An Iranian Cult and Its American Friends

[jpyaks3]

Cases like this are why the United States consistently ****s up foreign policy.

Summery a lot of prominent American politicians have begun lobbying for an Iranian group to be taken off the terror list after receiving a lot of money from lobbyists connected with the group.

The group has absolutely no support within Iran or outside of it and is absolutely hated because of the terrible stuff that it does but now you have prominent politicians lobbying for this group on the terror list while we prosecute people who provide whole hell of a lot less "support" for other groups on the terror list.

Some background on the group

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/opinion/sunday/an-iranian-cult-and-its-american-friends.html?pagewanted=all posted:

This group of luminaries includes two former chairmen of the joint chiefs of staff, Gens. Hugh H. Shelton and Peter Pace; Wesley K. Clark, the former NATO commander; Gen. James L. Jones, who was President Obama’s national security adviser; Louis J. Freeh, the former F.B.I. director; the former intelligence officials Dennis C. Blair and Michael V. Hayden; the former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson; the former attorney general Michael B. Mukasey, and Lee H. Hamilton, a former congressman who was co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission.

Indeed, the Rajavis and Mujahedeen Khalq are spending millions in an attempt to persuade the Obama administration, and in particular Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, to take them off the national list of terrorist groups, where the group was listed in 1997. Delisting the group would enable it to lobby Congress for support in the same way that the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 allowed the Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi to do.

At Camp Ashraf, 40 miles north of Baghdad, near the Iranian border, 3,400 members of the militant group reside in total isolation on a 14-square-mile tract of harsh desert land. Access to the Internet, phones and information about the outside world is prohibited. Posters of Ms. Rajavi and her smiling green eyes abound. Meanwhile, she lives in luxury in France; her husband has remained in hiding since the United States occupied Iraq in 2003.

During the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, the group served as Mr. Hussein’s own private militia opposing the theocratic government in Tehran. For two decades, he gave the group money, weapons, jeeps and military bases along the border with Iran. In return, the Rajavis pledged their fealty.

In 1991, when Mr. Hussein crushed a Shiite uprising in the south and attempted to carry out a genocide against the Kurds in the north, the Rajavis and their army joined his forces in mowing down fleeing Kurds.

Ms. Rajavi told her disciples, “Take the Kurds under your tanks, and save your bullets for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.” Many followers escaped in disgust.

So the Rajavis then began preying on Iranian refugees and asylum seekers in Europe to fill their ranks. The Rajavis promise them salaries, marriage, family, freedom and a great cause — fighting the Iranian government. Then the unwitting youths arrive in Iraq.

What is most disturbing is how the group treats its members. After the Iran-Iraq war, Mr. Rajavi orchestrated an ill-planned offensive, deploying thousands of young men and women into Iran on a mass martyrdom operation. Instead of capturing Iran, as they believed they would, thousands of them were slaughtered, including parents, husbands and wives of those I met in Iraq in 2003.

After my visit, I met and spoke to men and women who had escaped from the group’s clutches. Many had to be deprogrammed. They recounted how people were locked up if they disagreed with the leadership or tried to escape; some were even killed.

Friendships and all emotional relationships are forbidden. From the time they are toddlers, boys and girls are not allowed to speak to each other. Each day at Camp Ashraf you had to report your dreams and thoughts.

“They are considered traitors and killers of Iranian kids,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the Mujahedeen Khalq’s status on the terrorist list is under review. “They are so unpopular that we think any gesture of support to them would disqualify and discredit us as being interested in democratic reform.”

A good piece from Christian Science Monitor on exactly what is happening

The State Dept. official, who is familiar with the speech contracts, explains the mechanism: “Your speech agent calls, and says you get $20,000 to speak for 20 minutes. They will send a private jet, you get $25,000 more when you are done, and they will send a team to brief you on what to say.”

"Top-level national security officials never heard about the MEK; it never rose to their level until now," says another US official. "So when MEK representatives show them a political platform comprised of the '15 greatest ideas of Western civilization,' it looks pretty compelling."

The contracts can range up to $100,000 and include several appearances. They sometimes explicitly state, according to the State Dept. official, that "We are not a front organization for the MEK."

The speaking events have created some extraordinary spectacles, including that of US heavyweights sharing the stage with the MEK's self-declared "president-elect" Maryam Rajavi. At a mid-June MEK rally in Paris, for example, Mrs. Rajavi was flanked by five rows of former top US and European officials. The noisy throng of thousands of well-orchestrated MEK supporters, draped in yellow vests and waving flags, banners, and balloons as clouds of confetti fell, looked like an American political convention.

And what do you know a Fox opinion piece supporting the MEK, shocking.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/08/22/its-time-to-lift-terror-tag-from-iranian-opposition-group-mek/

The MEK’s listing is, and has always been, about politics and not national security. Louis Freeh, former director of the FBI said he and other former U.S. military, intelligence and diplomatic leaders would not have spoken in favor of the MEK “if there was some secret, classified magic bullet that legally or factually justified keeping this freedom fighting organization on the list. There is none.”

The FTO list is an important tool in combating terrorism, but its designations must stand to reason. If due process is completed in an impartial and objective manner and not influenced by the likes of an unsubstantiated, amateurish cut-and-paste job like the LHM, then it would lead to delisting the MEK.

It is scary to think this is how national security and foreign policy decisions are made in this country.

[Prosperity]

the MEK are a mix of some sort of cult and terrorists, they really should be eradicated... though it's a shame that so many naive Iranians have joined them and are either brainwashed or held captive. It's likely too late for them.

and of course you see Fox News supporting terrorists when it's politically convenient for them, bunch of ass hats... but we already knew that

[FanboyOf91]

Ugh, Islamic Scientologists.

[Predicto]

Same as it ever was. Hell, the push for our invasion of Iraq began with this kind of deceitful lobbying.

What was the name of that clown that we originally thought was going to be the new president of Iraq, until it became clear that his political "status" was nothing but fluff from PR firms and neocon analysts who were pushing the invasion?

Oh yeah - Ahmad Chalabi

Chalabi is a controversial figure for many reasons. In the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the INC, with the assistance of lobbying powerhouse BKSH & Associates,[5] provided a major portion of the information on which U.S. Intelligence based its condemnation of Saddam Hussein, including reports of weapons of mass destruction and alleged ties to al-Qaeda. Most, if not all, of this information has turned out to be false.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Chalabi