The Third View on Mujahedin Khalq

Most Iranian Exiles Relocated From Northern Iraq Base

The United Nations’ special representative for Iraq says 3,000 residents of the camp that’s served as a base for an Iranian exile group have moved to a transit site.

Martin Kobler told RFE/RL’s Radio Free Iraq that there are 100 people staying in Camp Ashraf in northern Iraq “until the technical handover is arranged.”

Kobler said all the residents will have interviews at Camp Liberty, near Baghdad, before getting the status of internationally protected persons from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Camp Ashraf has been the base of the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), an Iranian opposition group that has been designated as a terrorist organization by Tehran.

The United States removed the MKO from its list of foreign terrorist organizations in September.

October 25, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

War with Iran started five years ago

Syria’s mortar attack that killed civilians inside Turkey will prove to be the final domino to fall in a coordinated effort to take down both Syria and Iran. It is part of a not-so covert war started more than five years ago following the invasion of Iraq and the occupation of Afghanistan.

A wider and far more deadly war is now coming into view as Iran gears up for an inevitable attack and the U.S. and its partners escalate proxy wars inside Iran and Syria and fan the flames of conflict in northern Africa.

The global elite and their corporate and bankster partners are determined to force on Iran the fate suffered by Iraq – more than a million killed and its civilian infrastructure decimated – and implement the globalist plan of balkanization and order out of chaos realized through never-ending sectarian and religious violence.

Evidence of the covert and not so covert war against Iran and other enemies in the Middle East abounds, as we note below:

“As a global-macro analyst, I am frequently asked if war with Iran will come and, if so, when,” writes Jim Rickards, a Wall Street economist and investment banker, wrote in February.

“My answer is that the war has already begun. It’s not a shooting war – yet. What the U.S. and Israel are now waging with Iran is what experts call unrestricted warfare. This is warfare that consists of sabotage, assassination, special operations, psychological operations, attacks on critical infrastructure, cyber warfare and – the most recent addition to the arsenal – financial warfare.”

A concerted effort aimed at undermining Iran began in earnest following the Iranian revolution in 1979, but escalated considerably during the Bush years and continues under Obama.

• The United States has spent millions funding militant ethnic separatist groups to cripple Iran. The CIA has worked closely with Kurds, Azeris, Ahwazi Arabs, and the Baluchis. “The latest attacks inside Iran fall in line with US efforts to supply and train Iran’s ethnic minorities to destabilize the Iranian regime,” Fred Burton, a former US state department counter-terrorism agent, admitted.

The support includes funding Jundallah, a Sunni and Baluchi group with links to al-Qaeda.

“The operations are controversial because they involve dealing with movements that resort to terrorist methods in pursuit of their grievances against the Iranian regime,” the Telegraph reported in February, 2007, during the Bush administration.

• In 2008, a story by journalist Seymour Hersh appearing in the July 7, 2008 issue of The New Yorker reported U.S. covert action plans against Iran involved extensive activity by the CIA, DIA and Special Forces.

• Israel’s Mossad and MEK have collaborated on terror attacks inside Iran and have worked together on assassinating Iran’s nuclear scientists. The MEK, short for Mujahideen e-Khalq, a violent Iranian militant group, is listed by the State Department as a terrorist organization, although Bush-era neocons have worked to change this designation. MEK claims it has killed 40,000 Iranians who support the government. The CIA has trained the group at a little-known base in Nevada.

• The war waged inside Iran continues under Obama. In April, Iran arrested a group of Israel-backed mercenary terrorists. In November, officials in the U.S. admitted the CIA is active inside Iran and stealth drones have made hundreds of trips into Iran, according to the Washinton Post.

• Israel has hinted it was behind a devastating explosion at a military base near Iran’s capital of Tehran in November. According to blogger Richard Silverstein, an Israeli source with extensive senior political and military experience provided an exclusive report that the explosion that killed 40 people was the work of the Mossad in collaboration with the MEK.

• The United States and the European Union have engaged in coordinated economic warfare against Iran and its national currency, the rial. “Iran’s rial plunged against the U.S. dollar in open-market trade on Monday, taking its loss in value over the past week to more than a quarter in further evidence that Western sanctions are shattering the economy,” Reuters reported last week. The Iranian currency has experienced considerable devaluation since banking sanctions were placed on the country.

• Syria and its Shiite ruling elite are also under attack. The New York Times and the establishment media admit that the Free Syria Army is a CIA proxy paramilitary group. In August, “President Barack Obama signed a secret order authorizing the CIA to aid Syrian rebels in attempting to overthrow Bashar Al-Assad. However, the order stopped short of allowing the CIA to provide lethal weapons,” Paul Joseph Watson writes for Infowars.com.

• A massacre in Houla, Syria, in May was the work of the FSA, according to eye witnesses. Despite evidence to the contrary, the establishment media continued to report the massacre was the work of Assad’s military. The FSA and its al-Qaeda affiliates stand accused of other war crimes and atrocities, activity routinely covered up or dismissed by the corporate media.

• In September, we reported on Turkey’s efforts to support the FSA and allow it to conduct military operations from its territory. Turkey is now poised to expand the war against its neighbor following the death of five civilians inside Turkey from a Syrian mortar attack.

“Turkey’s Parliament approved a motion Thursday that authorizes further military action against Syria,” the New York Times reports. The attack and Turkey’s response will be used by the United States and NATO to impose a no-fly zone over Syria similar to the one established in Libya.

The United States expressed “outrage” at the deadly shelling of a Turkish border village from inside Syria, according to the Christian Science Monitor, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon strongly condemned the attack on the border where the FSA is allowed to operate with impunity under the direction of the CIA and the Pentagon.

by Jacque Fresco , Hang the Bankers

October 22, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Palling Around With Terrorists: Obama Administration Embraces MEK

Four years after Sarah Palin famously accused then-candidate Barack Obama of “palling round with terrorists,” it can be said truthfully. Last Friday, news leaked that the U.S. State Department is going to remove the Iranian terrorist group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK) from its list of foreign terrorist organizations.

MEK’s ideology is a mixture of Islam and Marxism with cult-like practices. The group once called itself “the People’s Holy Warriors of Iran.” They supported the Islamic revolution in Iran and later allied with the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. During the 1970s MEK conducted numerous

The Bush administration cited MEK as a reason to invade Iraq

attacks on American officials, including an attempted assassination of the U.S. ambassador in Tehran. Six Americans were killed. It has been listed as a terrorist organization since 1997. The MEK fought in the Iran-Iraq War, made use of chemical weapons, and brutally put down Iraqi Kurdish people in the early 1990s. The Bush administration cited Saddam’s support of MEK as a reason to invade Iraq, and the group was forcibly disarmed by the U.S. Army. In recent years, the MEK is believed to be involved in a wave of terrorist attacks against Iranian nuclear scientists.

The Obama administration’s decision was made with bipartisan support. MEK has many prominent U.S. political figures on its payroll, including Howard Dean, Rudy Giuliani, Wesley Clark, Bill Richardson, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton, former National Security Advisers Frances Townsend and General James L. Jones, and former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell.

Note to all U.S. Attorneys: Everyone associated with MEK can be charged with providing material support for terrorism, a federal crime under the USA PATRIOT Act (18 U.S.C. §2339A and §2339B) punishable by 15 years in prison.

Now that the United States has de-listed the MEK as an international terrorist group, our government can overtly fund them to conduct terrorist attacks on Iran. According to some reports, MEK has received covert U.S. and Israeli assistance for years.

Glenn Greenwald:

[W]ith the MEK, we have a group that, at least according to some reports, appears to have intensified its terrorism, and yet they are removed from the list. Why? Because now they are aligned against the prime enemy of the US and Israel – and working closely with those two nations – and are therefore, magically, no longer “terrorists.”

Posted by Richard Warnick , Oneutah.org

October 22, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK: When terrorism becomes respectable

Department of State Public Notice ‎‏8050‏‎ dated September ‎‏21‏‎, ‎‏2012‏‎, reads thus:‎

In the matter of the designation of Mujahadin-e Khalq, also known as MEK, also known as ‎Mujahadin-e Khalq Organization, also known as MKO, also known as Muslim Iranian Students’ ‎Society, also known as National Council of Resistance, also known as NCR, also known as ‎Organization of the People’s Holy Warriors of Iran, also known as the National Liberation Army ‎of Iran, also known as NLA, also known as National Council of Resistance of Iran, also known ‎as NCRI, also known as Sazeman-e Mujahadin-e Khalq-e Iran, as a Specially Designated Global ‎Terrorist Pursuant to Section ‎‏1‏‎[b] of Executive Order ‎‏13224‏‎, as amended. Acting under the ‎authority of Section ‎‏1‏‎[b] of Executive Order ‎‏13224‏‎ of September ‎‏23‏‎, ‎‏2001‏‎, as amended ]"the ‎Order’] I hereby revoke the designation of the entity known as the Mujahadin-e Khalq, and its ‎aliases, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist pursuant to Section ‎‏1‏‎[b] of the Order. This ‎action takes effect September ‎‏28‏‎, ‎‏2012‏‎.
‎
Hillary Rodham Clinton,Secretary of State

With this stroke of the pen, as it were, the United States removed from its global terrorist list an ‎organization—Mujahedin-e Khalq [MEK]—that had been listed since ‎‏1997‏‎. A shadowy outfit, ‎MEK’s delisting was the result of a full-court press by a bipartisan group of policy influentials, ‎including General Hugh Shelton, former chairman of the joint Chiefs of Staff; Lee Hamilton, ‎former congressman from Indiana; Bill Richardson, former governor of New Mexico; General ‎Wesley Clark, former supreme commander of NATO; and Louis Freeh and Michael Hayden, ‎former directors of the FBI and CIA, respectively.

In a speech at a conference in February ‎‏2011‏‎, Governor Richardson urged that MEK should be ‎removed from the terrorist list : "This is a movement that doesn’t want any money. This is a ‎movement that doesn’t want weapons," Richardson declared. "This is a movement that just wants ‎to be allowed to roam, to do your democratic thing." Equally opaquely, General Shelton said at ‎the same event: "When you look at what the MEK stands for, when they are antinuclear, ‎separation of church and state, individual rights, MEK is obviously the way Iran needs to go."

‎On one level, the ostensible reason for the United States’ delisting is that the Iraq-based MEK is ‎a force in exile dedicated to removing the current regime in Tehran. As General Shelton added, ‎‎"By placing the MEK on the FTO [Foreign Terrorist Organizations] list we have weakened the ‎support of the best organized internal resistance group to the most terrorist-oriented anti-Western ‎world, anti-democratic regime in the region." In the zero-sum game of U.S.-Iran relations, there ‎appears to be, then, a certain logic to the move. It is illuminating, however, to take a closer look ‎at this movement, through the eyes of some individuals lesser known than the heavyweight list ‎that supports their cause, but who might just be in a position to know more about it. These would ‎include Ray McGovern, an ex-CIA operative, who said of the MEK: "Why the U.S. cooperates ‎with organizations like the Mujahedin, I think, is because that they are local, and because they are ‎ready to work for us. Previously, we considered them a terrorist organization. And they exactly ‎are. But they are now our terrorists and we now don’t hesitate to send them into Iran….for the ‎usual secret service activities: attacking sensors, in order to supervise the Iranian nuclear program, ‎mark targets for air attacks, and perhaps establishing secret camps to control the military locations ‎in Iran. And also a little sabotage."

Or, from Karen Kwiatkowski, formerly with the Department of Defense: "MEK is ready to do ‎things over which we would be ashamed, and over which we try to keep silent. But for such ‎tasks we’ll use them." (For both these quotes, see "US Government’s Secret Plans for Iran," by ‎Markus Schmidt, John Goetz, WDR TV, Germany, February ‎‏3‏‎, ‎‏2005‏‎).

And what exactly are these "tasks"? According to the State Department’s original statement ‎designating MEK as a terrorist organization (in ‎‏1997‏‎, when the Clinton administration was trying ‎to engage Iran), MEK instigated a bombing campaign, including an attack against the head office ‎of the Islamic Republic Party and the Prime Minister’s office, which killed some ‎‏70‏‎ high-ranking ‎Iranian officials, including Chief Justice Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, President Mohammad-‎Ali Rajaei, and Prime Minister Mohammad-Javad Bahonar. In addition, MEK assassinations ‎range in date and targets from U.S. military personnel and civilians in the ‎‏1970‏s (hence the ‎original terrorist listing) to, almost certainly, the killing of at least five leading Iranian nuclear ‎scientists in recent months.

Complementing the lethal violence of the MEK is the organization’s bizarre internal dynamic. ‎Elizabeth Rubin of The New York Times visited its Camp Ashraf headquarters in Iraq in ‎‏2003‏‎, ‎and, in the course of the drumbeat of support for de-listing, posted an article in the Times on ‎August ‎‏13‏‎, ‎‏2011‏‎, "An Iranian Cult and its American Friends." Herein she describes a—"cult" is ‎the only appropriate term—headed by a woman named Maryam Rajavi and her husband, ‎Massoud. What she relates is eerily reminiscent of the doomed Jim Jones cult in Guyana in the ‎‏1970‏s—"a fictional world of female worker bees…staring ahead as if they were working at a ‎factory in Maoist China….Friendships and all emotional relationships are forbidden. From the ‎time they are toddlers, boys and girls are not allowed to speak to each other. Each day at Camp ‎Ashraf you had to report your dreams and thoughts….After my visit, I met and spoke to men ‎and women who had escaped from the group’s clutches. Many had to be reprogrammed. They ‎recounted how people were locked up if they disagreed with the leadership or tried to escape; ‎some were even killed."

So far, this is only a Jim Jones situation—which is bad enough—in that the tragedy affected only ‎the cult’s members. But, as Rubin also reports:‎

During the Iran-Iraq war in the ‎‏1980‏s, the group served as Saddam Hussein’s own private militia ‎opposing the theocratic government in Tehran. For two decades, he gave the group money, ‎weapons, jeeps and military bases along the border with Iran. In return, the Rajavis pledged their ‎fealty.

In ‎‏1991‏‎, when Mr. Hussein crushed a Shiite uprising in the south and attempted to carry out a ‎genocide against the Kurds in the north, the Rajavis and their army joined his forces in mowing ‎down fleeing Kurds. Ms. Rajavi told her disciples ‘Take the Kurds under your tanks, and save ‎your bullets for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.’ Many followers escaped in disgust.‎

Rubin concludes: "MEK is not only irrelevant to the cause of Iran’s democratic activists, but a ‎totalitarian cult that will come back to haunt us."

All of which begs the pressing question: Why the policy reversal? And why now? There are at ‎least three reasons, from the pragmatic to the venal. First, MEK’s presence in Iraq has been a ‎growing source of tension between the host country’s Shia government and the United States. As ‎a ‎‏2009‏‎ Rand Corporation report ("The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq: A Policy Conundrum") says:‎

From the early weeks of Operation Iraqi Freedom [OIF] until January ‎‏2009‏‎, coalition forces ‎detained and provided security for members of the MEK, an exiled Iranian dissident cult group ‎living in Iraq. From the outset of OIF, the MEK was designate d a hostile force, largely because ‎of its history of cooperation with Saddam Hussein’s military in the Iran-Iraq war and its alleged ‎involvement in his suppression of the Shia and Kurdish uprisings that followed the Gulf War of ‎‏1991‏‎.‎

The Rand report goes on:‎

The coalition’s decision to provide security for a foreign terrorist organization was very ‎controversial because it placed the United States in the position of protecting a group that it had ‎labeled a terrorist organization. Among many resulting complications, this policy conundrum has ‎made the United States vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy in the war on terrorism.‎

The Nour Al- Maliki government in Iraq, therefore, wanted the MEK out; but only by offering ‎the prospect of de-listing could the Obama administration persuade its rogue protectee to leave ‎Ashraf peacefully, as it has now done, to be processed for resettlement by the UN High ‎Commissioner for Refugees.

Second, the dance with the MEK is a commentary on our lack of engagement with Iran, despite ‎early promises for such by President Obama. According to a blog posting of September ‎‏24‏‎, ‎‏2012‏‎, ‎by Leila Kashefi, a Washington-based Iranian-American human rights activist: "It has been ‎incredible to watch members of a designated terror group walk the halls of Congressional office ‎buildings, mingling with Hill staffers and representatives. ‘The only Iranians we see are the ‎MEK’, said one staffer."

Third—and this is the least salubrious factor in the de-listing—despite General Shelton’s ‎protestations to the contrary, the MEK both wants and gets money, and uses it strategically. ‎How exactly the group receives its support is a murky, perhaps impenetrable question. A report ‎by the UK daily, The Guardian ("Iranian exiles, DC lobbyists and the campaign to delist the ‎MEK," September ‎‏21‏‎ ‎‏2012‏‎) attributes this to "a formidable fundraising operation and campaign ‎to transform the MEK’s image led by more than ‎‏20‏‎ Iranian-American organizations across the ‎US. These groups and their leaders have spent millions of dollars on donations to members of ‎Congress, paying Washington lobby groups and hiring influential politicians and officials, ‎including two former CIA directors as speakers." As the Financial Times summed up in a recent ‎editorial (Mujahedin mistake," September ‎‏25‏‎, ‎‏2012‏‎) "MEK has found the best friends money can ‎buy". (As a footnote, it goes without saying that neither of these press organs is typically ‎amicably disposed toward the Iranian regime.)

‎Others have been skeptical about the role of expatriate groups—citing their characteristic ‎frugality! Another, perhaps fanciful, explanation has been the largesse of Saddam Hussein ‎toward MEK in the ‎‏1990‏s, and shrewd stewardship of his funding. Or perhaps the multiple ‎aliases—self describing as "freedom fighters" or "democracy" activists—have diversified the ‎funding options. Whatever the nature of the money trail, according to the Guardian report, ‎‎"Several prominent former officials have acknowledged being paid significant amounts of money ‎to speak about the MEK. The former Pennsylvania governor, Ed Rendell, has accepted more than ‎‏$150,000‏‎ in speaking fees at events in support of unbanning the MEK." (Others who have ‎accepted fees include Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont, and Rudy Giuliani, former ‎mayor of New York City. See, for example, "Iranian group’s big-money push to get off US ‎terrorist list," Christian Science Monitor, August ‎‏8‏‎, ‎‏2011‏‎.) Nor do these friends in court appear ‎overly concerned with a process of background checking: For Representative Dana Rohrabacher, ‎‎"If they want to contribute to me because I believe strongly in human rights and stand up in cases ‎like this, that’s fine. I don’t check their credentials." [Guardian]

Finally, what are the consequences of the step to delist the MEK? In practical terms, the ‎liberation will enable the MEK to lobby the U.S. Congress for support in the same way as the ‎Iraq Liberation Act of ‎‏1998‏‎ allowed the Iraqi National Congress led by the exiled Ahmad ‎Chalabi to do so—a monumental policy error that led to the invasion of Iraq in ‎‏2003‏‎. In this ‎regard, history, as we know all too well, has a habit of repeating itself. Some ‎‏30‏‎-odd years ago, ‎we saw the mujahedin of another state as "allies" in a cosmic struggle. Welcome to the ‎Afghanistan of the Taliban, three decades on. It is the old adage "the enemy of my enemy is my ‎friend" taken to absurd extreme.

Lest there are doubts about the adverse ethical as well as policy consequences, consider the ‎response from the National Iranian American Council [NAIC], an organization opposed to the ‎current regime, dated September ‎‏21‏‎, ‎‏2012‏‎:‎

The NAIC deplores the decision to remove the MEK from the U.S. list of foreign terrorist ‎organizations. This decision opens the door for Congressional funding of the MEK to conduct ‎terrorist attacks in Iran, makes war with Iran far more likely, and will seriously damage Iran’s ‎peaceful pro-democracy movement as well as America’s standing among ordinary Iranians. The ‎biggest winner today is the Iranian regime, which has claimed for a long time that the U.S. is out ‎to destroy Iran and is the enemy of the Iranian people.‎

All in all, a sad saga—one of taking the moral low ground in pursuit of dubious policy objectives. ‎Let us give the last word to the Financial Timeseditorial, which sums it up rather well:‎

‎"The US government’s decision to take Mujahedin-e Khalq, the exiled Iranian organization, off ‎its list of terrorist groups is a vivid example of the influence of money and lobbying in ‎Washington. At worst it highlights the analytical fog that clouds many US policy heavyweights’ ‎view of Iran."‎

By David C. Speedie , Carnegie Council

October 18, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MKO Served Moscow during the Cold War

•Islamist-Marxist terrorist group that seeks to topple the Iranian regime
•Served Moscow as a source of information on Iran during the Cold War
•By the late 1980s, created a 10,000-strong fighting force in Iraq to aid Saddam Hussein

Mujahedin-e-Khalq, or MEK (a.k.a. Iranian Mujahedin Khalq, or IMK, and Mujahedin al-Khalq Organization, or MKO) is an Islamic-Marxist sect that has been trying to topple Iran’s governing regime since 1981. (It is most commonly known by the acronym MEK.) MEK was classified as a terrorist organization by President Bill Clinton in 1997, and five years later the European Union followed suit.
MKO Served Moscow during the Cold War
MEK is led by the husband-and-wife team of Massoud Rajavi and Maryam Rajavi. Massoud Rajavi heads the organization’s military forces. Experts say that MEK has increasingly come to resemble a personality cult that is devoted to Mr. Rajavi’s secular interpretation of the Koran and is prone to sudden, dramatic ideological shifts. Mr. Rajavi was last known to be living in Iraq, but his current whereabouts are unknown. His wife Maryam, who hopes to become President of Iran someday, is MEK’s principal leader. Born in 1953 to an upper-middle-class Iranian family, she joined MEK as a student in Tehran in the early 1970s. After relocating with the group to Paris in 1981, she was elected its joint leader and later became deputy commander-in-chief of its armed wing.

MEK has a network of sympathizers in Europe, the United States, and Canada. The group’s political arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, maintains offices in several capitals, including Washington, DC. MEK’s membership has dwindled since about 2001, and the organization is currently believed to have some 10,000 members in its ranks; one-third to one-half of these are fighters.

MEK, whose name means “People’s Combatants,” was established in 1965 after a split in a Marxist-Leninist movement that had waged a guerrilla action in northern Iran. Its founders were college-educated Iranian leftists opposed to the country’s pro-Western ruler, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Its ideology emerged as a mix of Islam and Marxism, with influence as well from the Iranian religious sociologist Ali Shariati, who advocated an “Islam without a clergy.” With KGB help, MEK engaged in a campaign against the Shah and sent cadres to Cuba, East Germany, South Yemen, and Palestinian camps in Lebanon to train as guerrillas.

Vladimir Kuzishkin, a former KGB head in Tehran, reveals in his memoirs that MEK became a major source of information on Iran for Moscow. It also helped Moscow in its efforts to thwart U.S. influence in Iran. In 1970 and 1971, MEK murdered five American military technicians working with the Iranian army. An MEK team tried to kidnap U.S. Ambassador Douglas MacArthur III in Tehran. The attempt failed and the MEK leader, Massoud Rajavi, was given a death sentence, later commuted thanks to a plea to the Shah from Soviet President Nikolai Podgorny.

During Iran’s 1978-79 turmoil, MEK played an active role in helping Ayatollah Khomeini come to power. Its squads burned cinemas, restaurants, hotels and bookshops, and they murdered policemen. After Ayatollah Khomeini took control of the government, MEK worked to radicalize the regime, supporting the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. Yet within a year, MEK — now led by Massoud Rajavi, who had been released from prison during the revolution — decided that the Ayatollah Khomeini regime was not revolutionary enough and had to be toppled; there ensued a terrorist operation against the regime, and it continues to this day. In 1981, MEK was driven from its bases on the Iran-Iraq border and resettled in Paris, where it began supporting Iraq in its eight-year war against Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran. In 1986, MEK moved its headquarters to camps in Iraq near the Iran border.

By 1988, MEK had created in Iraq a 10,000-strong fighting force that helped Saddam Hussein in his genocidal campaign against the Kurds, and would also help him crush the Iraqi Shiites in the south in 1991. MEK maintained a reciprocal relationship with Saddam, whose regime was the main source of MEK’s financial support. (Saddam also provided MEK with bases, weapons, and protection.) To raise additional funds, MEK used front organizations such as the Muslim Iranian Student’s Society to collect money from expatriate Iranians and others. MEK also organized an asylum seekers’ campaign – sending 40,000 Iranians to Europe in exchange for their “voluntary contributions” of up to $10,000 apiece.

New MEK recruits.. traditionally have been indoctrinated and prevented from developing normal relationships outside the organization. Their children are not permitted to attend school, but must be educated at home.

During the Iraq War in 2003, U.S. forces cracked down on MEK’s bases in Iraq, and in June of that year French authorities raided an MEK compound outside Paris and arrested 160 people, including Maryam Rajavi. These authorities accused MEK of conspiring to finance and carry out acts of terrorism from the organization’s French base. All the suspects, including Rajavi, were subsequently released.

Acts of violence linked to MEK over the years include:

• The series of mortar attacks and hit-and-run raids during 2000 and 2001 against Iranian government buildings; one of these killed Iran’s chief of staff.

• The 2000 mortar attack on President Mohammad Khatami’s palace in Tehran

• The February 2000 “Operation Great Bahman,” during which MEK launched 12 attacks against Iran

• The 1999 assassination of the deputy chief of Iran’s armed forces general staff, Ali Sayyad Shirazi

• The 1998 assassination of the director of Iran’s prison system, Asadollah Lajevardi

• The 1992 near-simultaneous attacks on Iranian embassies and institutions in 13 countries

• Assistance to Saddam Hussein’s suppression of the 1991 Iraqi Shiite and Kurdish uprisings

• The 1981 bombing of the offices of the Islamic Republic Party and of Premier Mohammad-Javad Bahonar, which killed some 70 high-ranking Iranian officials, including President Mohammad-Ali Rajaei and Bahonar

• Support for the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by Iranian revolutionaries

• The 1970s killings of U.S. military personnel and civilians working on defense projects in Tehran

DiscoverTheNetwork.org

October 17, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Leading US Officials Support MEK Terrorists with Impunity

Michael Ratner Report: Supreme Court finds Telecoms won’t be prosecuted for illegal wiretapping

Bio

Michael Ratner is President Emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York and Chair of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin. He is currently a legal adviser to Wikileaks and Julian Assange. He and CCR brought the first case challenging the Guantanamo detentions and continue in their efforts to close Guantanamo. He taught at Yale Law School, and Columbia Law School, and was President of the National Lawyers Guild. His current books include”Hell No: Your Right to Dissent in the Twenty-First Century America,”and “ Who Killed Che? How the CIA Got Away With Murder.” NOTE: Mr. Ratner speaks on his own behalf and not for any organization with which he is affiliated.

Transcript

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network, and welcome to this week’s edition of The Ratner Report with Michael Ratner. Michael is president emeritus at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. He’s chair of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights in Berlin. He’s also a board member of The Real News Network. Thanks for joining us again, Michael.

MICHAEL RATNER, PRESIDENT EMERITUS, CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS: Paul, it’s always good to be with The Real News.

JAY: So what do you got this week?

RATNER: This week I’ve just been outraged by a couple of things, mostly around the impunity of our own government, of the United States government, for clear crimes that its officials, former officials have committed, as well as some corporate crime.

And the big two cases that came down—or, really, the two situations that came down were first with the MEK, which is a former Iranian group living in Iraq that had been listed on a U.S. terrorist list. That means that you couldn’t support that group in any way in the United States. They’ve listed the MEK as a terrorist group. It had been involved in the Iranian Revolution, had a falling out with Khomeini’s people, eventually fled to Iraq, became close to Saddam Hussein.

But it’s not really the nature of the group I want to talk about; it’s the nature of what happened. It’s listed on a U.S. terrorist list. What that means is you can’t give any aid to that group, you can’t take anything from that group, you can’t cooperate with that group. You can’t even teach it the principles of the Geneva Convention, which is a case we lost on in the United States Supreme Court Humanitarian Law Project. So you’re completely prohibited from having any transactions with that group, because it’s considered a terrorist group.

So what happens over the last couple of years: a number of former officials from the United States took money—they claim they didn’t know it was directly from the group, etc.—but through essentially what I think were fronts for the MEK. And they took a lot of money. Former governor Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania took somewhere between $150,000 and $160,000; the former head of the FBI, freeh, took money; former heads of the CIA took money; all to do public speaking in which they talked about how MEK should not be listed as a terrorist group. But the point is they took the money at a time when it was listed as a terrorist group, which is a serious felony in the United States.

And so then what happens? There’s an investigation, supposedly, of their taking money from this terrorist group. But in fact, of course, what are they going to do? Prosecute a bunch of CIA former heads? Prosecute the former head of the FBI? Prosecute a former governor?

JAY: And Mayor Giuliani and others.

RATNER: Right. It’s just a long list.

So what do they do last week? They denied—Hillary Clinton, the State Department, says, well, we’re going to de-list—take it off the terrorist list and no longer treat the MEK as a terrorist organization. Now, there may be a lot of complicated political reasons why they did that, having to do with both the politics in Iraq, their own politics about Iran, etc., but in any case, this group of people who all took money—which I believe came indirectly through the MEK—were lobbying to take it off the terrorist list. And what did they do? They’re not going to prosecute any of these people who took money indirectly or directly, however it came, from the MEK.

And what’s outrageous about that is that they took this money at a time it was a terrorist group listing. Whenever we think of that listing, it was illegal at the time that money was taken—you couldn’t take it from the MEK. And what you have to contrast is what happens with clients of my own or others who had any communication, anything with groups that the U.S. doesn’t like that are on the terrorist list.

JAY: Yeah. I mean, some of the people that get charged do charitable contributions to charities that have some kind of connection to Hamas or Hezbollah, and that’s enough to get you convicted.

RATNER: That’s one of the best examples, Paul. The Holy Land Foundation, they were the biggest Muslim charity in the United States. They gave money to a number of groups in Gaza and other places that the UN gave money to and you couldn’t even argue were necessarily connected with Hamas.

They tried Holy Land Foundation. And, of course, the heads of the Holy Land Foundation are now serving decades—decades in prison. The foundation has been wiped out. There’s a case—Hamas on the terrorist list, supposedly indirect contributions to Hamas for humanitarian aid, let’s say—this is blankets and hospitals and things like that—and yet these people go to jail. Yet when our own former officials close to the Bush administration, close to the Democrats, close to the Republicans do the same thing with a terrorist organization that now the U.S. has a use for, those people are given, basically, complete impunity and the organization is taken off the terrorist list.

JAY: Has the Justice Department given any explanation for why these cases aren’t being pursued? I mean, we know the politics of why they’re not, but there needs to be some official reason here.

RATNER: So far there isn’t. I mean, they might still be technically under investigation, but they’re not going to go anywhere. I mean, the argument’ll probably be that, well, we don’t think there’s enough evidence that people knew that the money came from the MEK or whatever else, or now that it’s off the terrorist list we don’t feel that there’s much purpose served by a prosecution. But that’s just wrong. I mean, that’s just completely wrong. I mean, but that may be their explanation.

But it does highlight that what officials in the United States do, or former officials do, is essentially given impunity. And, of course, we’ve talked about it before. That’s been the case with regard to the torture program that was carried on under the Bush administration. The Obama administration has given them, you know, a complete case—complete impunity. And the second—.

JAY: Yeah, I was going to ask: what do you make of this decision of the Supreme Court?

RATNER: Well, it’s a decision in a manner of speaking. The second big case that comes up is this question of warrantless wiretapping, warrantless electronic surveillance. And that’s going after American citizens’ communications, whether it’s by phone or email or Twittering or whatever else that are not public, you know, direct Tweets or email messages, going after them without a court-ordered warrant that’s required under our constitution.

And I got to give you a minute of history on that. After 9/11 the president, on his own, secretly decided that he was going to authorize the warrantless wiretapping of American citizens by the National Security Agency, the NSA. But, of course, without the cooperation of [incompr.] communications companies, AT&T and others, they can’t do that. So, secretly, unbeknown to the courts, unbeknown to anyone, they went to these telecommunications companies and said to them, we want you to warrantlessly wiretap various people, organizations, etc. They put these machines on—and we actually have evidence about that—a machine on, you know, the back end of one of their big servers that would just look at all this email.

It got discovered. It got exposed. James Risen of The New York Times exposed it. And it was a completely massively illegal program. In fact, former vice president Gore said that Bush ought to be impeached for this program.

So then what happens? Then what hapens: Congress gets in the act, and they decide two things. First of all—first of all Congress decides they’re going to allow this wiretapping to go on, and basically legalize it in a piece of legislation. And in addition to legalizing it, they’re going to say that those corporations, those communications corporations, Verizon and the like, that went along with it, we’re going to give them retroactive immunity from lawsuits that could be brought by people who were wiretapped. And there are millions, maybe billions of dollars’ worth of lawsuits.

So that legislation comes up. It comes up when Obama, our now current president, was a senator. When he was senator, he says, well, I’m going to veto that—I’m not going to veto; I’m going to vote against that immunity for the telecoms. In other words, I’m not going to say that the telecoms are immune, but I’m going to agree that they can be sued and let the courts decide. Of course, what then happens: Obama gets nominated to be president of the United States, Senate vote comes up when he’s still senator, he changes his mind, if you want to call it that, or he makes what I can say a political vote because he wants to be seen as strong on national security, etc., and he votes along with the majority of the Senate to give impunity or immunity to the telecoms. And that’s the statute.

Then what happens? Then the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the ACLU sue these telecoms, and they sue on the grounds that that law is unconstitutional. How can you give retroactive immunity for something that these people knew was illegal when they did it, and now you’re saying as a legislative matter, you know, that’s the end of it? Isn’t this a court question of whether they should have immunity or not?

And, of course, here’s what happens. They go to the court, they go to the district court, the lowest court. They go to the middle court, court of appeals. The court held that there is immunity for those telecoms, that the statute is upheld. And then this last week they go to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court says, we’re not going to review the case; we’re going to agree with the lower court that the telecoms, Verizon and the like, are immune from lawsuits for what was clearly an illegal set of wiretapping.

So there you have it. You can’t sue the telecoms. You already have a situation you can’t sue the government, although there’s some litigation still going on on that. So you have immunity for both the government officials, as well as the telecoms, who were engaged in a massive violation of the law, warrantless wiretapping.

So we have the MEK on one hand and the U.S. officials, former officials who took money from the MEK, at least indirectly, if not directly, and then you have the telecoms as well being given immunity. So you have—.

JAY: Now, where are we at on that question of warrantless wiretapping?

RATNER: We’re not in good shape, Paul. We basically have a statute that allows the president, sometimes through this secret court, sometimes on their own, to engage in warrantless wiretapping of American citizens. It was, of course, always allowed for people overseas who are not citizens, and that’s a given that that’s what they do. You lose that. But right now I would say that, you know, our communications in the United States are completely unprotected by what should have been our constitution.

JAY: Thanks for joining us, Michael.

RATNER: Thanks for having me again, Paul.

JAY: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network. And don’t forget there’s a”Donate”button over there. If you don’t click on it, we can’t do this.

Michael Ratner, The real news
Download Leading US Officials Support MEK Terrorists with Impunity

October 14, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MKO: U.S. state-sponsored terrorism against Iran

In a particularly blatant display of U.S. double standards, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton MKO: U.S. state-sponsored terrorism against Iran announced that the Mojahedin Khalq (People’s Mojahedin), known also by the acronyms MKO, MEK, and PMOI (People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran), and dedicated to the violent overthrow of the legitimate government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, had been removed from the United States’ list of designated terrorist organizations as of September 28, 2012.

By removing the MKO from the list, the terrorist organization can now legally seek funding from the U.S. government, some of whose officials have already received hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees for speaking on its behalf. In addition, U.S. companies can now engage in business transactions directly with the MKO without the necessity of obtaining a license.

The MKO is a cultish, Marxist-influenced radical terrorist organization with roots in the Freedom Movement of Iran dating back to 1965 that was revitalized in the 1970s by a group of young intelligentsia who had been influenced by foreign ideas about Islam, politics, and government. The MKO began its armed struggle against the U.S.-supported shah in 1971 and continued its efforts by joining the Islamic Revolution of Iran. The terrorist group assassinated at least six U.S. citizens, participated in the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, and opposed the release of the U.S. hostages, urging their execution instead. Later on, however, the MKO withdrew its support for the revolution’s leadership and directly opposed the government of the fledgling Islamic Republic.

In the aftermath of the victory of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini submitted the proposed constitution for an Islamic government to a public referendum on December 2, 1979. The MKO rejected the concept of velayat-e faqih (rule of the supreme jurisprudent), abstained from the referendum, and began to voice their opposing views by carrying out increasingly violent acts, including assassinations and bombing attacks on government leaders.

On June 28 1981, the MKO began a series of vicious attacks by bombing the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party during a meeting of party leaders, resulting in 74 fatalities. This was followed by other terrorist attacks resulting in deaths and destruction at a time when the Islamic Republic was engaged in its Sacred Defense against Saddam Hussein’s regime (the Iran-Iraq war) from 1980 to 1988.

Eventually forced into exile because of its terrorist activities within Iran, the MKO was given asylum and financial support in Iraq by Saddam from 1986 until the time his regime was toppled by the U.S. invasion in 2003. On July 26, 1988, after the UN-brokered ceasefire was accepted, a 7,000-man assault force from the MKO, armed by Saddam, invaded and attacked Iran, but was forced to retreat back into Iraq three days later. According to the U.S. State Department, the MKO aided Saddam’s Republican Guard in suppressing the 1991 Shia uprising in Iraq.

Since November 4, 1979, the MKO has been responsible for over 70 acts of terrorism within Iran, which have claimed the lives of over 12,000 Iranians over the past three decades. Other humanitarian organizations place the figure of Iranian victims of terror even higher, while the MKO itself claims that it has inflicted over 40,000 casualties within Iran.

The U.S. State Department, acknowledging the terrorist group’s grizzly record, stated “the Department does not overlook or forget the MKO’s past acts of terrorism, including its involvement in the killing of U.S. citizens in Iran in the 1970s and an attack on U.S. soil in 1992.” According to news sources, the MKO is responsible for carrying out the assassinations of leading Iranian scientists and when asked about this by a BBC correspondent, a senior State Department official responded, “The United States government has not claimed that the MKO was involved in the assassination of scientists in Iran.”

The official added, “We believe that terrorism is terrorism no matter what country on earth it may be practiced in or against any party that it may be practiced against. So we do not distinguish between actions in or against Iran or in or against any other country.” This statement is especially breathtaking, since the MKO is listed in the University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database as one of the organizations responsible for the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979. In other words, while continuing to hold the Iranian government responsible for the U.S. embassy hostage crisis, the U.S. government has effectively pardoned one of the actual perpetrators by removing its name from the terrorist list!

So why has this obviously irrational delisting of the MKO taken place? Just as the Afghan mujahedin were used in a covert U.S. war to overthrow the Soviet-aligned government in Afghanistan, the MKO is being used in conjunction with Mossad to fight a covert war against the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran. And the U.S. trained members of the MKO at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Nevada Security Site under the auspices of the Joint Special Operations Command between 2005 and 2008. According to an unnamed source, as a result of the Nevada JSOC training, “MKO now has a capacity for efficient operations that it never had before.”

It appears that as long as the terrorists commit their abominable acts in accordance with Washington’s policy goals, they are not treated as terrorists but instead as allies, and even while they are still officially listed as terrorists by the State Department. As arch-Zionist Alan Dershowitz would undoubtedly agree, the MKO may still be terrorists, but they are now the United States’ terrorists. No doubt, deceased Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson, the mastermind of Operation Cyclone, would agree as well.

Yuram Abdullah Weiler ,

October 13, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Iranians see Mujahedin as traitors rather than opponents

The return of People’s Mujahedin, unpopular opponents in Iran
Washington withdrew the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran led by Maryam Rajavi, from their list of "terrorist". A decision denounced by Tehran, which required collaboration between the group and Washington.

"Old forefronts of the opposition against the Shah, but also the Islamic Republic of ayatollah Khomeini, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) was listed in 1997 as terrorist organization by the United States. Since the Iranian opposition group has renounced violence long time ago, Washington finally decided on September 28 to remove them from the list. But according to Thierry Coville, Iran’s researcher at the Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS), the overdue recognition is futile, because the organization suffers its image within its own country.

The opposition has lost much of its aura in Iran. "The People’s Mojahedin are opponents in exile and have lost all legitimacy in Iran since the episode of the war with Iraq, where they conducted operations against the Iranian army," explains Thierry Coville. The "Iranian public opinion far from considering them as opponents see them as traitors. They no longer enjoy any popularity among the Iranians, whether in the country or among the diasporas," he insists.

Founded in 1965 in opposition to the Shah, PMOI, with obedience to Marxism, conducted urban guerrilla actions to undermine the regime. After the 1979 Islamic revolution and the advent of ayatollah Khomeini, the organization becomes the most aggressive opposition to the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 1981, Massoud Rajavi, leader of mujahedin, founded with other opponents, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which reflected the forces opposed to the dictatorship of the Shah and ayatollah Khomeini’s government.

During the Iran / Iraq war (1980-1988), the Mujahedin settled in Iraq where they create the National Liberation Army of Iran (NLA) in 1986 and launched operations against their country. In 1988, Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa ordering the execution of members of the organization. Based in France, PMOI is directed by Maryam Rajavi, the wife of Massoud Rajavi.

In announcing the news of his removal from the list of terrorist organizations, the group, which is headquartered in the Auvers-sur-Oise in suburb of Paris, in a statement hailed a "correct decision".

"Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance for the period of the transfer of sovereignty to the Iranian people, welcomed" the decision of the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, "the statement said." we hope to better introduce ourselves and our goals to international community and the American people. "

Lobbying and working with American Secret Service

According to Thierry Coville, several factors explain the change in U.S. position. Tensions between the U.S. and Iran over its nuclear program are no strangers. "The fact that the United States declares the Mujahedin accessible now, is not trivial at a time when Washington and Israel raise Iran as the greatest enemy in the planet," noted the researcher.

In addition, it has been long time that PMOI seeks to improve its image. Designated in 1997 as a "terrorist" organization in the United States, it has, for several years, renounced violence and actively collaborated with the U.S. Secret Service.

"The Mujahedin have worked effectively with the U.S. Secret Service in providing information gleaned from their contacts in the country on the Iranian nuclear program, but still on the Iranian aid to Bashar al-Assad", explains the researcher.
Thierry Coville also noted that the decision of the U.S. administration is the result of a genuine communication by the Iranian opposition organization. "The Mujahedin have been lobbying and in a less conventional way: they paid services responsible for American security to testify in their favor. Rudolph Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, for example, who was present at the last Congress in Paris, was paid to speak at the forum, "reveals Thierry Coville.
The decision of the U.S. State Department to remove the PMOI from the list of terrorist organizations finally coincide with the evacuation ,nearly complete and demanded by the UN and the United States, of Camp Ashraf, North of Baghdad, where the Mujahedin had occupied for years.

France24 – Translated By Nejat Society

October 10, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

WikiLeaks And The MEK: The Paradoxical Labeling Of FTOs

The U.S. designated the whistleblower website, WikiLeaks “an enemy of the state,” placing the self-described free speech project in the same category as al-Qaida, the Taliban and other foreign terrorist organizations (FTO). The unprecedented labeling of the website known for leaking classified government documents signals a new escalation in U.S. efforts to shut down WikiLeaks and other groups speaking out against crimes, corruption and misconduct in the government and armed forces.

The dubious FTO labeling was evident last week when the Mujahideen al-Khalq (MEK), an armed group of Iranian dissidents, was removed from the foreign terrorist list after years of intense lobbying by groups within the Iranian diaspora. The “enemy of the state” and “foreign terrorist organization” labels are strategically employed to advance U.S. security interests, even if those interests require support for known terrorist organizations.

WikiLeaks

The decision to classify WikiLeaks as an enemy of the state is consistent with the aggressive pursuit of Julian Assange, the founder and main proponent of the website.

Assange, who has been hiding inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since July, has been trying to secure safe passage to Ecuador. The Australian national was granted asylum by the South American country earlier this year after requesting assistance from Ecuadorian president and personal friend, Rafael Correa.

The new “enemy of the state” classification is unlikely to affect the standoff between Assange and U.K. authorities, who have pledged to arrest Assange and extradite him should he attempt to flee the embassy compound. However, the classification remains concerning for Assange and WikiLeaks supporters threatened with imprisonment.

Julian Assange’s U.S. attorney, Michael Ratner, commented on the WikiLeaks classification, saying, “In the FOI documents there is no allegation of any actual communication for publication that would aid an enemy of the United States such as al-Qaida, nor are there allegations that WikiLeaks published such information.”

Ratner elaborates, saying, “Almost the entire set of documents is concerned with the analyst’s communications with people close to and supporters of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, with the worry that she would disclose classified documents to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks.

“It appears that Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are the ‘enemy’. An enemy is dealt with under the laws of war, which could include killing, capturing, detaining without trial, etc,” added Ratner.

U.S. authorities have pursued Assange and other WikiLeaks contributors for publishing classified government documents, photos, videos and diplomatic cables. Assange contends that revealing secret government correspondence is necessary for maintaining transparency in a free, democratic society.

WikiLeaks has also released documents revealing crimes and misconduct by members of the U.S. armed forces conducted during wars in Iraq and Afghanistan including, most notably, a video called “Collateral Murder.” The video shows U.S. attacks on unarmed Iraqi civilians and journalists from a helicopter gunship.

Assange is also wanted by authorities in Sweden for questioning regarding a possible sexual assault.

Conversely, the U.S. has used the foreign terrorist list strategically to support an armed group called the Mujahideen al-Khalq, an armed group of Iranian dissidents opposed to the current regime. While delisting the MEK is unlikely to significantly change the standoff over Iran’s supposed nuclear program, the selective removal of the MEK shows the willingness of the U.S. to embrace violent opposition groups.

Mujahideen al-Khalq

The MEK formed as a leftist opposition group on university campuses in Tehran before the 1979 revolution. The MEK opposed the rule of the Shah and supported popular national movements for his overthrow.

However, after the rise of a new Shiite state headed by the Ayatollah Khomeini, the MEK become enemies of the Iranian state, launching attacks against a new government they saw as suppressing the development of democracy.

The MEK has carried out political assassinations from their base in Ashraf, Iraq. During the Iran-Iraq war, the MEK was allied with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, launching attacks against Iran from their base near the border.

Although the group has tacitly embraced non-violence in recent years, many of the core supporters in Iraq remain armed in camp Ashraf, despite repeated requests that MEK members disarm and reintegrate into mainstream society.

Equally as concerning is the deplorable conditions inside MEK camps, where leaders run what has been described as a “cultish community.” An independent report by Human Rights Watch describes the excesses and abuses within the organization.

“Human rights abuses carried out by MEK leaders against dissident members ranged from prolonged incommunicado and solitary confinement to beatings, verbal and psychological abuse, coerced confessions, threats of execution, and torture that in two cases led to death.”

The reason for recent U.S. delisting likely stems from the shared interests in regime change and, more immediately, preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

The MEK had been on the U.S. Foreign Terrorist Organization list since 1997.

The selective branding of WikiLeaks, the MEK or other organizations aligns with the security interests of the U.S. While the MEK may share some of the same goals, namely, regime change in Iran, the labeling indicates an underlying desire to justify alliances in the name of security.

By Martin Michaels, MintPress

October 10, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The War of Terror, the Obama Administration, Abu Hamza and MEK

My enemy’s enemy is my friend? The War of Terror, the Obama Administration, Abu Hamza and MEK

As an old Arabic proverb goes ‘me and my brother against my cousin. Me, my brother and my cousin against the stranger’. This is perhaps the best description of International relations and global politics. The question of ‘who is the stranger’ is often contentious in the ‘war of terror’. In the Second World War ‘the stranger’ was Nazi Germany and during the Cold War it was the Soviet Union. The enemy was a state and the objective was clear it was to defeat that state ideologically, politically and morally. The ‘War on Terror’ is a shift away from a ‘state-centric’ The War of Terror, the Obama Administration, Abu Hamza and MEK enemy and the ‘stranger’ has become an organisation, idea, person, book, the internet etc.. The ‘stranger’ is broadly speaking a ‘terrorist’ which is a generic and abstract term which could apply to almost anyone. At current there is no agreed international definition for what constitutes a ‘terrorist’, as many governments decide on a per group or individual basis.

This week saw two separate but equally important events which cut’s to the core of this debate. The first important event is the ruling of the European court of human rights ruling, that Abu Hamza Al-Masri should be extradited to the United States. Abu Hamza stands accused of trying to set up a terrorist training camp in rural Oregon in the United States. His legal team have been fighting against the extradition proceeding since he was arrested in 2004. The Governments of the United States and Britain clearly regard Abu Hamza as a ‘terrorist’ although no charges of terrorism have yet been proven. At the minute Abu Hamza is guilty of making inflammatory, racist and anti-Semitic speeches. However, Abu Hamza is perhaps fortunate that he lives in the UK unlike Yemeni based Anwar Al-Aulaqi was killed in a US drone strike. Al-Aulaqi was an American citizen who denounced the US in his speeches but there is no evidence that he was involved in any ‘terrorist’ activity. The reason for his killing is still a mystery however it is known that Al-Anulaqi was on a ‘secret kill list’ that the Obama Administration set up. Since taking office President Obama has along with his national security team preceded over so-called ‘death panels’, in-which decisions about who to kill are made.

The second important event has been the de-listing of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MKO or MEK) from the US state department’s terrorism list. The MEK has been on the state department’s list since 1997 for their involvement in a series of bombings during the 1980’s in Iran. The organisation was born in the 1960’s and sought to fuse Marxism and Islam in order to combat the Shah’s regime. After the Islamic revolution in 1979 Ayatollah Khomeini declared them to be an enemy organisation and executed and expelled its members. The MEK took refuge in Iraq and allied itself with Saddam Hussein during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. Allying themselves with Iraq made the organisation very unpopular in Iran so much so that recruitment dried up. The organisation effectively turned itself into a cult for its remaining members and has been accused by opponents of strange cultist practises which include vowels of celibacy, forceful divorce and odd sexual practises.

The MEK declares itself to be the ‘secular democratic’ opponents to the Islamic regime but their coalition with Saddam Hussein led them to be listed by the state department. American forces targeted the MEK during the 2003 invasion of Iraq for its alliance with the Iraqi dictator. The MEK sent many of its wealthy members to the United States and Europe. Using their wealth the MEK lobbied many high profile US officials and politicians and this led to their recent de-enlistment. Behind closed doors it is alleged that the MEK and the US have been working together for many years as Seymour Hersh reported in 2008, US Special Forces were training MEK members in the United States. There have been previous reports that the Israelis were financing, training and arming the MEK for operations against Iran. It has been reported that the MEK on behalf of Israel is responsible for the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists. It should be noted that there is no evidence that Iran is currently pursing nuclear weapons according to the US intelligence estimate reports. If Abu Hamza is the case to go by then the suggestion alone that MEK were involved in the assassination of scientist should have left them on the list.

However, this is not the case and the US has turned the MEK from a ‘stranger’ into a ‘cousin’ albeit a long-distant one. The changing status of the MEK opens up serious questions about the definition of ‘terrorist’. The suspicion here is that its only terrorism if you attack or kill Americans or Western not Iranians. By doing this the US increase the on-going tension in the Middle East in general and Iran in-particular. It will make Iran more hostile towards the United States and possibly push the region closer to war.

By Usman Butt – Catch21.co.uk

October 9, 2012 0 comments

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