When the News Media Erases US-Israeli Terrorism
(Using Mojahedin Khalq, MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult)
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... Today it was revealed that Israel has been funding, arming, and training the Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK), designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, to conduct terrorist attacks killing Iranian nuclear scientists. Anonymous U.S. officials confirmed to NBC News that allegations of this Israeli-MEK connection are accurate. This is a story of national and international significance and, while it was published by NBC, it has been completely absent from the mainstream media. The U.S. has supported terrorism (and conducted its own state terrorism) innumerable times in the past without appropriate coverage in the news media ...
John Glaser, February 09, 2012
http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2012/02/09/when-the-news-media-erases-us-israeli-crimes/
Today it was revealed that Israel has been funding, arming, and training the Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK), designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, to conduct terrorist attacks killing Iranian nuclear scientists. Anonymous U.S. officials confirmed to NBC News that allegations of this Israeli-MEK connection are accurate. This is a story of national and international significance and, while it was published by NBC, it has been completely absent from the mainstream media.
Hey, I’m no idiot. I know the news media is incredibly biased in favor of powerful institutions and especially the state. But I don’t think I was naive to actually expect some coverage of this news on the day it broke. I scoured the major news media – CNN, MSNBC, Fox, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Daily Beast, al Jazeera English, my twitter feed and even my RSS feed (both of which are filled with the kind of dissident material that could spark the interest of Homeland Security) – and nothing. Virtually no coverage.
The U.S. has supported terrorism (and conducted its own state terrorism) innumerable times in the past without appropriate coverage in the news media. But this story of Israeli support of the MEK isn’t about some obscure, chronically marginalized issue. We’re not talking about U.S. support for murderous Colombian paramilitaries, an issue that has never piqued the interest of Americans. The issue of the impending conflict with Iran, however contaminated by false statements and jingoistic war propaganda, has certainly received its fair share of coverage. This is a mainstream issue.
This is a situation where the U.S. government’s closest ally, receiving billions in annual aid and unmatched diplomatic cover, is cooperating with a group that the State Department itself characterizes as a terrorist organization, to conduct assassination programs against innocent people in a sovereign nation. Taken in isolation, this is bad enough. But this kind of behavior has the potential to destabilize a very precarious situation and possibly suck the United States into another war in the Middle East. And these facts have now been confirmed by U.S. officials. I can’t imagine a more headline-worthy revelation.
But the news media is so subservient to the U.S. government and the credibility of its allies that this momentous story isn’t just twisted or lied about like America’s other propaganda – it’s erased. Whitewashed. Never happened.
It may be more enlightening at first, for those dismissing my observation as wacky conspiracy, to think about al Jazeera instead of the mainstream news in America. During the Iraq war, al Jazeera was often turned to in order to get the hard-hitting stories that the U.S. media couldn’t and wouldn’t report. It was “alternative.” They’ve since evolved and have had lots of questionable coverage that unfortunately overlaps that in the U.S. media. But why would a news organization, based in the region in which these Israeli terrorist attacks have taken place, whitewash this story?
Consider the politics of the region. The Gulf Arab states for a long time have been on the side of Israel and the U.S. when it comes to the issue of Iran. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, etc. – fear Iranian influence in the region because it crowds out their own. The Saudi King, for example, not only has secretly urged the U.S. to attack Iran, but has a strong interest in seeing Iran further isolated by eliminating its one regional ally, Syria (which is why Saudi Arabia has reportedly funneled support to the rebel Free Syrian Army and why it supported the Arab League’s Security Council resolution for intervention in Syria). Al Jazeera, which is based in Qatar, would be going against the interests of its owner and government (one in the same) if it appropriately covered revelations about Israeli terrorism in Iran.
Virtually the same calculations exist for the American media. Washington consistently pushes misinformation about the nature of Iran’s nuclear program (despite a near-consensus on the part of the intelligence and military community that Iran’s nuclear program is entirely civilian in nature) and demonizes the Iranian leadership because Iran lies outside Washington’s sphere of influence in the world’s most geopolitically important region. The news media reflects the state’s interests, both because ruffling the feathers of their commanders in Washington is against their own interests and because of what I call the “culture of regurgitation” in American journalism (“if my government says it, I’ll say it too”).
The focus of the media today, aside from the painfully stale political horserace, was the bank’s mortgage settlement and Syria. Regarding the former, there was gratuitous praise heaped on the Obama administration for overseeing a $26 billion settlement from the nation’s five biggest banks for their role in the mortgage meltdown (this, of course, after having colluded with banks to screw millions of people and bilk the economy out of far more than $26 billion). Regarding the latter, as I write these words CNN is running a story about Iran’s alleged material support for Syria’s killing of civilians.
I’m going to maintain my naiveté for another 24 hours. Let’s see if Israeli terrorism against Iran gets any coverage tomorrow.
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Also
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=11599
Senior Iraq MP: Iraqi Govt. not recognize Maryam Rajavi (Co leader of Mojahedin Khalq, MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult terror group)
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... “Our decision regarding the MEK has been made based on our territorial integrity,” he added. The Iraqi MP went on to say that they will be transferred to another location and “we’ve facilitated their departure to third countries.” “Those who are willing to return to Iran will be provided with necessary facilities.” Al-Bayati made reference to Rajavi’s recent remarks regarding her willingness to negotiate with Iraqi government and said, “Iraqi government does not recognize Maryam Rajavi, Mujahedin-e Khalq leadership.” “Mujahedin-e Khalq is an organization which has been used under the Baath regime of Saddam Hussein for political reasons not humanitarian causes ...
Al- Baghdadia TV, February 06 2012
Translation and report by Habilian Association
http://www.habilian.ir/en/News/iraqi-govt-not
-recognize-maryam-rajavi-senior-iraq-mp.html
The leadership of the coalition of state law and lawmaker Abbas al-Bayati refused any decision of the government to conduct negotiations with Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK, also MKO, PMOI) leadership.
“Iraqi government negotiates with governments not organizations and groups,” al-Bayati told Al-Baghdadia TV. “Political parties or groups have nothing to do with our government, and our relations are within formal frameworks.”
“Our decision regarding the MEK has been made based on our territorial integrity,” he added.
The Iraqi MP went on to say that they will be transferred to another location and “we’ve facilitated their departure to third countries.” “Those who are willing to return to Iran will be provided with necessary facilities.”
Al-Bayati made reference to Rajavi’s recent remarks regarding her willingness to negotiate with Iraqi government and said, “Iraqi government does not recognize Maryam Rajavi, Mujahedin-e Khalq leadership.”
“Mujahedin-e Khalq is an organization which has been used under the Baath regime of Saddam Hussein for political reasons not humanitarian causes,” he continued. “It had been also used as leverage to pressure Iraqi nation in regional conflicts and now we, in New Iraq, do not intend to use leverage against any countries. Thus, we consider them as strangers and not as a group; they must follow Iraq’s laws and regulations.”
Asked if the UN is supervising Camp Liberty, al-Bayati said, “No, the camp is under the control of Iraqi government and (the camp’s control) has nothing to do with the United Nations. “Iraq came to the decision to provide the UN with the reports of the camp, and also let them visit the camp.”
Al-Bayati referred to MKO’s involvement in the 1991 crimes in Kirkuk and Tuz Khurmatu regions and said that these crimes “must be viewed from a legal perspective.”
Earlier on Thursday, Maryam Rajavi expressed her willingness to travel to Baghdad and negotiate with the Iraqi government in the presence of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations in Iraq.
.jpg)
(Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, cult leaders)
(Rajavi cult or MKO aslo known as Saddam's Private Army)
(Maryam Rajavi directly ordered the massacre of Kurdish people)
(Ali Safavi, coach witnesses before and during the hearing)
(Ali Safavi as the commander of Saddam's Private Army in Iraq)
(Daniel Zucker, Maryam Rajavi and ALi Safavi in terror HQ in Paris )
(Alireza Jafarzadeh and Michael Mukasey prior to his testimony)
Jafarzadeh representing terrorist organisation NCRI
(Picture form MKO/ NCRI clandestine television)
Jafarzadeh has already published his suicide bombing note
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Also
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=11557
Iraqi MP: Removing Mojahedin Khalq (MKO, MEK, Rajavi cult) from terrorism lists condones violence against Iraqis
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... Majeda al-Tamimi MP : "Removing the Mojahedin Khalq organization from the list of international terrorists disregards the blood of the victims". Speaking to the reporter for Ashraf News, Majeda al-Tamimi asked international organizations and human rights organizations to come to Iraq and to identify the huge amount of crimes that were until recently carried out by this group in order to implement their own agendas, which led to them killing a great many civilians. Any attempt to remove the name of this organization from the list of terrorism is equivalent to [condoning] what was done against Iraq and its people ...
Ashraf News, January 31 2012
Translated by Iran Interlink
http://iran-interlink.org
link to the original report (Arabic)
http://www.ashraf-news.com/news_view_143.html
Majeda al-Tamimi MP : "Removing the Mojahedin Khalq organization from the list of international terrorists disregards the blood of the victims"
National Alliance MP Majeda-Tamimi announced that the attempt to remove the name of Mojahedin Khalq Organization from the American list of international terrorists is an insult and disregards the blood of the victims who died at the hands of this gang.
Speaking to the reporter for Ashraf News, Majeda al-Tamimi asked international organizations and human rights organizations to come to Iraq and to identify the huge amount of crimes that were until recently carried out by this group in order to implement their own agendas, which led to them killing a great many civilians. Any attempt to remove the name of this organization from the list of terrorism is equivalent to [condoning] what was done against Iraq and its people.
(Maryam Rajavi directly ordered the massacre of Kurdish people)
Also:
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=11465
Camp Ashraf Relocation Woes
(Rajavi is the hostage taker, Rajavi is not their representative)
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... Ambassador Fried was asked whether the interview process is private and without an MKO superior watching. He replied, “I would say that the UN and other international organizations are well aware of the potential problems of group think or group pressure, and they are very well aware of the many reports about the atmosphere at Camp Ashraf and the character of that place.” [5] The signed agreement seems to have provided the opportunity for Ashraf residents to release themselves from a three-decade long imprisonment in a cult of personality around the husband and wife co-leaders, Maryam and Massoud Rajavi ...
Nejat Bloggers, January 18 2012
http://www.nejatngo.org/en/post.aspx?id=4163
Camp Ashraf is finally coming to an end. It has served as home for the past twenty-five years for over three thousand members of the terrorist cult, the Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MKO/MEK). United Nations Assistance Mission representative, Ambassador Martin Kobler as well as the Iraqi government officially signed the Memorandum of Understanding, which is, in essence, an evacuation notice. [1]
Iraq has agreed to a UN hosted mediation that the camp is to close within six months, which is beyond the previous deadline of December 31st 2011. Leaders of the Ashraf wanted to remain at the camp and avoid resettlement, but were unable to permanently obtain their request. What they got was a delay. [2]
Following the mediation, four hundred residents of Ashraf reluctantly agreed to resettle after seeking guidance from the Paris-based cult leader, Maryam Rajavi. They will relocate to Camp Liberty, a former American military base near Baghdad International Airport. Rajavi called this decision as “a sign of goodwill” but she made no mention of when the other residents would go. [3]
In Washington DC a special briefing by Ambassador Daniel Freid took place on December 29th 2011. Freid remarked that “the residents of Camp Ashraf will be moved from Camp Ashraf to former Camp Liberty, which used to be a U.S. military facility and is located near the Baghdad Airport. UNHCR is – will begin immediately to process these people for refugee status. At the same time, those wishing to return voluntarily to Iran as, by the way , several hundred from Ashraf have already done, will be able to do so.” [4]
Due to concerns over the possibility of group pressure on the individuals in Camp Ashraf, Ambassador Fried was asked whether the interview process is private and without an MKO superior watching. He replied, “I would say that the UN and other international organizations are well aware of the potential problems of group think or group pressure, and they are very well aware of the many reports about the atmosphere at Camp Ashraf and the character of that place.” [5]
The signed agreement seems to have provided the opportunity for Ashraf residents to release themselves from a three-decade long imprisonment in a cult of personality around the husband and wife co-leaders, Maryam and Massoud Rajavi. As Camp Ashraf is dissolved, it gives hostages of the cult an opportunity to break away from the group and return to their families.
Daniel Larison of theamericanconservative.com suggests that Rajavi leadership is keeping some members in the camp to use as a bargaining chip in their effort to manipulate American opinion. Basically the Rajavi’s are lobbying the US government to change the official status of the Mojahedin Khalq—from a terrorist designated organization to a regular organization. According to the US State Department , currently their official status remains a “terrorist organization.” [6]
The MKO’s well-documented lobbying and propaganda blitz sets in motion a one-sided uproar about the “humanitarian crisis” at Camp Ashraf. Paid advocates of the MKO expect the US administration to delist the group and “regularly exploit the misinformation of the inhabitants of Camp Ashraf, wrap themselves in the mantle of humanitarianism and confuse the very different issue of the inhabitants’ safe departure from Iraq and the status of the MEK.” [7]
As Ashraf comes to dissolve, non-cult relatives of cult members, and many in the international community fear there is a risk of mass suicide—death and martyrdom have been an integral part of the cult’s ideology. Maryam Rajavi responded to this concern by announcing in her so-called "sign of goodwill” that 400 of the 3200 residents of the camp are ready to move.
What is daunting is that despite the move of 400 residents, very few, if any members of the cult have stepped out of the camp for years. Maryam Rajavi on the other hand lives a luxurious and free life in France (Massoud, her co-leader husband is not so lucky, as he has been in hiding or disappeared since the arrest, and subsequent release by French police of Maryam, in 2003.
Scott Peterson of The Christian Science Monitor suggests that “with the complete withdrawal of US forces from Iraq this week, options for the MEK have narrowed." [8]
Furthermore, according to Joby Warrick of The Washington Post, "US and UN officials have been scrambling to resolve the fate of the estimated 3400 residents of Camp Ashraf, but officials say the MEK and its backers have complicated matters by insisting on US protection.” [9]
Warrick reports from State Department talks that “the possibility that American troops would be ordered back into Iraq to guard the dissidents is remote, at best.” On the condition of anonymity, Warrick reports that an official in the State Department flat out said, “It’s not going to happen" [10]
Larison optimistically views residents’ relocation a “good outcome” but not for “the group leadership and its friends in the west.”[11] Once Ashraf residents are resettled at Camp Liberty, they can apply for immigration to third countries under UN observation. Strategically, Camp Ashraf was in a geographical position near the Iranian border, and it enabled Ashraf leaders to take advantage of the location—sending Western sponsored spies into Iran from the camp.
By Mazda Parsi
References:
[1]BBC, Iraq and UN sign Iranian Camp Ashraf exile deal, December 26, 2011
[2] Reuters, Iraq extends deadline for closing Iranian Camp, December 21, 2011
[3]Charton Angela, Iranian exiles ready to leave Iraq Camp, Associated Press, December20, 2011
[4]US department of State, Briefing on the situation at camp Ashraf, December 29, 2011
[5]ibid
[6]Larison, Daniel, Camp Ashraf deal undermines Western pro-MEK advocacy, The American Conservative, December 26, 2011
[7] ibid
[8]Peterson, Scott, with deadline looming to close MEK’s Camp Ashraf in Iraq, what next? Christian Science Monitor, December 20, 2011
[9]Warrick Joby, Iraq agrees to UN-brokered deal on fate of Iranian exiles, The Washington Post, December 25, 2011
[10]ibid
[11]Larison, Daniel Camp Ashraf undermined Western pro-MEK advocacy, The American Conservative, December 26, 2011
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Also
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=11332
Ashraf residents transfer, Families gathering
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... A large number of families of Camp Ashraf residents gathered in front of the Camp, this morning, reported Nejat Society representative. Families of Ashraf prisoners chanted slogans to once more announce their call to visit their loved ones. Local and foreign reporters are present in there in order to broadcast the news of the region. As it was also reported 100 residents of Camp Ashraf are relocated in Camp liberty, a site near Baghdad international airport, today. Families are hopeful to see or at least get news of their children --after years of no news about them-- while they are transferred from Ashraf to Baghdad ...
Nejat Bloggers, December 27 2011
http://www.nejatngo.org/en/post.aspx?id=4105
A large number of families of Camp Ashraf residents gathered in front of the Camp, this morning, reported Nejat Society representative.
Families of Ashraf prisoners chanted slogans to once more announce their call to visit their loved ones.
Local and foreign reporters are present in there in order to broadcast the news of the region.
As it was also reported 100 residents of Camp Ashraf are relocated in Camp liberty, a site near Baghdad international airport, today.
Families are hopeful to see or at least get news of their children --after years of no news about them-- while they are transferred from Ashraf to Baghdad.
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Also
http://iran-interlink.org/?mod=view&id=11194
During their visit to
Mojahedin-e Khalq cemetery and Camp Ashraf
victims prayed for forgiveness for their torturer
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... they are standing beside the grave of their former torturer. Both men were sent to Abu Ghraib political prison by Massoud Rajavi after extensive imprisonment, isolation and torture inside the MEK’s own prisons failed to force them to submit to Rajavi. Rafi’ee Nejad frequently visited them even when they were in Abu Ghraib. They were released during the fall of Saddam in 2003. There were over 50 registered ex-MEK prisoners in Abu Ghraib at that time labelled as a group as ”Mojahedin Deposits”. Remembering the brutality of Rajavi’s torturers and prisons, both victims of Rajavi and Saddam prayed for forgiveness for their torturer ...
Iran Interlink, Camp Ashraf, Iraq, December 11 2011
http://iran-interlink.org
The MEK cemetery was previously inaccessible as it lay inside the former boundaries of Camp Ashraf. Following the Iraqi military operation to reclaim illegally held land from the MEK in April 2011, the cemetery is now open to view and to independent investigation.
Families and former MEK members arriving at the cemetery led by Mr Hassan Azizi a veteran former member. He spent years struggling to get himself and his children out. Still later his wife also managed to escape. The family now live in the Netherlands. Mr. Azizi was part of the European delegation recently visiting Iraq and the Camp.
This is a memorial to the MEK who died in the MEK’s Operation Pearl in Iraqi Kurdistan in which Rajavi took orders from Saddam to massacre Kurdish villagers. Maryam Rajavi famously ordered her forces to run over the victims with their tanks so as not to waste bullets unnecessarily. The MEK, acting as Saddam’s Private Army, were used to viciously quell the Kurdish uprisings in the north.
In the south in 1991 the MEK were also used to suppress Shiite uprisings. This picture is a memorial to three of the top MEK commanders killed by the people of Karbala during the Shiite uprising when they took over Saddam’s Secret services HQ in the province. The bodies were never recovered. The three central graves are flanked by the graves of Neda Hassani and Sediqeh Mojaveri who died as a result of self-immolation ordered by Maryam Rajavi to protest her arrest by French anti-terrorism police at Auvers-sur-Oise in 2003.
Before the Iraqis gained control of the cemetery Rajavi had ordered that the pictures of the graves in the whole graveyard be mixed up so they do not correspond to the names on the graves. Perhaps only Rajavi can explain his motive for such a bizarre act.
The Iraqis have reported however that some of the graves have been found to contain more bodies than the single named person indicated on the headstones.
Ex members identified many graves of people who have been killed in the hands of the leaders of the organisation.
Among the graves they also found the grave of Nader Rafi’ee Nejad
The grave of Nader Rafi’ee Nejad
Nader Rafi'ee Nejad acted as a torturer for the Mojahedin-e Khalq leader Massoud Rajavi. He was a veteran member of the MEK who, along with Reza Khaksar (later killed during an armed clash in 1981) and Hassan Mohassel (a former police officer and later a guard in the MEK’s prisons in Iraq), served with the Revolutionary Court in Evin prison after the Iranian revolution.
Rafi’ee Nejad interrogated and tortured former officials of the ousted regime of Shah. Due to the MEK's pursuit of its own radical policies after 1980, Rafi'ee Nejad, Mohassel and Khaksar were later dismissed from the Revolutionary Court by the government of the Islamic Republic at that time.
After the armed struggle began in 1981, Rafi'ee Nejad fled to Europe and was appointed to the MEK’s foreign relations department. In 1985, he was introduced as a leading member and in 1991 as deputy to an executive board in the MEK. In 1990, he shed his ‘diplomatic’ suit and donned the uniform for jailors of the MEK in Iraq.
In that year, he attended a course with Iraq's intelligence and security service to undergo classic training by Iraqi interrogators.
He was involved in torturing Mohammed Hussein Sobhani and also the killing of Parviz Ahmadi who died under torture.
In recent years after the fall of Saddam, Nader Rafi’ee Nejad frequently appeared on the clandestine satellite TV station of the organisation pretending to be a legal expert, promoting the punishment of the ex-members wherever they could be found. He always referred to the cult leader’s fatwa that ‘the people who have managed to run away from the cult have to be killed…’
Two of the victims who have been directly tortured by Nader Rafi’ee Nejad are Mohammad Hussein Sobhani and Ali Ghashghavi. In the picture above, they are standing beside the grave of their former torturer. Both men were sent to Abu Ghraib political prison by Massoud Rajavi after extensive imprisonment, isolation and torture inside the MEK’s own prisons failed to force them to submit to Rajavi. Rafi’ee Nejad frequently visited them even when they were in Abu Ghraib. They were released during the fall of Saddam in 2003. There were over 50 registered ex-MEK prisoners in Abu Ghraib at that time labelled as a group as ”Mojahedin Deposits”.
Remembering the brutality of Rajavi’s torturers and prisons, both victims of Rajavi and Saddam prayed for forgiveness for their torturer.