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MEK is on the State Department's FTO list. Numerous US officials have lobbied for the MEK, or took money to speak well of them.
How is that not material support for terrorism?
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/28/gues...ton/singleton/jeremiah goulka worked as a lawyer in the bush justice department, and then went to work as an analyst with the rand corporation, where he was sent to iraq to analyze, among other things, the iranian dissident group mujahedin-e khalq (mek), publishing an oft-cited study on the group. Mek has been in the news of late because a high-powered bipartisan cast of former washington officials have established close ties with the group and have been vocally advocating on its behalf, often in exchange for large payments, despite mek’s having been formally designated by the u.s. Government as a terrorist organization. That close association on the part of numerous washington officials with a terrorist organization has led to a formal federal investigation of those officials. Goulka has written and supplied to me two superb op-eds on the mek controversy — one about the group itself and the other explaining why so many prominent washington officials are openly providing material support to this designated terror group — and i’m publishing the two op-eds below with his consent (as you read them, remember that paid mek shill howard dean actually called on its leader to be recognized as president of iran while paid mek shill rudy giuliani has continuously hailed the group’s benevolence).
Before posting those op-eds, i want to note one update on this matter: Supporters of MEK have filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to force the state department to decide within 30 days whether to remove MEK from the list of designated terrorist organizations (state department officials have previously indicated they are considering doing so). In response, secretary of state Hillary Clinton has told the court that (1) it has no role to play in directing the timing of this decision (“any interference by a court with the secretary’s ability to carry out these absolutely critical duties would set a seriously troubling precedent”); and (2) the US Government is currently attempting to force mek to move from its current base in Camp Ashraf to another location in Iraq (something MEK does not want to do), and whether MEK cooperates with the US Government’s directives will play a large role in determining whether the group is removed from the terrorist list.
With regard to that second argument: In determining whether MEK belongs on the terrorist list, what conceivable difference should it make whether MEK is cooperative in moving from camp ashraf as the US Government wants? What does their cooperation or lack thereof have to do with whether they are a terrorist organization? The answer, of course, is that the US List of terrorist organizations (like its list of state sponsors of terrorism) has little or nothing to do with who are and are not actually terrorists; it is, instead, simply an instrument used to reward those who comply with US Dictates (you’re no longer a terrorist) and to punish those who refuse (you are hereby deemed terrorists). The scholarship of Remi Brulin do ents how terrorism, from its prominent introduction into world affairs, has been manipulated that way. Andrew Exum of the Center for a New American Security yesterday objected to my argument that the field of “terrorism expertise” is basically fraudulent because the concept of “terrorism” itself is largely propagandistic and ideological, rather than being some meaningful term with a fixed, coherent definition. His commenters have very effectively addressed his claims, but this game-playing with mek is yet another example underscoring what I mean.
__________________________________
by Jeremiah Goulka
the Iran war hawks’ favorite cult group
I studied the MEK for the US Military and visited Camp Ashraf, the MEK facility 40 miles north of Baghdad. I also interviewed former MEK members. As Human Rights Watch also concluded, I saw that the MEKis a cult. It uses brainwashing, sleep deprivation, and forced labor to indoctrinate members. It segregates men from women, mandates celibacy, forces married members to divorce (except for its leaders), and separates families and friends who must seek permission just to converse.Despite the flurry of support by some prominent politicians as secretary of state hillary clinton scrutinizes its case, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK),a dissident iranian group based in iraq with a propaganda arm in Paris, is no enigma.
The US. Declared the mek a terrorist organization 13 years ago partly because the group is thought to have assassinated three US Army officers and three US Civilian contractors in Tehran in the 1970s. The group’s pep rallies feature US Politicians lured with high fees to come speak on its behalf. The MEK wants the US. Government to take the group off its terrorist list – as the EU And UK Have already done. But before that happens the group requires close scrutiny.
MEK members must report their private sexual thoughts at group meetings and endure public shaming. In a catch-22, those who deny having sexual thoughts are accused of hiding them and shamed, too. The cult has but one purpose: To put itself in charge in Iran.
A brief history lesson illuminates how the MEK transformed from a radical student group in 1965 to what it is today. When the MEK was founded it embraced both marxism and islam and dedicated itself to the violent overthrow of the shah of Iran. All this is reflected in its name, the “people’s holy warriors.” by 1979 the mek evolved into a major movement that threatened ayatollah khomeini’s dominance after the iranian revolution. He suppressed the group, executing some leaders and imprisoning others. In 1981 some MEK leaders escaped in a stolen plane. Among these was Masoud Rajavi. Exiled to paris, he established the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an umbrella organization of Iranian dissident groups opposed to Khomeini. The NCRI soon became the propaganda arm of the MEK. Rajavi’s wife, Maryam, runs the NCRI, which is also on the US Terror list. She calls herself “president-elect” of the NCRI’s “parliament-in-exile.”
When Saddam Hussein waged war against Iran, Rajavi moved the MEK from Paris to Iraq. His alliance with Saddam in a brutally violent war cost the MEK credibility and its font of recruits. Isolated in Iraq’s desert, Rajavi ins uted authoritarian control over his decimated army and confiscated his troops’ assets. He encouraged Saddam to send Iranian POWs to MEK’s Camp Ashraf rather than repatriate them. With promises of asylum for POWs and family reunions with the new MEK members, Rajavi duped Iranian visitors to come to the camp and stole their passports so they couldn’t leave.
Human Rights Watch reports that those who tried to escape endured confinement or torture. After the US Invaded Iraq, the MEK ejected its most “difficult” members and used guards and concertina wire to entrap the rest. Members must swear allegiance to Masoud and Maryam, whose pictures are in every building at Camp Ashraf. But these days Maryam’s is the public face of the NCRI. Masoud Rajavi mysteriously disappeared in 2003.
Maryam trumpets the dangers of Iran’s nuclear program and gives the NCRI credit for discovering Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility. That self-serving claim is doubtful, as is the NCRI’s posture as a democratic government-in-waiting. While its propaganda arm espouses western values to western audiences, the MEK continues to force-feed its doctrine to members who may not criticize the Rajavis and are not free to leave the ashraf compound.
While many people would like to see a change of regime in Tehran, no one should believe that the MEK would provide Iran with a government based on liberty and justice for all. Indeed, based upon its treatment of its own adherents in Iraq, a MEK regime might not be much improvement over the current one.
________________
by Jeremiah Goulka
investigations begin into mek supporters
The US Treasury department has begun an investigation into nearly two dozen prominent former government officials who have been paid tens of thousands of dollars to promote the Mujahedin-e Khalq (mek), an Iranian dissident cult group that has been designated by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO) since 1997.
These officials include several prominent George W. Bush administration anti-terror officials like Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge, Homeland Security advisor Frances Fragos Townsend, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, UN Ambassador John Bolton; as well as former republican mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani; former democratic governors Ed Rendell of Pennsylvania and Howard Dean of Vermont; ex-FBI director Louis Freeh; and retired chairman of the joint chiefs of staff gen. Hugh Shelton. These former officials have given speeches at home and abroad urging the State Department to remove the MEK from the FTO list.
Given the cacophony of saber-rattling over Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program – which the u.s. Intelligence community generally believes was shut down in 2003 – and the risk, however low, of actually getting prosecuted for “material support of terrorism,” it is important to examine why anyone would promote a designated terrorist organization.
what is the MEK?
The mek – which is also known as the People’s Mujahedin of iran (PMOI) and often operates through its Paris-based propaganda arm, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) – is an Iranian dissident group that once-upon-a-time was a significant force in Iranian politics. Created to oppose the Shah in 1965, the MEK lost out to Ayatollah Khomeini after the Iranian revolution, and the mullahs have been the MEK’s target ever since. The regime brutally suppressed the group, forcing it to go underground and its leaders into exile. Most mek members are now based in Iraq, where they have lived since joining forces with Saddam Hussein in 1986 during the iran-iraq war. (for more history of the MEK, see the appendices here.)
Collaborating with Saddam was the MEK’s greatest mistake. Saddam started that war, which was a catastrophe for Iran, but he didn’t win and didn’t install the MEK as the new government. In the process, the MEK killed Iranian soldiers and thereby killed off whatever credibility it once had.
The MEKclaims to be the best organized and the most prominent opposition group in Iran. No credible sources that I have seen suggest that it has any relevance in Iran at all, other than to get the mullahs riled up. It is, however, very well organized, because, cut off from new volunteers, the MEK’s co-leaders Masoud Rajavi (whereabouts unknown) and his wife Maryam Rajavi turned the MEK into a cult of personality.
The MEK vigorously denies that it is a cult, accusing critics of working for the Iranian regime or performing inadequate research (using the tactics of climate change, evolution, and tobacco denialists). However, I studied the MEK in depth and over a period of many months for the US Military. I visited Camp Ashraf, the MEK facility 40 miles north of baghdad, and interviewed MEK members, former MEK members, and dozens of military and civilian officials. Along with almost all of my interviewees and Human Rights Watch, i concluded that the MEK is a cult. It employs many common cult practices: Mandated celibacy and divorce, thought control, sleep deprivation, and forced labor. It segregates men from women, separates families and friends – who must seek permission just to converse – and even tells family members back home that the members are dead.
why would any American politicians support the MEK?
Getting off the FTO list is a stepping-stone to the MEK’s main goal: Getting America to install it as the new government of Iran. Why would American politicians want that? There are two main reasons, neither of them good.
The first is ignorance. The MEK presents itself well and is good at running “astroturf” campaigns. Its NCRI is a self-proclaimed “parliament in exile,” dedicated to the principles of western liberal democracy. Over the years, lots of american civilian and military officials have failed to do their homework and fallen for the MEK’s sales spiel, excited as they were to hear what they wanted to hear. (if something sounds too good to be true…)
Does this remind you of Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress? It should. As Ali Gharib has shown, the same people who helped Chalabi push us into Iraq are now orchestrating public events where former officials promote the MEK.
The second reason is money. The officials were paid to speak on the MEK’s behalf, up to $30,000 per speech. Not bad for a few minutes work.
But this is just the beginning. What the media has generally failed to mention is that these former officials are now in the national/homeland security business. Just take a quick look around wikipedia, forbes, and opensecrets.org, and here is what you will find:
- Tom Ridge has his own security consultancy (ridge global, llc) and lobbying firm (ridge policy group). He chairs the u.s. Chamber of commerce’s national security task force and sits on the boards of at least one military contractor (techradium, inc.) and one company (geospatial corporation) that serves the oil and gas industry.
- Francis Fragos Townsend chairs an industry association for intelligence contractors (the intelligence and national security alliance) and is the head of lobbying for a holding company (Macandrews & Forbes holdings inc.) that owns the military contractor AM General.
- Rudolph Giuliani has a security consulting firm (Giuliani Partners) and is a partner in a law firm with prominent oil and gas and lobbying practices (Bracewell & Giuliani). He used to own a private equity fund that teamed up with Bear Stearns to invest in security companies.
- Louis Freeh has a security and investigations consulting firm (Freeh Group International Solutions, LLC) and a law firm (Freeh Sporkin & Sullivan, LLC), where he represents, among other clients, a Saudi prince in a bribery investigation involving an arms deal.
- Hugh Shelton has served on the boards of directors of several military contractors, such as l-3 communications, CACI International, inc., and Protective Products of America, inc.
- Bolton, Mukasey, Rendell, and Dean are affiliated with major law firms whose clients include not just standard military contractors but many other more mundane corporations, as expert Nick Turse has shown, also benefit from military largesse. (Bolton is also affiliated with several pro-war think tanks.)
For people in the national/homeland security business, war with Iran would be a cash cow. They and their clients stand to benefit handsomely. Just stoking fears of war can get money flowing, from studies to retrofitting naval vessels. Bombing would be better, as even something as small as the Libyan war involved spending more than a billion dollars. But full-on war, that’s the mother lode. An invasion followed by an iraq-style lingering occupation and reconstruction would open up hundreds of billions and possibly even trillions of taxpayer dollars for the grabbing.
Hopefully these treasury department investigations are a sign that the obama administration has finally decided to rein in the warmongers. Ignorance, profit, and the dreams of a terrorist-cult group are lousy reasons to start a war.
Last edited by Winehole23; 03-28-2012 at 01:01 PM.
MEK is on the State Department's FTO list. Numerous US officials have lobbied for the MEK, or took money to speak well of them.
How is that not material support for terrorism?
as usual the political elite gets a walkover for activities that would land you or me in jail
and have already landed many swarthy gentlemen of ME extraction in the hoosegow
for doing far far less
real quiet in here. Nobody wants to send these guys to guantanamo, bomb their houses (who cares if they have children or neighbors?), then waterboard these guys? Or just send a predator drone, Awlaki style? I guess you guys really ARE broke, letting those terrorist supporters off even when they're across the street.
it's radioactive, apparentlyreal quiet in here
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...sj_share_tweetThe Obama administration is moving to remove an Iranian opposition group from the State Department's terrorism list, say officials briefed on the talks
http://www.salon.com/2012/05/15/like...lls/singleton/In 2003, when the Bush adminstration was advocating an attack on Iraq, one of the prime reasons it cited was “Saddam Hussein’s Support for International Terrorism.” It circulated a do ent purporting to prove that claim (h/t Hernlem), and one of the first specific accusations listed was this:Iraq shelters terrorist groups including the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), which has used terrorist violence against Iran and in the 1970s was responsible for killing several U.S. military personnel and U.S. civilians.So the group that was pointed to less than a decade ago as proof of Saddam’s Terrorist Evil is now glorified by both political parties in Washington and — now that it’s fighting for the U.S. and Israel rather than for Saddam — is no longer a Terror group.
Ciizenship and laws are for the little people.
It's the closest thing to a unified antiestablishment Iranian political en y that there is. It's sad that our foreign policy 'establishment' latched onto them. it's hardly some form of new US policy. We have gotten in bed with much worse than that.
Also, what government in the history of man has not given special privilege to it's elites? Once you accept that, it becomes a matter of degree. Do not get me wrong, I agree that the trend is not good for us plebeians but it is what it is.
I wish people would focus on what needs to be done to correct it rather than complain about actions that should have been more than obvious over the last 200 years.
odd thing, it's also the closest thing to a Marxist millenialist cult, responsible for the death of US personnel in the 1970s.
yes, it is sad that peabrains make silly excuses for a corrupt order and genuflect to the mere fact of its existence.
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2...ys-terrorists/On May 21, 1975, Col. Paul Shaffer, a military attaché to the US mission in Iran, kissed his wife and two children goodbye, and entered a waiting car with his colleague, Lt. Col. Jack Turner, whose wife was getting their three children ready for school. It was the last time the families of these two US servicemen would see them alive.
As the Iranian driver pulled into a side street to avoid traffic a car blocked their passage and another car rammed them from behind. Three gunmen appeared and fired at the two Americans pointblank, killing them instantly: the three escaped in a third car, leaving a leaflet on the blood-drenched seat. The leaflet denounced “US imperialism” and bore the imprint of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), or “People’s Crusaders,” a Marxist-Islamist group led by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi.
All in all, the MEK killed 6 Americans in Iran: Lt. Col. Louis Lee Hawkins, an Army comptroller, cut down by gunman in front of his Tehran home, and William Cottrell, Donald Smith, and Robert Krongard, all employees of Rockwell International. They wounded Air Force Gen. Harold L. Price, and tried and failed to kidnap the US ambassador, Douglas MacArthur II. After the Iranian Revolution, the MEK supported the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran, opposed the release of the diplomats – calling a mass demonstration in protest – and demanded their execution.
sameToday, the MEK is campaigning to be taken off the US State Department’s list of terrorist organizations – and they’re on the brink of success. According to the Wall Street Journal:
“Senior U.S. officials said on Monday that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has yet to make any final decision on the MeK’s status. But they said the State Department was looking favorably at delisting MeK if it continued cooperating by vacating a former paramilitary base inside Iraq, called Camp Ashraf, which the group had used to stage cross-border strikes into Iran.”
What the article fails to mention is that those “cross border strikes into Iran” took place during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, when the MEK enjoyed the patronage of Saddam Hussein: MEK cadre fought on the Iraqi side during that conflict. They also were useful to Saddam in repressing internal enemies of the regime: after the 1991 Gulf war, MEK fighters were used by Saddam to crush uprisings in the south and in Iraqi Kurdistan. Maryam Rajavi told her followers: “Take the Kurds under your tanks, and save your bullets for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.”
sameMEK has been described as a cult, most notably in a scary report by Human Rights Watch, a fascinating Al Jazeera video report, and in a remarkable piece by Elizabeth Rubin in the New York Times. Rubin relates the testimony of Salahaddin Mukhtadi, an Iranian historian living in exile, who says dissident MEK members “are locked up if they disagree with anything. And sometimes killed.” In the MEK cult, having particular friendships is strictly forbidden: sitting and talking together is considered a crime, especially when the subject is one’s past life before joining the cult. Wives are ordered to divorce their husbands, celibacy is mandatory, and families are broken up: nothing must come between the members and their devotion to the cause. Forced confessions and “criticism sessions” occur on a daily basis, in which participants are subjected to group abuse called “ideological cleansings.”
Genuflect? Excuses? And you deign to call me pretentious? At least I limit mine to diction.
All I ever hear from you are complaints about the system. Elites are amok, banks are amok, civil liberties are eroding. My 'genuflect to the mere fact of its existence' was a commentary that unless you have had your head in the sand, this trend has been more than obvious. Your dig was just more of your typical passive aggressive claptrap.
I never made excuses for the MEK's actions. I just pointed to how our foreign policy operates. We have no issues historically negotiating with totalitarians. lol Marxist. i missed the part in the Manifesto about Mind Control and incarceration of adherents.
US foreign policy has gotten in bed with these types especially in the Middle East for centuries now. Does the Shah of Iran ring any bells? Sheik Saud. The Yemeni's, Karzai, Cambodia, China, Burma, Congo, Angola, Somalia, etc.
The point that i was trying to make was perhaps instead of making complaints about things your entire demesne, you could try proposing solutions.
You even do the same with me. It's pretty obvious that you have a strong distaste for me but all you do is this passive aggressive ing. Petty and unfounded digs that all boil down to the same type of complaining that you do everything else.
'Less drinking, more thinking,' I say.
I could, but this is this is a discussion board. It's ok to just discuss. You may think yourself somewhat above it for proposing radical solutions, but you're not.
lol demesne
Who said anything about radical? That's just a relativist and *gasp* dismissive interpretation.
'You may think yourself somewhat above it'
That coming from you is rich. Your entire crusade for the last couple of days has been trying to put me in my relative place. I wish you would stop projecting yourself onto me.
Anyway thanks for revealing that the US and elites align themselves with extremist groups that are at odds with enemy states of the US regardless of the ideals of said group. In other news, industrial and financial elites write policy for all levels of government with overall too much access and immunity and make sure you do not forget: water is wet.
it bears repeating some animals are more equal than others. you might be jaded, but the demise of the rule of law in the US, like the emergence of a multi-tiered justice system, is of fairly recent vintage.
This incarnation certainly but to think that its some new phenomenon is just to ignore history like for example the 19the century.
If history is any example the general populace won't much care unless the bottom really falls out. You are a clear example of someone that watches but disdains action. Radical i believe you characterized it as.
more strawman and bull
Yeah strawman......
No, you excused elite politicians for lobbying on the MEK's behalf in the name of realpolitik -- one rule for us (prison), another (tolerance and excuses) for politicians who lobby for terrorists.
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