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Mujahedin Khalq Organization as a terrorist group

MEK is not democrats or freedom fighters

These are not democrats or freedom fighters. The more you get to know them the more they seem closer to some kind of odd, almost Manson-like cult. Maryam Rajavi is their leader and she Mujahedin Khalq is not democrats or freedom fighters (her husband yielded to her years ago since a woman leader impresses Westerners) will be President of Iran when they somehow sweep away the clerical regime.

Trita Parsi (an MEI adjunct scholar by the way) has a good post up at The Huffington Post about the People’s Mojahedin of Iran/Mohahedin-e-Khalq (PMOI or MEK) efforts to get themselves off the US terrorism supporters list. His lead says it all succinctly:

In the 10 years that I have lived in Washington, I have never seen lobbyists for al-Qaeda parade through the halls of Congress. I have not seen any events on Capitol Hill organized by Hamas. And I have not seen any American politicians take campaign contributions from the Islamic Jihad.
But the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an organization with the blood of Americans and Iranians alike on its hands, freely does all of these things, despite being a designated foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

I’ve been here a lot longer than ten years, but I share his view. The MEK have been lobbying hard in Washington since the 80s at least, despite being on the terrorist list for killing American diplomats and military personnel in the days of the Shah. They’re slick, they’re well funded (how?) and they seem able to persuade Congressmen who would never respond to an Arab group in the same way. Yet besides their track record of killing US personnel in the Shah’s day, they are based in Iraq, fought on the side of Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war, maintain to this day a cult like "Camp Ashraf" in Iraq that the Iraqi government is pressuring to leave and threatening to deport to Iran, have a true cult of personality about their leadership, and are uniformly hated by every Iranian I know who isn’t one of them, from Pahlavi restorationists to leftists to liberal democrats to people who support the current system. After all, they fought for Saddam against Iranians, and are traitors in the eyes even of those who hate the clerical regime.

Their PR skills are good. In my journalism days they used to drop by regularly to try to cultivate me, and while I listened politely, I had too many US military friends who’d served in pre-revolutionary Iran and knew them as their primary nemesis. (The MEK claim that was because their current leadership was in jail under the Shah, and all the bad stuff was done by somebody else.)

True story: I’ve only been in Iraq once, for about five days in 1989 in between the Iran-Iraq war and the Kuwait war. I was getting in an elevator in the Sheraton Hotel when a smallish man in an impeccable suit stepped in and asked if I was an American. My first thought was, gosh, he looks and carries himself just like the MEK guys in DC. Guess what? That’s exactly who he was. With exactly the same missionary spiel.

These are not democrats or freedom fighters. The more you get to know them the more they seem closer to some kind of odd, almost Manson-like cult. Maryam Rajavi is their leader and she (her husband yielded to her years ago since a woman leader impresses Westerners) will be President of Iran when they somehow sweep away the clerical regime. Not through election, through acclamation. She’s the Evita Peron of Iran, or at least a wannabe.

I have no brief for the Iranian regime, but these guys worry me, especially for their strange, Svengali-like power over members of Congress from both sides of the aisle. I applaud Trita’s warning here. Let the Buyer Beware.

by Michael Collins Dunn – mideasti.blogspot

February 25, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The Obama-al-Qaeda-MEK Connection

When Will We throw This Bum out?
The Obama-al-Qaeda-MEK Connection

British puppet President Barack Obama has entered into an alliance with two of the worlds leading terrorist organizations—al-Qaeda and the Mujahideen e-Khalq (MEK)—in his zeal to overthrow the present governments in Syria and Iran. The Obama-al-Qaeda marriage of convenience is particularly deep and it centers on the drive to overthrow the government of Bashar Assad in Damascus, through an armed opposition.

U.S. intelligence agencies are aware that the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA) has no actual military capabilities inside Syria, and consists largely of a group of defectors from the Syrian Army who are safe-housed on military bases inside Turkey. All of the significant military actions targeted at the Syrian government have been carried out by al-Qaeda terrorists, who have infiltrated the country from Iraq. The suicide bombings in Damascus and Aleppo, the assassinations of Syrian government and military officials, and the sabotage of pipelines and other infrastructure have all been carried out by al-Qaeda. Despite widespread evidence in the hands of U.S. intelligence agencies, President Obama continues to join hands with the new al-Qaeda head, Ayman al-Zawaheri, in calling for the violent removal of President Assad from power.

The idea that the President of the United States is so blatantly in bed with the terrorists who carried out the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001 should be sufficient grounds for his immediate removal from office, under the impeachment provisions of the U.S. Constitution or Section 4 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment. Last year, following the U.S. Navy SEAL Team killing of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin-Laden, President Obama did cartwheels to claim credit for the act. Now, he is allied with the very same 9/11 perpetrators in pushing for a war in the Persian Gulf that will rapidly expand into a global thermonuclear confrontation with Russia and China.

The British Role
As well-documented in Executive Intelligence Review, the al-Qaeda attacks of 9/11 were carried out with the full support of the Anglo-Saudi Al Yamamah apparatus. Under the al-Yamamah oil-for-arms deal, launched in 1985 and continued through to the present, British intelligence and the Saudis created a string of offshore covert operations funds, which directly financed the 9/11 attacks. Al-Yamamah funds, in excess of $2 billion, were funneled to Saudi Prince Bandar bin-Sultan, and at least $50,000 of those funds went to the San Diego-based team of 9/11 hijackers. A Joint Congressional Select Committee, probing the 9/11 attacks, established evidence of the Bandar-al-Qaeda funding, but the 28-page chapter detailing this evidence was suppressed by the George W. Bush White House. At the start of his administration, President Obama promised family members of the 9/11 victims that he would release the 28 pages, but he never kept his promise, and moved to further suppress the evidence of al-Yamamah angle on the attacks, thus protecting his British masters along with the Saudi Royals.

To this day, former Senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.), who co-chaired the Congressional probe, insists that the cover-up of the Saudi Monarchy’s complicity in the attacks must be exposed publicly.

President Obama’s embrace of the 9/11 terrorists, after the fact, constitutes a scandal of enormous proportions for this Administration, and underscores further the hypocrisy of Obamas efforts to exploit the bin-Laden assassination, while he colludes with the remnants of al-Qaeda.

The same is true of the President’s collusion with the Mujahideen e-Khalq, an Iranian terrorist group that has been on the U.S. State Departments list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations since its inception in 1997. MEK assassinated a number of U.S. military personnel in Iran in the 1970s, actively participated in the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and then fled to Iraq and allied with Saddam Hussein, after they were purged from the Islamic Republic leadership. In recent weeks, MEK has been linked to the assassinations of Iranian scientists. This week, the Bangkok Post revealed that Thai authorities believe that MEK terrorists were behind foiled attempts to attack Israeli officials. Those attacks were loudly blamed on the Iranian government, and fed the drive to launch military action against Iran.

While the Obama Administration has attempted to keep a distance from the assassinations and bombings and other acts of sabotage inside Iran over the past two years, MEK has been protected by U.S. military forces at Camp Ashraf inside Iraq, ever since the U.S. invasion of that country in March 2003.

Executive Inteligence Review

February 25, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

The MEK and the Warped Nature of the Iran Debate

Edward Luce wrote this a few days ago in a column on Iran:

On Wednesday they hold the first presidential debate in three weeks. As in previous ones, commercial breaks are likely to air a spot calling on Mr Obama to remove the MEK – the Mujahideen e-Khalq, the armed Iranian opposition group – from the US list of foreign terrorist organisations.

The MEK is believed to have carried out the recent assassinations of Iranian scientists on Israel’s behalf. Its US front organisations have paid hefty speaking fees to dozens of prominent figures, from Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, to Howard Dean, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee. Many of the Republican candidates also support lifting the ban.

Michael Auslin overreacts:

Yet even more incomprehensibly, Luce then notes that at the upcoming Republican presidential debate, there likely will be televised commercials calling for the delisting of Iran’s armed opposition group from lists of terrorist groups. Not only does this have nothing to do with the issue at hand, does Mr. Luce think the commercials are being paid for by the GOP? If not, then what’s his beef with the free market — whoever can afford a commerical can buy it. Just ask SEIU, which kept up a constant barrage in favor of Obamacare last year.

As the quote from Luce shows, the MEK issue is perfectly relevant to a discussion of Israel and the Iranian nuclear program because Israel has allegedly used MEK operatives to kill Iranian nuclear scientists. I assume Luce’s point is to draw attention to the fact that there is televised advocacy for de-listing a terrorist group that has recently been implicated in acts of terrorism against Iran, and these attacks form one part of the covert war being waged against Iran because of its nuclear program. Some of Romney’s advisers have publicly supported de-listing the MEK, and Gingrich and Santorum are on record endorsing the assassinations the MEK has reportedly carried out. One problem is that the MEK’s American advocates are often paid for their advocacy, and the other is that three of the Republican presidential candidates apparently have no objection to acts of terrorism so long as they are committed against the right people.

If this were any other terrorist group, it would be unthinkable that its advocates could run television commercials calling for the group’s removal from the FTO list during presidential debates or at any other time, but because it is a group dedicated to overthrowing the Iranian government it is somehow considered acceptable and unobjectionable. I am guessing Luce’s inclusion of the MEK material in his column was intended to highlight how biased in favor of confrontation the Iran debate in the United States is. That Auslin thinks it is plausible or appropriate to compare advertisements on behalf of a recognized foreign terrorist group with legislative advocacy by an American union confirms it.

By Daniel Larison

February 23, 2012 0 comment

Iraq

Iraqi tribes demand prosecution, punishment of anti-Iran MKO

Iraqi tribes have called on Baghdad to prosecute and punish the criminal members of the terrorist Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO) before the group’s possible departure from the Iraqi tribes demand prosecution, punishment of anti-Iran MKO country.

In a recent statement, Iraqi tribes in the southern city of Basra called on Baghdad to bring to justice those MKO members that aided and abetted former dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime to ruthlessly crush the anti-government uprising in southern and northern Iraq in 1991 during the aftermath of the so-called Persian Gulf war I, when US troops occupied Kuwait and Iraq in efforts to fight off Iraq’s attempt to invade Kuwait following the end of its eight-year war of aggression against Iran.

Tens of thousands of people were killed during the crackdowns. In the following months, many more lost their lives and nearly two million Iraqis fled for their lives.

The statement also called for the prosecution of the MKO for jeopardizing the lives of the residents of the Diyala Province, where the group’s Camp Ashraf is located, 120 kilometers (74.5 miles) west of the Iranian border.

The Iraqi tribal groups urged Baghdad not to allow the MKO to leave the country before the group’s criminal members are punished and called on the people across Iraq to stage protest rallies to demand the prosecution of the MKO criminals.

On Saturday, around 400 MKO members were relocated to a new site, the Liberty Camp, which is near the Baghdad airport.

The move is said to be part of an agreement reached between the United Nations and Iraq in December, expected to facilitate the ouster of the entire MKO terrorists from Iraq. Under the deal, the UN and the Iraqi government have agreed to relocate 3,400 MKO members living in Camp Ashraf until their refugee status is determined.

Baghdad had previously promised to close the terrorist camp by the end of 2011, but the government later agreed to extend the deadline until April.

Members of the terrorist group fled to Iraq in 1986, where they enjoyed the full support of Saddam Hussein and set up of the camp for launching terrorist raids against Iranian people and military personnel.

The MKO is blacklisted as a terrorist organization by much of the international community and is responsible for numerous acts of terror and violence against Iranian civilians and officials as well as anti-Saddam Iraqi civilians.

February 22, 2012 0 comment

UN welcomes relocation of MKO members

The United Nations has welcomed safe relocation of about 400 residents of the Iraqi settlement formerly known as Camp Ashraf to a new transit centre elsewhere in the country, calling it “the first step towards a better future” for the residents, who are Iranian exiles. Martin Kobler, the head of UNAMI and the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Iraq

The 400 people who voluntarily relocated today – the first to do so – now reside in Camp Hurriya, a temporary transit location, according to a press release issued by the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) in Baghdad.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will immediately start the process of verification and refugee status determinations, a key step in preparing the submissions of eligible candidates for resettlement in third countries.

Today’s relocation is in line with the memorandum of understanding signed in December by the UN and the Iraqi Government to resolve the situation facing the residents of Camp New Iraq (formerly Camp Ashraf), who are members of a group known as the People’s Mojahedeen of Iran.

Martin Kobler, the head of UNAMI and the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Iraq, commended the 400 or so residents for their decision to move to Camp Hurriya.

“This is the first step towards a better future outside Iraq,” he said. “I look forward to their continued cooperation with the Iraqi authorities to complete the relocation without delay.”

Mr. Kobler also commended Iraqi authorities “for having ensured a safe and secure relocation of the first group of residents. I urge them to pursue the relocation of the remaining residents in a manner that continues to guarantee the human rights, safety and welfare of all residents.”

He urged other Member States to confirm that they are ready and willing to accept eligible candidates from Camp Hurriya who want to resettle in third countries.

UN News Centre

February 20, 2012 0 comment

The MEK Expulsion from Iraq

Iranian exiles move to new Iraq camp

Several hundred Iranian exiles were travelling to a UN-approved site near Baghdad on Saturday after leaving Camp Ashraf, where Iranian opposition members have been based for decades.

The move is part of a December 25 deal between the UN and Iraq, which was reached after extensive talks, under which around 3,400 Iranians opposed to the regime in Tehran will be moved to a new location called Camp Liberty, as part of a process that aims to see them resettled outside Iraq.

Three hundred and ninety seven exiles departed in 18 buses beginning about 1:30 am on Saturday (2230 GMT on Friday), escorted by Iraqi security forces, Behzad Saffari, the legal adviser for residents of the camp, told AFP by telephone.

The departing exiles and their belongings were searched prior to their departure in a lengthy process that began around 2:00 pm (1100 GMT) on Friday, and continued until 1:15 am on Saturday (2215 GMT on Friday), said Saffari, who was travelling with the group to Camp Liberty, near Baghdad airport.

Iraq had previously aimed to close Camp Ashraf in Diyala province, which now-executed dictator Saddam Hussein allowed the People’s Mujahedeen Organisation of Iran (PMOI) to set up during his 1980-88 war with Iran, by the end of the year.

But Iraqi premier Nuri al-Maliki said on December 21 that his government had agreed to extend the deadline to April, and signed the deal with the UN on moving the exiles a few days later.

The National Council of Resistence of Iran, an umbrella group that includes the PMOI, has complained about the conditions at Camp Liberty, and called for Iraqi police to be withdrawn from the camp before additional exiles move there.

The left-wing PMOI was founded in 1960s to oppose the shah of Iran, but took up arms against Iran’s new clerical rulers after the Islamic revolution in 1979. It said in 2001 that it had renounced violence.

Spokesman Shahriar Kia has said that the PMOI is "seeking a democratic change in Iran."

The US State Department has blacklisted the PMOI as a terrorist organisation since 1997, and says that members of the group carried out a large number of attacks over several decades against Iranian targets, and also against Americans.

The PMOI strongly opposes the terrorist designation and is seeking to have it lifted in the United States as it has been in Europe.

In a May 2005 report, Human Rights Watch cited former PMOI members as having "reported abuses ranging from detention and persecution of ordinary members wishing to leave the organization, to lengthy solitary confinements, severe beatings, and torture of dissident members."

An October 2005 US diplomatic cable from Baghdad released by whistleblower website Wikileaks discussed the cases of two people of Iranian origin who had lived in Germany, saying that after they arrived at Camp Ashraf in 1999, their travel documents were confiscated and they were told they could not leave.

The cable said that a claim by one of the two "that Ashraf residents found planning to depart were punished and threatened with death is corroborated by numerous former residents."

Camp Ashraf was disarmed following the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and came under US military protection, but American forces handed over security responsibilities for the site to the Baghdad authorities in January 2009.

Iraqi security forces raided Camp Ashraf in late July 2009, leading to clashes in which 11 residents of the camp were said to have been killed and several hundred wounded.

Camp Ashraf has been back in the spotlight since a controversial April 2011 raid by Iraqi security forces left at least 34 people dead and scores injured.

February 18, 2012 0 comment

A U.N. Call to Aid Iraq’s Iranian Refugees MEK

After decades of dictatorship followed by invasion and conflict, Iraqis began this year with a chance to build a peaceful future. If not managed carefully, however, a lingering issue from the Martin Kobler is the special representative of the U.N. secretary general for Iraq. past could stain this moment of opportunity with tragedy.

I am referring to the situation of Camp Ashraf, where a tense standoff has persisted between the government of Iraq and an Iranian opposition group, the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), which for the last 25 years has occupied a self-enclosed camp only a few hours drive from Baghdad.

The government has made it clear that it wants Camp Ashraf shut down and MEK — which once fought alongside Saddam Hussein and is designated by the United States and some other governments as a terrorist organization — to leave Iraq. Baghdad sees its presence, in a place which is off-limits to the government, as an affront to national sovereignty.

At the same time, there are very real concerns about what closing this camp would mean for the human rights, safety and welfare of the approximately 3,400 residents of Camp Ashraf. The United Nations strongly shares these concerns, which have been underscored vocally by the group’s supporters internationally, among them a number of U.S. and European officials and former officials.

There should be no confusion about the stance of the United Nations. We support only a peaceful, humanitarian solution for Camp Ashraf. We have been working hard to facilitate such an outcome — one that both respects Iraq’s sovereignty and provides the people of Camp Ashraf with a safe and voluntary path to a more hopeful life outside of Iraq.

When the Iraqi government announced late last year that it would be closing the camp by Dec. 31, the U.N. secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, spoke with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to ask for more time for negotiation. Many feared a repeat of the violence of April 2011, when dozens of Ashraf residents were killed in clashes with Iraqi security forces at the camp.

The United Nations welcomed Mr. Maliki’s decision to extend the deadline until April. We have carried out an exhaustive and impartial diplomatic effort since then, with the support of the United States and the European Union, to encourage a peaceful solution. We have gone the extra mile to consult with Camp Ashraf residents and their leadership in order to address their concerns.

The plan now agreed to by the Iraqi government should be given a chance to work.

As a first step, it calls for the camp residents to voluntarily relocate to a transit site at the Baghdad airport. In contrast to Camp Ashraf, this site would be monitored around the clock by observers from the United Nations. There, the residents would be interviewed by the U.N. refugee agency, the UNHCR, to determine their eligibility for refugee status, paving the way for their resettlement outside of Iraq. Most have filed refugee claims. A small number have returned to Iran in recent years, but many others will want to go elsewhere.

Under the same agreement, the government of Iraq has made two key commitments that it must uphold. First, it has accepted full responsibility for the safety and security of the residents, from the relocation process throughout their stay at the new facility. Secondly, it has promised that nobody would be forced to go to Iran or elsewhere against their wishes.

The new site is a former U.S. Marine base that can hold more than 5,000 people. It has been equipped at considerable expense to receive the residents of Camp Ashraf. It has cooking and medical facilities, space for recreational activities and provisions for women and religious observance. UNHCR has carried out a careful technical assessment and determined that the new camp meets the humanitarian standards it applies for refugee situations around the world.

The process has arrived at a moment of truth.

After agreeing in principle to move an initial group of 400 residents, Camp Ashraf’s leaders have hesitated in recent days to begin the move, placing new conditions that the Iraqi government rejects. The government’s patience is wearing thin, and further delay could lead to provocation and violence.

I am concerned that the perfect is becoming the enemy of the good. Change is understandably unsettling for the residents, but maintaining the status quo is neither a safe nor viable option.

The relocation of the camp residents is of course only a bridge to a longer-term solution — their resettlement outside Iraq. Without this, the horizon is unclear.

We are calling on the international community — particularly the United States and Europe, which have long traditions of accepting refugees — to confirm publicly their readiness to accept eligible residents. Supporters in the U.S. Congress and the European Parliament could do their part by backing the relocation plan and taking the necessary steps to find a home for the residents.

Equally importantly, we are reminding the government of Iraq of its commitments. Impatience should not lead to miscalculation. Any violent solution would be totally unacceptable.

Time is running out, and lives are at stake. All concerned parties — camp residents, the Iraqi government and the international community — must do their part to ensure that the peaceful path is the route taken on Camp Ashraf.

Martin Kobler is the special representative of the U.N. secretary general for Iraq.

By MARTIN KOBLER

February 16, 2012 0 comment

UN chief: Time has come for MEK relocation

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today- 15 February 2012 called for the start of the relocation of

Ban calls for start of relocation of Iranian exiles living in camp in Iraq

residents of the settlement in Iraq formerly known as Camp Ashraf, urging the Government and the camp dwellers to continue to cooperate so that the process can be carried out in a peaceful manner.

“The Secretary-General reiterates that the Government of Iraq bears the primary responsibility for the security and the welfare of the residents of Camp Ashraf,” said a statement issued by his spokesperson.

“At the same time, the residents of Camp Ashraf also bear a responsibility to abide by the laws of Iraq. Any provocation or violence must be avoided and would be unacceptable.”Camp New Iraq camp houses several thousand members of a group known as the People’s Mojahedeen of Iran.

The United Nations and the Iraqi Government on 25 December signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the voluntary relocation of several thousand Iranian exiles living in Camp New Iraq, previously known as Camp Ashraf, in the north-eastern part of the country.

On 31 January, the UN High Commissioner for Refugee (UNHCR) and the human rights office of the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) said they had confirmed that the infrastructure and facilities at the new relocation camp met international standards.

In his statement today, Mr. Ban acknowledged the efforts of the Iraqi Government to prepare the temporary transit location to host the residents and allow UNHCR to undertake refugee status determination.

He reiterated his call to Member States to contribute to a durable solution by demonstrating their readiness to accept eligible residents of Camp New Iraq who wish to resettle in third countries.

The Secretary-General stressed that the UN “remains strongly committed to continue to do its utmost to facilitate a peaceful and durable solution.”

Situated in the eastern Iraqi province of Diyala, Camp New Iraq camp houses several thousand members of a group known as the People’s Mojahedeen of Iran.

February 16, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

Why are some Americans defending an Iranian terrorist group?

The most powerful word in American politics is terrorist. For the first time since the Cold War ended, America has a consensus enemy (never mind that terrorism is a tactic rather than an ideology). Huge majorities support indefinitely detaining accused terrorists without charges, or killing them without due process. So you’d think that a Muslim terrorist group with Marxist roots would be anathema, especially if it was on the official American and Canadian lists of terror sponsoring organizations. But the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, commonly referred to as MEK, has its American defenders.

For them, MEK’s history of anti-American violence is forgivable. The important thing is that the group is hostile to the regime in Iran. According to NBC News, MEK fighters are assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists and are being "financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service." The group has also waged a sophisticated lobbying effort to be struck from America’s terrorist list, paying politicians as diverse as Howard Dean, Rudy Giuliani, and Wesley Clark who vouch for it. Jamie Kirchick says whoever is responsible for terrorizing Iranian nuclear scientists deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. Jonathan Toobin names MEK, acknowledges their terrorist past, and argues in favor of collaborating with them. "The MEK may be an unattractive ally," he writes, "but with its Iranian members and infrastructure of support inside the country, it is an ideal weapon to use against the ayatollahs. This is not just the standard and cynical argument about the ends justifying the means but rather an entirely defensible strategy in which a vicious and tyrannical government’s foes become legitimate allies in what is for all intents and purposes a war."

Anti-interventionists like Daniel Larison and Global War on Terror critics like Glenn Greenwald are understandably bothered by the hypocrisy in all this. If people are thrown in jail for donating money to terrorist organizations, how can prominent politicians be on the payroll of one without facing arrest? Isn’t it hypocritical to decry terrorism as irredeemably evil, only to embrace the tactic when it is used against an unfriendly regime? If Israel is funding MEK assassinations aren’t they a state sponsor of terrorism? Aren’t these double standards corrosive to the rule of law?

I’d ask MEK enthusiasts a different question.

In your telling, MEK doesn’t belong on the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations; Rudy Giuliani shouldn’t be arrested for taking their money and speaking out on their behalf; Israel shouldn’t be declared a State Sponsor of Terror for funding their operations; and President Obama shouldn’t send drones to assassinate MEK leaders. By your logic, America’s list of terrorist organizations is therefore overly broad; by your logic, patriotic Americans who’ve done nothing wrong are nonetheless vulnerable to arrest and imprisonment for giving material support to MEK; by your logic, President Obama could unilaterally order the assassination of valuable allies engaged in righteous behavior.

So why aren’t MEK enthusiasts alarmed? If you think our list of terrorist organizations is fallible, shouldn’t you be calling for it to be reviewed? If you think American citizens are subject to arrest and imprisonment under laws designed to weaken our enemies, even when they’re speaking out on behalf of what is actually an ally, shouldn’t you be calling for material support laws to be reformed? If President Obama is empowered under U.S. law to order the assassination of certain foreigners, even as you affirm that they’re acting righteously, shouldn’t you want to curtail his power?

There is no way to be a conventionally hawkish MEK apologist without revealing part of your world view to be deeply wrongheaded. Either you are supporting a terrorist organization — something you deem cause for assassination without due process — or else the extraordinary measures you favor to fight terrorists can be legally applied to people who aren’t deserving of it.

Update, Feb. 14: The national security reporter Eli Lake draws my attention to a problem with this post. One of my arguments is that MEK supporters should be alarmed by the over-broadness of our terrorism laws if, according to their own analysis, a benign or even righteous group has been labeled an official terrorist organization. That point stands. Being on the official list of terrorist organizations has all sorts of awful consequences for designated groups and their supporters. Contrary to what’s implied above, however, being on the list of terrorist organizations doesn’t automatically subject a group’s members to death by drone strike. To be targeted for assassination, a group or individual must be covered by the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force, and although it’s been stretched to cover a dubious array of aggressive actions abroad, it hasn’t yet been stretched so far that it would include the targeted killing of MEK members.

By Conor Friedersdorf – The Atlantic

February 15, 2012 0 comment

Mujahedin Khalq; A proxy force

When the News Media Erases US-Israeli Terrorism

Today it was revealed that Israel has been funding, arming, and training the Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK), designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, to conduct terrorist attacks killing Iranian nuclear scientists. Anonymous U.S. officials confirmed to NBC News that allegations of this Israeli-MEK connection are accurate. This is a story of national and international significance and, while it was published by NBC, it has been completely absent from the mainstream media.

Hey, I’m no idiot. I know the news media is incredibly biased in favor of powerful institutions and especially the state. But I don’t think I was naive to actually expect some coverage of this news on the day it broke. I scoured the major news media – CNN, MSNBC, Fox, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Daily Beast, al Jazeera English, my twitter feed and even my RSS feed (both of which are filled with the kind of dissident material that could spark the interest of Homeland Security) – and nothing. Virtually no coverage.

The U.S. has supported terrorism (and conducted its own state terrorism) innumerable times in the past without appropriate coverage in the news media. But this story of Israeli support of the MEK isn’t about some obscure, chronically marginalized issue. We’re not talking about U.S. support for murderous Colombian paramilitaries, an issue that has never piqued the interest of Americans. The issue of the impending conflict with Iran, however contaminated by false statements and jingoistic war propaganda, has certainly received its fair share of coverage. This is a mainstream issue.

This is a situation where the U.S. government’s closest ally, receiving billions in annual aid and unmatched diplomatic cover, is cooperating with a group that the State Department itself characterizes as a terrorist organization, to conduct assassination programs against innocent people in a sovereign nation. Taken in isolation, this is bad enough. But this kind of behavior has the potential to destabilize a very precarious situation and possibly suck the United States into another war in the Middle East. And these facts have now been confirmed by U.S. officials. I can’t imagine a more headline-worthy revelation.

But the news media is so subservient to the U.S. government and the credibility of its allies that this momentous story isn’t just twisted or lied about like America’s other propaganda – it’s erased. Whitewashed. Never happened.

It may be more enlightening at first, for those dismissing my observation as wacky conspiracy, to think about al Jazeera instead of the mainstream news in America. During the Iraq war, al Jazeera was often turned to in order to get the hard-hitting stories that the U.S. media couldn’t and wouldn’t report. It was “alternative.” They’ve since evolved and have had lots of questionable coverage that unfortunately overlaps that in the U.S. media. But why would a news organization, based in the region in which these Israeli terrorist attacks have taken place, whitewash this story?

Consider the politics of the region. The Gulf Arab states for a long time have been on the side of Israel and the U.S. when it comes to the issue of Iran. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, etc. – fear Iranian influence in the region because it crowds out their own. The Saudi King, for example, not only has secretly urged the U.S. to attack Iran, but has a strong interest in seeing Iran further isolated by eliminating its one regional ally, Syria (which is why Saudi Arabia has reportedly funneled support to the rebel Free Syrian Army and why it supported the Arab League’s Security Council resolution for intervention in Syria). Al Jazeera, which is based in Qatar, would be going against the interests of its owner and government (one in the same) if it appropriately covered revelations about Israeli terrorism in Iran.

Virtually the same calculations exist for the American media. Washington consistently pushes misinformation about the nature of Iran’s nuclear program (despite a near-consensus on the part of the intelligence and military community that Iran’s nuclear program is entirely civilian in nature) and demonizes the Iranian leadership because Iran lies outside Washington’s sphere of influence in the world’s most geopolitically important region. The news media reflects the state’s interests, both because ruffling the feathers of their commanders in Washington is against their own interests and because of what I call the “culture of regurgitation” in American journalism (“if my government says it, I’ll say it too”).

The focus of the media today, aside from the painfully stale political horserace, was the bank’s mortgage settlement and Syria. Regarding the former, there was gratuitous praise heaped on the Obama administration for overseeing a $26 billion settlement from the nation’s five biggest banks for their role in the mortgage meltdown (this, of course, after having colluded with banks to screw millions of people and bilk the economy out of far more than $26 billion). Regarding the latter, as I write these words CNN is running a story about Iran’s alleged material support for Syria’s killing of civilians.

I’m going to maintain my naiveté for another 24 hours. Let’s see if Israeli terrorism against Iran gets any coverage tomorrow.

By John Glaser

February 14, 2012 0 comment

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