Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The Folly of American Pro-MEK Advocates

Josh Rogin reports on the latest development in the MEK story:

However, according to an Obama administration official who works on the issue, it’s actually the MEK that is trashing Camp Liberty — literally. According to this official, the U.N. has reported that MEK members at Camp Liberty have been sabotaging the camp, littering garbage and manipulating the utilities to make things look worse than they really are. While there are some legitimate problems at the camp, the official admitted, the U.N. has been monitoring Camp Liberty’s water, sewage, and food systems on a daily basis and the conditions are better than the MEK is portraying.

It doesn’t exactly come as a shock that the MEK is misrepresenting the facts about the conditions at Camp Liberty, since the group misrepresents itself on a regular basis. Pro-MEK advocates in the U.S. and Europe worked diligently for years to blur the differences between the welfare of the civilians at Camp Ashraf and the issue of the MEK’s listing as a foreign terrorist organization. The goal of this was to exploit the plight of Ashraf residents (or, more accurately, prisoners of the group’s leadership) to build support for removing the group from the FTO list. Now that the legitimate humanitarian concerns about conditions at Ashraf are being addressed, these same advocates are portraying Camp Liberty as a prison or “concentration camp.” The reason for this is not to improve conditions for the people at Camp Liberty, but to continue using humanitarian appeals to make itself seem more sympathetic as an organization that it is.

The pro-MEK advocates are complicating a difficult situation, and they are actually undermining the prospects for a peaceful resolution to the MEK’s presence in Iraq. Then again, this is what one would expect from paid stooges:

“The Americans who ought to know better and claim to be on the side of good solutions are really damaging it. Either they are too lazy or too arrogant to actually do their homework. They don’t spend the time to learn facts, they just pop off. They accept the MEK line without question and then they posture,” the official said. “We have a plan that has a chance to work and the Iraqis want it to work. The MEK … it’s not clear. And in this situation they are being badly advised by the people whose names appear in these ads.”

“Whether the MEK wants a resolution or wants a confrontation is something we’re still debating. It’s that bad,” the official said.

By Daniel Larison

March 13, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Mojahedin Khalq, True Mercenaries

The media spotlight having uncomfortably focused on the MEK’s alleged involvement in Israeli linked assassinations of Iranian scientists in recent weeks, the MEK has given up for the time Mojahedin Khalq, True Mercenaries being on advertising for their original purpose of killing and martyrdom. Instead they have turned up the volume on what France 24 dubbed their ‘battle by press release’.

There can be few journalists in the world who have an interest in Iran and have not been subjected to the MEK’s famous confetti, or ticker-tape, campaign of press releases. After terrorism, the MEK’s expertise is in propaganda. (Being ridiculously well funded is of course another, lesser investigated area of this group’s range of expertise.)

Over in Iraq, long term home to the MEK’s foreign terrorist base, the group’s members – formerly known as Saddam’s private army – are being moved from Camp Ashraf to Camp Liberty(TTL) before they are removed from Iraq altogether.

In response to this imagined affront, the MEK has pursued two tactics in its battle by press release – the first was to demand they be sent to a defunct refugee tent camp at the Jordanian border – and in direct contradiction to this to bleat about the terrible inhumane conditions at Camp Liberty (TTL) – former home to up to 5,000 US army personnel, which must surely earn the MEK the new soubriquet of the ‘MEK Princess Corps’.

But as the pleas for help have fallen on deaf ears and its camp looks set for closure, the MEK has more recently woken up to the need to distract from this existential crisis.

They have turned up the volume of press releases. But that is not all, taking a cursory look at the articles and stories engendered by this exercise, we see that the MEK is apparently advising anyone and everyone on what should be done about Iran. You would imagine the MEK is the expert of choice on everything to do with Iran.

But on closer scrutiny it is clear that none of this advise has come from the MEK’s own analysis or knowledge or from any verifiable or valuable information sources inside Iran – which the MEK simply does not have.

Instead the plethora of messages all contradict one another.

In one article the MEK swears at Nouri al Maliki accusing him of being an ‘agent of the Iranian regime’. Then in another article they refer to him as ‘brother al Maliki’. On one hand the MEK are aligned to Israel, at the same time they are associated with Saddamists from the former Iraqi dictatorship regime. The MEK have been linked with Mossad and the CIA, and also allegedly work with Iran’s ultra right intelligence gangs.

In Washington D.C. the MEK cosy up to the neoconservatives, Israeli lobby and regime change pundits to press for military strikes and war against Iran. The MEK’s black/white version of events infects the Republican electoral campaign with a crass warmongering stance.

Conversely, in Europe and the Persian Gulf States, where such a stance is highly unpopular, the MEK instead claim that the sanctions are working and that they should be given a chance to work further. The Democrats must be pleased to hear such posturing echoing way over across the ocean.

The MEK vilify the Green Movement but praise them as well.

If these contradictions arose from a clever manipulation of world politics they might be worthy of note. But this must be the only mercenary group in the world which offers its services to all sides of the equation, including those which are deadly enemies. Instead of the soft hum of smooth politicking, all we really hear is the loud ‘kerching’ of more money landing in Rajavi’s coffers.

Maybe this is why the MEK have so rapidly lost credence and relevance in the Iran debate – even those who use them are discovering they really can’t be trusted.

Anne Singleton, Author of "The life of Camp Ashraf" and "Saddam’s Private Army"

March 13, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Bill Richardson speaker fees linked to known terror group MEK

When former Gov. Bill Richardson left office he told New Mexicans he was looking forward to visiting baseball parks across the United States.

Instead, the former pitcher has been traveling around the world earning speaking fees.

Eyewitness News has learned some of Richardson’s fees were paid by an Iranian dissident group listed on the U.S. State Department’s list of known terrorist groups.

In addition to paying the former governor, the Mojahedin-e Khalq, also named MEK, has been spending millions to have Richardson and other diplomats, politicians and even former U.S. military generals use their influence to help them get de-listed.

In December 2011, Richardson, the former U.N. Ambassador, told the National Resistance Council in Paris, France that there is increasing international and bipartisan support for the group.

KOB found the video from Richardson’s speech in Paris on YouTube.

At least 33 high-ranking former U.S. officials have given speeches to MEK-friendly audiences since December of last year as part of more than 22 events in Washington, Brussels, London, Paris and Berlin.

While not every speaker accepted payment, MEK-affiliated groups have spent millions of dollars on speaking fees, according to interviews with the former officials, organizers.

Richardon is represented by the Washington Speakers’ Bureau and reportedly earns between $25,000 and $50,000 a speech.

Following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the MEK agreed to give up its weapons arsenal in exchange for protection from the U.S. military.

But following a review in 2007, the U.S. State Department maintained the organization’s classification as a Foreign Terrorist Organization when it ruled the group still possessed the "capacity and will" to commit terrorist acts.

Exiled in Iraq, members of the MEK are suspected of assassinating nuclear scientists working for Iran’s nuclear development program.

Earlier this month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton indicated she has not made a decision to de-list MEK.

She said they must voluntarily relocate from their current camp to another location inside of Iraq first.

By: Peter St. Cyr, KOB Eyewitness News 4

March 12, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Dershowitz: from Israel Firster to MEK Firster for the Right Price

Alan Dershowitz and his 1% hedge fund manager friends at the Emergency Committee of Israel recently declared war on the Center for American Progress and Media Matters because M.J. Rosenberg has called some of Israel’s American Jewish supporters, “Israel Firsters.” Phil Weiss already pointed out the egregious historical error they’ve made in presuming the term was coined by anti-Semites seeking to highlight Jews’ less than robust commitment to their native country.
Richard Silvestein
In fact, the term was first used by Prof. Abram Sachar in a debate with David Ben Gurion, whose views were that Jews around the world owed their primary allegiance to Israel, rather than their home countries.

On the strength of this historical nonsense, Dershowitz has announced it will be his life’s work to get M.J. fired and to get the Obama administration to renounce these think tanks who have the temerity to take an independent view of U.S. policy toward Israel.

I’ve introduced this post with the above story in order to more strongly highlight Dershowitz’s hypocrisy. He recently signed on to the Mujahadeen al Khalq gravy train, where he joins other “needy” Republican and Democrat leaders who are willing to sell their souls for a mess of terrorist porridge.

You see, if you’re a terrorist on behalf of Israel, as MEK is, then you’re kosher as far as Dershowitz is concerned. And your money is golden.[..]

How much money is the MEK dropping on Dershowitz? I’d be shocked if he’d sell himself any cheaper than $50K a pop. If anyone has actual figures on this please get in touch. Where does the money come from? Possibly from the Iran assassinations the MEK performs on Mossad’s behalf, which undoubtedly pay well. Then there’s the possibility that the $400-million Bush allocated for destabilizing Iran in 2007 has found its way either to the MEK or Mossad (or both).

Listen in the YouTube video above to his feigned moral outrage at the alleged “concentration camp” (Rudy Giuliani’s description) that is Camp Liberty(TTL), where 400 MEK terrorists are housed in Iraq. Then read Josh Rogin’s factual account (and this excellent follow-up) of the same story and, as they used to say in grade school, compare and contrast. After doing so you’ll understand that Dershowitz is a fabulist. He’s like that old country song that says put a quarter in the jukebox and I’ll sing that hurtin’ song again. Except that times have changed and Harvard lawyers are a lot harder to buy than old country singers. A quarter doesn’t go very far these days.

In his piece, Rogin notes that the same Camp Liberty [Temporary Transit Location] used to house hundreds of GIs during the Iraq war, and we never heard a peep from any of them (or Giuliani or Dershowitz) about it being a concentration camp. He also notes that it if anything it’s the MEK residents of the Camp who are rendering it uninhabitable:

…According to an Obama administration official who works on the issue, it’s actually the MEK that is trashing Camp Liberty[TTL] — literally. According to this official, the U.N. has reported that MEK members at Camp Liberty[TTL] have been sabotaging the camp, littering garbage and manipulating the utilities to make things look worse than they really are. While there are some legitimate problems at the camp, the official admitted, the U.N. has been monitoring Camp Liberty’s [TTL]water, sewage, and food systems on a daily basis and the conditions are better than the MEK is portraying.

Dersh spoke at a February 26th DC conference sponsored by MEK. There was an earlier December conference in Paris at which Tom Ridge, Howard Dean and a host of other luminary mercenaries spoke. They took advantage of the group’s largesse to get an all-expenses-paid trip

Rudy Giuliani yukking it up with MEK cult queen, Maryam Rajavi

to the City of Light in return for mouthing platitudes about the eternal virtues of Maryam Rajavi, the queen-bee empress of the movement.

So the next time Dershowitz shoots off his mouth about M.J. Rosenberg, Media Matters or Center for American Progress, remember what you read and heard here. When it comes to bearing moral witness Dershowitz is about as impeachable as they come.

I do so love it when shady violent thugs like the MEK tout Dersh’s so-called street cred as a “human rights advocate:”

…One of the most prominent advocates of individual rights and the most well-known lawyer in criminal cases in the world…

The only human right he cares about is Israel’s “right” to do whatever the hell it wants to the Palestinians. As far as the rights of others go, he could give a crap. Unless of course, it serves Israel’s interests. Though I haven’t specifically heard him sounding off on this subject, you can be damn sure he’s morally outraged at what’s going on in Syria and demanding western intervention to topple Assad. Though I suppose it’s possible he may be concerned about whoever follows Assad being more hostile toward Israeli interests.

The conference at which Dershowitz spoke was hosted by the Global Initiative for Democracy. One thing you’ve got to say about MEK, they’re excellent co-opters of slogans designed to win the hearts of U.S. politicians and civic leaders. They touch all the bases and use all the appropriate buzzwords like “liberty” and “democracy.” If anyone who’s taking MEK cash thinks these people advocate democracy for Iran, let them take a look at the people they assassinated before they were run out of the country after the 1979 Revolution, or the Americans they murdered afterward. These are radical extremists (they’ve also been called a “political cult”) willing to use any and all means to gain their objectives. When it was convenient for them to kill Americans, they did so. Now that it’s more convenient and remunerative to kill Iranian scientists, they do so.

March 12, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Are the MEK’s U.S. friends its worst enemies?

For years, a slew of advocates – many of whom have been paid for their services — have flooded U.S. airwaves on behalf of the Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK), a State Department-designated foreign terrorist organization opposed to the Iranian regime.

After months of difficult negotiations, the MEK has finally begun moving out of its secretive Iraqi home near the Iranian border, called Camp Ashraf. But the group’s American advocates have now become a major obstacle in the international effort to move the MEK to a new home in Iraq and avoid a bloody clash with the Iraqi military, officials say.

U.N. special representative in Iraq Martin Kobler, with help from the U.S. Embassy in Iraq and the State Department, has organized efforts to relocate the MEK to Camp Liberty, a former U.S. military base near the Baghdad airport. The first convoy of about 400 MEK members arrived there last month. The second convoy of about 400 MEK members arrived Thursday at Camp Liberty, Reuters reported.

The United Nations and the U.S. government have worked tirelessly in recent months to avoid a violent clash between the MEK and the Shiite-led Iraqi government, which is determined to oust the MEK from Camp Ashraf, where more than 3,000 members of the group, many of them suspected to be armed, have lived for years. Two previous attempts by the Iraqi government to enter the camp resulted in bloody confrontations.

But the U.N. and the State Department’s efforts have been made exponentially more difficult due to the MEK’s surprisingly strong base of support in Washington. In recent weeks, retired U.S. officials and politicians — many of whom admit to being paid by the MEK or one of its many affiliates — have mounted a sophisticated media campaign accusing the U.N. and the U.S. government of forcing the group to live in subhuman conditions against its will at Camp Liberty[Temporary Transit Location] , an accusation U.S. officials say is as inaccurate as it is unhelpful.

"This is tough enough without paid advocates making it worse," one official told The Cable.

"Camp Liberty: A Prison For Iranian Dissidents in Iraq," reads a March 3 full-page ad in the New York Times, leveling the surprising accusation that the former U.S. military base is unfit for human occupation. The ad quotes former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani calling Camp Liberty[Temporary Transit Location] "a concentration camp" — a charge Giuliani made at an MEK-sponsored conference late last month in Paris. The ad also quotes former Democratic National Committee chairman and Vermont Governor Howard Dean, former Homeland Security secretary and Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge, and Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz trashing Camp Liberty[Temporary Transit Location].

However, according to an Obama administration official who works on the issue, it’s actually the MEK that is trashing Camp Liberty [TTL] — literally. According to this official, the U.N. has reported that MEK members at Camp Liberty[TTL] have been sabotaging the camp, littering garbage and manipulating the utilities to make things look worse than they really are. While there are some legitimate problems at the camp, the official admitted, the U.N. has been monitoring Camp Liberty’s[TTL] water, sewage, and food systems on a daily basis and the conditions are better than the MEK is portraying.

The New York Times ad is only the latest in a years-long, multi-million dollar campaign by the MEK and its supporters to enlist famous U.S. politicians and policymakers in their efforts to get the group removed from the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations and resist Iraqi attempts to close Camp Ashraf, which the new government sees as a militarized cult compound on its sovereign territory.

The campaign has included huge rallies outside the State Department, massive sit-ins at congressional hearings, and an ongoing vigil outside the State Department’s C Street entrance. MEK supporters there tout the support of a long list of officials, including Congressman John Lewis (D-GA), former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, former Sen. Robert Torricelli, former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, former National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers, former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, former Rep. Lee Hamilton, former CIA Director Porter Goss, senior advisor to the Romney campaign Mitchell Reiss, retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, and former Sen. Evan Bayh.

The administration official told The Cable that, as delicate negotiations between the U.N., the United States, the Iraqis, and the MEK continue, the role of these often paid advocates is becoming even more unhelpful and potentially dangerous.

"The Americans who ought to know better and claim to be on the side of good solutions are really damaging it. Either they are too lazy or too arrogant to actually do their homework. They don’t spend the time to learn facts, they just pop off. They accept the MEK line without question and then they posture," the official said. "We have a plan that has a chance to work and the Iraqis want it to work. The MEK … it’s not clear. And in this situation they are being badly advised by the people whose names appear in these ads."

"Whether the MEK wants a resolution or wants a confrontation is something we’re still debating. It’s that bad," the official said.

The relationship between the American advocates and the MEK leadership, led by the Paris-based Maryam Rajavi, has led both to pursue strategies that neglect the dire risks of sabotaging the move from Camp Liberty[TTL] to Camp Ashraf, the official said. Rajavi is said to have created a cult of personality around herself and to rule the MEK as a unchallenged monarch.

"The not-too-stable Queen [Rajavi] hired a bunch of court flatterers to tell her that she’s great, which is fine, except that she has now forgotten that these are hired court flatterers. She thinks they are actual advisors," the official said. "Meanwhile her wise counselors are being marginalized by those who are saying ‘Oh Queen, your magnificence will cause your enemies to fall on their knees.’ And she’s beginning to believe them."

"By enabling Rajavi to indulge her worst instincts and encouraging her to think she has more power and leverage she does, they may precipitate a crisis, which is exactly what we are trying to avoid," the official said.

Another example of the American advisors’ unhelpfulness was the MEK’s recent public call to be relocated en masse to Jordan, an idea the U.S. official said came from the group’s American friends. There was just one problem: Nobody had asked the Jordanians.

"To announce it publicly as a demand without checking with the Jordanians is the sort of thing you do to destroy it," the official said. "Why the hell should the Jordanians buy trouble like this by giving these people an autonomous militarized camp?"

U.N. and U.S. officials had been hoping to keep discussions open with Jordan about the possibility of hosting some MEK members in the event of an emergency, such as a renewed outbreak of violence. But U.S. officials now think that the MEK’s actions have made that much more difficult.

"Whoever advised them has done actual demonstrable damage to a possible humanitarian solution. They’re not helping. It’s remarkable," the official said.

The arrival at Camp Liberty Thursday of the second convoy may signal that the MEK is coming around to the realization that the Iraqi government will never allow it to stay at Camp Ashraf. But the U.S. official warned that the group may have more tricks up its sleeve.

"The MEK will delay, confuse, deny, and spin until faced with an imminent disaster, and then they give only enough to avoid that disaster," the official said. "And the problem is: If you play chicken enough, eventually you will get into a head-on collision."

Foreign Policy

March 11, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Treasury probes Rendell over speeches for the MEK

The Treasury Department’s counterterrorism arm is investigating speaking fees paid to a long-time Democratic Party leader who is among the most vocal advocates of an Iranian Treasury probes Rendell over speeches for the MEK opposition group designated as a terrorist group by the State Department.

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell told The Washington Times that Treasury investigators last week subpoenaed records related to payments he has accepted in exchange for public speaking engagements.

Mr. Rendell is among a bipartisan group of prominent former officials – including Cabinet-level Republicans – who have accepted payment in exchange for speeches calling for the removal of the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

The MEK, also known as the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, has long called for the overthrow of the Islamic regime in Tehran. The group, which engaged in terror attacks on Iranian government targets in the 1980s, has been on the terrorist list since 1997, when President Bill Clinton put it there in an attempt to improve relations with Iran.

Mr. Rendell and others argue the MEK should be removed from the list because it has not engaged in violence in more than two decades and shares a common enemy with the United States.

While support for their position is widespread in Washington, some observers have raised questions about the legality of accepting payment in exchange for providing assistance or services to a listed terror group.

Mr. Rendell, who asserts that he has done nothing illegal, said that on Feb. 29 the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued a subpoena seeking “transactional records about what payments we received for speaking fees.”

The subpoena was sent to the office of Thomas McGuire, an attorney with the Los Angeles-based talent agency William Morris Endeavor Entertainment, which handles all of Mr. Rendell’s speaking engagements, including those in which he has advocated on behalf of the MEK.

Calls to Mr. McGuire on Friday were not immediately returned.

A Treasury Department spokesman on Friday refused to confirm or deny the subpoena’s issuance, saying the department “does not comment on possible investigations.”

“But the MEK is a designated terrorist group, therefore U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with or providing services to this group,” the spokesman said.

Designated terrorist groups are subject to sanctions and the spokesman, added that “the Treasury Department takes sanctions enforcement seriously and routinely investigates potential violations of sanctions laws.”

Mr. Rendell said the subpoena sent to his agent seeks information “about any emails, any letters, any communications involving payment that we’ve received or sent back.”

“We’re absolutely cooperating 100 percent,” he said. “I’ve instructed my agent not to hold back on any emails or any documents. There’s nothing to hide.”

Mr. Rendell, who once served as general chairman of the Democratic National Committee, is apparently the only person to be subpoenaed among a group of nearly two-dozen high-level political figures who have grown increasingly vocal in their calls for the MEK’s removal from the terrorist list.

The group includes Democrats such as former Vermont Governor Howard Dean and high-profile Republicans such as former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey.

At issue is the fate of 3,400 Iranian dissidents said to be members of the MEK. They have been living in Iraq since the Iran-Iraq war during the 1980s when they fought on the Iraqi side.

Since the U.S. occupation of Iraq in 2003, the MEK supporters lived under U.S. protection at a camp on the Iranian border. But now the Americans have left, the Iraqi government has said it will close the camp.

The supporters fear they will be departed to torture and death in Iran, but third countries are unwilling to take them because of the group’s designation on the Foreign Terrorist Organization list overseen by the State Department.

The group has sued the State Department in federal court to be taken off the list, but the case has dragged on for more than two years. Last week, a court ruled that the State Department must respond to the MEK petition by March 26.

The European Union removed the group from its terror list in 2009.

David Cole, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, noted that “any group that’s on the list is also, by definition, on the Treasury Department’s list for specially designated global terrorists.”

“Anyone in the United States is prohibited from engaging in any transaction with such an entity,” he said.

While Mr. Cole stressed his personal belief that individuals have a “First Amendment right to speak out freely” for an organization like the MEK, he said that “it is a crime to engage in any transaction, which would certainly include getting paid to do public relations for them.”

Mr. Rendell and Mr. Ridge acknowledged to The Times this week that they have accepted payment in exchange for making media appearances and speeches calling for the MEK’s removal from the terrorist list.

And both men defended their actions.

“I’ve been in politics 34 years, and I can tell you right now that I would not jeopardize my reputation for any amount of money,” said Mr. Rendell. “I did my research extensively on this issue before I ever agreed to speak on it, and I am 100 percent convinced that the MEK shouldn’t be on the Foreign Terrorist Organization list.”

As to the extent to which accepting payments for such advocacy may or may not be legal, Mr. Ridge said it is a “moot question.”

“Assuming there may be a question, and we don’t think there is, the bigger question is: Does the MEK belong on the list?” he said. “It’s kind of curious that those who don’t like our advocacy are suggesting that we might be doing something wrong.”

Neither man would specify how much he has been paid for his speeches, although Mr. Rendell, who has traveled to Paris and Geneva five times to attend conferences calling for the MEK’s removal from the terrorist list, said that in addition to receiving a “substantial speaking fee,” his expenses have been covered in full.

A source familiar with the payments said told The Times that a public figure of Mr. Rendell’s stature receives “in the ballpark” of $20,000 per speaking appearance.

But where the money actually comes from is unclear.

Mr. Rendell said payments for his speeches come from “money from citizens, both American citizens here and Iranian expats in Europe who believe in the cause.”

He stressed that he never directly accepts speaking fees, which are handled by his agent at William Morris.

Mr. Ridge, who has not been issued a subpoena from the Treasury Department, said he believes the money comes from legitimate sources but that he was not sure what they are.

“It is my understanding that there is a very large diaspora of Iranian Americans, and the diaspora is international obviously,” he said. “There’s a very significant group of American citizens and how they pledge their money and send it in and aggregate it to pay us, I don’t know.”

Trita Parsi, who heads the National Iranian America Council, argues that the money is connected to the MEK.

“Everyone on Capital Hill knows that, once on the terrorist list, the MEK could no longer lobby under their own name, so they created organizations with the same individuals and used those organizations, which are not on the terrorist list, to do the lobbying,” said Mr. Parsi.

“That includes giving money to U.S. officials to speak on their behalf and speak in support of the MEK while pretending that the money is not coming from the MEK.”

The website of the National Iranian American Council maintains a list of groups it claims are raising money for the MEK, and Mr. Parsi claims that officials from the State Department have privately told him that the MEK sets up “shell organizations” to raise money.

When asked about Mr. Parsi’s claim Friday, a State Department spokesman declined to comment.

By Guy Taylor
Shaun Waterman contributed to this report

March 11, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The MEK’s Useful Idiots

If you are a Muslim American who is appalled by U.S. foreign policy, most specifically its Philip Giraldi penchant for invading Islamic countries in a bid to change their regimes, and you make the mistake of saying something to that effect on the phone or writing about your concerns in an email, there is a good chance that the FBI will come after you. You will in short order find yourself with a new friend who is a Muslim just like you and who shares your frustration with American foreign policy. At a certain point he will reveal his affiliation with a certain overseas group that is interested in obtaining revenge for all the Muslims who have been killed or injured by the United States. He will suggest that doing something about the problem would be neither sinful nor really wrong, and he will hint that he has access to the weapons or bombs that could be used for a revenge attack. You take the bait. The bomb or gun is a dud and the new friend turns out to be an FBI informant. Another “terrorist” is arrested and sent to jail for 20 years. End of story.
Americans who are not Muslim should be concerned by the repeated entrapment of so-called terrorists, first of all because the process reveals that our private communications are no longer very private. Second, the law enforcement use of a planted informant to encourage and enable someone to commit a crime used to be illegal. It is not so anymore.
Many of the terrorism cases are not related to actual terror but rather to what is described as material support. It is interesting to read what exactly the United States Code states. It is 18 USC § 2339A — Providing Material Support to Terrorists:
)a) Offense.— Whoever provides material support or resources or conceals or disguises the nature, location, source, or ownership of material support or resources, knowing or intending that they are to be used in preparation for, or in carrying out, a violation of section [38 sections and acts are cited] or in preparation for, or in carrying out, the concealment of an escape from the commission of any such violation, or attempts or conspires to do such an act, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 15 years, or both, and, if the death of any person results, shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life. A violation of this section may be prosecuted in any Federal judicial district in which the underlying offense was committed, or in any other Federal judicial district as provided by law.
)b) Definitions [my emphasis]: As used in this section—(1) the term “material support or resources” means any property, tangible or intangible, or service, including currency or monetary instruments or financial securities, financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or assistance, safe houses, false documentation or identification, communications equipment, facilities, weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel (1 or more individuals who may be or include oneself), and transportation, except medicine or religious materials; … (3) the term “expert advice or assistance” means advice or assistance derived from scientific, technical or other specialized knowledge.
To see how loose the definition of support can be, consider an actual case dating from September 2011. Pakistan-born Jubair Ahmad, 24, was accused of providing material support to the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which is designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization. Ahmad produced and posted a propaganda video for LeT “glorifying violent jihad” in 2010, some three years after he arrived in the United States with his parents and two younger brothers. “Terrorist organizations such as LeT … use the Internet and other media as part of well-orchestrated propaganda campaigns,” the FBI stated in its affidavit on Ahmad. Though the charge is not spelled out in any more detail, one would assume that Ahmad is considered to be guilty of providing “expert advice or assistance” to LeT.
Which brings me to the subject of the Mujahedin-e Khalq, better known as MEK. The MEK has been on the State Department roster of foreign terrorist organizations since the list was established in 1997. Its inclusion derives from its having killed six Americans in the 1970s and from its record of violence both inside and outside Iran since that time. The group was driven out of Iran, denied refuge in France, and eventually armed and given a military base by Saddam Hussein. Saddam used the group to carry out terrorist acts inside Iran. The MEK is widely regarded as a cult and is headed by spouses Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. Its members are required to be celibate, and there are reports that they are subjected to extensive brainwashing, physical torture, severe beatings even unto death, and prolonged solitary confinement if they question the leadership. One scholar who has studied them describes their beliefs as a “weird combination of Marxism and Islamic fundamentalism.” Like many other terrorist groups, the MEK has a political wing that operates openly, the National Council of Resistance, which is based in Paris, and another front organization called Executive Action, which operates in Washington.
The U.S. military and the CIA have in the past recruited MEK agents to enter Iran and report on nuclear facilities. Other MEK agents, recruited and trained by Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, have recently killed a number of Iranian nuclear scientists and officials. The group appears to have ample financial resources, and it is generally believed that at least some of the money comes from Mossad. The MEK is able to place full-page ads in major U.S. newspapers and is also known to pay hefty speaker’s fees to major political figures who are willing to speak publicly on its behalf. The group claims to want regime-change in Iran to restore democracy to the country, an odd assertion as it itself has no internal democracy.
Because the MEK is a resource being used by Israel in its clandestine war against Iran, it is perhaps inevitable that many friends of Israel in the United States are campaigning vigorously to have the group removed from the terrorism list. Indeed, neocons at their various think-tanks and publications as well as AIPAC all support delisting the group. At this moment, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, not surprisingly, appears to be inclined to give in to the pressure and delist the MEK once it completes its departure from Camp Ashraf in Iraq, where it has been based for the past 20 years. There might be some problem in arranging the move, as few countries want to take the MEK supporters, fearing that they would have to be deprogrammed from their brainwashing.
The MEK’s friends argue that the group has not killed anyone since 1999, though the recent assassinations employing MEK members belie that assertion, as do FBI reports revealing terrorist planning as late as 2004. Many speakers defending the MEK have also admitted that they do not know much about the group, most particularly in regard to its cult status, though they insist that their support is based on the fact that the organization is now not lethal (and, of course, the handsome speaking fees they have received).
The well-connected friends of the MEK include well-known neocons like John Bolton and James Woolsey. And there is also the paid supporting cast including former head of the Democratic Party Howard Dean; former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani; ex-CIA director Michael Hayden; former generals Anthony Zinni, Peter Pace, and Hugh Shelton; former congressman Lee Hamilton; ex–attorney general Michael Mukasey; former Homeland Security director Tom Ridge; former national security adviser Jim Jones; ex-senator Robert Torricelli; former FBI director Louis Freeh; and former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. Current representatives Dana Rohrabacher and Brad Sherman also openly support the MEK and joined 96 other congressmen in calling for the lifting of the terrorism label.
Lee Hamilton has praised the MEK for providing useful intelligence on Iran’s nuclear facility at Natanz, but some of the intelligence in question is believed to be fabricated by the Mossad. Hamilton subsequently admitted that he was paid a “substantial amount” to speak and conceded that he might have been fooled by the group’s democratic credentials. “You always can be misled,” he said. Ethically challenged former senator and current lobbyist Robert Torricelli is less flexible, stating that he is “personally offended” by the group being listed as terrorist, noting that it can be “used” against Iran.
In August 2011, Rep. Ted Poe of Texas struck a similar note, referring to the MEK as “freedom fighters,” the only “real” opposition to the government in Tehran. Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney advocates delisting the group so it can undertake “provocative actions” against Iran, which he describes as killing Iranians if and when they kill Americans. So the objective for some MEK supporters clearly seems to be to give a pass to a terrorist group and to even encourage it to undertake violent action, as long as it is “our” terrorist group attacking people that we consider the bad guys.
Given the history of the MEK as a terrorist organization and the deliberately broad wording of the relevant U.S. statute, it would seem that speaking on behalf of the group amounts to material support of terrorism. So I have to ask why is it that the numerous prominent MEK supporters are walking free while Jubair Ahmad can be called a terrorist for the exercise of what might well appear to be similar First Amendment rights in producing something for a website? Can it be that the richly compensated MEK spokesmen are too important to arrest? Or is there one justice system for working-class Muslims and another for blowhards like John Bolton? Or is it just a fool’s game with the usual Washington crowd queuing up for a bad cause because they are both lining their pockets and thinking they are helping Israel? In any event, it is a poor bargain for the rest of us, but that hardly seems to matter anymore.

by Philip Giraldi

March 10, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Rudy and the MEK Terrorists

The MEK Terrorists Take Over Camp Liberty(TTL)

Terrorists rule America. They serve other terrorists. They employ other terrorists. They conspire and “plot and plan” with other terrorists. They betray other terrorists and they worship other terrorists. They use other terrorists to fulfill their terrorist agendas. They covet what some terrorists have while they lust for the same things that other terrorists want. Terrorists rule America. By deception they make war. By complicity they make allies. By terror they profit.
“There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it… I have now surpassed.
My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others… I want no one to escape.
But even after admitting this there is no catharsis, my punishment continues to elude me and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself. No new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant… nothing.” Patrick Bateman
The U.S. State Department, under heavy pressure from a D.C. based advocacy group (the Global Initiative for Democracy) and their paid shills, has decided to hand over Camp Liberty ( Temporary Transit Location) in Iraq to a terrorist organization, the MEK, which has not only killed U.S. servicemen and committed acts of indiscriminate terror inside Iran, but under another name of their organization called the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) they also oversaw the slaughter of thousands of Iraqi Kurds, the very same Iraqi Kurds that the Bush administration eventually used as proof that Saddam Hussein must be removed from power because he was a brutal tyrant who killed his own people (those self-same Iraqi Kurds)
“U.N. special representative in Iraq Martin Kobler, with help from the U.S. Embassy in Iraq and the State Department, has organized efforts to relocate the MEK to Camp Liberty ( Temporary Transit Location), a former U.S. military base near the Baghdad airport. The first convoy of about 400 MEK members arrived there last month. The second convoy of about 400 MEK members arrived Thursday at Camp Liberty (TTL), Reuters reported” Foreign Policy
The MEK is listed as a terrorist organization at the State Department for a good reason: they’re terrorists… but like the Cuban exiles and the Contras and bin Laden… they’re our terrorists. They serve a purpose: mammon.
“MEK has carried out decades of brutal terrorist attacks, assassinations, and espionage against the Iranian government and its people, as well as targeting Americans including the attempted kidnapping of US Ambassador Douglas MacArthur II, the attempted assassination of USAF Brigadier General Harold Price, the successful assassination of Lieutenant Colonel Louis Lee Hawkins, the double assassinations of Colonel Paul Shaffer and Lieutenant Colonel Jack Turner, and the successful ambush and killing of American Rockwell International employees William Cottrell, Donald Smith, and Robert Krongard.

Admissions to the deaths of the Rockwell International employees can be found within a report written by former US State Department and Department of Defense official Lincoln Bloomfield Jr. on behalf of the lobbying firm Akin Gump in an attempt to dismiss concerns over MEK’s violent past and how it connects to its current campaign of armed terror – a testament to the depths of depravity from which Washington and London lobbyists operate.” Tony Cartalucci
How’s that for irony? We go to Iraq, supposedly to fight the Global War on Terror, we stage our soldiers have-way around the world at Camp Liberty (TTL) among other places, then we move (some) of them out and bring in the terrorists to take up residence at their old base which they defended with their lives from… the terrorists.
Irony is perhaps the wrong word. Maybe “insult” or “treason” would be a better choice.
The MEK (PMOI) is a cult of fanatical Iranian dissidents led by the husband and wife duo of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. They do not allow the women in their group of say 5,000 living in exile in Iraq to marry. They must devote their entire lives to the cause, and by extention to the Rajavis. While the MEK live in squalor in Iraq, hated by even the Iraqis for their terrorist and treasonous history, the Rajavis live in splendor in Paris occasionally jet-setting over to the U.S. to plead for more money and get their marching orders from Clinton or Cheney or whomever is in office at the time.
In 1981 after the Iranian Revolution, Massoud Rajavi planned and carried out a terrorist act against the new regime. It’s effects were devastating.
“The Mujahedeen (MEK) detonated a powerful bomb that killed more than 70 officials in the Iranian theocracy. (Today’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, lost the use of his right arm in one such explosion that year.)” New York Times
After being chased out of France long ago, the terrorist duo landed in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Massoud quickly betrayed his Iranian brothers by providing intel to Saddam that ended up causing the deaths of thousands of Iranians. Then, when Saddam faced an uprising in the north, it was the MEK (PMOI) he sent in to deal with it.
“Iraqi intelligence officers, Kurdish commanders and human rights groups — said that in 1991 Hussein used the Mujahedeen and its tanks as advance forces to crush the Kurdish uprisings in the north and the Shia uprisings in the south. And former Mujahedeen members remember Maryam Rajavi’s infamous command at the time: ”Take the Kurds under your tanks, and save your bullets for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.”” New York Times
The PMOI (MEK) have a long history of terrorist activity but they also have a long history of being supported by certain factions within the United States… anyone who wishes to help Israel pick a fight and force a regime change in Iran.
Back in February there was a conference held by Iranian dissident groups who wish to cause the violent overthrow of the Iranian regime. Several retired U.S. politicians and intelligence officials decided to cash in on the momentum and help the terrorist organization, the MEK (PMOI), in their bid to be removed from the State Department’s terrorist organization list. The MEK touts a long list of this kind of supporter here in America.
“The campaign has included huge rallies outside the State Department, massive sit-ins at congressional hearings, and an ongoing vigil outside the State Department’s C Street entrance. MEK supporters there tout the support of a long list of officials, including Congressman John Lewis (D-GA), former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, former FBI Director Louis Freeh, former Sen. Robert Torricelli, former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, former National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers, former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, former Rep. Lee Hamilton, former CIA Director Porter Goss, senior advisor to the Romney campaign Mitchell Reiss, retired Gen. Anthony Zinni, and former Sen. Evan Bayh.” Foreign Policy
The “famed” Watergate journalist, Carl Bernstein, recently spoke at a GID conference on behalf of the MEK and the dissident Iranians living outside Iran who want nothing more than to have the United States bomb the crap out of their home country so they can regain power and hand over the nations assets to their globalist banker CEO friends. This is part of what he said…
“One of the things that we do as journalists, the most important thing we do, is decide what is news. And this is news, … And one of the things we do when we decide what is news is we decide what portion of the story is devoted to what we know to be fact and what portion of the story is devoted to what we know is a lie.” “famed Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein“
Notice that Bernstein didn’t say that telling the truth or exposing the truth was the most important thing for journalists, but rather it’s deciding what is or is not news and then deciding what portion is true and what is a lie. That makes perfect sense considering it was the MEK who provided the now infamous “laptop” forgery that fingered Iran for having a nuclear program in the first place.
Interesting that Bernstein would make such a claim at a conference promoting the forced regime change in Iran on behalf of Israeli interests.
Right on cue, enter former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani claiming that Camp Liberty (TTL)isn’t good enough for his newly found terrorist friends. It was good enough for our soldiers who fought and died there, but apparently Rudy thinks it’s a “concentration camp” that is beneath the gold standard status of a well equipped terrorist training facility we should provide for the MEK.
“Camp Liberty (TTL): A Prison For Iranian Dissidents in Iraq,” reads a March 3 full-page ad in the New York Times, leveling the surprising accusation that the former U.S. military base is unfit for human occupation. The ad quotes former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani calling Camp Liberty (TTL) “a concentration camp” — a charge Giuliani made at an MEK-sponsored conference late last month in Paris.” Foreign Policy
Giuliani went on Fox News recently and spewed one outrageous lie after another dealing with Iran. The president, the intelligence community, even the Israeli Prime Minister all admit that Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon program and has not as of yet even decided to create one. But that doesn’t stop someone like Giuliani from lying through his teeth except at the point where he says that if the MEK actually did commit terrorist acts in Iran killing nuclear scientists (teachers and workers at power plants) then they should be made TIME magazine’s persons of the year.
Some would say killing a scientist, a civilian, is an act of terrorism.
Giuliani: uh. uh. yes if they are building weapons of mass destruction to give to a madman. Would it be terrorism if we killed Hitler’s scientists?
)in fact, we didn’t kill Hitler’s scientists, we brought them over here and gave them security clearances. Operation Paperclip)
The lies and circular logic on display in this deplorable interview is enough to make your head explode. This is what the war-mongering chicken hawks are reduced to. Pay careful attention to the part near the end where Rudy wonders aloud that if we have to determine that the MEK are terrorists for killing Iranian scientists then we would also have to declare the people who attacked Libya and Syria as terrorists as well.
Well, since it’s WELL KNOWN that al Qaeda is committing acts of terrorism in Syria on behalf of the Free Syrian Army and since it’s also WELL KNOWN that several NTC leaders in Libya are ex-al Qaeda recruiters and trainers… yes, I guess we could make that conclusion, couldn’t we?
But Iran is not building weapons of mass destruction. WMDs are an affront to Islam according to their religious leaders. The scientists who were killed by the MEK and their glorious leaders the Rajavis were simply citizens murdered in an act of terrorism. After all, it is acknowledged by the United States and Israel both that Iran is not in fact building a nuclear weapon.
So by that standard, by Giuliani’s own admission, the MEK and Massoud and Maryam Rajavi are terrorists because the MEK did not murder people in the process of building a weapon of mass destruction to give to a madman, as Rudy so desperately put it.
Ergo, even by Rudy’s convoluted and desperate logic, the MEK are terrorists. Period.
The shock of seeing someone like Rudy Giuliani praise the terrorists who supposedly attacked us on 9/11 as “Persons of the Year” does not elicit even a dull pain these days. I saw it coming years ago.
What I find interesting is watching their panicked little dances around the history and the facts of the last few decades. It’s an ever spiraling streamer of tail flaming justifications and minced logic rushing headlong down the toilet that was once our great republic.
But the look on his face was priceless when that reporter asked the great “terrorist fighter” Rudy Giuliani if he was supporting terrorists by backing the MEK. You could see the toilet flushing in his little geeked out overloaded brain.
He certainly felt more at ease hanging out with them (what’s he doing? Chopping up lines with his credit card? (
Terrorists rule America. They serve other terrorists. They employ other terrorists. They conspire and “plot and plan” with other terrorists. They betray other terrorists and they worship other terrorists. They use other terrorists to fulfill their terrorist agendas. They covet what some terrorists have while they lust for the same things that other terrorists want. Terrorists rule America. By deception they make war. By complicity they make allies. By terror they profit.
by Scott Creighton

March 10, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

A Message Addressed to Terrorists

MKO is one of the thirty organizations first designated and put on the US’s FTO list
Mojahedin Khalq Organizatio, MKO, MEK, PMOI, NCR, NLA, is one of the thirty organizations first designated and put on the US’s FTO list in October 1997. Majority of the groups on the list have since been redesignated for sound reasons based on the groups’ history of terrorist atrocities and the previous secretaries of the State put any review of their status out of the question. But it seems that Mrs. Hilary Clinton’s sensibility is bending under the pressure of a number of the terrorist group’s influenced bi-partisans.

Addressing US lawmakers, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, sent the terrorist group a strong signal stating; “Given the ongoing efforts to relocate the residents, MEK cooperation in the successful and peaceful closure of Camp Ashraf, the MEK’s main paramilitary base, will be a key factor in any decision regarding the MEK’s FTO status”.

The truth is that, despite claims of MKO that its first designation was the outcome of a political decision, Americans know well that even if it was a politically-purposeful decision, it was not actually a wrong decision. But it should be reminded that America’s first serious stance against MKO goes back to years before 1997, when the State Department prepared a special and unclassified report on MKO at the request of the US Congress.

Despite the report provoked an angry reaction from the group at the time, MKO never tried to contest the charges at the time as a political decision. Rather, they considered the decision the outcome of an inappropriate, weak research and disregarding the right of the organization to defend itself against the charges. Now more than 24 years after the State Department’s first position, the US seems to have taken a different turn for certain reasons. You can well notice this interest-seeking turn in the speeches of the former senators and ex-security experts talking in behalf of MKO.

Is it a new definition of war against terrorism, or loss of logic, or anything else, one thing is for certain; neither Mrs. Clinton nor advocates of terrorists can ever change the nature of terrorists by some encouraging and promising words even if they do not really mean what they say.

March 5, 2012 0 comments

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

US offers to”UNTERRORIST’, terrorists

The United States has officially offered the anti-Iran Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) terrorist group a path to get off the US terrorism blacklist.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a House committee on Wednesday that the MKO’s cooperation in a relocation plan from Camp Ashraf on the Iran-Iraq border "will be a key factor in any decision" on whether to take it off the US list of foreign terrorist organizations.

The United States will help ensure the safety and security of the camp’s residents as they are moved to another site inside Iraq, Clinton further said.

Around four hundred MKO members have so far been relocated to a new site called Liberty Camp, a former US military base near Baghdad airport, where they await resettlement in other countries.

The move is said to be part of an agreement reached between the United Nations and Iraq in December, which is expected to facilitate a complete MKO exit from Iraq.

Clinton’s remarks are seen as a clear indication that the US is close to removing the terrorist group from its blacklist. The US State Department has also been ordered by a federal court to re-evaluate the designation of the MKO.

The terrorist group has reportedly assembled a large roster of advocates in the United States, including former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Bush administration Attorney General Michael Mukasey, FBI Director Louis Freeh and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.

The Christian Science Monitor reported last August that former US four-star generals, intelligence chiefs, governors, and political heavyweights had been paid “tens of thousands of dollars” to call for the US government to take the MKO off the terror list.

Another report by NBC News on February 9 shed light on the MKO’s financial sources by citing two “senior US officials” as saying that the group “is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service.” The report further confirmed Iranian claims that the terrorist cell had indeed been involved in the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists.

The senior US officials also admitted that “the Obama administration is aware of the assassination campaign” but claims it “has no direct involvement.”

The MKO is widely listed as a terrorist organization by much of the international community and is responsible for numerous acts of terror and violence against Iraqi as well as Iranian civilians, scientists and officials.

March 3, 2012 0 comments

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