Home » Western Bloggers » Page 21

Western Bloggers

Maryam Rajavi
Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

MEK Adopts Deceptive New Tactic

Recently, I came across a website by the name of Organization of Iranian American communities or (OIAC). Its mission statement says: “OIAC works to promote human rights and democratic freedoms for the people of Iran. This includes advocating for a democratic secular government in Iran, founded on respect for human rights, religious tolerance, and equality among all citizens.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

Well, it appears OIAC or better known as the MEK is following in the footsteps of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), an influential IRI lobby in Washington, DC, one which has long sought rapprochement between Washington and Tehran and has infiltrated the US Congress promoting Iran’s Mullahs agenda while claiming “NIAC promotes an active and engaged Iranian-American community in the US and celebrates the community’s deep historical and cultural roots and traditions.” Pure garbage.

Hassan Dai , an Iranian activist and political analyst in an OP-ED slammed this despised and deceptive group that has used the White House (during the Obama administration) to advance The Islamic Republic’s agenda.

Maryam Rajavi

OIAC or MEK is an Islamist-Marxist cultish group headed by Maryam Rajavi, the wife of the deceased co-founder of MEK, Massoud Rajavi. During the 1970’s they rebelled against the Shah and were involved in bombing and shooting American and Iranian targets. The MEK or (OIAC) executed U.S. Army Lt. Col. Lewis Hawkins in 1973 as he was walking home from the U.S. Embassy and in 1975 killed two American Air Force officers in their chauffeur driven car, an incident that was studied and used in CIA training subsequently as an example of how not to get caught and killed by terrorists. Between 1976 and 1978, the group bombed American commercial targets and killed three Rockwell defense contractors and one Texaco executive

Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) is known for its cultish Foreign Terrorist Organizations and represents a critical threat to Iran’s indigenous democratic movement. Unlike Iran’s democratic opposition, which advances through nonviolence, the principles of democracy and human rights, the MEK is an undemocratic organization that pursues its agenda through violence.

Michael Rubin, penned an Op-Ed stating: The Mujahidin e-Khalq Aren’t America’s Friends.

“The Trump administration, however, is reportedly reconsidering the pariah status of the MEK within U.S. diplomacy. Barbara Slavin, an American analyst often apologetic to the Islamic Republic, reports that “US administration talking points no longer exclude the Mujahidin-e Khalq as a potential replacement for the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” While there remains a great difference between “refuses to exclude” and “supports,” Slavin is correct to raise concern.”

Houston, we have a problem. The MEK cult was listed as a terrorist group in the US until 2012 – but its opposition to Tehran has attracted the backing of John Bolton, Rudy Giuliani and others bent on regime change.


After the American invasion of Iraq, Maryam fled to France. Her headquarters in Auver sur d’oise in the suburb of Paris was raided by the French Police in June 2003. She was placed under arrest together with 160 of the group members and the assets of the MEK were frozen by the French judiciary. The Police seized millions of dollars from the group’s headquarters. The group was accused of preparing to commit or finance acts of terrorism and money laundering.

A dozen diehard supporters of the Cult of Rajavi set themselves on fire to protest the arrest of Maryam. Two women were killed eventually.

French Police released the cult leader to stop the horrible scenes of self-immolations in European capitals. In France, Maryam became the administrator of Massoud’s office. The close relationship between Maryam and Massoud in the office led to their dramatic marriage in 1985 immediately after her divorce from Medi Abrishamchi. The marriage was celebrated as an ideological revolution in the history of the group. Maryam Rajavi was named the co-leader of the MEK.

Maryam Rajavi is highly admired by America’s mayor, Rudy Giuliani. For years, Giuliani has been one of the most prominent American officials to advocate on behalf of the MEK, a Marxist Iranian opposition group that claims to be the legitimate government of Iran and more resembles a cult.

Giuliani went so far as to call Maryam Rajavi a heroic woman. He twittered: “2018 Iran Uprising Summit #FREEIRAN2018 is focused on the uprising in Iran posing an alternative to the homicidal regime. The regime has announced that the MEK is the only organization that can realistically replace them. The movement is led by Maryam Rajavi, a heroic woman.”

[..]Like her deceased husband, she [Maryam Rajavi] is extremely narcissistic and an Islamist-Marxist fanatic. If she ever grabs the power in Iran, the first thing she would do is to eliminate the opposition and use the mass media to brainwash the people just as the MEK has done to their handful of followers. They will create a Stalinist dictatorship that would make both Iranians and Westerners nostalgic for the mullahs. Don’t do it!

BY AMIL IMANI- PipeLineNews,

0 comment
FacebookTwitterPinterestWhatsappTelegramSkypeEmail
blank
Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Why to engage with a Cult-like group

We asked Canadian politicians why they engaged with a ‘cult’-like group from Iran

it looked like a scene from The Handmaid’s Tale. Two glittering flags projected on jumbo screens behind a well-known politician as he addressed a massive gathering, flanked by woman dressed in identical red headscarves and black-and-white overcoats.

But this was no Republic of Gilead: it was rural Albania, the flags were Canadian, and the politician — former prime minister Stephen Harper — was addressing Iranian men and women, alongside dignitaries from at least 10 different countries.

“I am delighted to be here because there are few causes in this world today more important at this moment than what you are pursuing — the right of the people of Iran to change their government, and their right to do it through freedom and the power of the ballot box,” Harper declared to loud applause last month.

Harper was speaking at an event hosted by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which the U.S. government-funded think tank RAND Corporation describes as”exclusively controlled”by the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK).

Peculiar as it may have appeared to Canadian viewers, the setting was not an unfamiliar one to many Canadian political figures. For almost a decade now, Liberal and Conservative Parliamentarians have attended gatherings or spoken, as Harper did, at events linked to the MEK.

The Iranian opposition group aims to replace Iran’s theocracy with a secular, democratic and Western-facing government. It was previously listed as a terrorist entity in Canada, before Harper’s government dropped the group from the list in 2012, after the United States and the European Union did so. It has long renounced political violence.

The MEK now works closely with powerful hardliners in the White House, including U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton. But the MEK has also been described in other terms.

RAND, for example described the MEK in 2009 as possessing “many of the typical characteristics of a cult.” Such characteristics, it wrote, include”authoritarian control, confiscation of assets, sexual control (including mandatory divorce and celibacy), emotional isolation, forced labor, sleep deprivation, physical abuse, and limited exit options.”

More recently, investigative reports published by The Intercept, British broadcaster Channel 4 and Al Jazeera English have depicted MEK “troll farms” where members create thousands of inauthentic accounts on a daily basis and promote hashtags and tweets, targeting anyone that favours diplomacy with Iran. Human Rights Watch has reported that MEK leaders force people to issue false confessions.

In 2006, the National Post published an extensive report about a Canadian family that got wrapped up in the group. And in 2003, Neda Hassani, a 26-year-old Carleton University student, became a martyr for the MEK when she set herself on fire in front of the French embassy in London to protest the arrest of its leader by police in France.

‘They help create the illusion of legitimacy’

Video and documents available online show several current parliamentarians have attended MEK functions or given speeches, including Conservative Senator Linda Frum, Conservative MP Michael Cooper, Conservative MP Candice Bergen, Liberal MP Judy Sgro and Liberal MP Michael Levitt.

Stephen Harper

As well, along with Harper, other former politicians have interacted with the MEK in recent years, including Harper’s former foreign affairs minister John Baird, former Conservative MP Paul Forseth, former Liberal minister of justice and attorney-general Irwin Cotler and David Kilgour, a former public prosecutor and MP.

The fact that current and former Canadian politicians attend MEK events is deeply problematic, argues Stephanie Carvin, who worked as a national security analyst with the government of Canada at the time the MEK was a listed terrorist entity.

Politicians attending MEK events “help create the illusion of legitimacy,” said Carvin, who is now an assistant professor of international relations at Carleton University.”It also creates the perception of influence.”

National Observer sought comment from the Canadian political figures that have directly engaged with the MEK in recent years. Of those contacted, Frum, Cooper, Cotler’s policy director and Kilgour responded.

Emails sent to the Liberal and Conservative caucuses, asking whether they were comfortable with MPs attending MEK events, were not answered.

Sylvain Leclerc, a media relations spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada said: “Canada closely follows political activity related to Iran. Canada supports free, inclusive and peaceful political activity and strongly condemns violence in all its forms.”

Shahram Golestaneh, an Iranian-Canadian activist who has been described as “the leader” of the MEK in Canada, initially agreed to an interview via email on July 15, but then subsequently did not respond to questions on July 16.

Those questions pertained to his role in the MEK or its affiliated groups, Canadian Friends of a Democratic Iran or the Iran Democratic Association, which lists an Ottawa address and whose homepage espouses MEK literature and videos, as well as what its objectives are and which Canadian politicians it has had success lobbying.

Follow-up queries to Golestaneh on July 22 and August 1 also did not receive responses. On July 23 and July 31, further attempts to contact several other spokespeople for the organization through their website and social media accounts were left unanswered.

‘Engaging is not endorsing’

In 2017, Frum and Cotler were photographed together at an event organized by the Canadian Friends of a Democratic Iran. Frum and Cotler have categorically denied any affiliation with or support of the MEK.

At the event, Frum delivered a speech, published on her website, in which she appears to call Golestaneh (spelled Goledani in the online version) and other travelling delegations”true heroes.”

When contacted by National Observer, Frum wrote in an emailed response, “I am not affiliated with any lobby group. I believe it’s important to remain independent.”

“I have never attended events in support of the MEK,”she added.”Do I support Iranian regime change? Yes. Do I support or endorse the MEK or any other specific opposition party or group? No…I have never expressed support for anything other than freedom and human rights in Iran.”

When asked to explain the photographic evidence and her endorsement of Golestaneh, Frum said: “The event you are questioning was not in support of the MEK.”

In a separate email, she wrote,”Are you a journalist or an Iranian regime activist? Based on your line of questioning, your unwillingness to take repeated clarifications at face value, I presume it is the regime that is shaping your views.”

On Twitter, Frum has interacted with @heshmatalavi, the account for a purported journalist by the name of”Heshmat Alavi”who has published scores of opinion articles on Iran. A report by The Intercept last month discovered”Alavi”was in fact a fake persona managed by a trio of MEK members.

When asked why she followed MEK-identified accounts, and for comment on the Intercept’s findings, Frum responded: “‘Engaging’ on social media is not the same as endorsing.”

A ‘high-calibre’ delegation

In a video posted by an MEK-affiliated Twitter account last year, Michael Cooper, the Conservative justice critic and MP for St. Albert—Edmonton, is shown expressing his solidarity with the people of Iran who “every day risk their lives to stand up for freedom, democracy, the rule of law and to see an end to the brutal theocratic regime.“

In a phone interview, Cooper said he last attended MEK’s summer rally in 2016 and that he hasn’t been able to go again for scheduling reasons. He is drawn to attending their events, he said, because Iran is “the biggest exporter of terrorism and the greatest destabilizing force in the Middle East.”

“What’s been interesting in the last year or so is that the demonstrations (2017-18 street protests) have been taking place all over the country in areas that were once believed to be regime strongholds…it’s encouraging to see.”

Several MEK defectors based in Albania, Canada and Belgium told National Observer the MEK’s internet unit was active during these public protests over inflation, unemployment and inequality.

When asked what he thought about MEK’s”cult”-like practices, Cooper said: “they are one movement among many others that seek an end to the Iranian regime.”

“What you’ll find is that their Paris rally is a high-calibre delegation of world leaders, including Howard Dean,”he said. Dean is the former chair of the U.S. Democratic National Committee.”I support their efforts along with all efforts on the part of Iranian dissidents to see the end of the regime.”
A ‘message of peace and justice’

Cotler is the founder and chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights in Montreal, an emeritus professor of law at McGill University and a human rights lawyer.

Photos and video show Cotler appearing at events for Canadian Friends of a Democratic Iran and the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

Cotler’s policy director, Brandon Silver, said Cotler has not offered support or endorsement to the MEK, and”appearing or speaking at a venue would not imply endorsement of the host, it is the content and nature of this engagement that would be relevant.”

“Indeed, Professor Cotler has in the past indicated to me that he would not have a problem speaking at an event run by the Iranian authorities, as long as it was an opportunity that allowed him to speak on behalf of those unjustly imprisoned, tortured, and murdered, and to share his message of peace and justice for the people and publics of Iran,” he added.

Members of the Canadian Parliamentary Subcommittee on International Human Rights invite witnesses to highlight the domestic repression and rights abuses perpetrated by Iran’s government. In 2014, MEK leader Maryam Rajavi was invited to testify in Ottawa.

Cotler has co-sponsored Iran Accountability Week since its inception in 2012, but denies personally endorsing any of the invited witnesses.

‘Resilient’ freedom fighters

Of all former MPs who have engaged with the MEK in recent years, David Kilgour appears to be among the most directly involved. A retired MP and former lawyer, Kilgour currently sits as co-chair of Canadian Friends of a Democratic Iran, which he said has “no membership or budget.”

“We do support Mrs. Rajavi,” Kilgour told National Observer. “I’ve read about her, met her, talked to her…everything she stands for in her 10-point plan — no nuclear weapons for Iran, equality for men and women, democracy — all these things presumably you and I and everyone else from the democratic world stand for.”

When asked for comment on recent media reports that detail its cultish practices, Kilgour said he had seen no evidence of authoritarian control or forced labour during recent escorted political delegation visits to an MEK compound, Camp Ashraf in Iraq.

“I was a public prosecutor for 10 years and I hope no one’s more opposed to the sort of thing you’re talking about than I am,” he said.

In notes he prepared and published online for an MEK international broadcast held at Sandy Hill Community Centre in Ottawa last December, Kilgour quotes heavily from Struan Stevenson, a former Scottish member of the European Parliament. “I believe Struan Stevenson is a completely honest man who tries to write only what he knows and believes to be true,” he said.

Stevenson’s account relates how the new compound has been constructed by “hard-working and resilient freedom fighters” into “a small city, with shops, clinics, sports facilities, kitchens, bakeries, dormitory blocks, meeting halls, offices and studios. He said the MEK men and women are free to come and go as they please and journalists, politicians, lawyers and trades people visit frequently.

Kilgour suggested National Observer speak to his co-chair, Golestaneh, who he described as “the leader” of MEK in Canada.
‘Zero support’ inside Iran

Thomas Juneau, a former analyst for the Department of Defence who now teaches international affairs at the University of Ottawa, strongly refutes Kilgour’s account of the MEK.

It is “absolutely nonsense. And in most cases they (politicians who support or engage with it) know that is completely factually incorrect…it has zero support inside Iran,”he said.

The MEK being a “cult” is a fact that is uniformly accepted among non-partisan observers who have no skin in the game, he argued.

“It is a brutal, thuggish, corrupt group that is led in a completely dictatorial way by its leader,” he said.

“Supporting MEK as a democratic opposition doesn’t make sense when it’s not a democratic movement,” added Juneau, stating that he doesn’t see it being a serious player if the Islamic Republic of Iran ever falls. “Supporting it is not only pointless, but seriously counter productive.”

Canada-Iran relations are currently at loggerheads. The previous Conservative government under Harper cut diplomatic relations with Iran, shut its embassy in Tehran and kicked out Iranian diplomats from Canada.

The current Liberal government campaigned in 2015 on re-establishing diplomatic relations but has been unable to do so.

Stéphane Shank, a media relations manager from the Privy Council Office, said the government has taken”the necessary steps to understand the possible threats to our democratic institutions, where they come from, and how they could affect our electoral processes.”

“Canada’s foreign policy is developed independently, grounded in an evidence-based approach, and above all, is centred on reflecting and advancing Canadian interests and values.”

It is not known whether any Canadian politicians are paid — outside of travel expenses — to attend MEK-affiliated conferences overseas, although many defectors who spoke to National Observer claimed they almost certainly are.

“They are masterminds of manipulation,” says Reza Sadeghi, a defector who used to work in the MEK’s fundraising section from Canada 30 years ago.

“Maryam Rajavi always talked about how many millions in dollars they paid to politicians to support us. Many gifts consisted of gold or Persian carpets, but it was mostly cash.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated on Aug. 9, 2019 at 7:40 p.m. ET to correct an error. Cotler did not specifically acknowledge that he attended and often spoke at MEK-sponsored events, as was previously reported.

By Shenaz Kermalli, Nationalobserver

0 comment
FacebookTwitterPinterestWhatsappTelegramSkypeEmail
blank
Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Desperate attempt to awaken the U.S. war machine

Lie, beat and cheat: John Bolton’s desperate attempt to awaken the U.S. war machine

In June, the U.S. came to the brink of war with Iran. Jets were reportedly scrambled and ready to strike Iranian targets in retaliation for the downing of an American surveillance drone flying near the Strait of Hormuz. Yet, everything was going according to plan as per John Bolton, Trump’s mustachioed National Security Advisor and Washington’s highest-flying hawk at the moment.

No War

Throughout his career spanning over four decades in Washington, Bolton has mastered the art of maneuvering the complex web of federal bureaucracy, one-upping his enemies with quick wits and a fiery temper. As an early subscriber of American conservatism, he worked for Barry Goldwater’s 1964 campaign for president while in middle school. Despite Goldwater’s loss, Bolton’s dedication to the conservative cause became more fervent. Coming from a working-class background, he grew to despise his more sophisticated and liberal-leaning classmates while attending Yale University.
Over the years, his ideology has evolved into what resembles self-styled American absolutism where the U.S. can freely punish those who do not fall in line without any constraint from international agreements. To Bolton, where every problem is a nail that justifies a good pounding from America’s mighty hammer.

Bolton’s step-by-step program to lead the U.S. to war with Iran
“And that’s why before 2019, we here will celebrate in Tehran,”declared a flamboyant John Bolton in 2017 to a cultish group of Iranian exiles known as the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), or”Holy Warriors of the People.”Since becoming the National Security Advisor in April 2018, he has skillfully persuaded the Trump administration to pursue policies aimed at dismantling the two countries’ relationship, carefully leading the U.S. into committing military action against Iran.
One month into the new job, Bolton achieved a major milestone when the administration announced that it was withdrawing from its nuclear agreement with Iran – a signature Obama-era policy that gathered major world powers in ensuring Iran would abandon its nuclear weapons program. At the time, the agreement was widely regarded as a buffer toward conflict between the two countries and establishing peace in the Middle East, which had suffered the terror of Islamic States for years. By giving up its ability to produce nuclear weapons, Iran’s economy would catch a break from U.S. sanctions.
Bolton was so proud about pulling the U.S. out of the equation that he hung a framed copy of Trump’s executive order to nullify the deal in his office, according to The New Yorker.
In the following months, he tightened the choke on Iran by bringing back two rounds of sanctions targeting key sectors of the Iranian economy, such as its oil exports, looking to rouse an increasingly angry public to overthrow the government.
As U.S.-Iran relations rapidly disentangled toward the end of last year, Bolton turned things up a notch. In May, he announced the administration was sending a carrier strike group along with a bomber task force to the Persian Gulf, further goading Iran into making a mistake in a game of chicken. He said the U.S. was not looking for a war with Iran but was “fully prepared to respond to any attack, whether by proxy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or regular Iranian forces.” In a moment that eerily resembles the Gulf of Tonkin incident that triggered the Vietnam War, the world watched as Iran shot down an American drone, which it claimed, had violated its airspace. Yet, the ensuing strike never happened as President Trump decided to abort the mission.
After learning 150 Iranians would be killed for an unmanned drone, Trump did not deem the response “proportionate.” But for Bolton, human lives were the least important concern; it does not matter if Iran turns into another Iraq or Libya so long as he sees the collapse of the current order within the country. Neither does the aftermath of a”regime-change”pose a big concern for Bolton, who looks to back the MEK to lead Iran. Over the years, the self-described”pro-American”has fostered a close relationship with the MEK, which the U.S. designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization partially for assassinating six American citizens during the Iranian Revolution. For the uber-hawk, almost any means is justified for waging war.

Intimidation tactics
“We know where your kids live.”These are the words reportedly uttered by Bolton during a meeting with Jose Bustani, then director-general of watchdog group Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPWC), according to The Intercept and other sources. Before the Iraq War, OPWC under the direction of Bustani, negotiated with Saddam Hussein to allow its inspectors inside the country to ensure its disposal of chemical weapons. This fell out of favor with the Bush administration which was ready to use Iraq’s possession of chemical weapons as a casus belli. To clear the way for an invasion of Iraq, Bolton issued a 24-hour ultimatum for Bustani to resign during the exchange. After asserting that he was elected by OPWC member states and owed no loyalty to the United States, Bolton threatened the chief’s children in front of other OPWC officials, according to The Intercept.
“We know where your kids live. You have two sons in New York,”he was quoted as saying.
In his memoir,”Surrender Is Not an Option,”Bolton claimed he was ready to offer the chief a”gracious and dignified exit”if he complied with his demand. Otherwise, the U.S. government would have him fired. The next year, Bustani was voted out. This was not only time Bolton employed intimidation tactics.
Former director-general of chemical weapons watchdog OPWC and Brazilian diplomat Jose Bustani in a 2011 picture. /VCG Photo
Last year, he threatened the International Criminal Court (ICC) with sanctions if it proceeded to investigate alleged war crimes committed by American troops. He went as far as to suggest criminally prosecuting ICC officials in the American legal system.
Bolton’s history of bullying was put under the microscope during the Senate confirmation process for his nomination as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
“He’s a quintessential kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy,”said Carl Ford Jr. who worked with Bolton during his time at the State Department, to a group of Senators in 2005.”I’ve never seen anybody quite like Secretary Bolton in terms of the way he abuses his power and authority with little people.”During his testimony, Ford brought up an incident involving Christian Watermann, an in-house intelligence analyst who suggested that Bolton’s claim of Cuba’s biological weapons program had been an overstatement not supported by intelligence. A furious Bolton then reached out to Westermann’s supervisor and tried to get the”munchkin”fired.
Bolton’s voracious appetite for war recently got the attention of Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who went on a seven-minute on-air rampage against him.”In other words, last night has been in the works for years,”said Carlson while referring to the short-of-war moment between the U.S. and Iran in June.”John Bolton is that kind of bureaucratic tapeworm. Try as you might, you can’t expel him. He seems to live forever in the bowels of the Federal agencies, periodically reemerging to cause pain and suffering, but critically, somehow never suffering himself.”

By Zeng Ziyi, CGTN.com

0 comment
FacebookTwitterPinterestWhatsappTelegramSkypeEmail
blank
Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

MEK: Totalitarian Cult, or Iran’s Brightest Hope for “Democracy”?

Certain Trump administration officials favor the US government supporting the MEK, an Iranian opposition group exiled in Albania. Yet a look at the MEK’s history paints a disturbing picture that should give officials in Washington major concerns about any plans for enhancing US cooperation with the organization.

The People’s Mujahedin of Iran, or Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), has a dark history of violence and acts of terrorism against American interests. Established in the 1960s, the Marxist-Islamist group killed members of the Shah’s security apparatus on the streets of Iranian cities. Anti-American to its core, the MEK quickly earned a negative reputation in Washington for killing six US citizens, and for targeting American-owned hotels, airlines, and energy companies in Iran. The lyrics from an MEK song illustrate the vitriol which the organization held for the US during its early years: “Death to America by blood and bonfire on the lips of every Muslim is the cry of the Iranian people.”

The revolutionary student-led group played an important role in the Shah’s 1979 ouster. However, after Ayatollah Khomeini’s ascendancy and the Islamic Republic’s consolidation of power, Khomeini and his loyalists refused to share power with their former ally and began to crackdown on MEK protests. MEK responded by accusing Khomeini’s loyalists of monopolizing power, and then resorted to acts of violence and terrorism, including the bombing of the Office of the Prime Minister, killing both President Mohammad-Ali Rajai and Prime Minister Mohammad Javad Bahonar.

Having been forced to take refuge in Iraq under Saddam Hussein’s protection, the MEK sided with Baghdad in the eight-year conflict with Iran. In 1986, Saddam Hussein provided the MEK with a military base at Camp Ashraf, located 50 miles from the Iranian border. From there, the organization waged attacks in Iran with arms provided by the Iraqi government. Immediately after the implementation of the ceasefire between Iran and Iraq in 1988, roughly 7,000 Iraqi-backed MEK fighters launched Operation Forugh-e Javidan (Eternal Light) aiming to oust the regime in Tehran, only to be crushed in a counter-offensive days later by Iranian forces. In 1999, the MEK took its revenge by assassinating Lieutenant General Ali Sayyad-Shirazi, Deputy Chief of Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff, who had suppressed the MEK’s incursion.

As part of its overture to Iran, former President Bill Clinton’s administration designated the MEK a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). In 2002, when President George W. Bush was seeking to build up international support for his plans to invade Iraq, he cited Saddam Hussein’s record of sponsoring “terrorist organizations that direct violence against Iran, Israel, and Western governments”, a tacit reference to Baghdad’s patronage of the MEK. Meanwhile, in the post-Saddam environment, more figures in the US government began to view the MEK as a tool to pressure the Islamic Republic. As such, the US military began secretly training the MEK in Nevada. “We did train them here, and washed them through the Energy Department because the Department of Energy owns all this land in southern Nevada,” a former senior US intelligence official told investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.

In Baghdad however, the Shi’a government no longer welcomed MEK’s presence in Iraq, and tacitly allowed the Iranian military to attack MEK’s base on its territory. By 2012, when it became clear that the MEK had no security in Iraq, the Obama administration, under much pressure from well-funded lobbyists, removed the group from the State Department’s FTO list. Meanwhile, the US government reached a secret deal that would relocate roughly 3,000 MEK members from Iraq, where they no longer had security, to Albania. As one former US diplomat involved in the deal explained, the relocation agreement had to be done secretly given the extent to which many government officials in France, Iraq, and Iran would have objected had they been aware of it at the time.

How has a Marxist-Islamist group that defined itself based on an ideology hostile to America gained popularity in Washington?

As the MEK openly calls for the overthrow of the Iranian government, and the recognition of Maryam Rajavi (the wife of MEK’s founder) as Iran’s next leader, the group has garnered strong support from Trump administration officials. But how, one must ask, has a Marxist-Islamist group that defined itself based on an ideology hostile to America gained popularity in Washington?

MEK’s role in exposing Iran’s nuclear activities during the early 2000s, gained the support of DC, where some officials unwisely began seeing it as a force capable of leading Iran into a post-Islamic Republic. Credible reports further suggest that MEK has paid handsome speaking fees to US officials for their appearance. Addressing MEK’s “Free Iran” conference in 2017, National Security Advisor John Bolton proclaimed that “the only solution is to change the [Iranian] regime itself.” Bolton also predicted that before 2019 “we here will celebrate in Tehran.” In January 2019, Ayatollah Khamenei, told a Qom audience that “… one of the US politicians [Bolton] said that he hopes and wishes to celebrate this year’s Christmas in Tehran. Christmas celebration was a few days ago… they are truly first-class idiots.”

Vagueness and a lack of transparency surround the MEK’s source(s) of funding. Numerous investigative journalists in Albania have explored this question. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia shows support for the MEK politically, yet there is no solid evidence to back up the common assumption that the Saudi government finances the group.
The Regime Change Debate

Fortunately for Tehran, opposition to the Islamic Republic has been fragmented. Deep divisions between various opposing factions—including the MEK, monarchists, and various non-Persian ethnic minorities —have thwarted the establishment of any unified opposition. As the Middle East expert Borzou Daragahi recently explained, a common perception among Iran’s ethnic minorities is that for all their reasons to loathe the Islamic Republic regime, both the MEK and the monarchists would be more hostile to them than their ruling government.

Daragahi also noted that officials in Tehran do not perceive the MEK as a grave threat to the regime’s survival, using it instead as a prop to persuade more Iranians that the “opposition” is dark and beholden to hostile foreign powers targeting Iran since 1979.

MKO making terror trolls in Albania

False Identities Become the New Weapon: War with Iran Promoted by Fake Journalists

Realistically, the MEK lacks any means to mobilize support in Iran for an overthrow of the regime. Furthermore, if there is one thing that unites all Iranians of different affiliations, it is the loathing for a cult that sided with Iraq during its war against their homeland. But for American and British officials who vocally support it, public displays of solidarity with the MEK serve to enrage Iran’s government. They, on the other hand, continue to isolate the country politically and depress its economy through comprehensive sanctions. However, beyond angering those in power in Tehran, it is not clear what the US could achieve by providing more support to the MEK.

Notwithstanding objections to the MEK on moral grounds, it makes little sense to sponsor an organization that is struggling to survive, and has no support within the Iranian population. Since relocating to Albania, approximately 1,000 MEK members have left the group’s base outside of Tirana. The MEK later accused 40 of its former members, who subsequently held protests against it in Albania’s capital, of being “agents of the Iranian regime.” Hence, it is difficult to imagine a group, which still castigates its defecting members, successfully orchestrating a regime change in Iran, let alone one that is coordinated from southeastern Europe.

Shrouded in secrecy and controversy while harmed by global media reports about its conduct in Albania, the MEK has justified its reputation as a cult organization. After the disappearance of her husband Massoud, the 65-year-old Maryam Rajavi has been living in a delusional dream that one day she and her “followers” will march on Tehran to lead a revolution that ends the Islamic Republic. More realistically, MEK’s supporters in Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the US, will continue heaping praise on the group and support its formal and social media campaigns, which align with their anti-Iran agendas.

Yet none of the actors that want to see the Iranian regime fall should have any reason to believe that the MEK is a reliable actor capable of bringing about the desired outcome. It seems though that they all have reached the conclusion that supporting the MEK can be an effective tool to harass the Islamic Republic and use the group that the State Department once had on its FTO list as a bargaining tool. Nevertheless, Washington policy makers should keep in mind that regardless of the fate of the Islamic Republic, the widely despised MEK will have no political future in Iran.
by Giorgio Cafiero – insidearabia.com

0 comment
FacebookTwitterPinterestWhatsappTelegramSkypeEmail
US advicated of MEK Terrorists
Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Once sworn enemy; Now tactical ally

Is the Trump Administration Allowing a Terrorist Group to Shape Its Iran Policy?

A now powerful player in the White House, the MKO/MEK group has become a force to be reckoned with, most likely to the detriment of peace.
In a rare move last month Congressional members crossed party lines to join in a bipartisan effort to curb U.S. President Donald Trump’s belligerent tweets and comments about Iran. The vote was not veto proof. At the same time, it appears the MKO/MEK, also known as the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, a group long opposed to the Iranian government, has the ear of the hardliners in the White House.
The Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), which was once a sworn enemy of the United States, has over the past few years reinvented itself as a tactical ally to several Western governments in view of its desire to see Iran’s government collapse.
Often described as a cult by both experts and former members, the group was responsible for the killing of six Americans in Iran in the 1970s.

At the height of 1979 Iranian Revolution the group cheered the storming of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, and the subsequent hostage crisis that followed. Fifty-two American diplomats were held hostage for a period of 444 days.

Such a history of violence and indoctrination was nevertheless ignored when party leaders Maryam and Masoud Rajavi offered to push for a modern-day regime change in Tehran and pose as the only viable alternative to what America sees as an absolute theocracy in Iran.
A report by Elizabeth Rubin published in 2003 in the New York Times, entitled: “The Cult of the Rajavi” best encapsulates the reality of the MKO/MEK.
In a move that coincided with calls in the Middle East for broad democratic reforms and an end to Western military interventionism, the United States announced its decision in 2012 to remove the MKO/MEK from its terrorism list.
While the MKO/MEK may disapprove of Tehran’s mullahs, in alignment with Washington’s narrative, its use of the adjective “democratic” hardly applies to what can only be described as a cult-like paramilitary organization revolving around the worship of its founders and leaders, Masoud and Maryam Rajavi.

For well over a decade now, Human Rights Watch has denounced the countless serious rights violations the MKO/MEK continues to perpetrate against both its members and those its leadership labels as its ideological opponents. A 28-page report sheds light on the abuses its members face should they dare disobey, including claims that those wishing to leave the group have been subjected to “lengthy solitary confinements, severe beatings and torture.”
In 2018, Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, addressed an MKO/MEK rally in Paris, calling for regime change in Tehran. The arrival of National Security Advisor John Bolton, one of the MKO/MEK’s most powerful and enthusiastic advocates, has given the group unprecedented proximity to the White House and a new lease of political life notwithstanding fears the White House has essentially aligned its policy on Iran with that of the group’s political dogmatism.

Addressing a crowd of MKO/MEK members, Bolton called in no uncertain terms for the fall of Iran’s regime and the rise of the extreme group.
“There is a viable opposition to the rule of the ayatollahs, and that opposition is centered in this room today … The behavior and objectives of the regime are not going to change, and therefore the only solution is to change the regime itself,” Bolton announced to the room.
“The outcome of the president’s policy review should be to determine that the Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1979 revolution will not last until its 40th birthday … The declared policy of the United States should be the overthrow of the mullahs’ regime in Tehran … The behavior and the objectives of the regime are not going to change and, therefore, the only solution is to change the regime itself,” Bolton continued.

Background and Influence
Believed to have between 5,000 to 13,000 members, the MKO/MEK was established in the 1960s as a reaction to the oppressive rule of Shah Reza Pahlavi, a mixture of both Marxism and Islamism. Born in violence, the group has seen its history peppered with calls for bloodshed and acts of terrorism.

In 1981 it led a series of attacks in Iran, which culminated with the killing of 74 senior officials, including 27 MPs. Later that year, its targeted bombing attacks claimed Iran’s president and prime minister’s lives.
Since the 1980s the group has lived in exile, first under the protection of late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein whose troops fought with MKO/MEK troops against Iran, then at the pleasure of several European governments, most notably France and Albania.
Eli Clifton, a fellow at the Nation Institute warned against the MKO/MEK’s influence in the U.S. noting,

“When [MKO] members go and swarm Capitol Hill and seek meetings with the members of Congress, they’re very often the only voices that are heard, because there is simply not a lot of Iranian-American presence on Capitol Hill.”

Moreover, Clifton stressed how the organization, which operates through front groups, writes very large checks to those speaking at their events, thus subsidizing political support. Estimates are in the range of $30,000 to $50,000 per speech. Bolton is estimated to have received upwards of $180,000 to speak at multiple events. His recent financial disclosure shows that he was paid $40,000 for one speech at an MKO/MEK event in 2017.
In 2018 Trita Parsi, leader of the National Iranian American Council wrote on Twitter:

“People, let this be very clear: The appointment of Bolton is essentially a declaration of war with Iran. With Pompeo and Bolton, Trump is assembling a WAR CABINET.”

That is not to say that all politicians and/or state officials, whether in the United States or in Europe, have fallen for the group’s clever play on identity politics. As demonstrated by Congress’ bipartisan efforts to curb hawkish cries for war on Iran, many still are willing to make no moves on Iran.
Over two dozen House Republicans joined Democrats to vote for a measure blocking President Donald Trump from taking military action against Iran without congressional approval. In the light of President’s propensity to push the limits of his executive prerogatives, such a measure comes as a welcome respite. The measure, introduced by Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna and Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, would prohibit federal funds from being used for military action against Iran without the blessing of Congress. The measure passed 251-170.
“House and Senate leaders must recognize the will of Congress and include a strong provision to bar an unauthorized war with Iran in the final version of the defense bill that comes out of conference,” said Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) in comments to the press.

Deception and Manipulation
Although many will take comfort in the measure, the White House remains too closely tied to the MKO/MEK for anyone to be callous about such political and ideological entanglement, especially if we consider what dire consequences we may all face should war break out in a region already plagued by unrest; notwithstanding the ever-present threat of Islamic radicalism, as expressed by Wahhabis and Salafis.

As a recent article by Murtaza Hussain in The Intercept states, the MKO/MEK has become too much of a reference point to Washington’s anti-Iranian stance for anyone to entertain any further, at least not if we are serious about acting on facts as opposed to fiction. And yes, in this instance the White House does appear to be collating “fake news” to formulate its Iranian agenda.
As the article infers, Washington’s data on Iran may not be real … at least not in a fashion befitting the most powerful military in the world.
The Intercept article reads: “In 2018, President Donald Trump was seeking to jettison the landmark nuclear deal that his predecessor had signed with Iran in 2015, and he was looking for ways to win over a skeptical press. The White House claimed that the nuclear deal had allowed Iran to increase its military budget, and Washington Post reporters Salvador Rizzo and Meg Kelly asked for a source. In response, the White House passed along an article published in Forbes by a writer named Heshmat Alavi.”
However, “Heshmat Alavi appears not to exist. Alavi’s persona is a propaganda operation run by the Iranian opposition group Mojahedin-e-Khalq, which is known by the initials MEK, two sources told The Intercept.” Alavi, the Intercepts posits, is but the product of a collective effort for war against Iran.
Hassan Heyrani, a high-ranking defector from the MEK who is said to have helped shape and directed similar disinformation campaigns in the past told the Intercept how Alavi’s online persona is “run by a team of people from the political wing of the MEK.”

“They write whatever they are directed by their commanders and use this name to place articles in the press. This is not and has never been a real person,” Hayrani further asserted.

While we may have all grown accustomed to Mr. Trump’s bellicose rhetoric and untruths, the possibility of a war with Iran to fit the ambitions of a group made infamous for its terrorist activities and cultish ideology ought to give us pause.
And though not all may look upon Iran’s current regime as ideologically pleasing, to argue change in favor of a group that disallows its members to marry for it would distract them from their political purpose and due worship of their leaders Masoud and Maryam Rajavi is ill-advised.

MKO electronic army – Albania Courtesy of The Spring Institute, Tehran.
A well-oiled machine benefiting from the largess of Iran’s wealthy enemies in the region, for example, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the MKO/MEK has long infiltrated both mainstream media and social media through the establishment of its electronic army. In an interview for Al Bawaba in 2018 Masoud Khodabandeh, a former high-ranking MKO/MEK official, shed light on Saudi Arabia’s financial support for the group, explaining how Riyadh regime has funneled, gold bars, cash and other valuables worth hundreds of millions of dollars through various third parties.
Among other revelations, Khodabandeh described how after the fall of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud became the outfit’s main supporter.
“I would say that after the fall of Saddam, the MKO, which was then being run by Masoud [Rajavi] under the patronage of Saddam, changed to the organization run by Maryam [Rajavi] under the patronage of Prince Turki bin Faisal Al Saud,” he said.
Reports by several organizations and officials in Iran have revealed how deeply embedded the MKO/MEK is within the media to the extent that its data manipulation is now regarded as gospel by even the most well-established of news agencies.
Heshmat Alavi, whose factual existence has been put into question, for example, has been a regular in outlets such as Forbes, The Hill, the Daily Caller, and The Federalist, begging the question of media complicity to serve the group’s powerful political agenda.
A recent documentary published in Iran argues the group’s systematic manipulation of the media as its leadership attempts to present itself as the only democratic alternative to Iran’s current system of governance, the Governance of the Jurist, enticing ever-more willing war hawks to promote belligerence over diplomacy.

What Lies Ahead for MKO/MEK?
In recent weeks, a timeline that coincides with a hardening of tone against Iran, state officials and activists in Tehran have raised questions as to the group’s future based on Maryam Rajavi’s illness. Sources in Iran have confirmed they believe Mrs. Rajavi suffers from cancer, consequently putting the MKO/MEK’s immediate political sustainability under much uncertainty.
Masoud Rajavi, who has failed to appear in public for several years, is believed to reside in Albania, where the MKO/MEK relocated most of its members, most of whom are well into their 50s and 60s.
While groups such as the MKO/MEK, with an ideological premise that relies on a cult of personality, in this case, that of a couple, have for obvious reasons a limited reach, we ought not to discount its ability to muddy our geopolitical waters should their views be fanned under a hawkish anti-Iranian agenda.

If we consider how the group, as documented by the Intercept over the years has managed through heavy lobbying to wash away its terrorist past to now pose as an acceptable alternative to Iran’s current regime, to the tune of millions of dollars, the MKO/MEK’s ability to taint the broad geopolitical discourse through “influencers” should not be discounted, hence the importance of Congressional oversight on the U.S. Executive branch.

A report by Robert Mackey published in March 2018 issues a crucial warning:

“Despite such doubts that the MEK’s political wing, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, is any more reliable than Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress proved to be, spending lavishly on paid endorsements has earned the group a bipartisan roster of Washington politicians willing to sign up as supporters. At a previous gala in 2016, Bolton was joined in singing the group’s praises by another former U.N. ambassador, Bill Richardson; a former attorney general, Michael Mukasey; the former State Department spokesperson P.J. Crowley; the former Homeland Security adviser Frances Townsend; the former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I.; and the former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. That Paris gala was hosted by Linda Chavez, a former Reagan administration official.”

To disavow Iran politically should not translate into an alliance of convenience with groups we know to have promoted and perpetrated heinous acts of terrorism. Recent attempts at regime change in Libya and Syria, through the weaponization of less than desirable factions, on the basis that the end justified the means should serve as cautionary tales.
To offer more than an ear to a group, which not too long ago, rejoiced at the misfortune of U.S. diplomats certainly flies in the face of the America President Trump has been not only so keen on but vocal on defending and promoting.
To watch the MKO/MEK grow in strength and access ought at the very least to give us pause.

By Catherine Shakdam, citizentruth.org 

(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of Citizen Truth.)

0 comment
FacebookTwitterPinterestWhatsappTelegramSkypeEmail
Maryam Rajavi
Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The MEK: Illusion vs. Reality

The oddly named People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (known as the MKO or MEK), whose sole purpose is the overthrow of the people’s government of Iran, has been busy. Some of their members, who seem to be mainly elderly, are technologically savvy, and use social media to further their disgraceful cause. But they don’t just individually post to Facebook, Twitter and other sites; they establish accounts under a variety of names, and ‘tweet’ and post from them, thus giving the impression that the MEK has widespread support.
It does, however, have some significant support from the United States government, which once designated it a terrorist organization, but now embraces it.

One may wonder why the U.S., which purports to support the self-determination of people everywhere (except in Palestine, Iran, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Libya, Yemen, Syria, the Philippines, Guam, Cuba, and other places too numerous to name right now), would support an organization responsible for the deaths of many innocent people, that seeks the overthrow of the Iranian government. It really isn’t too much of a mystery.

After the U.S. overthrew the democratic government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh in 1953, it installed the brutally oppressive Shah of Iran. His disregard for human rights and disdain for his own people was all fine with successive U.S. administrations, but in 1979, the people of Iran had had enough, overthrew him, and established the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The Shah had done the bidding of the U.S. government; if any of its citizens disagreed, they simply disappeared. But once the new Islamic Republic of Iran was created, there was an entirely different set of rules by which the U.S. had to play, and they weren’t rules of the U.S.’s making. And it didn’t like them one bit. No longer did the U.S. have a complacent ally, which posed no threat to Israeli hegemony. No longer could the U.S. call the shots in the Straits of Hormuz. No, things were different now, and the mighty U.S. was no longer in control.

America Is Wide Open for Foreign Influence

For years, the MEK was officially considered a terrorist organization by much of the world, but the U.S. rescinded that designation in 2012. Why it would endorse an organization whose sole purpose is the overthrow of a foreign government would be puzzling, but this is the hypocritical, terrorist United States we are discussing.

And what of the MEK? It’s current leaders, Maryam Rajavi and her husband, Massoud Rajavi, see themselves as the future rulers of Iran, if they are successful in their quixotic quest to thwart the will of 80,000,000 people. Outside of the repressive, anti-government circles of their own organization, they appear to have little Iranian support, although the U.S. would be happy to establish them as U.S. puppets.
And then there is the MEK’s distinguished journalist, Heshmat Alavi, a prolific anti-Iranian writer, who simply doesn’t exist! Yes, those tech-savvy MEK members created him, so they could write a variety of articles under one name, which would then become ‘prominent’ in anti-Iran circles.
Photographs purporting to be of dedicated MEK members, hard at work at their computer screens, probably writing articles that will be published under the name of a non-existent writer, or busy ‘tweeting’ and posting from accounts of non-existent people, indicate that most of them were probably born early in the terrorist reign of the Shah. This writer reviewed five such photographs, and of the dozens of people shown, perhaps two are under the age of sixty. There is nothing wrong with being older; wisdom often (but certainly now always) comes with years, but youthful optimism and enthusiasm have long since left these people. Even assuming that some Iranians, for some bizarre reason, support the MEK, these pictures represent the group that opposes the will of most of Iran’s 80,000,000 people. It is hard to imagine a dynamic leader emerging from this group of people, one who will inspire the masses to rise up against the very government they selected forty years ago.

So let us summarize: with the support of the United States and a few other governments, the MEK has assembled a group of mainly elderly people who create social media accounts under fictitious names, and ‘tweet’ and post anti-Iranian information. They write articles and submit them, often successfully (one must give them credit for deceiving some major U.S. news outlets) under the name of a non-existent journalist. Like all those social media accounts, said journalist is a figment of MEK’s creative imagination. They take their instructions from a woman who sees herself as Iran’s new savior. They see themselves as being able, with the assistance of the U.S., of course, to defeat the 40-year-old people’s revolution.
When this writer visited Iran in the summer of 2017, he found a modern, vital and exciting nation. Illegal and immoral U.S. sanctions have certainly taken a toll on the economy, but as a friend of his from Iran commented, Iranians are accustomed to sanctions, and manage fine anyway.
The MEK and its criminal members and leaders will not prevail; the Iranian people are proud of what they have accomplished, and will not allow a few disillusioned people, even those who have the support of the United States, to defeat them.
by Robert Fantina, counterpunch

0 comment
FacebookTwitterPinterestWhatsappTelegramSkypeEmail
blank
Albania

Why no other country agreed to allow the MEK into their soil

Terrorism and Corruption: Albania’s Issues with EU Accession
Albania has been longing for joining the European Union for years, but the tiny Balkan nation still faces major challenges to its hopes of joining the bloc.
Extensive economic and administrative reforms, noninterference in the judicial procedures by the government, Election transparency and combating corruption are among Brussels’s top demands from Albania before its annexation to the EU.
However, corrupt political leaders and their alleged links to organized crime which have triggered protests by people from time to time, have played a key role in turning Albania’s wish for joining the EU into an unrealized dream.

For instance, German tabloid “BILD” leaked six wiretapped conversations in June indicating collusion between Socialist Party officials and members of a notorious criminal organization regarding coercing voters in the upcoming election.
The controversial audio file has sparked rage among the opposition parties leading to calls for Prime Minister Edi Rama’s resignation and an earlier general election. Albania’s opposition parties have accused the governing party of corruption and of doctoring the results of the 2017 parliamentary election. Leader of the opposition party, Lulzim Basha, accused the Socialists of coming into power “through the votes of the crime and the mafia.” Basha’s Democratic Party relinquished their seats in Parliament in protest, and declared a boycott of the June 30 vote.

The presence of the Mujahedin-e Khalq organization (MEK, a.k.a MKO, NCRI, PMOI), an exile Iranian group perceived by many experts as a terrorist cult, in a base around Tirana could also make Albania’s situation more complicated in its EU accession talks. The MEK was relocated to Albania under the U.S. pressure after no other countries took the group in following its expulsion from Iraq.

Listed for 17 years as a terrorist organization in the United States and the European Union, with various reports published about its violations of Human Rights and acts of violence and terror, the MEK enjoyed a significant increase in its activities during the first term of Prime Minister Edi Rama’s cabinet. Despite he was expected to limit MEK’s activities to its bases in Tirana, Edi Rama allowed the group to act freely in Albania and provided it with a huge land in Durres to construct its fortified headquarters.

MEK’s generous donations to the Albanian Police, journalists and political figures have been regularly reported by the local media. Making a name for itself in the government of Edi Rama, the MEK has been able to pay a number of Albanian political figures and Parliament members to advocate for the group in its events.
A recent tweet from PM Edi Rama in which he blames Iran for fueling tensions in the Middle East, indicating his support for Iran’s adversaries including Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the U.S., resembles MEK’s stance against Iran. Considering these facts, MEK’s aids to Rama against his political opponents must be thoroughly investigated ahead of the upcoming election in Albania.
Albania should have understood in the first place why no other countries, including MEK’s top sponsor, the United States, agreed to allow the group into their soil after its relocation from Iraq. Wherever it has been, the MEK has been involved in conducting illegal activities and sabotage acts. The group’s dark past and a long list of its misconducts including violating the human rights of hundreds of its members in Albania, could cause many troubles for Tirana in the near future.
After 5 years of residence in Albania, the MEK has now become a part of the corruption process in this country and a link to its corrupted authorities. It is not unlikely at all to see MEK promote the ruling party, with which it shares common thoughts and interests, in the upcoming Albanian election. The experiences of MEK’s numerous overt and covert interventions in the Iraqi Parliamentary elections in favor of specific people through spending huge sums of money, could easily repeat in Albania and mark a more controversial situation than the 2017 Parliamentary election in Albania.
Finally, it is the Albanian people who will be the true victims of their government’s friendly policies towards the infamous MEK which has been known as a terrorist group for a long time; The policies that could negatively impact Albania’s already complicated accession negotiations with the EU.
By Reza Alghurabi, Ahtribune.com

Reza Alghurabi is an Arab journalist who lives in Iran. He is a former researcher at the Beirut Center for Middle East Studies and an independent researcher and journalist writing in Iranian newspapers including the Khorasan daily.

0 comment
FacebookTwitterPinterestWhatsappTelegramSkypeEmail
MKO members in Albania
Albania

MEK’s presence makes Albania more vulnerable than ever

“Will the Presence of Iran’s MEK Threaten Albania’s Already Shaky Stability?” wonders Frida Ghitis of the World Politics Review.

Frida Ghitis who is a world affairs columnist, a former CNN producer and correspondent and a regular contributor to CNN and The Washington Post warns about the threat of the presence of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ Cult of Rajavi) in Albania as a part of the already tremulous region of the Balkans:
It might have seemed like a barely consequential item amid another torrent of breaking news. But word that President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, just attended the annual gathering of a controversial Iranian opposition group at its unlikely base in Albania should raise flags for many reasons, not least of which are concerns for Albania’s troubled and fragile democracy.

If Albania is now unexpectedly drawn into one of today’s most dangerous geopolitical conflicts—the one pitting Iran against the United States, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states—the timing couldn’t be worse. The country is in the midst of a full-blown political crisis that has at times turned violent and whose outcome is still uncertain. A member of NATO, Albania has also been trying unsuccessfully to join the European Union for years; its current domestic turmoil makes that goal even more distant. To make matters worse, Albania’s infighting has turned it into an inviting target for malicious actors seeking to take advantage of a distracted, divided nation.
Giuliani, along with some other prominent figures, including former U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman and British Conservative MP Matthew Offord, attended the annual “Free Iran” conference of the group known variously as the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran and Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK. A shadowy outfit committed to the overthrow of Iran’s theocratic regime, the MEK is often described as a cult and used to be classified by the State Department as a terrorist organization. Now, some of its leading backers work for Trump and his administration, putting Albania in the middle of the Iran file. Perhaps its biggest booster is John Bolton, Trump’s hawkish national security advisor, who wants the MEK to govern Iran.
The MEK has a strange and contentious history. It emerged as an Islamist-Marxist organization and militia in Iran in the 1960s and was staunchly anti-American. It killed members of the Shah’s police and played a key role in toppling him during the 1979 revolution. But it fell out with Iran’s new Islamist authorities after they took power, and was exiled from the country in the early 1980s. When Iraq under Saddam Hussein then went to war against Iran, the MEK—now fervently opposed to the Islamic Republic—sided with Baghdad and ended up building a base of operations in Iraq near the Iranian border, from which it staged attacks inside Iran.
Ghitis is concerned on the capacity of the MEK to turn into a tool in the hostile policies of Donald Trump against the Iranian Government despite the group’s unpopularity inside Iran. According to her analysis, this will draw Tehran’s attention to Tirana which is vulnerable enough to foreign meddling:
Since moving to Albania, the MEK had received only minor international attention. That changed with the Trump administration. Key administration figures have advocated for the group, some as paid supporters, others out of ideological conviction. Bolton and Giuliani in particular have promoted it as a legitimate government-in-exile that should eventually replace the Islamic Republic, even though it has little support inside Iran.
The Trump administration’s spotlight on the MEK is undoubtedly drawing the attention of Tehran at a perilous political moment in Albania. The Albanian government was plunged into crisis earlier this year when opposition parties withdrew from Parliament and demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama, accusing him of corruption, election-rigging and ties to organized crime. Rama’s center-left Socialist Party holds a majority in Parliament, while the opposition is made up of parties to his left and right. Corruption has been endemic in Albania since the end of communist rule, but Rama generally enjoys the support of the U.S. and much of Europe.
Tensions in Tirana erupted last month after Bild, a German newspaper, leaked conversations from prosecutors’ wiretaps that suggested Rama and the Socialist Party were plotting with criminal groups to manipulate elections in 2016. Rama and his party deny any wrongdoing.
But their opponents took to the streets. Pitched battles ensued, with protesters lobbing Molotov cocktails and the police responding with water cannons. The situation got worse when the opposition declared it would boycott June’s municipal elections. President Ilir Meta then announced he was cancelling the vote and rescheduling it for October; without the opposition, he said, the elections would not be democratic.
Rama’s governing party, however, refused to accept the president’s move and said it would launch impeachment proceedings against him for it. Then it went ahead with the ballot. The turnout, unsurprisingly, was minuscule. With the elections’ winners ready to take their new posts across the country, some outgoing mayors refused to relinquish their offices.
The political scene remains tumultuous, full of tension, hyperbole and conspiracy. Meta has accused Rama of being a tool of the “deep state,” working with billionaire philanthropist George Soros to destabilize Albania and even establish a “dictatorship” encompassing Albania and Kosovo, “serving underground agendas.” The Albanian people, he told an interviewer, do not want to be a “colony in servitude of money-laundering and organized crime.” Instead, they want to be part of the democratic West, “to join NATO and the European Union.”
A deadline is looming for Albania: In October, the European Council will make a decision about formally launching accession talks with Albania. The street battles, the name-calling and the conspiracy theories all support the views of skeptics who say Albania’s democracy is not mature or stable enough to join the EU.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, trouble with Iran may be brewing over the MEK’s compound in Albania’s countryside, raising the risk of Iranian interference. Iran took notice of the gathering that Giuliani and others attended in Albania this week, with its state-backed media chastising the U.S. and other Western countries for siding with what it calls a terrorist organization…
The WPR correspondent finds the MEK and its violent approach against Iran a potential threat to democracy in Albania:
The MEK’s goal remains the overthrow of the Iranian regime, although it now says it has sworn off violence. The group’s rise in visibility amid the Trump administration’s standoff with Iran could make Albania more vulnerable than ever to outside meddling. The potential for a new crisis in Europe and within NATO, centered on Albania of all places, is very real.

World Politics Review

0 comment
FacebookTwitterPinterestWhatsappTelegramSkypeEmail
The Trump Administration’s Iran Fiasco
Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Americans will die if John Bolton gets his way

Bolton giving Trump poor advice on Iran

Americans will die if John Bolton gets his way. Slowly but surely, the ultra-hawkish National Security Advisor is dragging President Trump into a war with Iran. If you’re feeling déjà vu watching the news, you’re not alone. It’s the run-up to the Iraq disaster all over again — and Bolton is a big reason why.

Taking a page out of the Dick Cheney playbook, Bolton is manipulating intelligence before it reaches President Trump’s desk in an effort to inflate the Iran threat. Throughout his career in government, Bolton has been notorious for sidelining views that contradict his own. Now, as President Trump’s top security advisor, he’s bypassing the intelligence community and their diligent methods of providing the president with well-informed and reasoned analysis, and is instead funneling in assessments that align with his hawkish strategy.

In another echo of Iraq, Bolton is championing a fringe diaspora group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK) that is telling us we’ll be greeted as liberators once we overthrow the Iranian regime. Bolton has received tens of thousands of dollars from the MEK, despite the State Department having previously designated them as a foreign terrorist organization for their role in assassinating American contractors and fighting on behalf of Saddam Hussein. Meanwhile, the group is nearly unanimously despised in Iran.

America first vs America only: How John Bolton is fuelling Iran ‘hysteria’

Just as he did prior to the Iraq war, Bolton is also downplaying how devastating a conflict would be. He believes that the Iranian government will likely back down when faced with maximum pressure but, if all else fails, some limited air strikes are sure to put them back in their place. However, that’s not what history tells us. In the 1980s, Iran fought off an eight-year attack from Saddam, losing half a million Iranians in the process. Decades later, crushing sanctions weren’t enough to persuade Iran to give up its nuclear program. Only when Washington showed a willingness to make a deal did Tehran agree to limit its uranium enrichment. Instead of cowing Iran, the administration’s decisions to pull out of the nuclear deal, strangle the country through sanctions, and empower hawks like Bolton have sent the message that President Trump is out to get the Iranians no matter what they do. In this siege environment, we shouldn’t be surprised when Iran attacks U.S. drones or oil tankers and increases its levels of enriched uranium.

Iran’s activities in the Middle East are undoubtedly problematic. Just ask the people of Syria, or the Iranian people for that matter. Iran, as well as our allies in the region, should be pressed to promote stability and human rights. But Bolton’s current strategy is manufacturing a crisis, goading Iran into taking actions that can justify his desire for war. Despite its anti-American rhetoric, the Islamic Republic isn’t out to attack the United States directly — unless its leaders feel they have no other option. Iran has prepared for a defensive war against the United States for the past 40 years, and Iran’s population is over three times larger than Iraq’s was when we invaded. A war with Iran will kill thousands of Americans and put an end to our economic recovery.

The president is getting dangerous advice. To protect the thousands of brave New Mexican men and women in uniform, our representatives in Congress must speak with one voice and say, John Bolton must go.

By Ali G. Scotten,lcsun-news.com
Ali G. Scotten heads the New Mexico Chapter of the National Iranian American Council and is a Security Fellow with the Truman National Security Project. Opinions are his own.

0 comment
FacebookTwitterPinterestWhatsappTelegramSkypeEmail
Rajavi_Giuliani
Mujahedin Khalq Organization's Propaganda System

Newest MEK terror festival in Albania

A few incumbents among the mass of former officeholders

On the last Saturday, 13 July 2019, the annual”Free Iran”conference was held for the first time at Ashraf 3 in Albania, the headquarters of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK or MKO), a notorious terrorist cult known by several other different names and acronyms, including People’s Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI), National Liberation Army of Iran (NLA), and National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).

Terrorist-genocidal past
Founded in the 1960s by a group of Iranian leftists opposed to the country’s pro-Western Shah, later it developed into the largest and most militant group opposed to the Islamic Republic of Iran. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, the group was driven from its bases on the Iran-Iraq border and resettled in Paris, where it began supporting Saddam’s Iraq in its eight-year war against Iran.

Due to the terrorist attacks committed by the Mujahedin-e Khalq, more than 16,000 people have been killed in Iran alone, not counting their atrocities against Iranian and Iraqi civilians during the Iran-Iraq war and the 1991 uprisings in Iraq. Their tactics included bomb attacks, targeted assassinations, aircraft hijackings, and so on. For comparison, around 14,000 Iraqi and Syrian civilians have been killed by the ISIL terrorist attacks. The MEK has also conducted attacks against numerous Western targets, both in Europe, North America and elsewhere.

In 1986, the MEK accepted Saddam’s offer of alliance and moved its headquarters to Iraq where it received its primary support to attack the targets in Iran. This decision was viewed as treason by virtually all of Iranians and it irretrievably destroyed the MEK’s appeal in its homeland. Furthermore, the MEK assisted Ba’athist government in systematic attacks against the Kurdish fighters (Iran’s allies) in northern Iraq, and the result of their action was a genocide that killed between around 100,000 Kurdish civilians. Former MEK 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.”

Balkans as terrorist safe haven

The MEK is designated as a terrorist organization by Iran and Iraq, but their former headquarters at Iraqi Camp Ashraf still enjoyed the US protection after the fall of the dictatorship. Until the 2008–2012 period when long-term lobbying efforts by their Neocon, Zionist and Saudi sponsors gave results, the MEK was officially designated a terrorist organization by the UK, the EU, the US and Canada. Nevertheless of official designation, the MEK leadership freely lived and operated in the EU.

In 2012, the MEK headquarters have been relocated from Camp Ashraf to former US military base Camp Liberty, also in Iraq, and finally in 2016 the headquarters have been relocated again, this time to Ashraf 3 in Albania. A poor Balkan country, encircled by the EU member states and ruled by the US puppet regime, proved to be a safe haven. The transfer of hundreds of MEK members was carried out by US military aircraft.

Today, the gates to the MEK compound, situated on a gently inclined hillside in rural Albania, are usually firmly closed, guarded by two sculpted lions atop stone pedestals and a large team of Albanian security guards. Unannounced visitors are not welcome at the fenced-off, secretive site, where more than 2,000 MEK members live. With no passports or other documents, they remain in limbo, unable either to work or to leave the country. Besides clapping in the audience at fanciful terror festivals, their only activity is spreading anti-Iranian propaganda on social networks.

According to the recent interviews, given to journalists by a dozen men in Tirana who had fled the MEK compound, life inside the compound was of a cult-like atmosphere in which mobile phones and contact with relatives were banned, all interactions between men and women were prohibited, and days were spent sitting at computers firing out tweets and other online messages in support of the MEK. An investigation by the Intercept recently found that an anti-Iranian activist, who had written extensive media columns about Iran, in fact appeared to be an invented persona created by MEK trolls.

Terror festival

The last Saturday’s conference”Free Iran”has no political significance, nor does it differ in any way from similar terror festivals that were previously held in Paris. We could see the same personalities from the neoconservative & Zionist circle, like Joe Lieberman and Rudy Giuliani, representatives of the Saudi dictatorship, and numerous former or obscure politicians.

From all of them, we could hear the same slogans about”freedom, democracy, justice and gender equality,”but the only true message is”we hate Iran,”more precisely”we hate it so much that we’ll publicly lie and celebrate the terrorist-genocidal organization.”Taking into account the well-known moral values of the US neoconservatives, the Zionists and the Saudi regime, as well as their cheap mercenaries, such messages are not surprising.

Participants and organizers of the conference are perfectly aware that their words are empty and the MEK can never gain ground in Iran, so the gathering is far from being political in practical sense. Its only purpose is a desperate attempt of spreading Iranophobic hate around the world. Evidence for this is the fact that most of participants do not have real political role, only influential names, thus the media publicity is guaranteed. The names of these terror supporters deserve to be mentioned here.

Formers and incumbents

Looking at the list of participants, there’s an astonishing amount of former officeholders. These’re former US Vice Presidential candidate (Joe Lieberman), former Mayor of New York (Rudy Giuliani), former US Congressmen (Ted Poe and Dana Rohrabacher), former US Senator (Robert Torricelli), former US Assistant Secretary of State (Lincoln Bloomfield), former US Homeland Security Secretary and Governor (Tom Ridge), former US Special Envoy for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security (Robert Joseph), former US Ambassador to Morocco (Marc Ginsberg), former FBI Director (Louis Freeh), former commander of the Multi-National Forces in Iraq (George W. Casey Jr.), former Commandant of the US Marine Corps (James T. Conway), former Canadian Prime Minister (Stephen Harper), and former Canadian Foreign Minister (John Baird).

The list of former officeholders does not end in North America, in the EU these’re former Foreign Minister of France (Bernard Kouchner), former Foreign, Defense, Interior and Justice Minister of France (Michèle Alliot-Marie), former French Minister of Human Rights (Rama Yade), former German Deputy Interior Minister (Eduard Lintner), former Vice President of the European Parliament (Alejo Vidal-Quadras), former UN special representative to Iraq (Ad Melkert), former Norwegian MP (Lars Rise), and former Minister of Transport and Communications of Finland (Kimmo Sasi). The list also includes former Albanian Prime Minister and President (Sali Berisha), former Albanian Prime Minister (Pandeli Majko), former UN Special Rapporteur (Yakin Ertürk), former Minister of Culture and Publicity of Jordan (Saleh al‐Qalab), former Algerian Prime Minister (Sid Ahmed Ghozali), former Colombian presidential candidate (Ingrid Betancourt), and former head of the International Association of Women Judges (Susana Medina).

Ironically, the introductory speech at the conference was held by the former MEK Secretary-General Fahimeh Arvani, the 30th former officeholder on this list. If we exclude above-mentioned individuals with ended careers, the list is reduced to a third and literally all political celebrities are gone. Among the incumbent ones, all are relatively unknown and belong to the opposition parties, including Congressman Lance Gooden (United States), MP Matthew Offord, MP Bob Blackman, Lord Temporal Sandip Verma (United Kingdom), Senator Roberto Rampi, MP Giuseppina Occhionero, MP Anotonio Tasso (Italy), MP Michèle de Vaucouleurs, Mayor of Paris’s 1st District Jean-François Legaret (France), MP Martin Patzelt (Germany), Senator Gerry Horkan (Ireland), Deputy Attorney General Maria Candida Almeida (Portugal), MP Ben-Oni Ardelean (Romania), and Chairman of the Republican Party Fatmir Mediu (Albania). A handful of others also include South Asian activists Ranjana Kumari and Bandanda Rana, as well as Syrian terrorist activist Nazir Hakim.

Summing up, if we put aside all figures without any real political influence, only two or three will remain. Namely, influential pro-Israeli lobbyist Joe Lieberman, Donald Trump’s cybersecurity adviser Rudy Giuliani, and Saudi lobbyist Salman al-Ansari. The latter one is founder and president of the Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee (SAPRAC), a Washington DC-based lobby organization which advocates strengthening relations between Saudi Arabia and the United States, whitewashing of Saudi regime’s crimes, collaborative alliance with Israel, and aggressive foreign policy against Iran, Syria, Yemen and Qatar. Therefore, the answer to the question of who financed this lavish terror festival, seems more than obvious.
Balkanspost

0 comment
FacebookTwitterPinterestWhatsappTelegramSkypeEmail
Newer Posts
Older Posts