Material Support for the MEK Terrorists

Giuliani claims ‘terrorist’ MEK only chance to stop Iran

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has become the latest senior US politician to call for regime change in Iran – and endorse an organization his own government considers terrorist to Giuliani claims ‘terrorist’ MEK only chance to stop Iran carry it out.

Mujahedin-e Khalq, also known as MEK, is a former radical Islamic-Marxist movement, labeled a “cult” by Human Rights Watch and listed by the US State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, alongside Al-Qaeda and Hezbollah.

It is also embroiled in a US political scandal for allegedly making illegal payments to retired US politicians.

Yet Giuliani believes the US government should put its might behind MEK, which is currently based in Iraq.

"I have a feeling that the only thing that will stop [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] and the only thing that will stop Ahmadinejad is if they see strength, if they see power, if they see determination, if they see an America that is willing to support the people that want to overthrow the regime of Iran," Giuliani told the audience at an international conference in Paris, reports the International Business Times.

Although officials in Washington have openly accused Iran of trying to acquire nuclear weapons, President Obama has so far called for a diplomatic resolution. And while some in Israel and the US have advocated limited military action to disable Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities, Republican Presidential candidates Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have all called for the Iran Regime to be overthrown.

But none of them have campaigned for MEK to lead the revolution.

The MEK has forsaken its anti-Western and radical Islamist roots, and promotes itself as a secular, democratic government-in-waiting – to its Western backers. But at its base in a refugee camp in Iraq it enforces strict discipline – celibacy, limited sleep, no electronic communication, forced divorce for married members, and a personality cult surrounding its leader Zohreh Akhyani[Nejat Society note: the so called leader of MEK is now Maryam Rajavi as his husband Massoud is in hiding]. Human Rights Watch has accused it of severe human rights violations.

Meanwhile, the US first placed it on the terrorist list in 1997 over fears that it might attack American citizens, and as recently as 2007 it claimed MEK was a terrorist organization despite its formal renunciation of violence against civilians.

Cash for credibility

But despite its dubious credentials, MEK has proved almost irresistible to a whole slew of nominally respectable US politicians. Among them former UN ambassador John Bolton, presidential candidate Howard Dean, and former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge, who’ve all made speeches in favor of the MEK.

But a recent investigation initiated by the US Treasury Department discovered that the MEK was paying its supporters lavish speech fees in the tens of thousands for several minute-long talks extolling its virtues. It has already subpoenaed several former officials including former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell.

If it turns out that they received money from MEK, they will be in contravention of US legislation prohibiting anyone – never mind top political figures – from receiving funding from terrorist organizations.

Considering Giuliani’s long history of ostentatious support for the MEK, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that he is next to be investigated. Aware of this, in his Paris speech he brushed off the investigators, saying they "don’t frighten me, won’t stop me.”

Nonetheless, MEK have launched legal action in US courts, to be taken off the terrorist list, provoking an angry reaction from the State Department, which doesn’t want the courts to dictate who it considers a potential national threat. In his speech Giuliani accused "cowardly sources in the State Department or elsewhere” of “unknowingly doing the bidding of the mullahs [the current regime in Tehran]."

If as expected, the MEK legal campaign fails, and Giuliani’s long-rumored financial links with the MEK are exposed, the nation will wonder how the man considered a national hero for his response to 9/11 has become closely associated with a terrorist organization.

April 2, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Guest Op-Ed: MEK and its material supporters in Washington

Jeremiah Goukla worked as a lawyer in the Bush Justice Department, and then went to work as an analyst with the RAND Corporation, where he was sent to Iraq to analyze, among other things, MEK and its material supporters in Washington the Iranian dissident group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), publishing an oft-cited study on the group. MEK has been in the news of late because a high-powered bipartisan cast of former Washington officials have established close ties with the group and have been vocally advocating on its behalf, often in exchange for large payments, despite MEK’s having been formally designated by the U.S. Government as a Terrorist organization. That close association on the part of numerous Washington officials with a Terrorist organization has led to a formal federal investigation of those officials. Goukla has written and supplied to me two superb Op-Eds on the MEK controversy — one about the group itself and the other explaining why so many prominent Washington officials are openly providing material support to this designated Terror group — and I’m publishing the two Op-Eds below with his consent (as you read them, remember that paid MEK shill Howard Dean actually called on its leader to be recognized as President of Iran while paid MEK shill Rudy Giuliani has continuously hailed the group’s benevolence).

Before posting those Op-Eds, I want to note one update on this matter: supporters of MEK have filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to force the State Department to decide within 30 days whether to remove MEK from the list of designated Terrorist organizations (State Department officials have previously indicated they are considering doing so). In response, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has told the court that (1) it has no role to play in directing the timing of this decision (“Any interference by a court with the Secretary’s ability to carry out these absolutely critical duties would set a seriously troubling precedent”); and (2) the U.S. Government is currently attempting to force MEK to move from its current base in Camp Ashraf to another location in Iraq (something MEK does not want to do), and whether MEK cooperates with the U.S. Government’s directives will play a large role in determining whether the group is removed from the Terrorist list.

With regard to that second argument: in determining whether MEK belongs on the Terrorist list, what conceivable difference should it make whether MEK is cooperative in moving from Camp Ashraf as the U.S. Government wants? What does their cooperation or lack thereof have to do with whether they are a Terrorist organization? The answer, of course, is that the U.S. list of Terrorist organizations (like its list of state sponsors of Terrorism) has little or nothing to do with who are and are not actually Terrorists; it is, instead, simply an instrument used to reward those who comply with U.S. dictates (you’re no longer a Terrorist) and to punish those who refuse (you are hereby deemed Terrorists). The scholarship of Remi Brulin documents how Terrorism, from its prominent introduction into world affairs, has been manipulated that way. Andrew Exum of the Center for a New American Security yesterday objected to my argument that the field of “Terrorism expertise” is basically fraudulent because the concept of “Terrorism” itself is largely propagandistic and ideological, rather than being some meaningful term with a fixed, coherent definition. His commenters have very effectively addressed his claims, but this game-playing with MEK is yet another example underscoring what I mean.

__________________________________

By Jeremiah Goukla

THE IRAN WAR HAWKS’ FAVORITE CULT GROUP

Despite the flurry of support by some prominent politicians as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton scrutinizes its case, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), a dissident Iranian group based in Iraq with a propaganda arm in Paris, is no enigma.

The U.S. declared the MEK a terrorist organization 13 years ago partly because the group is thought to have assassinated three U.S. Army officers and three U.S. civilian contractors in Tehran in the 1970s. The group’s pep rallies feature U.S. politicians lured with high fees to come speak on its behalf. The MEK wants the U.S. government to take the group off its terrorist list – as the E.U. and U.K. have already done. But before that happens the group requires close scrutiny.

I studied the MEK for the U.S. military and visited Camp Ashraf, the MEK facility 40 miles north of Baghdad. I also interviewed former MEK members. As Human Rights Watch also concluded, I saw that the MEK is a cult. It uses brainwashing, sleep deprivation, and forced labor to indoctrinate members. It segregates men from women, mandates celibacy, forces married members to divorce (except for its leaders), and separates families and friends who must seek permission just to converse.

MEK members must report their private sexual thoughts at group meetings and endure public shaming. In a Catch-22, those who deny having sexual thoughts are accused of hiding them and shamed, too. The cult has but one purpose: to put itself in charge in Iran.

A brief history lesson illuminates how the MEK transformed from a radical student group in 1965 to what it is today. When the MEK was founded it embraced both Marxism and Islam and dedicated itself to the violent overthrow of the Shah of Iran. All this is reflected in its name, the “People’s Holy Warriors.” By 1979 the MEK evolved into a major movement that threatened Ayatollah Khomeini’s dominance after the Iranian Revolution. He suppressed the group, executing some leaders and imprisoning others. In 1981 some MEK leaders escaped in a stolen plane. Among these was Masoud Rajavi. Exiled to Paris, he established the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an umbrella organization of Iranian dissident groups opposed to Khomeini. The NCRI soon became the propaganda arm of the MEK. Rajavi’s wife, Maryam, runs the NCRI, which is also on the U.S. terror list. She calls herself “president-elect” of the NCRI’s “parliament-in-exile.”

When Saddam Hussein waged war against Iran, Rajavi moved the MEK from Paris to Iraq. His alliance with Saddam in a brutally violent war cost the MEK credibility and its font of recruits. Isolated in Iraq’s desert, Rajavi instituted authoritarian control over his decimated army and confiscated his troops’ assets. He encouraged Saddam to send Iranian POWs to MEK’s Camp Ashraf rather than repatriate them. With promises of asylum for POWs and family reunions with the new MEK members, Rajavi duped Iranian visitors to come to the camp and stole their passports so they couldn’t leave.

Human Rights Watch reports that those who tried to escape endured confinement or torture. After the U.S. invaded Iraq, the MEK ejected its most “difficult” members and used guards and concertina wire to entrap the rest. Members must swear allegiance to Masoud and Maryam, whose pictures are in every building at Camp Ashraf. But these days Maryam’s is the public face of the NCRI. Masoud Rajavi mysteriously disappeared in 2003.

Maryam trumpets the dangers of Iran’s nuclear program and gives the NCRI credit for discovering Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility. That self-serving claim is doubtful, as is the NCRI’s posture as a democratic government-in-waiting. While its propaganda arm espouses Western values to Western audiences, the MEK continues to force-feed its doctrine to members who may not criticize the Rajavis and are not free to leave the Ashraf compound.

While many people would like to see a change of regime in Tehran, no one should believe that the MEK would provide Iran with a government based on liberty and justice for all. Indeed, based upon its treatment of its own adherents in Iraq, a MEK regime might not be much improvement over the current one.

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By Jeremiah Goukla

INVESTIGATIONS BEGIN INTO MEK SUPPORTERS

The U.S. Treasury Department has begun an investigation into nearly two dozen prominent former government officials who have been paid tens of thousands of dollars to promote the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an Iranian dissident cult group that has been designated by the State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) since 1997.

These officials include several prominent George W. Bush Administration anti-terror officials like Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge, Homeland Security advisor Frances Fragos Townsend, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, UN ambassador John Bolton; as well as former Republican Mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani; former Democratic governors Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania and Howard Dean of Vermont; ex-FBI Director Louis Freeh; and retired chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Hugh Shelton. These former officials have given speeches at home and abroad urging the State Department to remove the MEK from the FTO list.

Given the cacophony of saber-rattling over Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program – which the U.S. intelligence community generally believes was shut down in 2003 – and the risk, however low, of actually getting prosecuted for “material support of terrorism,” it is important to examine why anyone would promote a designated terrorist organization.

What is the MEK?

The MEK – which is also known as the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI) and often operates through its Paris-based propaganda arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) – is an Iranian dissident group that once-upon-a-time was a significant force in Iranian politics. Created to oppose the Shah in 1965, the MEK lost out to Ayatollah Khomeini after the Iranian Revolution, and the mullahs have been the MEK’s target ever since. The regime brutally suppressed the group, forcing it to go underground and its leaders into exile. Most MEK members are now based in Iraq, where they have lived since joining forces with Saddam Hussein in 1986 during the Iran-Iraq War. (For more history of the MEK, see the appendices here.)

Collaborating with Saddam was the MEK’s greatest mistake. Saddam started that war, which was a catastrophe for Iran, but he didn’t win and didn’t install the MEK as the new government. In the process, the MEK killed Iranian soldiers and thereby killed off whatever credibility it once had.

The MEK claims to be the best organized and the most prominent opposition group in Iran. No credible sources that I have seen suggest that it has any relevance in Iran at all, other than to get the mullahs riled up. It is, however, very well organized, because, cut off from new volunteers, the MEK’s co-leaders Masoud Rajavi (whereabouts unknown) and his wife Maryam Rajavi turned the MEK into a cult of personality.

The MEK vigorously denies that it is a cult, accusing critics of working for the Iranian regime or performing inadequate research (using the tactics of climate change, evolution, and tobacco denialists). However, I studied the MEK in depth and over a period of many months for the U.S. military. I visited Camp Ashraf, the MEK facility 40 miles north of Baghdad, and interviewed MEK members, former MEK members, and dozens of military and civilian officials. Along with almost all of my interviewees and Human Rights Watch, I concluded that the MEK is a cult. It employs many common cult practices: mandated celibacy and divorce, thought control, sleep deprivation, and forced labor. It segregates men from women, separates families and friends – who must seek permission just to converse – and even tells family members back home that the members are dead.

Why Would Any American Politicians Support the MEK?

Getting off the FTO list is a stepping-stone to the MEK’s main goal: getting America to install it as the new government of Iran. Why would American politicians want that? There are two main reasons, neither of them good.

The first is ignorance. The MEK presents itself well and is good at running “Astroturf” campaigns. Its NCRI is a self-proclaimed “parliament in exile,” dedicated to the principles of western liberal democracy. Over the years, lots of American civilian and military officials have failed to do their homework and fallen for the MEK’s sales spiel, excited as they were to hear what they wanted to hear. (If something sounds too good to be true…)

Does this remind you of Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress? It should. As Ali Gharib has shown, the same people who helped Chalabi push us into Iraq are now orchestrating public events where former officials promote the MEK.

The second reason is money. The officials were paid to speak on the MEK’s behalf, up to $30,000 per speech. Not bad for a few minutes work.

But this is just the beginning. What the media has generally failed to mention is that these former officials are now in the national/homeland security business. Just take a quick look around Wikipedia, Forbes, and OpenSecrets.org, and here is what you will find:

Tom Ridge has his own security consultancy (Ridge Global, LLC) and lobbying firm (Ridge Policy Group). He chairs the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s national security task force and sits on the boards of at least one military contractor (TechRadium, Inc.) and one company (Geospatial Corporation) that serves the oil and gas industry.
Francis Fragos Townsend chairs an industry association for intelligence contractors (the Intelligence and National Security Alliance) and is the head of lobbying for a holding company (MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings Inc.) that owns the military contractor AM General.
Rudolph Giuliani has a security consulting firm (Giuliani Partners) and is a partner in a law firm with prominent oil and gas and lobbying practices (Bracewell & Giuliani). He used to own a private equity fund that teamed up with Bear Stearns to invest in security companies.
Louis Freeh has a security and investigations consulting firm (Freeh Group International Solutions, LLC) and a law firm (Freeh Sporkin & Sullivan, LLP), where he represents, among other clients, a Saudi prince in a bribery investigation involving an arms deal.
Hugh Shelton has served on the boards of directors of several military contractors, such as L-3 Communications, CACI International, Inc., and Protective Products of America, Inc.
Bolton, Mukasey, Rendell, and Dean are affiliated with major law firms whose clients include not just standard military contractors but many other more mundane corporations, as expert Nick Turse has shown, also benefit from military largesse. (Bolton is also affiliated with several pro-war think tanks.)
For people in the national/homeland security business, war with Iran would be a cash cow. They and their clients stand to benefit handsomely. Just stoking fears of war can get money flowing, from studies to retrofitting naval vessels. Bombing would be better, as even something as small as the Libyan war involved spending more than a billion dollars. But full-on war, that’s the mother lode. An invasion followed by an Iraq-style lingering occupation and reconstruction would open up hundreds of billions and possibly even trillions of taxpayer dollars for the grabbing.

Hopefully these Treasury Department investigations are a sign that the Obama Administration has finally decided to rein in the warmongers. Ignorance, profit, and the dreams of a terrorist-cult group are lousy reasons to start a war.

By Glenn Greenwald,

March 29, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MKO’s supporters throw party in U.S. Congress

It’s not every day that groups supporting a State Department-listed foreign terrorist organization hold a party in the U.S. Congress, but that’s exactly what happened today when the friends of the Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK) threw their Nowruz party in the hearing room of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
"Members of Congress will join Iranian Americans in wishing the Iranian people a Happy Nowrouz and address the humanitarian rights of Iran’s main opposition in Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty, in Iraq," reads the flyer for the party, which was held Thursday at the Rayburn building in room 2172, where the foreign affairs committee holds all of its public events.
The flyer says that the event is sponsored by "Iranian American communities" from around the United States, but the mention of Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty is a clear reference to the MEK, a group designated by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization that has about 3,000 members living in the secretive Ashraf compound in Iraq.
The U.N. and the State Department are working to move them to Camp Liberty, a former U.S. military base near the Baghdad airport, but the MEK is resisting that move, and has enlisted its many supporters in the United States to decry the conditions at the former military base. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani even went so far as to call Camp Liberty a "concentration camp."
House Foreign Affairs Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) spoke at the event and discussed human rights in Iran, but did not mention the MEK by name. Former Homeland Security secretary and Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, a paid advocate of the MEK, also spoke.
"The event was not sponsored by the MEK," Ros-Lehtinen’s spokesperson Brad Goehner told The Cable. "The room was requested by the Iranian-American Society of South Florida and sponsored by the Iranian-American communities of 39 cities for an event commemorating the Iranian New Year. Space in Congressional office buildings is routinely made available to organizations wishing to hold events on issues important to members of Congress."
The flyer doesn’t say the party is being thrown by or for the MEK, and aides who attended told The Cable that there were no MEK signs or banners at the event, as one usually sees wherever the MEK is camped out.
That could be a result of the revelation that the Treasury Department’s counterterrorism unit has issued a subpoena to former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell for records related to his paid advocacy of the MEK, as part of an investigation into the web of organizations that support the terrorist group.
There is a long list of Iranian-American organizations that fund pro-MEK events and pay speakers fees to MEK supporters. Many of these organizations – such as the "Global Initiative for Democracy, whose homepage is entirely devoted to the MEK’s concerns and who hosted an MEK conference in January — seem to have no other function other than to advocate for the MEK, and the actual sources of their money is unclear.
Receiving funding from a terrorist organization or even providing it with "material support," which could include advocacy, is a crime.
The campaign by the MEK’s supporters to disparage Camp Liberty and lobby for the MEK’s removal from the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations has included huge rallies outside the State Department, massive sit-ins at Congressional hearings, and an ongoing vigil outside the State Department’s C Street entrance.
Those supporters, many of them paid, include Giuliani, Rendell, Vermont Governor Howard Dean, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, John Lewis (D-GA), former FBI Director Louis Freeh, former Sen. Robert Torricelli, former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, former National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers, former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, former Rep. Lee Hamilton, former CIA Director Porter Goss, senior advisor to the Romney campaign Mitchell Reiss, retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, and former Sen. Evan Bayh.
Congressional aides attended the event on Thursday in the hearing room both out of curiosity and hunger for free food. But multiple aides told The Cable the event was bizarre, even by Congressional standards.
"Looks like you just have to be the ‘right’ terrorist organization to hold a fancy party in the halls and hearing rooms of Congress," one House aide told The Cable. "Hope everyone who ate their kabobs doesn’t get hit with material support subpoenas."

Josh Rogin, Foreign Policy

March 26, 2012 0 comments

USA

Treasury MEK Probe Includes Two More

A Treasury Department probe cast a wider net than previously known, according to NBC News, to collect information on advocacy by multiple American former politicians and officials for a

A Treasury Department probe cast a wider net than previously known

controversial exiled Iranian opposition group. Last Friday, the Washington Times broke the storythat former Democratic Party leader and Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell’s speakers’ bureau received a subpoena.

The stories relate the former officials’ advocacy to have the Mojahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) — a group with a long and winding history that was founded as an armed revolutionary group in Iran in the 1960s — removed from the U.S. State Department’s list of “foreign terrorist organizations.”

In addition to Rendell, NBC reports, Treasury’s Department of Foreign Assets Control, which enforces sanctions and international financial regulations, also requested records from the speakers’ bureaus of former F.B.I. head Louis Freeh and former Joint Chiefs chairman Gen. Hugh Shelton. Shelton denied wrong doing:

We’re all pretty miffed. None of us involved in this would say a good word about anyone suspected of being a terrorist.

But the MEK is not only suspected to be a terrorist group, they are designated as such by the U.S. government. (That designation is under review because of a court order, but no decision on reinstating or withdrawing it has been forthcoming from the State Department.) An Obama administration official speaking to NBC made the point:

This is about finding out where the money is coming from. This has been a source of enormous concern for a long time now. You have to ask the question, whether this is a prima facie case of material support for terrorism.

Many of the some 40 former officials who advocate for the MEK to be delisted receive high speaking fees for speeches to pro-MEK conferences and rallies both in the United States and in Europe, where the leadership of the group is based. Further complicating matters, some of the speakers work with stateside groups that support the MEK, but are not part of the organization itself. The NBC story, however, mentions at least one incident — which it suggests was a catalyst for the wider probe — where the political wing of the MEK, the National Council for Resistance in Iran (also a designated terror group), worked directly with U.S. speakers’ bureaus:

A small Pennsylvania-based speakers firm called Speakers Access wrote an email in September inviting a Washington based national security expert to speak at a conference in Geneva, Switzerland “on behalf of our client, National Council of Resistance of Iran, Foreign Affairs Committee.”

Reporter Justin Elliott, at the time with Salon, broke a similar story in September of a different speakers’ bureau that was offering cash for speaking engagements on behalf of the NCRI.

By Ali Gharib

March 18, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Romney on the MEK Last December: ‘I’m Not Familiar With That Group’

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s foreign policy team claimed last month that they’ve been working hard at brining the former Massachusetts governor up to speed on global affairs. Romney on the MEK Last December: ‘I’m Not Familiar With That Group’ But his ignorance about what has become a lightening rod issue among the foreign policy community raises questions about their work.

As of December, as shown in a YouTube video that has eluded widespread attention, Mitt Romney claimed to not know anything about the Mojahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), a controversial, exiled Iranian group listed by the State Department as a “foreign terrorist organization.” Asked during a campaign appearance about the group, Romney said he’d never heard of the group and asked what they were. Told of the MEK’s status, Romney asked indignantly, “Why would you think that I support a — you said it’s a terrorist group?”

As the questioner informed Romney, one of Romney’s foreign policy advisers — former Ambassador Mitchell Reiss — has been active in the very public, well-financed campaign to get the MEK off the terror list. Romney then replied:

I’ll take a look at the issue. I’m not familiar with that particular group, or that effort on the part of any of my team.

It might seem like a small and obscure issue, but the MEK has attracted much attention, including paid speeches by top American politicians and former officials here and in Europe, and multiple full-page newspaper adverts. Another Romney backer, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, has advocated forcefully on behalf of the MEK. More recently, NBC News did a long report on the group’s ties to terror activity in Iran. And the Treasury Department recently announced that it is investigating payments to prominent former American government officials to speak in support of the MEK.

Beyond the public attention, the Romney campaign has been engaged in the MEK issue well before his professed ignorance in December. Romney may not have been aware of it, but Reiss’s advocacy for the MEK was used by neoconservatives in the Romney camp to marginalize Reiss.

In a November GOP debate, Romney spoke of using Iranian “insurgent” groups. (The MEK is by far the best organized militant group opposed to the Islamic Republic.) The remark prompted the conservative Daily Caller website to make a number of inquiries to the campaign that went unanswered, and wrote that the campaign wouldn’t “clarify whether he was referring to the MEK, and what his position is on the organization.”

Now that three months have passed, Romney should make clear his grasp of MEK issues — which involve not only matters of Iran and Iraq policy, but also issues of terrorism — and stake out a position on the group. (HT: Matt Duss)

By Ali Gharib

March 18, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Worldview: Why single out Rendell on MEK?

Give Ed Rendell a break.

Yes, the Treasury Department is investigating the speaking fees received by the former Pennsylvania governor on behalf of an Iranian exile group that’s on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. Rendell told the New York Times he had received about $150,000 for seven or eight speeches that called for taking the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK, off the list (even though he clearly knew little about the organization).

But why is Treasury targeting only Rendell? There’s an astonishing list of high-level former officials – from both parties – who’ve embraced the MEK cause, for which they’ve collected big bucks, along with trips to pro-MEK conferences in Brussels, London, Berlin, and Paris.

And why have so many prominent men linked their names to an outfit with such a shady, and cultish, reputation – a group that has killed Americans and done dirty work for Saddam Hussein?

The MEK is lobbying hard for the State Department to take it off the terrorist list. (A decision is supposed to be made by the end of March.) It has won support, on the Democratic side, from former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, former U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli, and retired Gen. James Jones, President Obama’s first national security adviser. And of course, Rendell.

As for Republicans, boosters include former CIA Directors James Woolsey (a big backer of the Iraq war) and Porter J. Goss; former FBI Director Louis Freeh; former Attorney General Michael Mukasey; former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani; and President George W. Bush’s first homeland security chief, former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge. Never mind that Bush renewed the MEK’s terrorist designation four times.

Add to the list a number of retired generals, along with John Bolton, foreign-policy adviser to Newt Gingrich, and Mitchell Reiss, who advises Mitt Romney.

What were they all thinking?

Maybe it was the money. Or perhaps they were conned by an incredible MEK lobbying effort carried out through a series of front groups. That effort lavished money on prime-time TV, and full-page newspaper ads, which portray the MEK as a democratic group leading the fight for Iran regime change.

Apparently none of these pooh-bahs ever asked about the source of their honoraria. "Nobody has ever been able to figure out where the money comes from," says Iran expert Barbara Slavin, the Washington correspondent for al-Monitor.com, a new website on the Mideast. Rumors abound that funds come from Gulf countries opposed to Iran, or from Israel, which reportedly has close contacts with the MEK, or from Iranian exiles.

Nor do MEK boosters appear to have researched the group’s violent history, which should have been well-known to many of them.

The group began as a Marxist-Islamist group supporting Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei; it killed six Americans in the 1970s. In the 1980s, having broken with the Tehran regime, it sought refuge in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. The Iraqi leader used MEK forces to attack Iran in a brutal war that lasted a decade, and to kill rebellious Kurds and Shiites.

For that reason, the MEK is despised inside Iraq, where U.S. officials are trying to resettle 2,800 remaining MEK fighters. The Iraqis want to evict them from their base at Camp Ashraf.

More critically, the group is also despised inside Iran. "In the eyes of the Iranians, they embedded with the enemy. They were traitors," says Iran expert Vali Nasr. They are regarded likewise across the Iranian political spectrum. The idea that the group has vast support inside Iran is simply untrue.

When Ridge labeled the MEK the "most effective opposition movement" of the Iranian people, he was talking nonsense, a sad commentary on what he didn’t learn as homeland security chief. Moreover, the MEK reportedly operates like a cult, forcing members into celibacy and exacting total obedience to the MEK’s leader, the Paris-based Maryam Rajavi.

All that may not matter to some MEK boosters, like Giuliani. He recently declared on Fox News that the MEK should be named Time Magazine "person of the year." His reason: According to an NBC-News report, the group was trained by Israel’s Mossad to assassinate Iranian nuclear scientists. The MEK was also reportedly used by Israel to leak intelligence about a secret Iranian nuclear facility.

What Giuliani and other advocates ignore is that – whatever the MEK’s role in covert activities – the group does not have the support of the Iranian people. Delisting it may permit it to lobby more openly for support from gullible backers. It may help those who are seeking an exile group to tout as the vehicle for Iran regime change. (Does no one remember the saga of the Pentagon’s favorite Iraqi exile, Ahmed Chalabi?)

But delisting the MEK won’t help pro-democracy forces in Tehran. Nor will it help curb Iran’s nuclear program.

Ed Rendell should have known better than to support this group of exiles. But so should a lot of former U.S. officials with far less excuse for being so blind.

Trudy Rubin, Philly.com

March 18, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Ex-US officials investigated over speeches to MEK group on terror list

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 an Iranian dissident group from the State Department list of terrorist groups, three sources familiar with the investigation told NBC News.

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 Ex-US officials investigated over speeches to Iranian dissident group on terror list Iran, or MEK, thereby violating longstanding federal law barring financial dealings with terrorist groups. The sources, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity, said that speaking fees given to the former officials total hundreds of thousands of dollars.

"This is about finding out where the money is coming from," an Obama administration official familiar with the probe said. "This has been a source of enormous concern for a long time now. You have to ask the question, whether this is a prima facie case of material support for terrorism."

Freeh and Shelton are among 40 former senior U.S. government officials who have participated in a public lobbying campaign – including appearing at overseas conferences and speaking at public rallies – aimed at persuading the U.S. government to remove the MEK from the terror list.

First-class flights
Many of the speakers have received fees of about $30,000 or more per talk and first-class flights to European capitals, according to two sources familiar with the arrangements.

Edward Rendell, a former Pennsylvania governor and ex-Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, whose speaking firm also received a subpoena, has received $160,000 over the past year for appearing at about seven conferences and rallies, including some in Paris, Brussels and Geneva, according to his office. (Rendell is a contributor to MSNBC TV.)

The former officials have said they were told the fees came from wealthy American and foreign supporters of the MEK, not the group itself — and they resent any suggestion they are abetting a terrorist group.

"We’re all pretty miffed," Shelton told NBC News. "None of us involved in this would say a good word about anyone suspected of being a terrorist." But Shelton said that he’s "pretty passionate" that the MEK represents a legitimate resistance group fighting to overthrow "America’s number one enemy" — the Iranian government.

In a statement Friday, Hossein Abedini, a spokesman for the MEK,also denied the group has ever “paid senior former U.S. officials or any other dignitary in the U.S.”

“This is an utter lie and there is not even a scintilla of truth to it,” Abedini said. “The MEK, as the legitimate opposition to the clerical regime, enjoys international recognition in Europe and the U.S. The objective of this failed propaganda is to weaken the widespread public support of the members of Congress, officials and scores of U.S. generals for … revoking of the illegitimate and unjust terror listing of the MEK.”

Shelton said that he was informed by Keppler Speakers, the agency that handles his speaking engagements, that it had been subpoenaed for records of talks he has given over the past year at conferences and rallies sponsored by the MEK. He said Freeh told him that Greater Talent Network, the firm that handles the former FBI director’s speaking engagements, also received a subpoena.

Freeh did not respond to requests for comment. (A Keppler executive also did not respond. Reached by phone, Tom Marcosson, an executive vice president of Greater Talent, declined to comment.)

But Rendell told NBC News that he received an email this week from Freeh’s office alerting him and more than three dozen other former senior officials that subpoenas were being issued by the Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control. The email asked that the former senior officials contact Freeh and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey. Freeh and Mukasey, who have been among the leaders in the campaign to "delist" the MEK, are hiring a lawyer to represent all former senior officials caught up in the investigation, the email from Freeh’s office said, according to Rendell.

John Sullivan, a spokesman for the Treasury Department, said the department does not comment on "potential" investigations. But he added in an email: "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. The Treasury Department takes sanctions enforcement seriously and routinely investigates potential violations of sanctions law."

It is unclear how far Treasury Department officials intend to push the probe — or why they chose to launch it now, more than a year after the lobbying campaign began. But NBC News has obtained one possible clue: A small Pennsylvania-based speakers firm called Speakers Access wrote an email in September inviting a Washington based national security expert to speak at a conference in Geneva, Switzerland "on behalf of our client, National Council of Resistance of Iran, Foreign Affairs Committee." The National Council of Resistance is considered by the Treasury Department to be one of the "aliases" of the MEK and is itself designated as a terror group.

‘Mistake’
The email was later turned over to the FBI and other U.S. officials. The Speakers Access executive who wrote the email, who asked not to be identified, said the email was a "mistake" and that the client was actually another organization — "the Committee for Human Rights in Iran," which is not on the terror list but which has the same contact in Paris as the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

The executive said Speakers Access has since ceased any dealings with either group and turned over all its records on the matter after receiving a Treasury Department subpoena months ago.

The investigation comes at a time of intense internal debate about the MEK, in part spurred by assertions it could prove a useful ally in pressuring the Iranian government to suspend its nuclear program. NBC News reported recently that MEK operatives, trained by the Israeli Mossad, are believed by some U.S. intelligence officials to have been involved in the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists — a report that the group has denied as "absolutely false."

Israel teams with terror group to kill Iran’s nuclear scientists, U.S. officials say

U.S. officials say that the MEK has a long history of terrorist acts, including bombings and assassinations, against Iranian leaders during the 1980s and that at least six Americans died in such attacks. The group — which was once allied with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein — is also viewed warily because of the slavish devotion of its followers to its Paris based leader, Maryan Rajavi.

"The MEK has a crazy edge to it," said Michael Leiter, former director of the National Counter-Terrorism Center and an NBC News consultant. "It always struck me as a cult as much as a terrorist group."

But the group’s supporters say it has long since publicly renounced violence and that Rajavi has proclaimed the group’s adherence to democratic principles. "They want the mullahs out of Iran and they want to replace them with a constitution based on the Declaration of Independence," said Shelton.

The group has also generated sympathy over the plight of its followers at Camp Ashraf, a paramilitary camp on the Iran-Iraq border, where they have been detained – and until recently protected – by the U.S military since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. U.S. officials have been seeking the group’s cooperation to resettle the estimated 2,500 remaining MEK members at Camp Ashraf to a new facility near the Baghdad airport, where they can be processed by the United Nations as refugees and resettled elsewhere.

But the process has stalled – in part over disputes about the conditions of transfer – and MEK advocates say they fear the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, at Iran’s urging, may move in to slaughter the group’s members. "This could be a humanitarian disaster," said Rendell.

Rendell said that there have been weekly conference calls among a "core group" of former U.S. senior officials participating in the lobbying campaign, organized by Freeh, to talk about ways to prod the State Department to remove the MEK from the terror list and protect its followers at Camp Ashraf. He identified this group as including former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean and Mukasey — all of whom have publicly spoken out on behalf of the MEK and spoken at its rallies.

Officials act as middle men
These weekly conference calls have also turned into back channel negotiations over the Camp Ashraf issue. In recent weeks, Rendell said, State Department Ambassador Daniel Fried, the special envoy for detainee issues, has joined the phone calls, urging the pro-MEK "core" members to pass along messages to MEK leaders in Paris, Rendell said.

"The core group talks to Freeh every week," he said. "It’s Ridge, myself, Dean, Freeh, Mukasey. Shelton has joined us on occasion. … We were the ones that Fried asked to communicate with the MEK, telling them, ‘This is the best deal you’re going to get.’ He will say, ‘Listen, you guys have to persuade the MEK to do this. Tell them, OK, tell Paris, they have to persuade the people to get on the buses (at Camp Ashraf.) We then communicate [with the MEK]."

Fried declined comment. But a senior State Department official confirmed his participation in the calls as a means of communicating with MEK leaders in Paris — something U.S. officials are barred from doing — in order to work out a "peaceful" resolution over the conflict over Camp Ashraf.

Rendell said that he and other members of the core group have met with Rajavi in Paris and sent emails to her chief deputy, Farzin Hashemi, passing along Fried’s messages. "The bottom line is, we all believe we are protecting people," he said.

But the bottom line for some U.S. officials is that the former government officials participating in the pro-MEK campaign are being paid handsomely for promoting a dubious cause sponsored by an officially designated terrorist group. Despite the public lobbying campaign, there is still deep suspicion about the MEK and its motives — and concerns that once its members leave Camp Ashraf, many of its followers will return to terrorism, said one senior official speaking on condition of anonymity.

"It’s extraordinary that so many distinguished public servants would shill for a group that has American blood on its hands," the official said.

By Michael Isikoff , National investigative correspondent

March 17, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Money vs. Facts: The Mujahedin-e Khalq Is a Terrorist Organization

The foreign policy and national security challenges posed by Iran have perplexed consecutive U.S. presidential administrations for decades. From the hostage crisis to state sponsorship of terrorism to nuclear programs, the myriad challenges have rarely provided any easy answers. One of the few clear issues pertaining to America’s Iran policy has been its designation of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) as a terrorist organization.

For nearly two decades and four presidential administrations, yearly reviews of the MEK’s terrorist designation have reconfirmed its rightful place on this dubious list of 50 unsavory groups — most recently in January of this year.

Despite this, a massive lobbying push to delist the MEK has been raging inside the beltway for the past year, producing two troubling results. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told U.S. lawmakers that a decision on the MEK’s terrorist designation is pending in part to see if the group peacefully relocates to a new, less contentious location in Iraq. Shortly thereafter, the Washington, D.C. court of appeals ordered the U.S. government to respond to a petition on the MEK’s terrorist designation by March 26 — less than two weeks from today.

My organization, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), has been at the forefront of a diverse, uncompensated coalition of former government officials, analysts and scholars calling for the MEK to remain a designated foreign terrorist organization.

To date, I have personally remained silent on the issue in my public commentary in an effort to protect my former colleagues serving in the State Department’s Office of Iranian Affairs. My views are identical to theirs.

However, I can no longer remain silent. We are fast approaching a point of no return regarding the MEK’s terrorist designation, and my government is running the risk of making a disastrous mistake.

Allow me to explain.

Not one of my former State Department colleagues — zero — support de-listing the MEK. Their determination is not based on personal preference or policy ramifications. Rather, the facts of the case are indisputable.

Since NIAC launched its information campaign on the MEK nearly one year ago, I have been in close and continuing contact with the State Department. They are bewildered by the freedom of movement that a designated terrorist organization enjoys on Capitol Hill; disgusted by former U.S. government officials willing to make a quick buck by shilling for the MEK; and exasperated by senior-level political appointees who have allowed partisan politics to trump making an otherwise obvious decision that was not controversial a few short years ago.

A bit of context tells the real story.

In both 2006 and 2007, I helped review the MEK’s terrorist designation. I worked with my colleagues in government to review documentation dating from the 1970s to the present, and it was swiftly determined that the MEK’s terrorist designation remained warranted. This was during the Bush administration — which had an openly stated policy of regime change — and before neoconservative political appointees began jumping ship en masse toward late 2007.

The facts were so indisputable that nearly zero debate took place inside the State Department. Only a few neoconservatives pushed to use the MEK as a pressure point against the Iranian government. Yet despite their countless Iran policy blunders, most neoconservatives in the Bush administration were unequivocal that a terrorist group is a terrorist group.

When presidential administrations change, political appointees cycle in and out of government. Career public servants — which constitute the vast majority of State Department officials — transcend elections. Many of the same officials I worked with to reconfirm the MEK’s terrorist designation in 2006 and 2007 continue to serve in the Obama administration. The same evidence also remains in place.

If anything, the U.S. government now has more evidence to warrant a swift confirmation of the MEK’s terrorist designation. Obama administration officials recently confirmed to NBC News that the MEK is being armed, trained and funded by the Israeli government to murder Iranian scientists. This type of activity — politically motivated assassinations — is squarely within the U.S. government definition of terrorism that is used when designating foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs).

So, why we have reached this critical stage? Because even in the post-September 11th era, there has been lax enforcement of existing laws pertaining to FTOs. An illegal presence on Capitol Hill has allowed the MEK to build a disconcerting degree of political pressure vis-à-vis the Obama administration. Consistent inaction by the administration has exacerbated the problem. Only recently have they started to enforce the law, with former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell subpoenaed by the Treasury Department for his paid speeches in support of the MEK. This is a step in the right direction, and more subpoenas will surely follow — but is it too little too late?

It doesn’t have to be. Let me be clear: The requisite evidence to legally maintain the MEK’s terrorist designation is both ample and indisputable.

As one of the appeals court judges wrote in her ruling, "the classified portion of the administrative record provides "substantial support" for [the Secretary of State’s] determination that the PMOI [MEK] either continues to engage in terrorism or terrorist activity or retains the capability and intent to do so."

The reasoning why the Obama administration has not publicly released this evidence is simple: releasing such information could compromise and damages sources; hamper future intelligence gathering; and jeopardize legal proceedings against alleged criminals involved in the case. This runs the risk of rendering U.S. national security less effective. A similar justification was used by the Obama administration when it withheld much of its collected evidence in the alleged Iranian government plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington.

Secretary Clinton telling lawmakers that a decision on the MEK’s terrorist designation is pending in part to see if the group relocates is tantamount to an admission that the decision has nothing to do with whether or not the MEK is a terrorist organization. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Simply put, it is unacceptable to delist a designated FTO in return for them agreeing to relocate. So long as the MEK’s organizational structure remains in place, it legally remains a terrorist organization — regardless of where its base is located. Furthermore, the precedent set by such a mistake would be an unmitigated disaster for the U.S. Does America want to open the door for other terrorist organizations to spend millions of dollars on lobbying to get off the terrorist list?

It’s time for the Obama administration to stop playing politics and start enforcing the law. Secretary Clinton and other senior-level officials may not hold their positions one year from now, but many of my former colleagues at the State Department will be left to clean up the mess. Political appointees and Congress must stop politicizing the MEK’s terrorist designation, and instead let career public servants do their job. This is how they can best uphold the law in pursuit of America’s national security interests.

Reza Marashi is director of research at the National Iranian American Council and a former Iran desk officer at the U.S. State Department.

By Reza Marashi

March 17, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Former top-ranking US officials accused of shilling for MEK terrorists

Allegations come as international community is working to remove group from secret Iraqi hideout

Former chairman, joint chiefs of staff General Hugh Shelton attends the Symposium to mark the 33rd Anniversary of the Iranian Revolution at The Waldorf-Astoria on February 11, 2012.

Among those caught in the investigation of about 40 people and subpoenaed by the Treasury Department are former FBI Director Louis Freeh and the former Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Hugh Shelton, the sources said.

The investigation is looking into whether the former officials received hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees from the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, or MEK, which would violate federal law which bars financial transactions with groups on the State Department’s list.

When asked about the allegations, Shelton told NBC that he and the other officials were "pretty miffed."

"None of us involved in this would say a good word about anyone suspected of being a terrorist," he said

He added that he supports MEK though, which he told NBC is a legitimate resistance group fighting to overthrow the government in Iran, a country he referred to as "America’s number one enemy".

But the group, which found itself on the State Department’s list after allegedly killing six Americans in the 1970s, carried out a series of bombings and assassinations against the Iranian regime in the 1980s and was also a big supporter of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. After Hussein’s death, they were accused of being a thorn in the side of Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government as they tried to mend ties with Iran.

Sources told NBC that former government officials received fees of more than $30,000 a talk and were flown first class to Europe. The officials claimed that they were told the fees came from wealthy Americans or foreign supporters of the group — but not the group itself.

Many of the speaking arrangements were made through speaking booking firms, according to the report.

Though the MEK has lobbied for years to get off of the State Department’s list, experts say they were too dependent on the whims of their Paris-based leadership and are known to change strategies, motives and endgames without warning.

There’s no guarantee, experts warned NBC, that they won’t return to terrorism without warning.

"It’s extraordinary that so many distinguished public servants would shill for a group that has American blood on its hands," one senior official told the network.

The subpoenas come only days after Foreign Policy magazine reported that the multimillion-dollar lobbying campaign on behalf of (and paid for by) the MEK has hurt an international effort to move the group from a secretive hideout on the Iraqi-Iranian border to a new home — to avoid a bloody clash with the Iraqi military.

The Iraqi military has entered the hideout two times before, resulting in bloody clashes.

The U.N. and State Department’s efforts have been made increasingly difficult as a result of the advocates, FP reported.

“This is hard enough without paid advocates making it worse,” one official told the magazine

Nina Mandell, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

March 17, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MKO’s Dollars Challenging “Material Support”

Policy of spending lavish money for organizational achievements is a top priority within MKO

The gravy train on which some prominent Americans rode seems to be perforce halted in an outstation. The US Treasury Department appears to have begun an inquiry to see whether the speaking fees paid by Mojahedin Khalq Organization MKO to its American advocates who have spoken on its behalf are illegal. In an earlier report by The Washington Times, Edward G. Rendell, the former Democratic governor of Pennsylvania and an outspoken supporter of MKO, has been subpoenaed by the Treasury Department. He is asked to turn over information on his relationship with the designated terrorist group. Of course, Mr. Rendell is only one among the long list of former officials, including former directors of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and many more, who have accepted fees to speak on behalf of MKO in Paris and Geneva as well as appearing in online videos and participating in arranged rallies. Mr. Rendell asserts that he has been paid between $150,000 to $160,000 for seven or eight speeches in support of MKO and calling for its removal from the terrorist list.

And it is not the first and will not be the last time that the media expose such scandals and it did not come as a shock for many of those who are privy to the ploys and crafts of the terrorist group. But the importance lays in the fact that it is the first time the Treasury Department reacts and summons an advocate to probe into the case.

For years, the conferences held in European countries as well as expensive newspaper and television advertisements have been organized by MKO’s alias and advocacy groups in the United States, one of which to name is the Iranian-American Community of Northern California. MKO has set a big table of dollars for anyone who cannot resist easy money in exchange to scarify his/er reputation and only to voice the words dictated to him. The spell of the received money and luxurious, expenses-paid trips being broken, few of these loyalists and backers seem to have faith in the nonsenses they publicized and then begin to look for justification of advocacy for the group. In a voice mail message left with the Inquirer Mr. Rendell stated: “I got involved because they asked me. I did extensive research and I looked at the other people who were involved and they were generals and former elected officials. I had great confidence in them”. By these words, one might doubt the legitimacy and efficiency of these personalities in holding sensitive past government posts and policy makings.

The truth many are unconscious is that MKO is an excellent master of crafting slogans to win the hearts of pro-democratic politicians, parliamentarians and activists. It fills their minds with buzzwords like “liberty”, “human rights”, “democracy” “women” and the like to convince them that it is struggling to advocate democracy for Iran and Iranian people. And of course, few of these bipartisan are acquainted with or have accurately studied about its past terrorist careers, crimes and atrocities not only against Iranian people but also against Americans in Pahlavi’s reign and the Iraqi people in Saddam’s dictatorial era.

Frankly speaking, the policy of spending lavish money for organizational achievements is an adopted top priority within MKO and all ranking commanders are fully briefed on the issue. Once in 2007 Mehdi Abrishamchi, Maryam Rajavi’s ex-husband, in a direct TV program stated that “let me tell you frankly that so far as it concerns us [MKO], we never let any of the organization’s political projects come to a halt for financial restrictions”. The dilemma MKO is facing at the time being for sure requires great expenses to designate quota of jobs to be done and words to be voiced by the high-profile European and American supporters. And the offered Euros and dollars are so beguiling that hardly any of them dare to resist.
Sattar Orangi, Mojahedin.ws, March 16, 2012
http://www.mojahedin.ws/en/?p=15829

March 17, 2012 0 comments

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