Frankly, who knows what their [MKO/MEK/PMOI]total budget is? Rubin continues. “But it seems to have paid off, because they’ve found a number of corrupt officials in Washington. Whether it’s Republicans or Democrats, it may be legal to pay such inflated individual speaking fees, but it shows a fundamental weakness and a fundamental corruption that doesn’t belong in any of the presidential campaigns.
It is widely suspected that the well known right-wing terrorist organization known as Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) aka MKO/PMOI, once run by Saddam Hussein’s dreaded intelligence services, is now working exclusively for the CIA’s Directorate of Operations and carrying out remote bombings in Iran.After a bombing inside Iran in March 2007, the London Telegraph also reported on how a high ranking CIA official ..
In the 1970s, however, MEK was responsible for the death of three American officers and three civilian contractors in Iran. The group also voiced significant support for Iran’s taking of hostages during the Iranian hostage crisis, and some reports indicate that members of the group celebrated the 9/11 attacks, though the organization publicly condemned the attacks.MEK has conducted a number of other terrorist attacks as well, but most have been excused because they were directed against the Iranian government…
The record extends from the days it was killing Americans while opposing the shah, through supporting the hostage-taking at the U.S. embassy in Tehran, through the long period during which it was working for the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. The record is not based just on what is said by the State Department or an intelligence agency or any governmental component with a policy to support, much less on anything the Iranian regime might say. If you want a recent independently reported portrait ..
But while the review has attracted a flurry of recent news coverage of the MEK and its alleged terrorist ties, what has been less examined is the impact this whole debate has had on American policy towards Iran and its people. MEK allies’ remarkably sophisticated and well-connected lobbying effort has sown confusion in Washington about the interests of the Iranian-American community as well as of the current generation of dissidents back in Iran.
… There is no history of such behavior even when the country was militarily much weaker and politically unstable. Thus, to best answer the question is to identify those who would benefit the most from a confrontation between the U.S. and Iran. Clearly those who have the most to gain from such a clash are Israel and the Iranian opposition, particularly the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (MKO) aka MEK/PMOI..
“Whether the MEK should or should not be listed is one thing, but the law is very clear that third parties and intermediaries don’t insulate you,”says David Cole, a professor of law at Georgetown University.”Think about how the United States would respond if [American] citizens were actively working with a PR organization to support the legitimacy of Hamas in Gaza? Here, the only thing protecting the people involved is that they include the former homeland security secretary..
In the past, the MEK leadership has refused to allow most residents of Camp Ashraf to apply for refugee status or to speak with UNHCR representatives without MEK officials present.Former members of the group, who contend that the MEK is a cult that fosters blind obedience to its leaders, say that many Ashraf inhabitants have been held against their will and would eagerly leave the camp if they could. ..
Since 1997, the MEK has been through many ups and downs and now, on the eve of its 50th anniversary, has mobilized all its efforts to be removed from the United State’s list of terrorist organizations. The MEK/MKO/PMOI says it renounced violence in 2001, after claiming responsibility for 350 attacks in 2000 and 2001, according to a RAND Corporation tabulation. However, a 2004 FBI report found that the group was “currently actively involved in planning and executing acts of terrorism.”
The material-support law is the statute prosecutors most use in suspected terrorism cases, including not just in our federal courts but also in military commissions. It is now the most far-reaching statute prosecutors use in suspected terrorism cases. That certainly appears to be happening now, and that’s part of the danger of criminalizing speech and advocacy in this way. It allows the government to pick and choose whose speech and whose advocacy it favors.