 30, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The US and the MEK: the enemy of my enemy is NOT my friend

Has any other maxim led to greater error and remorse than the twisted logic that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend?” Yet the irony is that this malevolent cliché is actually the most charitable interpretation for why a large and bipartisan group of prominent Americans is currently lobbying on behalf of the bizarre Iranian terrorist cult the Mujahedeen e-Khalq, or MEK.

This unlikely coalition is pressuring the US government to change its policies towards the main MEK base, “Camp Ashraf,” in Iraq and thwart American and Iraqi plans for resolving that issue. More ominously, the group is pressuring to have the MEK removed from the list of designated foreign terrorist organizations.

The somewhat less charitable explanation is that many of the American MEK supporters have been paid tens of thousands of dollars for speeches and other services. Because all material dealings with the MEK are serious felonies, the Treasury Department has recently issued subpoenas to some of its key US supporters, including former Pennsylvania Governor Ed The US and the MEK: the enemy of my enemy is NOT my friend Rendell, former Department of Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Hugh Shelton. Rendell’s office, for example, admits he has received $160,000 for such efforts over the past year.

Other prominent MEK supporters include Republican notables such as the former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former Homeland Security Advisor Fran Townsend, former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, many of whom are self-styled anti-terrorism crusaders. On the Democratic side, MEK backers include former Vermont Governor Howard Dean, former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, and former Senior Allied Commander of NATO Wesley Clark.

The MEK is on the terrorism list for good reason. According to a State Department report published in 1997, the organization “assassinated at least six American citizens, supported the takeover of the US Embassy [in Tehran], and opposed the release of the American hostages.” Since then, the organization has been implicated in numerous terrorist attacks inside Iran and elsewhere, and for many years its main sponsor was Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

A further, and more disturbing, motivation for this indefensible championing of the MEK was recently revealed by NBC News. It reported that US officials said “deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists are being carried out by an Iranian dissident group [the MEK] that is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service.”

For some, it seems, although the MEK may be a terrorist group, it has the “right targets,” and therefore should be supported rather than banned.

But the MEK is not simply a run-of-the-mill dissident group employing terrorist tactics. It is a bizarre and dangerous cult run by a strange and fanatical couple, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, that reportedly keeps its members in total isolation, forbids marriages and imposes divorces, and engages in disturbing “self-criticism” sessions. Its ideology is a twisted syncretism of Shia fundamentalism, Marxism and feminism run amok. Numerous observers have aptly compared its mindset to that of the Khmer Rouge.

[..] For a simple primer on how the MEK conducts itself, readers should consult Elizabeth Rubin’s 2003 New York Times report, “The Cult of Rajavi.”

The Treasury Department is to be commended for launching a long-overdue investigation into the MEK’s well-funded US lobby, as well as its large payments to exceptionally prominent Americans who certainly ought to know better. Some have claimed ignorance about the MEK’s history and practices. However, any 10-year-old with an Internet connection could discover the truth about this nefarious organization within minutes of casual browsing.

Were the State Department to de-list the organization as a terrorist group, the official American approach to international terrorism would be shorn of any pretense of principle. Moral clarity on terrorism would be abandoned in favor of the logic of “they’re our terrorists, so they’re acceptable,” simply on the basis that their targets are the regime in Tehran and its nuclear program, possibly under Israeli state sponsorship.

For far too long, MEK front organizations have operated with impunity in the United States. Prominent Americans have accepted cash payments that with regard to other designated terrorist groups would have long since led to major prosecutions. Rather than de-listing the MEK from the terrorism list, the United States government should vigorously pursue its investigation into those Americans who have accepted payments from its front organizations.

By legitimizing the MEK, Washington would lose almost all credibility when it comes to opposing terrorism. The enemy of my enemy is by no means necessarily my friend. That way madness lies.

IBishblog

April 30, 2012 0 comments

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