Washington Smear Campaign

Immoral defamation against MEK's powerful backers

Balatarin
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Washington Smear Campaign
by Abbas Rezai
18-Mar-2012
 

As time is running out for US State Department to respond to a July 2010 D.C. Appeals Court order on why it has continued to keep the most vocal Iranian opposition group, the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK) on its list of Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTO), its unnamed officials have started to show their teeth in a futile attempt to maintain the designation on non-statutory grounds.   

Last week, the MEK legal team won another victory when the Court accepted their writ of mandamus, granting expedited consideration for their motion and ordered the government to respond to the petition by March 26.

Short of proof, the State Department has used bureaucracy and time killing tactics to avoid making a decision for over 550 days. That has now come to an end.   

Sources with knowledge of the dossier, point to Vice President Joe Biden, who holds the Iran-Iraq file in the White House and the US Ambassador to Iraq, James Jeffrey, as main obstacles. Biden has reportedly prevented Secretary Hillary Clinton from making a favourable decision in spite of the Court rulings and repeated calls from Congress.   

Just as the mandamus writ was introduced, Secretary Clinton had to read out a text during a congress hearing, stating that the MEK's cooperation in abandoning Camp Ashraf, their home to the north of Baghdad for three decades, would be a "key factor" in dropping the terrorist label.  

Her statement, more than anything, is an unequivocal confirmation that the State Department has no evidence backing the designation. The MEK cooperation or lack thereof, in relocating its members, is by no means statutory criteria for being on the FTO list.   

Earlier this year, unnamed senior US officials told the media that the MEK were involved in recent assassinations of Iranian scientists in Tehran; a claim rejected by the organisation as a disgraceful lie that was never affirmed by anyone with a name beyond Iranian officials.    

Last week, just after the D.C. Court had approved the MEK's new petition, articles flooded the web targeting the former US officials who had publicly advocated justice to be done and had kept reminding the State Department to honour its obligation to protect the Iranian dissidents in Camp Ashraf. In 2003, Ashraf inhabitants had voluntarily disarmed in good faith in return for US forces' written assurances to protect them.

There is no doubt that the US has failed to uphold that commitment. At least 47 residents of Ashraf including 8 women were murdered in cold blood by the Iraqi army over the past couple of years, with US troops just standing by, watching the carnage.   

With the delisting campaign well underway over the past two years, the timing of these sudden defamatory articles bears a clear mark of the State Department's invisible hand trying to manipulate public opinion.   

They have resorted to an immoral defamation campaign against this group and its powerful bipartisan backers.   

One article is again quoting an unnamed US Official - who some have hinted to be Daniel Fried, Hillary Clinton's special adviser on Camp Ashraf - using slander and insults to target the MEK leadership in Paris and its heavyweight American supporters accusing them of obstructing the peaceful resolution for Camp Ashraf!   

Ambassador Fried, who is also in charge of the Guantanamo Bay Prison project, has complicated the situation by apparently advising Secretary Clinton to condition the MEK's delisting on non-legal arguments such as evacuating Camp Ashraf. That leaves little trust for those whom he needs to convince when he resorts to bullying tactics. One Polish politician remembers Fried from the time he was US Ambassador to Warsaw and considered him to be "haughty" with a "superpower mentality."  

The Administration even went so far to ask the Treasury to probe the group's American supporters for accepting speakers' fees; a move warmly applauded and praised by the Iranian regime's media.   

The United States have known that the MEK is not a terrorist organization from day one. Louis Freeh who headed FBI when the Clinton administration put the MEK on the FTO list in 1997, recently said that the organisation had not posed a threat to U.S. interests, but was listed as "part of a fruitless political ploy to encourage dialogue with Tehran."  

"There was no credible evidence then, nor has there been since, that the group posed any threat to the United States," Freeh wrote in the New York Times in October.   

Back in 2004, the New York Times had reported that a 16-month thorough investigation and "Screening" - matching finger prints, DNA tests etc. - by US security bodies had cleared all members in Camp Ashraf from links with terrorism. The individual agreements signed thereafter with every resident of Camp Ashraf committing the US to protect them was done with full knowledge of their MEK membership - something the US would never have done with real terrorists.  

The State Department's hysterical animosity towards the MEK reminds many Iranians of the story of the late Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh who nationalised Iran's oil industry only to be toppled by a US-led coup in 1953. At that time, the CIA sponsored coup was seen by Iranians as an unjustified US intervention to keep Shah Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi in power, in spite of public detestation of his regime. Six decades later, Barack Obama's administration appears to the Iranian younger generation much on the same wave-length: trying to consolidate rulers detested by their own people, through discrediting their principal opponents.

In this perspective, the smear campaign orchestrated by Foggy Bottom's unnamed officials would rather discredit the US in the eyes of the Iranian public, while helping the MEK win hearts and minds of more Iranians back home.

Balatarin
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Sohrab90

MEK

by Sohrab90 on Mon Mar 19, 2012 02:25 PM PDT

 

I'm an Iranian student and It's funny how people claim MEK members are terrorists or cult members when General David Philips who were responsible for the safety and security of Camp Ashraf and spent over a year working there and interviewed all of them furely with his US batalion did not find any history of terrorist activity nor weapons or other allegations like torture chambers etc.. made by the Iranian regime. 

The truth is that MEK is the Iranian regime's worst nightmare because it is the most active one working towards a secular and democratic Iran. 

Delisting the MEK has no harmful effect. On the contrary, it will benefit the Iranian people since it's known for a fact that MEK is the main political opposition of Iran which has given over 120.000 lives. There is no legal accusation except the "friendly gesture to the Iranian regime" made back in 1997..when some people  still believed in so called "pro-democratic movements"...believing or not believing  in reforms doesn't matter....what matters is that NOTHING justifies MEK being on the FTO list...

 

So Mrs. Hillary Clinton should do as Europe and listen to her own congressmen and De-list MEK!!

Thank you! 

 

 


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G. Rahmanian

The True Terrorists!

by G. Rahmanian on Mon Mar 19, 2012 01:02 PM PDT

If the terrorist regime in Tehran can eliminate Ahmad Khomeini and many others, then killing of a few scientists is no big deal!

//www.iran-emrooz.net/index.php?/news2/36215/


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Atefeh

MEK and attack on Iran

by Atefeh on Mon Mar 19, 2012 12:05 PM PDT

 

 Wondering when and how MEK will/ or already has help the
Israeli  hysteria on attack on Iran. Few years back, when everybody
struggled for human rights in Iran, MEK  held meetings in US discussing the
danger of an Iran armed with atomic bomb!!! 

Do you think a female president  "show" will cover up your
opportunistic policies?

You remind us of Tudeh party!

Sticky points are indeed  many more than only 2!!   

Go you know where with your liberal
version of Islam!

A

 


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G. Rahmanian

Great points, Faramarz!

by G. Rahmanian on Mon Mar 19, 2012 11:56 AM PDT

Here's another article by Mr. Rezai:

//www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/abbas-rezai/would-...


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MM

two sticky points

by MM on Mon Mar 19, 2012 10:47 AM PDT

The issue with me is the fact that the MEK have a cult culture and yet claim that camp Ashraf is a democratic society.  And, the Rajavi duo are willing to sleep with the devil to implement their version of Islam in Iran.  To me, it sounds like the MEK is trying to set themselves up as a democratic alternative vying for $$$ from the US government (thru you know who) now that they are not being supported by Saddam.

Here is what the American organizations say about MEK

  • FBI Report
  • Human Rights Watch
  • Rand Report  

    • Now, I am ok with them, if they dumped the Rajavi duo and the top-ranked MEK (*) and opened the doors of camp Ashraf.  And, if you think that removing the MEK from the terrorist list will open a dialogue between us and the MEK, you got something else coming to you.

    (*) The top-ranked MEK are those who remained married while telling the lower ranks that they should get divorced and remain celibate.


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    Faramarz

    A Court Case vs. Foreign Policy

    by Faramarz on Mon Mar 19, 2012 02:25 PM PDT

    The point that is getting lost here is that the de-listing of MEK is a narrow legal point that is being argued in front of a court and not a US policy issue.

    MEK was placed on the Terror List for whatever reason back in Clinton years. The listing is being challenged in the US courts and the State Department cannot really argue that MEK has recently engaged in any acts of terrorism against the US or any civilians. Therefore, it will most likely lose the court battle and MEK will be de-listed.

    The rest of the stuff as far MEK/Saddam relationship, the cult at Camp Ashraf and Masoud/Maryam duo as opposition figures are all Iranian issues and are completely outside of the jurisdiction of the court and irrelevant to the de-listing argument.

    Iranians who are opposed to MEK, as we all ought to be, should focus our attention on influencing the US policy towards the Regime by advocating Regime Change through whatever means that we seem most appropriate, and not get excited about a narrow legal point that is being argued in front of an Appeals Court that will not get into foreign policy issues.

    Another good place for us to focus is getting behind Reza Pahlavi's efforts to bring Khamenei and the Regime to the Internation Criminal Court for crimes against the Iranian nation.


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    default

    Please guys?

    by rain bow movment on Mon Mar 19, 2012 08:20 AM PDT

    don't compare MEK with Dr mossadegh,you guys and girls are not cridible,the MEK share the same backward idealogy with IR regim and in some case may be worse. as much as I like to see the downfall of IR regim,the same way I don't like to see the MEK or tudehee & cumo in power in Iran.

    MEK had one chance in 1980 but they blew it .


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    hirre

    Picture says more than 1000 words...

    by hirre on Mon Mar 19, 2012 05:18 AM PDT


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    Bavafa

    Although this article is written .....

    by Bavafa on Sun Mar 18, 2012 08:49 PM PDT

    With relation to MEK status in US and to the US politicians in mind, when it comes to the Iranian people, they lost Iranian people's hearts and minds and their name became synonymous with treason when they joined Saddam’s forces during Iran-Iraq war and only wonder when will the top leadership stand trial in a just and credible court such as ICC to account for their murderous past.

      As for the US politicians and their consideration for this groups status, they ought to learn from their past mistakes when they adopt dubious and illegitimate terrorist groups for short gains such as Mujahedeen in Afghanistan and paid for that mistake many folds at the later time.

     

    'Hambastegi' is the main key to victory 

    Mehrdad


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    ILoveIran

    It's debatable ...who deserves that title ...

    by ILoveIran on Sun Mar 18, 2012 07:33 PM PDT

    It's debatable whether "the most vocal Iranian 'opposition' group" is Saddam's former army also known as 'the People's Mojahedin Organization (PMOI/MEK).' 

    Other candidates for that title are:

    1. The Saudis (who finance many groups like that)

    2. The Israelis  (who finance many groups like that)

    3. The British (who finance many groups like that)

    4. The Americans (who finance many groups like that)

    Further Reading: 


    "Israel Recruited Jundallah Terrorists for Covert Actions Against Iran."

    //internationalpost.ca/2012/01/israel-recruited-jundallah-terrorists-for-covert-actions-against-iran/ 

    I don't think Iranians living in Iran -- 80-90 million people -- want these sorts of "opposition" groups or their financial backers.  The online campaigns that are sprouting up everywhere in support of these types of "opposition" and "rights" groups are an effort by the sponsors of such groups to recruit more members into these groups; to pacify Iranians living abroad so they don't object to foreign sponsorship of groups hostile to Iran; to inject chaos into the lives of Iranian civilians living in Iran; and to try to neutralize objections to military hostilities (and to the thousands of lives that would be lost and trillions of dollars in infrastructure that would be damaged, as in Iraq and Afghanistan).  


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