The US and the MKO would like to use the MKO as a US proxy against the Islamic Republic as a way to destabilize the Iranian government. Despite the group’s violent extremist background record, it was embraced by some in the US administration. What this means for Iran haters, is that the MKO aka MEK/PMOI are the new freedom fighters, and they deserve, and must be de-listed.
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.
“This is clearly an invitation to provide a service to a designated group[MKO/MEK/PMOI/NCR]. This would be a clear violation of the law,”says Cole, who last year argued a major material support case before the Supreme Court. The material support law bars providing not only money and weapons to a foreign terrorist organization, but also”service,”defined by the government as anything of benefit to the group performed in coordination with or at the direction of the group.Cole adds ..
Dean has invoked the same argument when it comes to his work in support of the MEK, the Iranian militant group. Dean and other luminaries from across the political spectrum have been paid vast sums of money by the group — as much as $20,000 for a 10-minute speech — to appear at events pushing the Obama administration to remove the MEK from the official list of terrorist organizations.
Those who have sold their advocacy for big bucks deserve shame; those who have done so for a meal or two maybe deserve our pity. Those who have gotten mixed up in the campaign through a crude belief that Iran is an enemy and the enemy of my enemy is my friend need to realize that being an enemy’s enemy does not make one a friend..Secretary of State should keep the windows closed and just pay attention to the terms of the law..
Dozens of retired U.S. government officials, spanning the liberal-to-conservative political spectrum and some paid tens of thousands of dollars in speaking fees, have joined a well-orchestrated lobbying campaign to remove MKO/MEK/PMOI from the list of FTOs..Prominent Americans should not be accepting payments and supporting a group that has shed American blood in the past and has no viable support inside Iran. We urge Secretary Clinton to keep the MEK on the terrorist roster.
It is not hard to imagine how Americans would react if they learned that Al Qaeda had hired top lobbyists to help promote its agenda in Congress. Or if they heard that influential active and retired government officials were being paid to attest to Hezbollah’s good character. They would be appalled. But, amazingly, a group similar to Al Qaeda and Hezbollah is doing just that. It is the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an Iranian exile group that is on the Department of State’s list of FTOs ..
Tanter reasoned that attacks carried out by MEK against government officials and military installations are not terrorist acts. “I do not grant that the MEK committed terrorist attacks before 2001,” he said, “I do grant that there were military activities targeting military installations.”But when asked if his logic meant that a 2009 attack at a Fort Hood, Texas, military base that killed fifteen U.S. servicemembers was terrorism, he avoided the question…The panel was asked if sanctions could be an effective strategy..
Gareth Porter, independent historian and journalist for IPS News, discusses the infamous “laptop of death” documents from which the vast majority of “evidence” about Iran’s supposed clandestine nuclear weapons program comes from; the conspicuous mistakes in the documents that lead him to believe a foreign intelligence agency (probably Mossad) fabricated them; and how the MEK launders information, passing off documents sourced from Israel as their own…
The Mojahedin Khalq started its terror campaign with the assassination of 6 Americans in Tehran and have, since then over 16000 Iranians, 25000 Iraqis and scores of individuals of American, European, Pakistani, African and even Chinese descent. While we do not expect or even find the American government capable of intervening and halt the influx of Mojahedin Khalq operatives into their capital city, we warn the countries officials against any failure to prevent harm the critics of the terrorist group in the US..