Posted on 07/27/2005 1:40:09 PM PDT by F14 Pilot
The U.S. Government is now openly supporting the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, an Iranian resistance movement designated as terrorist organization by the US State Department. On June 20th of this year, the Mujahideen-e-Khalq held a conference at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, which is where many foreign journalists stay and is under the full protection of the U.S. Army. I was in the area of the hotel that day, and saw at least 10 U.S. tanks heading in the direction of the hotel to provide additional security. I knew of the conference in advance, because of a report issued to all NGO's working in Iraq, which mentioned that the conference would take place. The report warned of an increased danger of attacks against the hotel, as anti- U.S. insurgents were likely to attempt to disrupt the conference [1].
The Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) is a Marxist oriented Iranian resistance organization founded in the 1960's to topple the pro- western regime of Reza Shah. Since that time, MEK has carried out scores of attacks and assassinated a number of Iranian government officials. MEK killed several American military and civilian personnel in Iran during the 1970's, and assisted in the occupation of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979 where American civilians were held hostage. Though MEK participated in the 1979 revolution, which toppled the Shah, once the Ayatollah Khomeini consolidated power in Iran, MEK moved their headquarters to Paris and continued resistance activities against the Islamic Republic. In 1981, MEK bombed the offices of the Islamic Republic Party, killing 70 high-ranking Iranian officials. MEK established its military headquarters in Iraq in 1986, where Saddam Hussein became their main source of funding and protection. In return, the MEK fought alongside Iraqi forces during the war against Iran in the 1980's, and assisted Saddam's security forces in putting down the Kurdish and Shiite revolts after the first Gulf War in 1991. The majority of Saddam's recently discovered mass graves are filled with the Shiite and Kurdish dead from this uprising. MEK military operations against Iranian targets continued through the 1990's. The U.S. Department of State added the MEK to its official list of terrorist organizations in 1997, and shut down the organization's Washington, DC office in 2003 [2].
During the U.S. invasion of Iraq, MEK forces in Iraq surrendered to U.S. forces and turned over their military hard wear, including several thousand tanks, armored personnel carriers, anti-aircraft guns, and other vehicles. Despite denying suspected terrorists from Afghanistan and elsewhere prisoner of war status under the Geneva conventions, the US granted this status to detained members of MEK in Iraq [3].
Support for the MEK reveals one of the advantages the U.S. has acquired by occupying Iraq. The country can now be used as a staging post for carrying out attacks against regimes hostile to U.S. interests in the region, whether through proxy organizations such as MEK, or by attacking such countries directly by dispatching U.S. forces based on Iraqi soil. U.S. planners are currently somewhat constrained from using the latter option due to the difficulty they face in pacifying Iraq, so the first option, namely supporting terrorist organizations that are trying to destabilize the Iranian regime, will likely be their preferred course of action until U.S. control of Iraq is fully consolidated.
So when Paul Wolfowitz promised Iraqis in 2003 that the US would hunt down the "monsters" that assisted Saddam in digging the mass graves in 1991 [4], the Bush administration was in fact just beginning its support for some of the direct perpetrators of these crimes. Also revealing is U.S. criticism of the new Iranian president elect, due to his alleged involvement in holding U.S. embassy personnel hostage in 1979. Though the U.S. admits the MEK was involved in the same incident, White House support for this terrorist organization continues. This kind of hypocrisy reveals much about what the global "war on terror" is really about. It's not a war against terror as such, but rather a war of terror to subdue resistance to the US designs in the region.
Sources:
[1] The organization which provides these security reports does not allow them to be cited publicly, and thus I cannot indicate the name of the source. The report for June 19th, 2005 stated the following: "A large conference involving the mujahadeen kalk and sponsored by the Iraqi Government is scheduled to take place in the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad 20th June, this may lead to insurgent attempts to disrupt the conference, HOM are advised to advise their staff to avoid this area."
[2] US State Department, Patterns of Global Terrorism 2002 (pdf). See specifically Appendix B: Background Information on designated foreign terrorist organizations, pg. 115 for information on the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq
See also this description of the group from Globalsecurity.org.
[3] Why the US granted 'protected' status to Iranian terrorists, The Christian Science Monitor, 07/29/2004.
[4] New York Times, July 20th, 2003.
I'd rather live under the rule of idiot Mullahs than live under the rule of bunch of marxist/stalinist terrorists!
I guess no body can handle the fact here and these people tend to ignore the real story!
I just don't see how taking them off that list is going to prevent them from being put back on the list if they attack anyone.
Someone needs to explain this to me.
Well, I watched F9/11 in Tehran and I did not like it!
But these 2 stories are totally different!
Wait a minute...
There's like 3000 of them.
There's no way they could take over Iran by themselves.
Actually it does for most people.
More like a JDAM.
(what's that?)
Not for me!
I hate MEK!
The root of the stories are different, the nature of the people who wrote and shaped the stories are not.
Yeah... But I am hearing they are waiting to receive air support from US and act like Afghan Northern Alliance.
I will be the one fighting them if they ever try to get into the country!
I dislike the Mullahs very much but I hate these stupid terrorists more!
You haven't replied my question:
Do you support US-MEK relation?
I haven't even been to the site. I can tell from the article which side they're on. I don't need to visit.
I repeat, ignoring all that's written in an article, because you don't like the website or the newspaper or the person, is a tactic and rationale of closed-minded DU'ers.
And not very intelligent.
Where did you hear that?
Yes I have actually. I won't waste my time legitimizing propaganda from an anti-American site. The information contained in this thread is not from a creditable source.
I can provide you with links and news stories on that.
It takes a little bit time but I have heard/read about it too many times so far!
Okay!
You seem to ignore the very true fact!
Go ahead.
From what I can tell, that may be what the MEK wants.
But that isn't what they're going to get.
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