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Locked on 05/04/2011 12:18:31 PM PDT by Admin Moderator, reason:
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Posted on 03/30/2011 7:12:26 AM PDT by MestaMachine
Edited on 03/30/2011 12:16:23 PM PDT by Sidebar Moderator. [history]
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With respect to my earlier post at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2696934/posts?page=426#426
on this thread about the attack on Iranian Dissidents, MEK.
The reason for the iraqi army’s attack on the MEK NOW is very clear if anyone has been staying up to date on them. They are NOT a cult, as was posted earlier, nor are they anything like what has been described earlier on this thread.
Here is the backstory on MEK.
When the Shah was in power, they wanted freedom for iran. They staged guerilla attacks against the Shah and his main perceived support which was, at the time, the USA.
Yes, they staged attacks against Americans and American interests in iran. They ALSO supported the takeover of the American Embassy when the mullahs took over.
Evil? Yes, to US.
To them, the US had supported a brutal dictatorship wherein any resistance to the dictator was not tolerated. Iran had all the potential in the world to become a truly great FREE country. The people were educated. They were pro-western, and for the most part, secular.
The abuses by Shah-an-Shah [King of Kings] Mohammad Reza Pahlevi and savak grew to almost supernatural proportions.
Many thousands of ordinary iranians were “disappeared’ or murdered outright for the slightest perceived slur against the shah, real or not. You could not even whisper his name without savak knowing. Retaliation against these “crimes of thought” were horrendous. Whole families disappeared never to be seen again. Torture was commonplace and almost routine.
We see the shah today through the lens of his betrayal by the Carter administration which in turn gave rise to the mullahs, but the hard truth is that the mullahs could have been prevented from ever coming to power if the US had held the shah in check and forced him to allow the freedoms his own people were asking for.
Instead, the CIA CREATED and TRAINED savak which grew until it held virtual power over every living iranian, including expats, wherever they were on the entire planet earth. They were even allowed to establish a special agency here, on OUR soil to do this AND monitor all expats and iranian students who had come here to study. savak’s hit squads operated with impunity here. Expats were kidnapped and forcibly returned to iran, never to be heard from again. No one in our OWN government stopped them or even tried, and most Americans had not the slightest hint this was even happening.
THIS is the reason the pahlevi family could never gain the support, either IN, or outside of iran, to stage a “triumphant comeback.” The iranian people remember..and they have NO trust in the pahlevis whatsoever.
The shah was as corrupt and brutal as the day is long; as evil and brutal as ever saddam hussein was. And everytime WE, and by we, I mean our government, backs this evil, the result is always the same. The people who are brutalized see US as their worst enemy and they will stand with any entity that promises to end it.
What you need to know about MEK, as opposed to iran’s republican guard, is that they did NOT support the mullahs either. They were actively trying to overthrow the mullahs just as hard as they had tried to rid themselves of the shah.
They were/are a far cry from being a cult. The disinformation out there about MEK came originally from savak, and then from the mullahs. It’s pure propaganda, folks.
They are actually REAL freedom fighters and have been since their inception. Their enemy is whoever brutalizes/oppresses the iranian people, whether it was the shah, with OUR complicity, or the mullahs who stole their country out from under them yet again.
Furthermore, many of our OWN intelligence people, TRUSTED people, and other respected leaders have tried to clear their slate and get the truth out there. Recently, a HUGE attempt by worthy individuals whose names you know, have been campaigning to have them finally removed from the US terrorist list. They would have been allowed to bring their message out in the open, HERE where it SHOULD matter.
When it started becoming clear to iran, and this administration, that this was going to be the likely outcome of said campaign, the order went out to destroy them utterly. US forces were ordered to stand down. FREEDOM for iran was never in the cards.
What has become painfully obvious to ME is that the truth will not only NOT set you free, it will get you killed. The world is upside-down. But YOU don’t have to be. Make it your business to find out the truth because the lies we have lived with and taken for truth are going to kill us too.
Intel Panel Wants Iran Dissidents Off Terror List
By Jennifer Griffin
Published January 21, 2011
As yet another round of talks gets under way in Istanbul to try to convince Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions, a bipartisan panel of top former national security experts has proclaimed further negotiations are likely to be futile and are instead urging President Obama to use a controversial dissident group to destabilize the Tehran regime.
The panel, which included Obama’s recently retired National Security Adviser James Jones, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey and former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge from the administration of President George W. Bush, as well as President Bill Clinton’s CIA Director James Woolsey and the top military commander for the Middle East from 1997 to 2000, Gen. Anthony Zinni, agreed almost unanimously that current and past policy to engage Iran has failed.
“Every legitimate effort, as well-intentioned as it may have been, has proven to be quite unsuccessful,” Ridge said. “In my judgment the Western world presently faces no greater threat than from Iran.”
Former CENTCOM commander Zinni added, “I am shocked and surprised that we still chase this illusion that there can be a meaningful dialogue with the regime.”
Jones, who stepped down as Obama’s national security adviser in November, recalled all the times that he and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were rebuffed in their attempts to reach out to Iranian officials.
"He who turns the other cheek gets hit with the other fist,” Jones said, quoting comedian Nipsy Russell. “I am tired of turning the other cheek when Iran is concerned,” adding “hope is not a strategy.”
All of the speakers, except notably Jones, unanimously criticized the current administration, and the previous administrations for which they worked, for not using a weapon that is already at the State Department’s disposal to counter Iran’s Islamist regime: embracing and unleashing the exiled Iranian opposition group known as the Mujahideen Khalq, or MEK, which has long been a thorn in the side of Tehran. It is currently listed as a “foreign terrorist organization” by the State Department, a designation that successive Democratic and Republican Presidents have been loathe to change.
According to the State Department, the MEK was designated a terror group in 1997 at a time when the Clinton administration was attempting to engage Iran. MEK is blamed for a string of attacks on U.S. diplomats, defense representatives and oil executives in the 1970s when Iran was a U.S. ally led by the autocratic Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
After the Iranian Revolution in 1979 it began to seek “the overthrow of the Iranian regime through its military wing.” It also “instigated a bombing campaign, including an attack against the head office of the Islamic Republic Party and the Prime Minister’s office, which killed some 70 high-ranking Iranian officials, including Chief Justice Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, President Mohammad-Ali Rajaei, and Prime Minister Mohammad-Javad Bahonar,” according to the State Department.
But what the State Department fails to note is that the MEK also provided the United States and the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency with a major intelligence breakthrough about Iran’s secret nuclear program. The MEK revealed on August 14, 2002 that Iran was building two nuclear facilities: centrifuges for highly enriched uranium at Natanz and a heavy-water reactor in Arak. The information stunned the world and embarrassed Iranian officials who had long maintained that its nuclear program was “peaceful.
” Woolsey called recent U.S. intelligence estimates of Iran’s nuclear program “laughable.”
“The worst and most irresponsible national intelligence estimate ever several years ago confused its headline with its footnote. Its headline was that Iran had stopped its nuclear program - nuclear weapons program,” Woolsey said. “The foot notes said. ‘Oh, by the way, it’s still enriching uranium.”
Taking note of recent reports that Israeli and U.S. scientists collaborated on a cyber “worm” called Stuxnet, which caused the centrifuges at Natanz to spin out of control, setting back Iran’s efforts to enrich uranium, Woolsey added: “Stuxnet may have bought us a year or so but it is not the ultimate victory over the Iranian nuclear program.”
More recently the assassinations and attempted assassinations of Iranian nuclear physicists were blamed by Iran’s Defense Ministry on MEK agents working for Israel’s Mossad. No group ever took responsibility for the attacks -- a bomb-rigged motorcycle killed a physics professor at Tehran University in January 2010 and on November 29 men on motorcycles drove up to two separate Iranian nuclear scientists and placed bombs on their car windows, killing one of the scientists as they drove.
But according to a statement from an MEK representative, "The MEK had nothing to do with the killing of Iranian nuclear scientists. In fact, the MEK has not carried out any military operations in the past 10 years, when it rejected violence. Indeed, there are reports that the two targeted scientists were supporters of the Green movement and the regime murdered one and injured the other. The assassinations had all the markings of Iranian intelligence."
According to a State Department spokesman, the MEK petitioned the State Department for review of its designation in 2008, and in January 2009 then Secretary Condoleeza Rice decided to maintain its designation, finding that the MEK did not demonstrate that circumstances had changed sufficiently to warrant revocation, as required by the Foreign Terrorist Organization statute. The organization appealed the decision in federal court.
On July 16, 2010 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit sent the case back to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for further consideration.
“We are currently working to comply with the court’s decision,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told Fox News, without indicating whether MEK would soon be delisted as a foreign terrorist organization, a designation which prevents it from gathering or raising money in the United States.
“If the MEK has renounced violence as it has, and in fact poses no threat to any U.S. personnel or interest and in fact has been of affirmative assistance to the United States as it has,” asked Mukasey. “Why does it stay on the list and why does it continue to be on the list of such organizations?”
Former New Jersey Democratic Sen. Robert Torricelli also called on Clinton to de-list the MEK as a terrorist group.
“The listing of the MEK as a terrorist organization by the United States government is wrong. It is wrong as a matter of law. It is contrary to the facts,” he said.
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Thanks for the ping!
Morning!
Ok so MEK is the lessor of evils and the best we have to gather intelligence and act on our behalf? I doubt this is without their own asperations in Iran though.
Since apparently Hillary has them now I wouldn’t be surprised if she doesn’t use lifting their terroist label as barter for some deal she wants in return.
The MEK currently seeks to overthrow the Iranian theocracy and install a democratic government that is headed, at least initially, by MEK leader Maryam Rajavi. The MEK opposes the Iranian regime that governs under Islamic code. Instead, the MEK wants to establish a government to follow a sixteen-point plan that stemmed from a 1995 conference, which ensures rights like the freedoms of speech and religion, adheres to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and improves ties with foreign governments, according to the *Center for Policing Terrorism.
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cpt.htm
hillary is fighting this.
humm-mmm then likely she wants something in return or something else altogether as a solution. Might be they have others lined up to take over if and when actions are taken against iran.
Did you read both posts on the MEK? There is so much disinfo out there, it’s simply amazing. Having been where the angels don’t go, and seeing the results of ...um....so-called “pragmatic” decisions, I can tell you that we have screwed it up royally thereby putting ourselves in certain danger because NOTHING, including rule by fear and terror, no matter which “side” it’s on, lasts forever and the day comes when the piper must be paid.
We are in that phase right now. obama is the strike that is supposed to deliver us into the hands of the enemy. But HE would not be there except for the allowance of unbridled sedition, greed, crime, and corruption to infuse itself into our government at virtually every level.
We saw ALL of this and did nothing to stop it. For decades we watched it happen. Our luck is running out now. They set up a total infrastructure while they still allowed us to have the illusion of freedom as an opiate. The drug is wearing off now. We are crashing. Our illusions are being shattered. The opium of an illusory free society is gone. They have stolen our wealth and our health. They control almost every facet of our existence. Once, it was by stealth. The facade of freedom coupled with a seemingly endless supply of material goods and goodies made us comfortable and even though we KNEW they were robbing us, it was okay because we still had enough to STAY comfortable.
When obama took office, the facade was rudely snatched away and the jones set in.
The NEW addiction is near total dependence on the government for anything and everything...NOT because that is what we WANT, but because we didn’t fight for what we HAD.
So how much is the rent on evils these days, and who is the lessee that's renting evils from MEK?
I know, you meant "lesser of evils", but it struck me funny.
MEK have been hanging in there for years and years, fighting when nobody else much gave a d*mn.
The interesting point in all this, to me, is SAVAK. How many of these guys were killed by the new power people in Iran? How many were taken over by the mullahs (I believe we have pictures of those people’s handiwork)? And did any of them escape to the US, perhaps along with the Shah, to do whatever they are doing now?
Yes I read both. And yes it is difficult to discern what is reliable information and that which isn’t. As we know all sides release their own propaganda and timing of as well. But as it plays out the dots become more apparent and the way things really are...but only if your looking for the truth.
This is the first I’ve heard of Mek...at least took note of them... as there are so many various groups operating out there. No doubt in order to confuse and confound as well as have backups to draw from if one gets put under the scope. The trails that link them as well.
I am fast coming to the place about all we as citixens can do, as things crumble, is prepare as best we know how to survive thru it all. But I doubt we’ll ever see our country as we have known it with everything gearing up and in motion for world governance.
All International leaders are positioning themselves for this now. We see it operating in the Middle East uprising as the international leaderships from various countries “joins” in the fray to find leverage.
For this we really are out of the loop in the information available which is reliable and solid...rather we have to sort thru the junk and the medias bias etc. to even begin to understand the direction and the real players out there.
The real truth often is in the shadows and behind the scenes as you well know. Never public knowledge until it’s tweaked and manipulated to be as palatable as possible to the general public in all nations.
You know Obama speaks to us exactly as the Mullahs and Imams speak to their people....many words saying nothing at all ....and he would do so for he sees the general public as way beneath him and unable to reason or think thru a matter sufficient enough to draw right conclusions.
I hear Bo’s approval is now at 19% double that for dis-approval. Beck just announced.
No coincidence, since he is trained as an imam.
savak was not only “taken in” but fairly welcomed by the mullahs...except for those who were “highly placed” personal friends of the shah. Evil gravitates to evil like white fuzz on a black suit.
“And did any of them escape to the US,”
you betcha. And they play us for fools.
We have another comedian...
LOL
Need that sometimes.
Is this kosher and ontopic?
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/04/05/first-responders-nypd-conduct-dirty-bomb-drill-in-nyc/
NYC DOES DIRTY-BOMB DRILL.
I’m beginning to think that what high level othuga people are warning their friends about getting 6 months of food and water . . . about . . .
is a series of jihadi nukes going off in the USA . . .
BTW,
The Comedian has been not only banned but nuked.
That is absolutely on topic, Quix. We know they have been smuggling toxic substances into the country. What we don’t know is how frequently or in what quantities. What’s more, even if the “government” was to jump right out there and give us an estimate, they would never say the truth because if they did, the public would “panic.” At least that’s their story and they WILL stick to it.
Didn’t know The Comedian was nuked! Why?
AGREED.
See FREEPMAIL re TC.
heads up
FWIW
The ninth circus just ruled AGAINST Arizona’s immigration law. Waiting for words from Jan Brewer...on Fox.
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