The Hill reported on Sunday that the U.S.-designated terrorist group the Mujahedin e Khalq (aka the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, aka the National Council of Resistance) has acquired lobbying help from Democratic powerhouse Akin Gump to support its removal from the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list.
To be fair to Akin Gump, plenty of GOPers have taken up cudgels for the MEK, though the direct cash payoff to them is less clear.
The MEK has for years lobbied aggressively via a myriad of front groups to be taken off the terrorism list. Shrewd lobbyists, they have moved well beyond their street corner and airports campaign (“support Iran’s starving children”) to “grassroots” organizations and hired guns. And I get why they don’t want to be on the terrorism list; it comes with a spate of sanctions and restrictions that are odious to most groups no matter their intentions. But what of their partisans? Do they know the MEK? If not, check out Michael Rubin’s piece on the MEK or this FBI report from 2004, the list of murdered Americans, the money laundering, the cult-like behavior, the … terrorism. Is it all a lie? Has the MEK seen the light? Or is this a way of trying to oust the foul regime in Tehran?
If this is an enemy/enemy/friend thing, let’s consider whether we wish to replace the creepy, Islamist, dictatorial mullahs with the creepy, Islamist, dictatorial cult. Seems a bad trade to me. The United States should be supporting democracy in Iran, not a one-for-one swap among murderers and thugs.
And here’s another question: Where’s the FBI and the Justice Department? A terrorist group is lobbying in the United States. It’s paying top political fixers to make its case. It’s paying speaking fees to former government officials. Where’s the money from? How’s it being transferred? And would it be okay for Hezbollah to do this? Al Qaeda?
An excellent post. Thanks for it.
Eat your heart out Danielle!
Former FBI director Louis Freeh said recently that his bureau was not consulted when the MEK was first listed in 1977 as a goodwill gesture to the tyrants who rule Iran.
Re the self-serving reference to Michael Rubin’s rants against the MEK, follow this link which crushed his unfounded and at times hysteric tirade.http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=5765
Unlike the mullahs’ Iran, this country is one laws. Even the Federal Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit said Secretary of State Rice got it wrong when she decided to maintain the MEK on the FTO list in 2009.
And your former colleague, James Woolsey described that decision such: “One thing we should no longer do, and this I join the others on this panel, is keep the MEK listed as a terrorist organization. In 22 years of practicing law I read a lot of legal decisions and I recently read the Circuit Court’s decision in the case involving the MEK versus the State Department and my experience and I think that of most lawyers who are interested in international matters is that courts ordinarily give a great deal of deference to the executive branch with respect to the conduct of foreign policy. This eloquently and well written decision of last July by the D.C. Circuit effectively says, quite bluntly, although it doesn’t use this particular analogy, that what the Department of State has done is what the red queen does in Alice in Wonderland when she is asked if first we’re going to have the trial and the verdict and then the execution she says no, execution first, then trial.”
And you know what, he did not receive a dime for say that.
You neocons better answer for the debacle you created in Iraq, handing that country to the terrorist mullahs of Iran on a silver platter.
The DOJ and the FBI know their business better than you know yours.
alexgeorge:
You mean FBI Director Louis Freeh recently stated that “his bureau was not consulted when the MEK was blaclisted in 1997.” Not 1977!!!
Incidentally, as a New York area resident, I have known Louis Freeh for more than 30 years now, and I can say with certainty that his character is flawless.
CNGS
Such a misleading post by Ms. Pletka. You reference Michael Rubin’s article which was yellow journalism at best. Here is the rebuttal to Mr. Rubin’s disinformation campaign against Iran’s largest most organized democratic opposition.
Missing the Mark on Iran: http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=5765
I see MEK trolls are here doing what they do best: Ad hominem attacks and personal name calling. No data to back up their claims or refute the claims of the authors… only personal attacks. Good job MEK!
Well said Winston. This is bizarre….. and reveals precisely the cult nature of the organization.
Winston and Escot:
I am not surprised by the self-serving superlative you have been messaging back and forth.
What data has Pletka persented other than two debunked HRW and RAND reports, the first written by an advisory board member of the most notorious, and now unmasked, Tehran lobby inside the Beltway, NIAC, and the second by a writer who had absolutely no background on the subject.
Re the cult issue, read the following link, where Tehran offered a security expert in Canada $80K to write a report describing the MEK as a cult. See: http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2010/07/05/14616126.html
As for the FBI report, I wonder whether that is an unclassified document! If not, then DoJ should really look into the conduct of Pletka in posting a non-public document.
That said, most of the allegations in that report is based on false testimonies of Iranian agents. The wild accusation that Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction were hidden in Camp Ashraf delivers the coup de grace to that report. Iraq did not have any weapons of mass destruction, let alone hiding them at Camp Ashraf.
Pletka, Rubin and their cohorts championed the fraudster Ahmad Chalabi, who fed them a whole host of lies as fact, fabricated by the Iranian regime.
If anyone is genuinely opposed to the mullahs of Iran, he/she would not make the absurd claim that the current regime is preferable to the MEK, no matter one’s differences with the group.
The fact is that Tehran fears no opposition group more than the MEK and as such, anyone wanting to see change for the better in Iran should at least refrain from recycling Tehran’s propaganda against the group.
And if Pletka does not want to take my word for this, she should walk over and ask John Bolton, whose room is probably down the hall from her’s.
I’m mad, and mad as hell, when I see unjustified criticism by a character who is none other than a worthless agent, whose unsubstantiated intelligence caused the geopolitical, regional and economic disaster this country is confronted with; not to speak of what is termed as “the lost American decade.”
Stay tuned for some very juicy stuff about what you folks have done to my people and my country!!!
CNGS:
Let me take a stab at responding not only to the author, but also for the edification of the fellow who has accused the PMOI supporters as merely engaging in “ad hominem attacks.”
How about the author and his fellow gang members shoving down our throats a crook by the name Ahmad Chalabi, an agent of the mullahs of Tehran and wanted for banking fraud by the Jordanian government?
What about the economic condition of this nation, drowned in debt, depression era unemployment, and the Chinese not only holding more than $1.3 trillion worth of US bonds, and playing us like a violin as they wish.
What about all the fishing the Chinese and other powers have done in the muddy waters while we were busy fighting an unnecessary war, contracting with countries in South America and the Middle East for natural resources at the cost of our nation’s economic well-being and geopolitical clout?
Now that some intelligent folks have come to the realization that the only alternative to the savages ruling Iran, is a group with a shinning record of close t a half century of struggle against the Sheik and the Shah, having irrigated the tree of liberty with the blood of more than 120,000 martyrs, 30,000 men and women in the summer of 1988 alone, everybody and their brothers, who enjoys some degree of interest in the mullahs’ survival, are beating their chest and admonishing them.
We have got to be serious and pragmatic!!! Calling the PMOI names and labeling them terrorists will not solve the problems this country will have to tackle. The truth of the matter is, that they are the most organized, disciplined and democratic force, capable of toppling the cancer of fundamentalism, reaction and backwardness, and the source of all the ills in the Middle East
CNGS
Danielle,
After reading your commentary, I went back and read the Hill article, and I found several major flaws (in my view) in that, so I post it for your own attention and that of your readers.
First, contrary to what you have stated, the Hill article does not say that the MEK hired the big law firm; it is the U.S. citizens in this country who obviously have every right to pursue their objectives within the framework of the law in this country.
Second, even the law stipulates that if an organization is wrongly designated, it can challenge the designation in the US Court of Appeals–DC Circuit. MEK is the only organization that is currently challenging its designation (based on what I searched on the Internet). The Court ruled, according to the Washington Post, on July 16, 2010 “A federal appeals court on Friday ordered the State Department to review its designation of the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran as a foreign terrorist organization, strongly suggesting the designation should be revoked.”
The State Department is currently reviewing the designation of the MEK. Even the State Department website (as of today) does not list any terrorist activities by the group post 2001.
Third, Upon searching the website of the U.S. Congress, I found several bi-partisan resolutions in favor of this group with a significant number of co-sponsors. All of those activities predate the hiring of this big name law firm. The most recent resolution is H.Res.60 “Urging the Secretary of State to remove the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran from the Department of State’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.” It has some 80 co-sponsors. Does the author suggest that all of these Members of Congress should be investigated by the FBI?
Forth, is the author opposed to the anti-terrorism law that our own U.S. Congress passed, and I suppose, the author being a senior advisor to then Senate Foreign Relations chair, Senator Jesse Helms, must have been aware of her boss’s positive vote to the AEDPA in 1996? The statute explicitly allows that if an organization is wrongly designated or the circumstances have changed, it can challenge the designation and get off the list. Now, what is wrong with that? If the group meets the legal criteria to be designated as terrorist, then it will remain on the list, and if not, it should get off the list. I don’t think those judges would have been affected by anything but evidence.
And finally, I searched the Internet to figure out when and why the group was designated, and I found a Los Angeles Times article dated 9 October 1997, reporting about the original designation of the MEK. Here is what the article says:
“The inclusion of the People’s Mujaheedin was intended as a goodwill gesture to Tehran and its newly elected moderate President Mohammad Khatami.” Later, the former US Assistant Secretary of State, Martin Indyk, told Newsweek that the designation was part of “the White House interest in opening up a dialogue with the Iranian government.”
At the end, my impression was that it is the ruling Ayatollahs and Rafsanjani family who have all the oil money and own pistachio farms; in that context, I believe, perhaps a better advise to our FBI and Justice Department is to investigate how Iran’s oil money is being spent on slick lobbying here to benefit Tehran and to discredit the opposition and how Tehran continues to evade sanctions laws and get the most sophisticated parts and equipment for its military shipped from America via third countries to Iran.
What? Ron Paul trolls now showing up supporting MEK now? LOL!
I thought US is a free country. How come author is not digging in to dictators rulling Iran’s lobbiest in Washington.
NIAC has been lobbying to restor relationship between Iran and US for many years now. The founder Trita Parsi is an agent of Mullah’s in US, who regularly visits State Department everyweek.
What type of discussion is going on in those face to face meetings. Why nobody digs in to that and does not even write one article about all the deals behind the seen even to this day between Obama’s administration and savages ruling Iran?
PMOI supporters are using their rights to challenge the US wrong policy so be it if it is to hire a strong lobby firm to use for their delisting.
As of right now PMOI supporters are being hanged kidnapped in the streets or from their works in Iran just because of their support.
Why the author is not concern about that and doesn’t write anything about them. So they deserve to be hanged, left to die or beaten to die or disappeared.
Everone is hiring a lobbiest? healthcare companies, oil cartels, cars,…. have a lobby firm to represent them. Why can’t an opposition group to a savage dictatorship in Iran hire a lobby firm for this unjust US department action.
The court has already rulled in PMOI behalf and gave State Department 180 days to either provide new evidence or delist PMOI, that was July 16, 2010, which is 11 months ago.
To this date state department hasn’t provide any new evidence. Why no one is asking Obama’s adminisration of what they are doing taking their time so long.
I am sure many consultants and groups are being our TAX money to reivew all documents or come up with new bogus documents by State Department. Why no one is asking question about that? It is our money afterall spent for these reviews.
I am sick of weak US foreing policy in Obama’s administration in Iran. He keeps saying he is inspired by Iranians but has shown no real support except toloreting Iran and its agents in here. Shame on us with this weak policy and shame on us to write such articles questioning the rights of a group and their supporters.
The author showed its weak reasining by bringing a code from an outdated article belonged to 2004.
The author is better off to spend some time to dig in to Iran’s lobbiest in the US and Washington and millions that they are speding in the streets of Washington.
hi, danielle pletka this is ali i would like to say shame on you with such an article which is not clear with code from robin ugly article about MEK. i have been working at washington .dc about 20 yrs and have a lots of experience.the pmoi is the only legitimate Iranian people resistance because the iranian have been trying to have freedom and democracy for last 100 yrs. what you are doing is just ignoring the fact. wake up this is computer ERA. YOUR LIES WILL NOT TRAVEL A LOT.please look for fact and truths.
Federal Court of Appeals for DC Circuit, FBI Director, CIA director, members of Congress, and European countries, all investigated the issue of MEK and they all came up with no evidence of any terrorist actives. There is one thing clear that MEK was put on terrorist list because of some lobbyist in Washington were trying to open up relation with the most dangerous state sponsor terrorist regime in 1997. Let us correct that mistake and not listen to people that at the end of the day helping dictator rulers of Iran.
AH
Ms. Pletka is making confusing attacks and accusations against the only democratic and viable group that is standing to the vicious mullahs of Iran.
Her assertions are half true as best. Yes, former Republican government officials have supported MEK but so have the Democrats. From John Bolton to Howard Dean, from Tom Ridge to Patrick Kennedy, etc, etc. have all stood up and very clearly supported MEK and dismissed the unjust terrorist listing. So have the members of Congress from both sides of the aisle. They have all questioned the designation. These people have done their homework and know exactly what they are talking about, unlike Ms. Pletka who is blindly throwing accusations.
Is Ms. Pletka also concerned about the Iranian regime’s lobby, NIAC and Trita Parsi, going around and supporting the number one enemy of this country? Is she concerned that they freely feed the media, the State department and others against the Iranian opposition, Iranian people and have been instrumental in the policy of appeasement that the US has followed towards the Iranian government for years?
Louis Freeh very clearly states that Iranian regime was behind the killing of Americans in Khobar and Beirut. What did our government do to counter them? Ordered FBI to play low key on the information because of our love for the so-called moderates within the Islamic Fundamentalist regime!! And that is exactly why MEK was placed in the list to begin with. This was a request from Mullah Khatami in order initiate relationships with the United States. And look what happened????
There is no democracy in your group, period! You have no rights, no choice, no family that you are permitted to be with! All and all you are slaves of Maryam and Masoud Rajavi! You have no elections, you have no freedom of choice for religion, you are not permitted to marry, and upon joining the group your children were separated fro you all and send to military training. So TELL ME WHAT ARE YOU ALL ABOUT?! WHAT DO YOU DO IN AN AVERAGE DAY? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE UNTIL NOW, and above all HOW CAN YOU LIVE WITH YOURSELVES knowing that you have done what you’ve done!
Hey Daniel,
You have your facts wrong, your reasoning upside down, and your judgment blind. Out of respect for your colleagues in Washington , you need to be more thoughtful in writing such articles.
Somehow all these MEK members SOUND THE SAME ALL THE TIME!
Kudos to you, Danielle, for telling it like it is. Stay strong – the MEK is very organized and … as you can see from the many aggressive/incorrect comments in response to this article … they will attack, attack, attack anyone who calls them out.
The MEK is denounced in Iran by the Green Movement leaders and its members. Human Rights Watch reports that MEK commits extensive human rights abuses against its own members at Camp Ashraf, including “torture that in two cases led to death.” A Rand report commissioned by DOD found that the MEK is a cult that utilizes practices such as mandatory divorce, celibacy, authoritarian control, forced labor, sleep deprivation, physical abuse, confiscation of assets, emotional isolation, and the imprisonment of dissident members.
Danielle said it best when she said: “… do we wish to replace the creepy, Islamist, dictatorial mullahs with the creepy, Islamist, dictatorial cult. Seems a bad trade to me.”
And shame on the MEK for using scare tactics and smear campaigns to scare those who’ve exposed them for who they really are!!
HRW report you reference was debunked by an independent mission report by the European Union ( http://www.mojahedin.org/links/books/881219_epreport-withcover.pdf).
Regime lobbyist continue to try to pass off the green movement as a product of the so called reformists within the clerical regime. Mousavi and the Kadivar types denouncing the MEK is something to be proud of. The day has long past in which the butchers and Khomeini apologists of yesterday can change color to fool the Iranian people. Mousavi was a means to an end. That end is regime change. The people in the streets were chanting down with the velayat e faghi and death to khamenei. The green movement long passed the so called reformists by.
It is no coincidence that many of the student leaders and political prisoners have ties to Camp Ashraf. It is no coincidence that those being executed like Ali Saremi, Jafar Kazemi, and Mohammad Haj Aghaie are all MEK supporters. Even the mother of the Fathi brothers who were executed last month in Isfahan called in to the MEK satellite program twice this week to express her solidarity with the pro MEK/Camp Ashraf rally to be held in Paris on Saturday. A rally which will bring together tens of thousands of Iranians (last years brought together almost 100,000 people).
So get your facts straight.
Wow. Thou potestesth too much thou Mooj stooj. One simple “fact” alone reveals what you are. When you attempt to smear Danielle as a “lobbyist” for the regime, you are utterly out of your mind. Any fair minded observer not under the influence of a cult would realize that Ms. Pletka has actually been one of the most “fervent” in her opposition to the IRI…. from various neoconservative perches. Yet as you’re losing the argument on the merits, you resort to utter fiction yourself.
Re the descredited RAND report, suffice it to say that the guy who oversaw it was James Dubbins, a well-known pro-engagement with Tehran character, who happened to be a late night chatter partner of former Iran ambassador to the UN, Javad Zarif, at New York City coffee shops.
For a through debunking of that bogus report, which would not even qualify as a freshman term paper, read http://www.executiveaction.com/randreport.
And one more thing. The original post by Pletka and this one by her cheerleader EN123 (Michael Rubin?) seem to suggest that in dealing with Tehran, the murderous tyrants should be maintain in power.
Thanks but no thanks! The advice simply does not wash, not the least with the Iranian people.
Interesting you all are relying so heavily on “executive action” provided “materials” — the very private organization that has been hosting these PMOI luv fests. (and paying the fat honorariums to top government figures, including Lee Hamilton)
Tom,
Facts are not affected by who brings them to light. The fact is the Dobbins regularly met with Javad Zarif and had many discussions with him about how to entice the mullahs to engage in dialogue.
The fact is the author of the RAND report had no expertise whatsoever to write about this subject and that he lied to his teeth is narrating the interaction between the MEK and the Coalition forces at the outset of the Iraq war.
He lied when he wrote that no member of the MEK would be harmed if repatriated to Iran. Three MEK sympathizers (two of them in their 60s) were hanged in late 2010 and early 2011 simply for visiting their children in Camp Ashraf.
Judge the rebuttal to the RAND report on the basis of its substance and not its author, who by the way knows a whole lot more about terrorism, Iran, the MEK and U.S. policy than the authors of the RAND report.
I actually know Dobbins and find him a respectable public servant in every respect. I also happen to know Javad Zarif….. professionally, realize he’s under enormous pressures right now….. but my guess is from your vantage point, there’s no differences…..
But while I’m at it, I’ve got a question for you, since I’m guessing you work for Executive Action, the firm that has been putting on these pro-PMOI conferences and paying out the handsome retainers to various prominent speakers…..
I see that Neil Livingstone is your CEO and no less than James Woolsey is chair of the advisory board….
My question sir, where’s the money coming from to pay for these conferences and huge endorsements?
Why won’t you open your books if you’ve got nothing to hide?
By the way… “Facts” are precisely affected by who writes…. er, who “creates” them….. Executive action is an obvious lobbying organization…. on behalf of the PMOI/MEK….
Hey, got another question for you: if the PMOI is truly such a “democratic” organization, when was the last time they held an election from within that permitted a change in leadership?
The appeasement policy that has been and is currently being used when dealing with Iran for the last 3 decades is the dirtiest policy that has ever been established. This policy dates back being used for the first time in, “Iran gate” when Colonel North went to Iran with a Colt (gun), Cake, and a Bible in tow. The reporter from CNN, “Christian Amanpour” as well as her husband “James Rubin” who served as President Clinton’s Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs and Chief Spokesman for the State Department as well as Clinton’s Foreign Affair Minister “Madame Albright” and “Richard Murphy” and “Gary Sick” from HRW and of course there servant “Chris Costello” have used and continued this policy with the so called President of Iran “Ayatollah Khatami”. The product of appeasing the Iranian government has been Ahmadinejad. My point being is if we continue to appease the Iranian government where are we heading from Ahmadinejad?!?! This is and should be a concern not just for myself and my people but to the world. As the nuclear race continues in Iran we are all in great jeopardy. The only organization that has been opposing this oppressing regime is “Mojahedin Khalgh”.
“The appeasement policy”? Where do you live? And which media news do you watch? There is no “The appeasement policy” from what we all see. In fact Iran is one of the most pressured and sanctioned and obsessed on country in the world! Of course thanks to traiters like yourselves who feed US also your false stories, this pressure keeps getting more intensive. Peace with Iran is not to your advantages and your livelihood depends on this intense animosity, and therefore you fuel it and feed it as much as you can. But in general when we all hear on your claims and the new role playing you have taken on as “Peace Loving”, “Freedom Seeking” “Democracy Seeking” group, we laugh at your audacity for even mentioning such phrases which are so remote from the truth, since you are seeking none of the above. You just WANT TO GET DELISTED SO THAT YOU CAN COLLECT MORE OF OUR HARD EARNED TAX DOLLARS, and conduct more of your mischief in the middle east!
Please read this great article: http://iransnews.wordpress.com/2011/04/19/the-secrets-of-camp-ashraf/
Ohhhhhhhhh Now I know who you are Danielle. After little research I found that you support foreign Iranian spies. That have led us to a war with no end and has taken its toll on our economy and our public image to the world!!!
For all those individuals who do not take my word for it check out the link below… Cheers!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danielle_Pletka
Pletka was a strong supporter of Iraqi opposition leader, Ahmed Chalabi, even after it emerged he was being investigated by the US authorities as an Iranian spy. Pletka defended Mr Chalabi saying that he had been “shoddily” treated and that C.I.A. and US State Department people had been fighting “a rear guard” action against him.[1]
another Mooj stooj….. TROLLING out there to try to smear anyone who dares to nail the PMOI cult to the wall. I’m actually VERY impressed that even prominent “neoconservative” writers (such as Pletka and Michael Rubin) have been rather firm and sharp lately in daring to call the PMOI spade what it is….. Whatever our differences about the regime in the IRI, there’s precious LITTLE legitimacy inside Iran for supporting the Mooj cult…. Nothing would more undermine the chances for positive reform that for the US to even appear to be supporting the Mooj
Over 80 000
http://www.daylife.com/photo/06kHa2F9MlaOz
Exiled Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi (L) greets former mayor of New-York, US Rudy Giuliani (C) and US senator Robert Torricelli part of a rally organized by Iranian opposition movement People’s Mujahedeen of Iran to call for the respect of human rights at the Ashraf camp that houses thousands of exiled Iranians in Iraq on June 18, 2011 in Villepinte, north of Paris.
AND WE ALL KNOW WHO YOU ARE MAX SAATCHI, if indeed that is your name! You are an MEK member, whose function is blog control, who frequent EVERY SINGLE blog and Article on MEK, and I know this because I also frequent EVERY SINGLE blog and article on MEK, since I have done extensive research on your group, and believe you all to be an EXTREMELY DANGEROUS and unreliable ally for the US.
You’re darn right Michael Rubin that the PMOI is organized, disciplined, patriotic, and democratic like the Founding Fathers; and something else you and your kind can’t even comprehend, is that they have offered the greatest price and sacrifice, their life and their being, for the cause of liberation of their people.
You think that all these distinguished Americans and their European counterparts simply came around to support these courageous souls for their personal interests and checked their patriotism at the door to speak for the organization, ignoring their reputation and the strategic interests of the US?
I advise you to follow the glorious annual gathering of the Iranians in Diaspora in Paris tomorrow, June 18th and learn some lessons about the support and the popularity these people enjoy outside the country where more than 100,000 people assemble every year to show their allegiance to the their Children of the Iranian Liberation, a historic and monumental struggle against the barbaric regime in Tehran… Stay tuned for more developments…
By the way, of all the pontifications you have put forth, the statement about the “organized nature of the PMOI,” is most truthful one…
CNGS
CNGS you are obviously a member of MEK and therefore not objective. The biggest problem that you people have is with the actual population of Iran. You are NOT “FREEDOM LOVING” your organization has never permitted any of you any freedom. How could you know the meaning or the taste of freedom. Your cult like organization has kept 70% of their members by force and threats. Women and men live in separate quarters. 100,000 gathering IS NOTHING in COMPARISON TO 73,000,000 in IRAN, and 10,000,000 expats out of Iran who ALL from all groups and denomination are opposed to your group.
Why doesn’t Akin Gump’s lobbying activities on behalf of a terrorist organization subject it and its’ lawyers to potential criminal prosecution for violating the federal anti-terrorism statutes? Consider this: On June 21, 2010, in the case of Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, Docket No.: 08-1498, 561 U.S. ___(2010), the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, held that even lawyers cannot, without violating the applicable federal anti-terrorism statutes, provide material support to designated terrorist organizations—even where the support was meant to promote the peaceable, lawful conduct of the terrorist organizations! The Supreme Court wisely reasoned that because the lawyers’ legal services can be diverted by the terrorist organization to advance terrorism in multiple ways, lawyers who provide even so-called lawful support to terrorist organizations can be held accountable for committing a serious federal criminal offense.
why do you people remove my earlier posts ??? I love the the MEK , if you thing “we” the iranian people don’t support them, why are you so scared to remove them from your list … remove them, and we’ll show you how much we support them …
Excuse the lack of subtlety – but you cant possibly be so blind as to fail to see that the questions you posed here are their own answers, eh?
And here’s another question: Where’s the FBI and the Justice Department? A terrorist group is lobbying in the United States. It’s paying top political fixers to make its case. It’s paying speaking fees to former government officials. Where’s the money from? How’s it being transferred? And would it be okay for Hezbollah to do this? Al Qaeda?
The point is, they are not terrorists, and no one actually ever believed that they were.
Dear Va Bayad,
You are stating with such vehement certainty that “The point is, they are not terrorists, and no one actually ever believed that they were.” Well the Alqada’s and Talibans and many many other organizations that US deems as terrorists, some also deem as “they are not terrorists, and no one actually ever believed that they were.” should they all send their reps and money and funds to the statesmen and gongressmen and obwomen to buy their lobbying support? should Hamas do the same? Now some in US are grooming this group to
apply pressure on the current regime in Iran. But by “sleeping with the enemy” and doing business with the Mobsters your short term objectives may be achieved. But this group is widely disliked and detested by the general population of Iran. The auther here is CORRECT! If you are seeking to replace the current regime of Iran, YOU SHOULD THROW YOUR WEIGHT BEHIND A RESPECTABLE & DEMOCRACY LOVING MAN & WOMAN and help them get settled in Iran. The general public is mainly discontent in Iran due to the imposition of Islamic rules and laws to people who are not that religious. This group is 10 times more harsh than the current regime, ARE FANATIC ISLAMISTS, and above all are COMMUNISTIC in their philosophy. So by the mere knowledge that this group is being groomed for Iran, the 85% discontent population WILL THROW THEIR SUPPORT behind the current regime, to avoid stepping out of a puddle and drowning in a well!
Even those of who do NOT want the current regime, would never support MKO. The people who hate MKO the most are relatives and friends of those who joined this cult. MKO has about three thousand supporters (leftovers from the revolution). They ARE, however, very organized and appear to be many. They are not. US will be wrong to think that MKO is an option to challenge IR aka satanic republic.
More sanctions are needed. US should concentrate on Humanitarian issues.
Danielle,
This op-ed on Foxnews.com is criticizing the FBI report you cited:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/08/22/its-time-to-lift-terror-tag-from-iranian-opposition-group-mek/
It’s a pretty lame rebuttal that just nitpicks at a couple points raised in the document (http://www.american.com/archive/2011/FBI%20-%20REPORT.pdf), but it’s worth a response. The author has advocated for the MEK in a variety of places, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a financial stake in this, just like Dean, Mukasey, etc.
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i thing You mean FBI Director Louis Freeh recently stated that “his bureau was not consulted when the MEK was blaclisted in 1997.” Not 1977!!!
Incidentally, as a New York area resident, I have known Louis Freeh for more than 30 years now, and I can say with certainty that his character is flawless.
al queda is not sure but it,s critical things fbi jugment was clear