Paid advocacy for MKO

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Pols take paid speaking engagements in support of Iranian terror group

An Iranian political group designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization is offering large payments to orators willing to speak at events on their behalf. Among those with connections to the organization, Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), are Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s chief foreign policy adviser and liberal politician Howard Dean.

MEK and its political arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, were discovered by Salon to be soliciting speakers for an event in Geneva.

The State Department summary of MEK’s activities claims that the group "uses propaganda and terrorism to achieve its objectives" against the Iranian government, with a worldwide membership between 5,000 and 10,000 and a decades-long history of attempted coups, bombings and terrorist attacks.

Because the MEK holds official designation as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, it is illegal to provide "material support" to it, such as by contributing directly or by speaking on its behalf. Pennsylvania’s 21st Century Speakers Inc. would be breaking the law with the $10,000 speaking engagement on the MEK’s behalf it is currently floating to its clients.

"This is clearly an invitation to provide a service to a designated group. This would be a clear violation of the law," Georgetown Law School professor David Cole told Salon. He added that the director of the speaker’s bureau, Lourdes Swarts, was already breaking the law by merely attempting to arrange a speaker.

The September 22 event focuses on the MEK members in Iraq’s Camp Ashraf and is scheduled to coincide with the United Nations Human Rights Council meeting.

Both Dean and the Romney adviser, Washington College President Mitchell Reiss, have been paid to give speeches as part of the effort to strip the MEK of its terrorist designation.

Dean told Politico that he gave the speech because he sympathized with the underdog and believed that the MEK had helped the U.S. in Iraq.

"I said to myself, ‘These are obviously not terrorists," Dean said. "The former chairmen of the joint chiefs of staff will obviously not be consorting with terrorists."

By Kase Wickman

September 10, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Speakers bureau works for Iranian terror group MEK

A Pennsylvania speakers bureau is sending out invitations for a lucrative speaking opportunity on behalf of an officially designated terrorist organization, the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) of Iran, Speakers bureau works for Iranian terror group MEK according to an email obtained by Salon.

Last week, a person at a Washington think tank was emailed the $10,000-plus-expenses offer to speak at a Geneva event by Lourdes Swarts, managing director of 21st Century Speakers Inc., "on behalf of our client, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, Foreign Affairs Committee."

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) is listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department, and is described as the "political front" of the MEK.
The language of the contract indicates Swarts — as well as anyone who agrees to the speaking offer — is breaking the law that bars material support for terrorism, according to Georgetown Law School professor David Cole.

"This is clearly an invitation to provide a service to a designated group. This would be a clear violation of the law," says Cole, who last year argued a major material support case before the Supreme Court. The material support law bars providing not only money and weapons to a foreign terrorist organization, but also "service," defined by the government as anything of benefit to the group performed in coordination with or at the direction of the group.

Cole adds that Swarts is "committing a crime because she’s providing a service to NCRI by arranging for this."

Reached by phone Tuesday evening, Swarts told Salon that the speaking request is "a private communication between me and my customer," then hung up. She did not respond to a follow-up email seeking comment.

The Geneva event, to focus on the situation of MEK members at Camp Ashraf in Iraq, is scheduled for Sept. 22 to coincide with a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council, according to the email, which you can read here.

The offer by 21st Century Speakers comes amid a sustained campaign by the MEK and its supporters to convince the Obama administration to remove the group from the list of foreign terrorist organizations. Derided as cult-like by critics, the MEK killed Americans in the 1970s and attacked Iranian targets as recently as a decade ago, but has since claimed to renounce violence. It fiercely opposes the current Iranian regime, a stance that has attracted support from neoconservatives in the U.S.

The group’s P.R. pus has enlisted former officials of all political stripes, from liberal former presidential candidate Howard Dean to Republican Rudy Giuliani. Some officials have acknowledged receiving fees as high as $20,000 for a 10-minute speech. But one of the hallmarks of the campaign is that third-party groups have taken the lead in sponsoring conferences and pro-MEK demonstrations — presumably because it would be illegal for anyone to take part if the MEK itself was the organizer.

Conferences to advocate for the MEK have been organized by émigré groups that seem to have no other purpose than to push the MEK’s agenda, including, for example, the Iranian American Community of Northern California. Huffington Post reported last month that "most of the groups are run by ordinary, middle-class Iranian Americans working out of their homes — people who seem unlikely to have an extra few hundred thousand dollars laying around to pay speaker fees and book five-star hotels to bolster the MEK’s cause."

The issue of direct sponsorship by the MEK is a sensitive one. Last month, for example, a pro-MEK column by Dean on Huffington Post was edited after observers on Twitter pointed out that Dean’s bio line said he "has delivered paid speeches for the MEK." That was changed to read, "he has delivered paid speeches for Iranian-American communities."

The website for 21st Century Speakers, which is based in Covington in rural northeastern Pennsylvania, purports to offer clients access to a long list of "the world’s foremost speakers and celebrities," including First Lady Michelle Obama, George H.W. Bush, and pastor Rick Warren. But just a handful of the scores of names are marked with the tag "exclusive representation." One of those, former congressman Tom Tancredo, has been one of the loudest voices in favor of delisting the MEK over the last decade (though he told Salon Tuesday he had not been paid for any of the work).

Another of the company’s "exclusive" speakers is former Pennsylvania congressman Curt Weldon. In 2005, Weldon penned "Countdown to Terror: The Top-Secret Information that Could Prevent the Next Terrorist Attack on America — and How the CIA Has Ignored It." The book, which warned of Iranian terrorism against the U.S., was reportedly based on information from a discredited Iranian expatriate in Paris who was said to to get "intelligence" material from the MEK.

Still, how exactly 21st Century Speakers came to have the National Council of Resistance of Iran as a client is not clear. I’ve reached out to NCRI and will update this post if I hear back. It’s also not clear whether any Americans have accepted the $10,000 speaker offer.

My colleague Glenn Greenwald argued recently that because of the MEK’s support in elite political circles, it is functionally immune from prosecution.

While Cole, the Georgetown professor, has argued that the material support statute is too broad, he says he is troubled by the selective application on the law: Prosecutions have been made against supporters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in Turkey and, just last week, a young Virginia man who made a YouTube video in support of the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, a Pakistani jihadist group, but not against any MEK supporters.

"These are powerful defendants with lots of friends," Cole says. "The group itself already has wide support in Congress. It’s the kind of case that’s not going to get brought."

Justin Elliott, Salon.com

September 8, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Who are the MKO demonstrators?

On Friday, August 26th, 2011, the streets surrounding the US State Department featured a motley crowd of protesters wearing yellow hats and t-shirts, chanting slogans, and pleading for the removal of Mujahedin Khalq (MKO/MEK) from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The crowd was mixed in race, and top-heavy with African Americans. An unusually large number of the protesters had scruffy hair and tattered clothes. And surprisingly, only a small number were actually Iranian-Americans. As the crowd was addressed by US politicians who supported the group’s cause, oddly, many in the crowd were not aware of what exactly it was they were protesting—this is because the majority of protesters did not really *have* a cause. They were merely following the assignment of the organizers, who paid them, fed them, and lodged them so they would commit to demonstrate that day. Protestors at the scene told one reporter that the Mujahedin Khalq organizers had told them that there were at least two thousand demonstrators present that day, but the estimate seemed high. [1]

The MKO is a terrorist group and has been blacklisted by the Department of State since the list was first created in 1997. Since then the MKO has persisted with a campaign to get itself removed from that list. And this time they have stooped to new lows: hiring the needy and desperate to do their dirty work, enlisting what seems like a busload of homeless to turn out in grand numbers for a spurious representation of support. It was purely a show of spectacular exploitation—the latest and greatest example of the MKO’s multi-million dollar effort to build support among Washington political elite, according to *The Cable*. [2] And if the false demonstration wasn’t bad enough, it has been reported in *The Christian Science Monitor* and *The Huffington Post* that many of the so-called MKO advocates had been paid large amounts of speaking fees. [3][4] According to Zaid Jilani of *thinkprogress.org* the rally included well-paid speakers and also paid demonstrators “who, it is probable fair to say, know even less about the MEK than the big-money speakers” and “were bused in from as far as New York city.” [5]

The group’s purchased advocacy was also confirmed by *Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, The National Interest, and The Cable*.

Golnaz Esfandiari and Hossein Aryan of *Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty*report that “rally participants also included a number of non-Iranian-Americans. Several of them told Esfandiari and Aryan that they had little or no knowledge about the MKO.” One African-American who was asked whether he and his female companion received money to attend the rally—his companion admitted they had, but then retracted her statement at the man’s behest. [6]

Many non-Iranian rally attendees claimed that they were there in the name of Iranian human rights but were actually confused by the term MEK. Zaid Jilani writes that “of this group [of demonstrators], few seemed to have many details about the MEK, and instead pledged vague notions of support for human rights and democracy, often even getting the name of the MEK wrong.” [7] He revealed that in fact “some of the attendees had been bused and flown in at no personal cost, receiving transportation and in some cases lodging and meals.” [8]
Paul R. Pillar of *The National Interest* writes that one of the participants, a 23-year-old man from Staten Island named Melvin Santiago, said he learned about the demonstration from a friend who in turn got word of it through a flyer distributed in front of a church where the friend said that Santiago “usually goes for the food pantry”. [9]

Another attendee told Zaid Jilani that he supported human rights in Iran and he was informed about the rally at his church and admitted, “to be honest, I don’t really understand what the MEK is.” [10]

It is this latest rally that one can see the effort that the MKO has put in to changing their public persona as they push for being de-listed. According to a RAND report, the MKO are “skilled manipulators of public opinion.” [11] Paul R. Pillar, a professor, and a retired person who served over two decades in the US Intelligence Community asserts that “those who have sold their advocacy for big bucks deserve shame; those who have done so for a meal or two may be deserve our pity.” [12] What is truly appalling is that the MKO is actually a cult who abuses its own members, and now they are exploiting the public—a public who seems to have a weak moral code. Group supporters need to come forward and admit what’s going on, and the general public needs to question more deeply the legitimacy of this atrocious group, and especially those who are paid speaking fees to help the MKO.

The US needs to be aware of that the MKO’s past is beset with crimes and bloodshed. They not only have a history of terrorism against Iran, but against the US and its allies—in fact in the 1970’s, the MKO murdered several US citizens. The MKO has little support in the West, but in effect no viable support inside Iran (because they are a cult, but mostly due to their treasonous relations with Saddam Hussein). In short, US citizens, like Iranian citizens, should not trust the MKO. Pillar suggests that Hillary Clinton “should pay no heed to what Melvin Santiago and the other hungry homeless outside her office window are saying, or to what the high-paid hired guns are saying, about the MEK. Nor does she need to pay any attention to what people like me are saying about the group. She should keep the windows closed and just pay attention to the terms of the law and to what officials in the departments and agencies involved say about whether the terms of the law still apply in this case”.[13]

By Mazda Parsi

References:

[1]Jilani, Zaid, Attendees bused into MEK Rally, Some of Whom Don’t Really
Understand What the MEK Is, ThinkProgress, August 26,2011
[2]Rogin, Josh, MEK rally planned for Friday at the State Department, the Cable/ Foreign Policy, August 25, 2011
[3]Peterson, Scott ,Iranian group’s big-money push to get off US terrorist list, The Christian Science Monitor, August 8, 2011
[4]Wilkie, Christina, Mujahideen-e Khalq: Former U.S. Officials Make Millions Advocating For Terrorist Organization,The Huffingtonpost, August 9,2011
[5] Jilani, Zaid, Attendees bused into MEK Rally, Some of Whom Don’t Really
Understand What the MEK Is, ThinkProgress, August 26,2011
[6]Esfandiari, Golnaz, &Aryan, Hossein, MKO Supporters Rally To Call For
U.S. Delisting, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, August 26, 2011
[7] Jilani, Zaid, Attendees bused into MEK Rally, Some of Whom Don’t Really Understand What the MEK Is, ThinkProgress, August 26, 2011
[8]ibid
[9]R. Pillar, Paul, The Lobbying that Shouldn’t be Happening, The National Interest, august 27,2011
[10]Jilani, Zaid, Attendees bused into MEK Rally, Some of Whom Don’t Really Understand What the MEK Is, ThinkProgress, August 26,2011
[11]Goulka, Jeremiah &Hansell, Lydia &Wilke, Elizabeth &Larson, Judith, The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq; A Policy Conundrum, RAND Corporation, August 2009.
[12] R. Pillar, Paul, The Lobbying that Shouldn’t be Happening, The National Interest, August 27,2011
[13]ibid

September 5, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Facts vs. Fiction and the MEK’s PR Campaign

In 1994, the U.S. Department of State produced a comprehensive report exposing the Mujahideen-e-khalq (MEK) for what it is — an exiled Iranian fringe group with a record of terrorism, violence, political opportunism and the abuse of its own members.

It states

…our mutual distaste for the behavior of the regime in Tehran should not influence our analysis of the Mojahedin.

and that

Shunned by most Iranians and fundamentally undemocratic, the Mojahedin-e Khalq are not a viable alternative to the current government of Iran.

But that was years ago and any day now the MEK could be delisted from the U.S foreign terrorist organizations (FTO) list. Virtually unchecked, its well-funded lobbying blitz in Europe resulted in its delisting from the U.K. and E.U. terror lists. This has enabled it to create a larger support base there than it has in North America. It particularly enjoys a significant audience among past and present British parliamentarians such as Lord Corbett of Castle Vale (Robin Corbett). Corbett is the chairman of the “British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom,” the main British MEK lobby group. In addition to the U.S. heavy-weights with high national security officials that the MEK has paid to appear at its European rallies are Iranians and non-Iranians like the people pictured here and here.

After its successful test run in Europe, the MEK set its sights on the world’s most wanted ally and now its crazed leader Maryam Rajavi (her husband’s whereabouts are unknown) is knocking on Washington’s door saying things about the “Mullahs in Iran” while using key buzz words like “democratic”.

Over the years the FBI, Human Rights Watch, the Rand Corporation and several U.S. mainstream news outlets have produced in-depth investigations detailing the group’s past and present, some revealing the absurdly high “speaking fees” it provides to prominent figures who have appeared at its events. But even with a steady flow of damning information available, it is still spreading non-factual claims through its lobbying representatives. One way it does this is by issuing regular press releases through PR Newswire (a well-known online marketing tool) which are then reproduced as articles on news websites (see here and here for one example). Its lobbyists regularly talk to the press which is forced to quote them and MEK representatives have also been given full editorial slots in major U.S. newspapers.

The MEK’s ongoing delisting campaign is guided by the belief that the American public and the U.S. government are ignorant enough to believe its statements no matter how many times they’re proven false. The breathless claims of seeming support made by former U.S. officials are marketed by the MEK as a testament to its legitimacy, especially when these people conflate the human rights issue at the MEK’s base in Camp Ashraf near the Iran-Iraq border with its FTO delisting campaign as if they go hand in hand. But they don’t. Writing about Mitt Romney adviser Michael Reiss’s advocacy for the MEK the American Conservative’s Daniel Larison states (emphasis is mine):

Like many other pro-MEK advocates, Reiss has confused the issues of the treatment of the population of Camp Ashraf with the question of whether the MEK should remain on the FTO list. The people at Ashraf should be relocated outside Iraq, and they should not be sent to Iran against their will, but this has nothing to do with the MEK’s designation by the U.S. as a terrorist organization. It ought to be possible to address what is properly a political refugee problem left over from the Iraq war without legitimizing a terrorist group.

Dokhi Fassihian and Trita Parsi have also written about how the “international community” rather than just the U.S. can help the people of Camp Ashraf.

Some of my colleagues have called the MEK delisting campaign an “Iranian debate” but this couldn’t be further from the truth. The majority of Iranians don’t support the MEK in Iran or outside of it. Most Iranians aren’t debating the MEK’s merits, they’re either loudly speaking out against it, or consider it an annoying distraction from the widely recognized opposition in Iran. That’s because the MEK killed Iranians through organized terror bombings and assassinations during and after the revolution and because it fought against its own people during the Iran-Iraq war. The war took hundreds of thousands of Iranian lives. It is ingrained in Iranian memory as nearly a decade of suffering imposed on them by the U.S.-backed regime of Saddam Hussein who even used chemical weapons on young Iranian soldiers. Which nation’s people would forgive such an act of treason?[..]

Those who think Iranians would support the MEK simply because of its number one goal of bringing down the Islamic Republic are seriously mistaken. Every anti-IRI Iranian I have interviewed has said something to the tune of: “They are bad, but the MEK is worse.” Those who think the MEK should be supported simply because it detests the Iranian government as much as they do (see Patrick Kennedy) are also misguided. The chances of the MEK being installed in Tehran are very low; the Iranian population wouldn’t allow it.

The only Iranians who support the MEK are family members of those who were persecuted by the regime and those whose understandable hatred of the current government has driven them to blind desperation. At best, its support base among Iranians is under 30,000 and perhaps significantly less, and Iran is a country of over 70 million. If the MEK has such a large support base as it claims, why was its recent rally outside the Washington Department of State attended by “hundreds” rather than thousands or hundreds of thousands? Why did organizers feel the need to bus and fly people to the rally for free from other cities? As with many of its other events, some attendees admitted to not being familiar with the group or its objectives. Others admitted to being paid to attend.

Some may wonder why I am writing all this if the MEK is so obviously illegitimate. That’s because their delisting campaign has been well-organized and somewhat effective. They have, after all, successfully convinced the U.S. government to reconsider their FTO designation. Their campaign is also currently in full swing and should be addressed as such.

But delisting the MEK is unlikely to result in the group being accepted by Iranians, or the fall of the Iranian government. It may not even impact the status of the 3,000+ people who are trapped in Camp Ashraf, all under real threat by the Iraqi government and many held against their will. But delisting it will result in the leadership being able to raise money easier in the U.S. which they can then use to sway Mideast policy by lobbying congress.[..]

A decision to delist will strike yet another blow to the possibility of peaceful U.S.-Iran relations since it will be interpreted by the Iranians as an act of U.S. aggression, adding more fuel to the ongoing Cold War between the two countries. It will also reinforce a well-known stereotype about the U.S. as a country led by people who are indeed gullible enough to believe anything — even the claims of a well-funded terror group that has killed U.S. nationals.

The leadership cannot escape its bloody past. Among Rajavi’s militaristic quotes are: “Take the Kurds under your tanks and save your bullets for the Islamic Guard.” It also cannot erase the abundant information that journalists and other neutral non-state actors have made available about them. The MEK can only counter negative press with fabrications (as it is doing with its cyber army of defamers and lobbyists) and hope that the Obama administration is weak and naive enough to submit to the pressure it has been working furiously to impose upon it.

But as argued by Elizabeth Rubin of the New York Times who visited Camp Ashraf in 2003 and experienced the group’s inner-workings first-hand:

Mrs. Clinton should ignore their P.R. campaign. Mujahedeen Khalq is not only irrelevant to the cause of Iran’s democratic activists, but a totalitarian cult that will come back to haunt us.

We can only hope that Mrs. Clinton is listening.

lobelog – By Jasmin Ramsey

September 3, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Buying Your Way Off The US Terrorist List

The Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK/MKO) has been designated a terrorist organization since 1997 when the Clinton administration put the MEK on the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. The Bush administration added two alleged MEK front organizations to the State Department’s terrorist list in 2003.

The MEK is currently engaged in an extensive campaign to get delisted, and a decision by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is due shortly . The MEK is spending the big bucks to influence that decision.

Private jets to speaking engagements and fees that range from $25,000 to $100,000 have gone to a wide political spectra of speakers:

Lee Hamilton, former co-chair of the 9/11 Commission; former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, Howard Dean, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee; Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York; Michael Mukasey, the former US attorney general; Andrew Card, former White House chief of staff under George W. Bush; Tom Ridge, the former US homeland security chief; Bill Richardson, the former secretary of Energy; Gen. Peter Pace, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Wesley Clark, the former Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO; James Jones, President Obama’s former national security adviser; Gen. Anthony Zinni, the former commander of CENTCOM; former CIA chiefs James Woolsey, Porter Goss, and Michael Hayden; Louis Freeh, former FBI director; Gen. James Conway, former Commandant of the Marine Corps; and P.J. Crowley, the former US State Dept. spokesman.

That list is depressing. That these people would sell their names and reputations is shameful. The speaking fees are paid by local Iranian-American groups and contracts specifically state that “We are not a front organization for the MEK,” in a crude effort to skirt US laws regarding the support of terrorist organizations.

David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown, argues that via Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, “such speech could contribute to the group’s ‘legitimacy’ and thus increase its ability to obtain support elsewhere that could be turned to terrorist ends.” In Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, Chief Justice Roberts writes:

The statute reaches only material support coordinated with or under the direction of a designated foreign terrorist organization. Independent advocacy that might be viewed as promoting the group’s legitimacy is not covered.

However, the speakers are not independent advocates.

In an article for National Review Online, Michael B. Mukasey, Tom Ridge, and Rudolph W. Giuliani wrote that the MEK was not a terrorist group without mentioning that they are paid agents of the MEK. The authors credit the MEK with supplying “valuable intelligence.” This claim deals with Iran’s undeclared uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz. However, senior U.S. national-security officials say that all the major revelations regarding nuclear advances in Iran were reported in classified form–and from other sources–to U.S. policymakers before MEK made them public. Others claim that the Natanz information was funneled through MEK by Israel, who has a long history of supporting and funding MEK.[..]

Newsweek correspondent Maziar Bahari, who was jailed in Iran amid the unrest that followed the country’s contentious 2009 presidential election, believes the move could have damaging implications…

by David Drumm (Nal), Jonathan turley

September 3, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The seduction of Howard Dean

The liberal firebrand succumbs to Washington’s money culture

Howard Dean has long cultivated an image as the plainspoken doctor who speaks for the left wing of the Democratic Party, a role he still plays as a pugnacious pundit on TV. But since his term as chairman of the Democratic National Committee ended in January 2009, Dr. Dean has taken on a less-noticed role: paid advocate for interest groups that would find few fans among the progressive voters once energized by Dean’s 2004 presidential bid.

Dean may not be the worst of the "buckrakers," those prototypical capital characters who exploit their name and connections without regard for principle. But his recent political forays seem to have diverged from his trailblazing left-liberal past.

As senior strategic advisor at McKenna Long & Aldridge, a heavyweight Washington lobbying firm, Dean played a prominent role representing the biotech industry during the healthcare bill debate, staking out a position on biopharmaceutical drugs that was decried by consumer groups.

"Gov. Dean was very helpful to us," biotech CEO Jim Greenwood told a trade publication "As a physician clearly focused on healthcare, a Democrat leader and clearly to left of center, his efforts were impactful." Greenwood is the head of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), a trade group that lobbies for the industry in Washington.

Dean is also currently one of the most prominent paid voices in a public-relations campaign on behalf of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an obscure and controversial Iranian militant group that is aggressively lobbying the Obama administration to remove it from the official list of terrorist organizations.

Dean arrived in the comfortable K Street offices of McKenna Long & Aldridge shortly after his term as DNC chair ended in January 2009. He had been passed over by President Obama for the secretary of health and human services Cabinet post, and he needed a paying job.

In announcing his appointment, the firm said Dean would "provide guidance to clients, particularly in the areas of healthcare and alternative energy resources."

Dean has been careful not to register as a lobbyist, a designation that would prompt legal disclosure requirements. Both McKenna and the governor’s spokeswoman declined to reveal which clients he has worked for.

Dean took on a very public role during the 2009 healthcare reform battle, specifically going to bat for the biotech industry — whose trade association is a client of McKenna.

At stake was how the government would regulate a growing class of drugs called biologics or biopharmaceuticals and their generic competitors. The industry argued for a longer period — at least 12 years — in which expensive brand-name biologics would face no competition from less costly generics. Consumer groups argued that, to keep costs down, the period of exclusivity should be just five years.

Dean jumped into the fight on the side of the industry, writing an Op-Ed in the Hill in 2009 arguing that a "commonsense and fair approach" would be to bar generics for "at least 12 years."

"If we discourage investment, we jeopardize the development of the next generation of breakthrough medicines and cures," he wrote, echoing a key industry talking point.

Liberal admirers were disappointed.

"It was devastating to have him involved because of his reputation," says James Love, director of Knowledge Ecology International, a public interest group that fought for a shorter period of exclusivity. "He’s considered to be independent of industry and on the left, so it was really shocking to us when we first saw this. But there it was."

Greenwood, the trade group CEO, said at the time that Dean’s work had involved talking to members of Congress about the issue. Dean never registered as a lobbyist, a legal category that involves spending at least 20 percent of one’s time for a client lobbying lawmakers or government officials.

One common dodge on K Street is for former elected officials to work for lobbying firms without actually registering as lobbyists. At McKenna, for example, former Sen. Zell Miller, the conservative Democrat from Georgia, and former Colorado Rep. David Skaggs hold the same title as Dean: "senior strategic advisor and independent consultant."

Dean is not exclusive in his services. He currently serves on the board of advisors at Vatera Health Partners, a New York-based venture capital fund whose mission is "to support and grow emerging biopharmaceutical companies."

It’s not clear from the public record how long he has served in the position. But his presence on the Vatera board indicates that he has a personal financial stake in the biopharmaceutical industry.

At the time of the biologics fight on Capitol Hill — which the industry won — Dean told Time that "I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t believe it."

Dean has invoked the same argument when it comes to his work in support of the MEK, the Iranian militant group. Dean and other luminaries from across the political spectrum have been paid vast sums of money by the group — as much as $20,000 for a 10-minute speech — to appear at events pushing the Obama administration to remove the MEK from the official list of terrorist organizations.

Dean himself has acknowledged being paid but has not disclosed specific sums.

Critics of the MEK, including the State Department, say the group displays cult-like qualities; it has been led by the same husband-and-wife couple, Masoud and Maryam Rajavi, for decades. They also point to the fact that it killed Americans in Iran in the 1970s and the lack of support for the group among the people of Iran. Among the most enthusiastic supporters of delisting MEK have been neoconservative strategists who believe the group can help destabilize the Iranian regime.

Dean, for his part, has been distinguished by his particularly aggressive advocacy for the MEK. Not only has he argued for delisting MEK in print and in speaking appearances, he has also said that Maryam Rajavi should be recognized as the president of Iran. The Christian Science Monitor reported on a recent trip by Dean to Berlin:

"Madame Rajavi does not sound like a terrorist to me; she sounds like a president," Mr. Dean said, gesturing toward the MEK leader from the dais. "And her organization should not be listed as a terrorist organization. We should be recognizing her as the president of Iran."

While Dean has passionately argued he is on the right side of the MEK issue, he acknowledged to the Washington Times that he got involved through his agent.

"I got asked by my agent to go over to Paris to speak to a group I knew nothing about. I spent a lot of time on the Internet learning about them, and then I met them," he told the paper.

Dean spokeswoman Karen Finney said that, besides paid advocacy work, the former governor spends his time on a range of other activities, including appearing as a paid contributor to CNBC; traveling as a board member for the National Democratic Institute, which promotes democracy around the world; giving paid speeches; teaching a class at Hofstra University; and serving on the board of Extendicare, a Canadian long-term care company. Finney said he also continues to do some work for Democracy for America, a political action committee Dean founded that is run by his brother, Jim.

Whom else does Dean work for as a paid advocate?

In January, he waded into another high-stakes healthcare fight, this one being waged in New York state between foreign medical schools and their American competitors. The issue was whether foreign-trained doctors would have access to hospitals in New York for their residencies. Dean wrote an Op-Ed in the Albany Times-Union, "N.Y. needs its foreign-trained doctors," that repeated talking points of foreign medical schools, which, Dean’s bio blurb noted, are clients of McKenna Long & Aldridge.

While the firm won’t say whom Dean has worked for, his bio page on McKenna’s website offers some clues.

"Respected for his fiscally moderate policies as Governor, he understands first-hand the severe budget constraints that are challenging state and municipal governments," it reads. "With an extensive set of contacts nationally, Governor Dean is uniquely positioned to develop partnerships between industry stakeholders and local governments."

Dean is indeed uniquely positioned: Between his former followers and his current clients, between his idealist liberal past and the cynical culture of K Street, between independence and cooptation.

By Justin Elliott – The Salon.com

September 3, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Interesting”Iranian-Americans”at the MEK Rally in DC!

If you have been wondering who among us Iranian-Americans supports the MEK and its delisting Interesting "Iranian-Americans" at the MEK Rally in DC! as a "foreign terror organization," wonder no more. Meet The Great Lonnell and his 200 friends from his church in Staten Island, who attended a 1,000-1,500 person rally in DC on Friday. "We are here representing on behalf of the Iranian community," The Great Lonnell told Foreign Policy’s The Cable.

According to ThinkProgress website:

"But many apparent non-Iranians came out as well, most wearing flags, headbands, and even yellow vests with images of the group’s leaders — Maryam and Massoud Rajavi — on the chest. Of this group, few seemed to have many details about the MEK, and instead pledged vague notions of support for human rights and democracy, often even getting the name of the MEK wrong.

Some of the attendees had been bused and flown in at no personal cost, receiving transportation and in some cases lodging and meals.

One attendee who spoke with ThinkProgress, Melvin Santiago, 23, a homeless man living in shelters in Staten Island, New York, said he’d found out about the protest from a friend he’d come with. They made the trip along with about 100 other people in four rented coach buses.

“He saw [a flier] yesterday passing by the church,” said Santiago of his friend. “He usually goes there for the food pantry.”

On a day’s notice, Santiago said he hadn’t had a chance to learn too much about the MEK — he thought the group was called “Ashraff,” which is the name of the camp in Iraq where 3,400 members currently live."

Here are some of the people who went to the rally yesterday, talking about why and how they joined the delisting rally:

click here to view the video

by Ali Lakani

August 30, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Patrick Kennedy Paid $25K To Speak At Rally For Controversial Iranian MEK

Former U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) told ThinkProgress he was paid $25,000 to speak at a rally to remove a controversial Iranian exiled opposition group from the U.S. terrorist rolls afterpreviously not saying if he was paid.

Kennedy wouldn’t tell Foreign Policy’s Josh Rogin whether or not he was paid to speak at the rally to remove the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) from the State Department list of foreign terror organizations. But asked by ThinkProgress, Kennedy replied that he had been paid $25,000 and that he wouldn’t accept the money if he didn’t believe in the cause:

Kennedy at pro-MEK rally (photo: Josh Rogin)

THINKPROGRESS: Were you paid for this appearance or the other one?

KENNEDY: Yes, I have.

THINKPROGRESS: Do you mind if I ask how much it was?

KENNEDY: Y’know, $25,000.

THINKPROGRESS: By whom?

KENNEDY: By the Iranian-American diaspora. […] I have no problem with it. I wouldn’t support a group just because I was paid for it if I didn’t believe in them. And the implication of some of these questions is, “Well, if you’re getting paid you must be getting paid for something you don’t agree with.” […]

The real thing is that the money is being funneled out of Tehran to oppress this group. So let’s be balanced when people start talking about follow the money.

The MEK has been on the U.S. list of terror groups since 1997, which prevents members from traveling to or raising funds in the U.S. The group, whose leadership is based in Paris while about 3,400 members live in a camp in Iraq, renounced violence in 2001 and was forcibly disarmed by the U.S. in 2003. Critics allege that the group’s renunciation of violence may not be genuine, de-listing them could hurt Iran’s indigenous Green opposition movement, and that the group has no backing inside Iran as a democratic opposition group.

The camp in Iraq, called Ashraf, was under U.S. control until 2009 when the U.S. handed over security control to the Iraqis as part of a larger deal. Since then, residents of Ashraf have accused Iraqi forces of abuses including attacks that reportedly killed dozens of members of the group.

Speaking before a large crowd outside the State Department that included attendees bused-in from afar on all-expenses-paid trips, Kennedy cited one such attack — in April, which reportedly killed 34 Ashraf residents — as having spurred his support for the group.

The campaign to de-list the MEK has drawn attention because of the millions of dollars spent on the effort.

Kennedy joins other former U.S. officials, mostly from conservative circles but including some liberals, such as former-Vermont governor and DNC chairman Howard Dean.

To cheers from the crowd, Kennedy — invoking the memory of his father, the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), and his uncle, President John F. Kennedy — compared the MEK’s Paris-based leader Maryam Rajavi to South Africa’s first post-Apartheid leader Nelson Mandela, who led a spate of guerrilla sabotage bombings against the Apartheid regime before going to prison and eventually leading the country’s transition. (Mandela admits his guerilla past and his group’s human rights abuses. Rajavi’s MEK often denies having committed any acts of terror over it’s 45 year history and disputes allegations made by Human Rights Watch about abuses against the group’s own members.)

Kennedy told ThinkProgress his work to de-list the MEK and support for them as a democratic Iranian opposition was in line with his long-standing support of human rights worldwide.

By Ali Gharib and Zaid Jilani – Think Progress

August 30, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The Lobbying that Shouldn’t be Happening

The extraordinary lobbying campaign on behalf of the sometime Marxist/Islamist cult/terrorist group known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq is getting waged on ever more fronts. The specific objective is to get the Obama administration to remove the MEK from the list of foreign terrorist organizations. Wherever the money to fund the campaign is coming from, some of the largest expenditures so far have been in the form of fat speaking fees to notables who are willing to accept the check and come out in favor of delisting the group. Some of these high-profile hired advocates later acknowledged they did not have all that much knowledge about the MEK.

Having purchased advocacy at the high end, the organizers of the campaign are now buying it at the low end. For a demonstration outside the State Department on Friday, demonstrators who, it is probably fair to say, know even less about the MEK than the big-name speakers were bussed in from as far as New York City. Many demonstrators were provided not only the transportation but also in some cases lodging and meals. One of the participants, a 23-year-old homeless man from Staten Island named Melvin Santiago, said he learned about the demonstration from a friend who in turn got word of it through a flyer distributed in front of a church—where the friend, said Santiago, “usually goes for the food pantry.”

Those who have sold their advocacy for big bucks deserve shame; those who have done so for a meal or two maybe deserve our pity. Those who have gotten mixed up in the campaign through a crude belief that Iran is an enemy and the enemy of my enemy is my friend need to realize that being an enemy’s enemy does not make one a friend. Those who have some notion that the MEK can serve as a force for opposing Iran are badly mistaken about the nature of the group—a good description of which is in a recent piece by Elizabeth Rubin in the New York Times. [..]

Even setting all that aside, there is an important procedural issue involved. On this issue alone, the pro-MEK campaign is objectionable. The decision of the secretary of state that the campaign is attempting to influence is not some subjective act of crafting policy. It is supposed to be a straightforward application of the terms of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which created the formal list of foreign terrorist organizations (creation of such a list having been necessitated by other provisions in the act, such as the criminalization of material support to terrorist groups). The procedure for listing or recertifying FTOs, as they are called, involves not only the State Department but also the Justice Department and the intelligence community. It is a long legal and administrative procedure, as I can testify from having been involved in the creation of the initial list of FTOs after passage of the 1996 law. The criteria to be applied involve such things as involvement in terrorist activity and effects on U.S. interests (which is not to be equated with terrorist attacks being directed against U.S. targets). Having conducted an anti-U.S. terrorist attack recently is not one of the criteria; if it were, many current FTOs—such as Lebanese Hizballah—would not be on the list.

Abbas Milani, in an otherwise informative piece in these spaces about the MEK, unfortunately suggests equivalence between the well-funded pro-MEK campaign and statements that have been critical of the campaign and the group. Milani even talks about Iranian regime funding of anti-MEK lobbyists. (That last point is a little puzzling. The regime assuredly hates the MEK as much as most Iranians do and, if the group were delisted, would get plenty of mileage from loudly proclaiming that this action shows how phony is any U.S. affirmation of supporting democracy in Iran. But precisely for that reason, and because of how the action would help to discredit the democratic opposition in Iran, the more strategically minded hardliners in the regime probably would quietly welcome delisting.) Whatever the Iranian regime may be doing, the statements critical of the pro-MEK campaign that I am familiar with (and have participated in myself) have nothing to do with the regime, and they are not an attempt to lobby the secretary of state. Instead, they are a calling to account of the large and illegitimate campaign that is trying to pressure the secretary. The calling to account would not be necessary if the pro-MEK campaign were not being waged. The MEK has been recertified as an FTO several times in the past with no noise about it in the street, on speakers’ platforms, or in opinion columns.

The secretary of state should pay no heed to what Melvin Santiago and the other hungry homeless outside her office window are saying, or to what the high-paid hired guns are saying, about the MEK. Nor does she need to pay any attention to what people like me are saying about the group. She should keep the windows closed and just pay attention to the terms of the law and to what officials in the departments and agencies involved say about whether the terms of the law still apply in this case.

by Paul R. Pillar – National Interest

August 28, 2011 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Attendees Don’t Really Understand What The MEK Is

Attendees Bused Into MEK Rally, Some Of Whom ‘Don’t Really Understand What The MEK Is’

A large crowd gathered today outside the State Department today to protest the designation of the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) as a “foreign terror organization.” Police at the scene told ThinkProgress the groups organizing the demonstration said at least two thousand people were there, though the estimate seemed high.

The MEK’s profile has risen as stateside supporters — including former government officials — have launched a massive, coordinated, and multi-million dollar campaign to have them removed from the terror rolls. Critics argue that the group may still have designs on committing violent acts and that their public support in Iran is virtually non-existant.

Among Iranians, who dominated the crowd, many said they rallied for the MEK because they supported democracy in Iran and opposed the post-revolutionary Islamic regime.

But many apparent non-Iranians came out as well, most wearing flags, headbands, and even yellow vests with images of the group’s leaders — Maryam and Massoud Rajavi — on the chest. Of this group, few seemed to have many details about the MEK, and instead pledged vague notions of support for human rights and democracy, often even getting the name of the MEK wrong.

Some of the attendees had been bused and flown in at no personal cost, receiving transportation and in some cases lodging and meals.

“He saw [a flier] yesterday passing by the church,” said Santiago of his friend. “He usually goes there for the food pantry.”

Some of the other attendees knew little about the MEK’s history. The State Department designated the group in 1997 and made allegations of decades of terrorism, including against Americans when the U.S. had good relations with the Shah before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Two attendees from Arkansas, who’d come up with an Iranian friend who lives nearby, said that they suspected collusion — “hanky panky” — between the State Department and the Islamic Republic.

Others had an interest in Iran. One attendee said he lived in Iran and played professional basketball there. He said he supported human rights in Iran. He said the reverend at his church informed him about the rally, though he admitted that “to be honest, I don’t really understand what the MEK is.”

By Zaid Jilani – Thinkprogress

August 28, 2011 0 comments

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