it has been proven that the U.S. helped train the individuals in the group responsible for the killings of the scientists. This presents quite the paradox for the U.S.: We fight terrorism abroad in the name of freedom, yet we train terrorists on our own soil. The irony of this occurring during the Bush Administration, which stripped citizens of basic civil liberties with the Patriot Act, is unexpected, but not surprising.
Even if Hersh is wrong, there is a long list of U.S. leaders and officials who would like to make him right. Members of the”MEK/MKO/PMOI lobby,”as it’s often called, support at least removing the group from the list of officially designated terrorist groups, and often some combination of arming or funding the fighters..This will probably also worsen popular Iranian perceptions of the U.S. and popular appetite for detente…
How these individuals who claim to be opposed to terrorism and so often point to the tragic events of September 11, 2001 as justification for the erosion of our freedoms can turn around and openly support a designated terrorist organization[MKO/MEK/PMOI] is beyond comprehension…It is unclear if he was paid and if so, how much he actually received, but Giuliani charges up to $100,000 for every speaking engagement so one must assume it didn’t come cheap.
The State Department is now in the process of determining whether the MEK should be removed from the list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, a designation that was given to the MEK 17 years ago, when the department first began such designations. In the 1970s, the MEK aka MKO/PMOI assassinated three U.S. military officers and three American contractors
Mark Dankof and Mark Glenn discuss the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), its cultic character, its blood-stained history since the 1960’s, its present relationship to Israeli intelligence, its current trail of violent crimes in Iran, and the sordid money trail leading from the Israeli Lobby and the MEK to key figures in the American political establishment seeking to have the MEK delisted from the State Department list of terrorist organizations.
Where does an organization based in an Iraqi refugee camp for the last 25 years get so much money? While MEK has organized rallies and campaigns to have it delisted as a terrorist group in the past, it has never, by all accounts, spent the amount of money it has over the past year.Currently, there are rumors that the Israeli secret service is paying MEK to carry out assassinations..Israel would not be the first government to pay for MEK’s military expertise
there were no MEK signs or banners at the event, as one usually sees wherever the MEK is camped out. .. Congressional aides attended the event on Thursday in the hearing room both out of curiosity and hunger for free food. But multiple aides told The Cable the event was bizarre, even by Congressional standards.
Maybe it was the money. Or perhaps they were conned by an incredible MEK lobbying effort carried out through a series of front groups. That effort lavished money on prime-time TV, and full-page newspaper ads, which portray the MEK as a democratic group leading the fight for Iran regime change. Apparently none of these pooh-bahs ever asked about the source of their honoraria.”Nobody has ever been able to figure out where the money comes from,”says Iran expert Barbara Slavin
Sources told NBC that former government officials received fees of more than $30,000 a talk and were flown first class to Europe. The officials claimed that they were told the fees came from wealthy Americans or foreign supporters of the group — but not the group itself.Many of the speaking arrangements were made through speaking booking firms, according to the report.”This is about finding out where the money is coming from,”..
Meanwhile, U.S. taxpayers are reportedly paying to improve the terror organization’s new temporary residence while the UN works to shuttle them out the country. According to news reports, the MEK/MKO/PMOI members are supposed to be processed at Camp Liberty[TTL] as they await UN-sponsored relocation to other countries as refugees.But the group’s leaders and their well-paid Western lobbyists have asked for Iraqi law enforcement…