French police seize 158 Iranians in raid on 'terror group'

The Independent (U.K.) ^ | 06/18/03 | John Lichfield

[DoughtyOne]

To: DoughtyOne

They never promised to find WMD.

Do you believe that WMDs was the only reason to go into Iraq?  If so then you don't believe the French were right to assist in our quest for independence.

Three different chemical manufacturing trucks have been found in Iraq, one or more verrified to have been put in use.

Would you agree that terrorists are themselves WMDs?  After 09/11 it's hard to argue otherwise.  Hussein was known to provide funding to terrorists.  Al Qaeda had training camps within Iraq.  We know that Al Qaeda and the Taliban have members in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and other states clear out to Malaysia, is it really that hard to believe Iraq had them there too?

And I'm willing to bet they didn't kill 5,000 to 10,000 civilians in the process of this raid.

On this forum is an article that addresses the latest count of collateral fatalities.  They are listed around at between 2,500 and 3,500.  That being said, how many died in our war of independence?  Do the Iraqis not deserve independence from a brutal dictator and his family?

Do the tens of thousands of Iraqis killed by Hussein and his family directly and the million plus humans that died during the Iran War and Gulf Storm not deserve to be avenged and future victims spared?

I don't understand people who blindly hate the French. Is a true friend a yes man?

I don't hate them.  I despise them.  I don't hate humans, but I sure hate the stupid things people do or adopt as their policies.  The French have basicly proven themselves dumber than a brick.  Pitty would be more like what I truly feel for them.  That doesn't mean I intend to support them financially in any way.  It will be a long time before I purchase another French product I can guarantee you.

Remember we wouldn't even be a country without the French. We'd all be sipping tea right now.

Actually, if the French had supported the same polices toward the end of the 1700s they do today, we wouldn't be a nation or have nearly 300 million citizens.  Neither would we have self-determination.  Shortly after we fought for self-determination, so did the French.  Now they object to new members of that club???

20 posted on 06/17/2003 2:42 PM PDT by MilitaryBuff

[LurkedLongEnough]

I am very suspicious of this report. Here's a quote from a historical publication that confuses me over whether the people arrested were in fact terrorist or anti-terrorist. I got it from a search for "Maryam Rajavi" on Google.

"Blaming the victim instead of the villain only encourages the ruling mullahs to shed more blood in Iran and abroad. The terror tag against the Mojahedin is as unjust and unfit as it would have been against the anti-Nazi resistance in war-time Europe, against revolutionary forces in the American War of Independence and against the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa. Iran's Resistance Leader Massoud Rajavi made a public declaration on March 20, 2000: "I pledge, on behalf of the Iranian Resistance, that if anyone from our side oversteps the red line concerning absolute prohibition of attacks on civilians and innocent individuals, either deliberately or unintentionally, he or she would be ready to stand trial in any international court and accept any ruling by the court, including the payment of compensation.

"We concur with the Resistance's President-elect, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, who said in a message to the big rally by Iranians in Brussels in May 13: ""If the ruling mullahs and their accomplices deny that the vast majority of the Iranian people support this Resistance, why do they refuse to hold a free presidential election or election for a constituent assembly under UN supervision (and on the basis of the principle of popular sovereignty, not clerical supremacy)?"

[Grampa Dave]

Did hell just freeze over?

[Grampa Dave]

SOS Powell seems to be enjoying B$tch Slapping the Iranians, Syrians and the NKs in his part of the great foreplay that is going on with these 3 Axis of Evil countries.

[Guillermo]

Remember, the Ayatollah Khomeinie spent his exile in France, plotting the overthrow of the Shah from Paris.

[Bogey78O]

Actually the frogs who helped America were overthrown by the current crop of frogs. Very violently might I add.

[F16Fighter]

French officials said the raids had nothing to do either with the nuclear stand-off with Iran or the recent riots by young people in Tehran and other Iranian cities. They said the raids had been planned a month ago, based on an investigation into suspected terrorist activities which was launched in 2001.

One must always be suspicious of the Frogs' motives.

I suspect the arrests have only to do with retaliation for "late" payoffs to French "law enforcement."

[tgslTakoma]

From a Washington Times article published April 21, 2003:

The Mujahideen Khalq occupies a unique place in Washington politics, having enjoyed repeated expressions of public support from more than 150 members of Congress despite being listed as terrorists by the State Department.

Supporters say the group was placed on the terrorist list by the Clinton administration to encourage what the U.S. then considered a reform-minded administration in Tehran led by President Mohammed Khatami.

[tgslTakoma]

Oops, that link was to a cached version of the article. But it still works.

Interesting, and when I have some time I will do some deeper reading on this group.

At lunchtime today I happened by the Embassy of Surrender-Monkeys today and was a spectator to a demonstration, for a change. Approximately 50 supporters of Maryam Rajavi and her husband, and of the Peoples Mujahaddin(sp?) were across the street from the Embassy, giving the French what-for, for arresting, as two Iranian exile women told me, Iranian Resistance members. The women told me that a man had set himself afire this morning (in England, I think they said). And they told me that the French Government and the mullahs had come to a monetary agreement WRT the Resistance members in France. They told me that France was going to get $650 million for their work today and in future Iran Resistance roundups..

As I do not claim to be knowledgeable about this group, I cannot say with any certainty that their claim of France raking in dough from the present Iranian regime is either true or untrue; but it is worth my further study, I think.

They gave me a website address, which either I wrote down wrong or they recited incorrectly to me... I'm still trying to decipher my notes.

The people today were an equal mix of men and women (in western dress), with children and toddlers in strollers, peaceful but loud, had many home-printed signs, Maryam Rajavi t-shirts, a Radio Shack megaphone, and lots of energy. They said they had arrived at 10am and would be there until 5pm. As I drove by at 5:15, they were still there, but only about half as many as I saw at 2pm.

AS I said, I need to check them out a little more; but not right now. I have a couple of Hillary FReeps to prep for.

[Lady Heron]

I don't understand people who blindly hate the French. Is a true friend a yes man?

Their actions before and after the war have put them on the non-friend list. An enemy not a friend behaves as the French have toward us. The US wants them as friends, they have chosen otherwise.

[tgslTakoma]

I found this during my not-too-deep-as-yet search about info on the Peoples Mujahidin. Note the author of the letter, Ken Timmerman. From what I know of Ken, he does his homework before he offers an opinion.

July 23, 1997

Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen

Rayburn 2240

U.S. House of Representatives

Washington, DC 20515

Dear Ms. Ros-Lehtinen,

The Foundation for Democracy in Iran welcomes your opposition to the regime in Tehran, as expressed in the letter you made public today with Congressmen Gary Ackerman and James Trafficant, but we are concerned that you have fallen into a trap laid by a group that has been closely associated with the Tehran regime, the People's Mujahidin Organization of Iran (PMOI), also known as the Mujahidin-e Khalq (MEK), the National Council of Resistance (NCR), or the National Liberation Army (NLA).

The State Department has carefully detailed the MEK's record of kidnapping and murdering American citizens in Iran during the late 1970s. It is also documented the role played by the MEK in the Khomeinist revolution and the revolutionary governments between 1979 and 1981. During that time, MEK guerrillas assassinated in cold blood an estimated 3,000-5,000 sympathizers of the former regime. Contrary to Mr. Trafficant's statement this afternoon that the group had "purged" those responsible for the 1979-1981 murders, the group's leader at the time, Massoud Rajavi, remains in control of the group today.

We fully agree that the United States should take a firm stand against the Tehran regime. We are on record as fully supporting the U.S. policy of economic sanctions against the Tehran regime, and have advocated taking a tougher stance against the Islamic Republic's abysmal human rights record as well. The United States should act in cooperation with its allies, where possible, and unilaterally if that fails, to increase pressure on the regime. We fully believe that a strong, free, and democratic Iran would abandon the behavior the United States finds objectionable. However, we caution you that the MEK has shown that it does not support a democratic, pluralistic Iran, but instead is dedicated to bloodshed and an era of renewed radicalism. The group's own statement of principles (Maryam Rajavi's "16 points") explicitly excludes from any future democratic polity in Iran groups it finds objectionable or that disagree with its aims. Clearly, this is a recipe for more dictatorship, not for democracy.

As a human rights monitoring group, we are in contact with a large number of opposition groups from all across the Iranian political spectrum, both inside Iran and in exile. I can assure you that all these groups, whether former monarchists, leftist former allies of the Mujahidin, or members of the Iranian clergy who oppose the regime on religious grounds, totally reject the Mujahidin because of their totalitarian practices and their history of collaboration with the Khomeini regime.

One case in point was the "invasion" of Iran by Mujahidin troops in concert with Iraqi forces in April 1988. Well before Iran's Revolutionary Guards were able to deploy to ward off the MEK forces, teenagers and old men from frontier villages repelled the Mujahidin and inflicted heavy casualties on them, according to international wire service reports. While the Mujahidin disputes these wire service accounts, the group acknowledges that it was forced to call off its "march to Tehran."  We believe the future of Iran lies with the Iranian people, and the Iranian people have consistently and vigorously rejected the Mujahidin. Notwithstanding the group's propaganda, there is no objective evidence that the group can count on any support inside Iran. The group's record during the Iran-Iraq war, when its guerrillas fought side by side with Saddam Hussein's troops against Iranian forces, have earned it a reputation as "collaborators" with the enemy in the eyes of most Iranians. Its actions since then - which include the deployment of Mujahidin guerrillas to combat Kurdish opponents to Saddam Hussein in northern Iraq last year - have done nothing to efface this image of a group totally subservient to the orders of the Iraqi dictator.

We cannot believe that you would want to go on record as supporting Saddam Hussein, or a group that has been closely allied with the terrorist activities of the Khomeini regime in Tehran. We therefore urge that you withdraw your signature from this letter.

So you can better judge our group, which supports no political party or group in the domestic Iranian debate or in the United States, we invite you to review the attached statement we issued two days after the election of Hojj. Mohammad Khatemi as president of Iran on May 23, 1997, in which we argue that measurable changes in Iran's behavior must occur before the U.S. should alter its approach toward Tehran. We also invite you to visit our website at www.iran.org, and to review a letter similar to yours, drafted by FDI in cooperation with Senators Alfonse D'Amato, Trent Lott, Joseph Lieberman, and others, that was sent to the President on February 19 of this year (available at http://www.iran.org/news/970218.htm).

We look forward to working with you to promote freedom and democracy in Iran, but are convinced that using the regime's own methods, terrorism and violence - as advocated by the Mujahidin - will only lead to another disaster. There are many voices inside Iran who support these worthy goal, whose activities we would be happy to discuss with you at your convenience.

Sincerely yours,

Kenneth R. Timmerman

Executive Director

[return_fire]

These Iranian's should be embarrassed, they were captured by the french of all people.

[Destro]

Is this the same Iranian terrorist group the media said the State and or Defense Dept were courting after the fall of Saddam? If so, were the People's Mujahedin busted by the French because these terrorists seem to be making a deal with Washington?-emphasis on seems.

[DoughtyOne]

Interesting question.

My reaction is this. I suggest we spread it around that we've made a deal with half of France's secret police to help the Iranian people overthrow their government.

Then we spread it around that we made a deal with the other half to help Germany overthrow the French government.

The we go to work with a third group to see if we can't sell off France in a blue light special.

[jimbo123]

The Islamic Republic of France show their true colors again.

[Andy from Beaverton]

Heavily armed French police
Armed with what? Fowl language?