The US has again warned the Iranian dissident group Mujahadin-e Khalq (MEK) that they must vacate vacate the Iraqi base Camp Ashraf and said if they don’t leave it will harm their chances of being delisted from the State Department’s list of terrorist organizations.
Daniel Benjamin, the State Department’s coordinator for counter-terrorism, said the MEK must move out by the Iraqi government’s deadline on July 20.
The MEK has a long history of terrorist activity going back to the 1970′s and it remains on America’s official list of foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) and has the goal of overthrowing the Iranian government. Because of this goal, there has been a big money push by many influential people in Washington to get the group removed from the State Department’s terrorist list, presumably to make it eligible for US funding to act against the Iranian regime.
As recently as 2007, a State Department report warned that the MEK, retains “the capacity and will” to attack “Europe, the Middle East, the United States, Canada, and beyond.” In 2002, the Bush administration claimed Saddam Hussein’s support for the MEK ”terrorist” group justified a US invasion of Iraq.
After an extended and expensive lobbying effort on the part of the MEK, a congressional resolution was recently signed by 99 members of Congress asking the State Department to change the status of the group.
And as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told US lawmakers earlier this year, “Given the ongoing efforts to relocate the residents, MEK cooperation in the successful and peaceful closure of Camp Ashraf, the MeK’s main paramilitary base, will be a key factor in any decision regarding the MEK’s FTO status.”
Another advantage to being able to fund the MEK with US taxpayer money is that Israel's perceived enemies in the US and all over the world could be murdered by people with Iranian surnames with even more of your money… …if it happens in the US, I wouldn't necessarily count on their patsy-stories falling apart with much fanfare, especially if they're accompanied by a real hard charge to war with Iran. Just watch the 'patriots' eat it up like with the last two frauds.
Talking about frauds!! Your false proposition that US taxpayer money funds MEK is preposterous and at best naiive. The call for delisting of the MEK is free speech expression and is funded by their families and loved ones and friends in US and around the world, in Iranian Diaspora and from world citizens who care and share their ideal for a free democratic Iran.
I made no such assertion in the present tense.
The word "democracy" has been sufficiently abused as a tool to "justify" imperial aggression to the point that it no longer has any stand alone functional validity. It has been made nothing more than an emotive propaganda phrase. The same can be said for the words "freedom" and "terrorist".
MEK is an Iranian insurgent army. Why is MEK based in Iraq, an allied nation of Iran? The only legitimate business the US has in this problem is to decide whether to take these people in as political refuges or to walk away.