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 am an Iranian and I can speak for most Iranians!
I am reading your comments!
I do not understand why you tend to ignore the established facts here.
But let me tell you one thing:
We'd rather live under the rule of Mullahs than these stupid communists that your government supports.
I hope you do not accuse me of being a left wing or a liberal but this is the fact.
You may want to talk to some true Iranians about MEK terrorist group.
You need to read the rest of what I said.
There are congressmen and women wanting to take MEK off the FTO list. The MEK has been allowed to hold rallies and conferences in the U.S.
Wondering whether one or 2 sentences in an article may be correct, is not defending an entire website.
Yeah!
And Al-Qaeda is actively fighting us.
Should Iranians (Our Enemy) support them?
The US is NOT supporting the MEK.
We neutralized them. They agreed not to conduct attacks on anyone and in return, we agreed to let them live in their conclave and not wipe them off the face of the earth.
You may be right!
But I don't see that the way you described.
It makes us angry to see any cooperation between terrorists and Bush's government.
It makes us wonder if there is a war on terror going on at all.
It helps fade our hope in the US as a true ally in our fight against the Mullahs.
It makes us wonder if the US is about to replace an Islamic dictatorship with a Marxist one.
I guess Jackson and wtc911 (who always makes every body laugh) are not able to understand our concerns.
The author offers no support for his assertion that we're "supporting" this terrorist group.
I have...all trying to push the political agenda of an anti-American website without regard to their history.
Don't you think that NOT killing them sends a signal to other Muslims that we're not out to wipe them out?
Check State Dept web site.
You will find them on Foreign Terrorist group list but at the meantime, Pentagon supports them, congressmen and women support them and it makes me angry to see terrorists being free in the US.
How would you feel if it turns out that Mullah Khatami has sheltered Bin Laden in Iran?
I wish you would have wiped them out.
It could send a strong signal to Iranians and some critics of the war on terror!
If you count all the ones in the huge junk yard behind the MEK compound they did.
This article isn't from the Department of State.
Yes. They are on the foreign terrorist list.
But right now, they are a danger to no one.
Should we just kill them all? Wouldn't that show the rest of the Muslim world that we are unreasonable?
They aren't doing anything right now.
Seems you are blindly in love with right and whatever they do is correct!
"...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."
"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."
It seems to me the Army was protecting everyone in the hotel, not just one particular group. There were many foreign journalists, the hotel is under the full protection of the Army, and there was an increased danger of attack.
They are danger to Iranians fighting for their own democracy!
LOL! No, that would be the folks pushing this article for their anti-war efforts.
Really?
Their conclave has a LOT of women and children. (In fact, I think their spiritual leader is a woman and a lot of their "militia" is made up of women)
We should have just slaughtered them all?
I guess you would like to support MEK
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