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Daniel Larison, The American Conservative, September 12 2019:… Bolton had prevailed again and again on policy, and despite pushing his own agenda and doing an abysmal job as National Security Advisor he remained in place. Whatever Trump’s reason was for getting rid of him, it was the right decision. Bolton ends his career as one of the worst National Security Advisors in U.S. history. He should never have been hired, but at least he is out of government. Now he can go shill for the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) full-time. John Bolton Next Stop Albania
MEK advocate John Bolton fired
John Bolton Next Stop Albania
Good Riddance, Bolton
Curt Mills’ reporting told us it was coming yesterday, and today Trump has finally fired Bolton:
Mr. Trump announced the decision on Twitter. “I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House. I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration, and therefore I asked John for his resignation, which was given to me this morning. I thank John very much for his service. I will be naming a new National Security Advisor next week.”
It took far too long to happen, but Bolton’s firing is undeniably good news. Bolton is the embodiment of everything wrong with hawkish Republican foreign policy, and his role in the administration has been without question a purely destructive one. I have to admit I didn’t think it would happen. Bolton had prevailed again and again on policy, and despite pushing his own agenda and doing an abysmal job as National Security Advisor he remained in place. Whatever Trump’s reason was for getting rid of him, it was the right decision. Bolton ends his career as one of the worst National Security Advisors in U.S. history. He should never have been hired, but at least he is out of government. Now he can go shill for the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) full-time.
Whoever takes over as Bolton’s replacement will have a difficult job of repairing the damage that he did. Bolton presided over the most dysfunctional national security process in recent memory by design, and that compounded the administration’s existing foreign policy dysfunction. He pushed an extremely hawkish agenda that has led the U.S. closer to unnecessary war with Iran, disastrously committed the U.S. to regime change in Venezuela, and effectively torpedoed diplomatic engagement with North Korea. Most recently, he prevailed on Trump to kill the negotiations with the Taliban. He was a leading supporter of the cruel economic warfare that the U.S. has waged against Iran and Venezuela over the last year. The Trump administration’s foreign policy will still be a failed mess without him, but it will have one less fanatic involved in setting policy.
Trump’s three National Security Advisors don’t appear to have had a lot in common, but all of them were dangerous hard-liners in different ways. Flynn was a conspiratorial Iran hawk, and Bolton was even worse. McMaster seemed the most reasonable of the three, but let’s remember that he was the one promoting the idea of preventive war against North Korea. The president has gone through several National Security Advisors in less than three years, and that reminds us that the president is bad at hiring competent personnel. If Trump chooses someone else with the same mentality and ideological hang-ups, we shouldn’t expect much of a change in policy.
John Bolton Next Stop Albania
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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo sponsors MKO terrorists
Also read:
https://iran-interlink.org/wordpress/in-albania-shedding-light-on-bizarre-behaviour-of-mek-cult/
In Albania Shedding Light on Bizarre Behaviour of MEK Cult
Shaun Walker in Tirana, The Guardian, July 16 2019:… For example, you would have to say: ‘I saw a girl on television and I got an erection,’ or ‘This morning I masturbated,’” said Hassan Heyrani, one of the defectors. He said there was no specific punishment for such admissions except scolding and embarrassment. “If you admit to it too often they will get angry and say: ‘How do you want to create freedom for the Iranian people if you have an erection every day? In Albania Shedding Light on Bizarre Behaviour of MEK Cult .
The shadowy cult Trump advisors tout as an alternative to the Iranian government
In Albania Shedding Light on Bizarre Behaviour of MEK Cult
Trump allies’ visit throws light on secretive Iranian opposition group
MEK operates out of compound in rural Albania and has been described as having cult-like attributes
The gates to the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) compound, situated on a gently inclined hillside in rural Albania, are usually firmly closed, guarded by two sculpted lions atop stone pedestals and a large team of Albanian security guards. Unannounced visitors are not welcome at the fenced-off, secretive site, where more than 2,000 MEK members live.
The history of the MEK, or the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, is long and complicated. Critics and many of those who have left the group in recent years describe it as a shadowy outfit with little support inside Iran and many cult-like attributes, condemned to die out at the obscure base in Albania because of its enforced celibacy rules.
But for its backers, which include many politicians and, notably, members ofDonald Trump’s inner circle, the MEK are tireless fighters for a free and democratic Iran who could potentially become the country’s next government.
This was highlighted over the weekend when the group held a gathering of international backers attended by, among others, Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. Other visitors included the former Democratic senator Joe Lieberman and the British Conservative MP Matthew Offord.
Giuliani described the MEK as a “government in exile” and suggested it was also a government in waiting after potential regime change in Iran. “It gives us confidence that if we make those efforts to overthrow that horrible regime, sooner rather than later, we will not only save lives but will be able to entrust the transition of Iran to a very responsible group of people,” he said to cheers from the assembled audience.
Giuliani has been a regular visitor to MEK events for several years, as has the US national security adviser, John Bolton. While they have been predicting an MEK government in Tehran for years, the fact that these officials now have positions in the Trump administration, combined with the increasingly fraught geopolitical situation around Iran, makes their support for the MEK matter more than ever.
Originally a Marxist-Islamist group that played a leading role in the 1979Iranian revolution, the MEK ended up exiled and fighting against the Iranian regime from a base in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. In the process, the MEK lost a lot of support inside Iran.
The group was only removed from the US terror list in 2012 and the Obama administration later helped negotiate its relocation to Albania as the situation in post-Saddam Iraq became perilous. There, in the countryside, it has constructed a vast compound where men and women lead segregated existences.
Last month, the Guardian spoke with about a dozen men in Tirana who had fled the MEK compound over the past two years. With no passports or other documents, they remain in limbo, unable either to work or to leave the country. The picture they painted of life inside the compound was of a cult-like atmosphere in which mobile phones and contact with relatives were banned, all interactions between men and women were prohibited, and days were spent sitting at computers firing out tweets and other online messages in support of the MEK.
Each evening, the men had to gather in small groups with their commanders for “ideological training” as well as a confessional about any sexual thoughts they might have had that day.
“For example, you would have to say: ‘I saw a girl on television and I got an erection,’ or ‘This morning I masturbated,’” said Hassan Heyrani, one of the defectors. He said there was no specific punishment for such admissions except scolding and embarrassment. “If you admit to it too often they will get angry and say: ‘How do you want to create freedom for the Iranian people if you have an erection every day?’”
An investigation by the Intercept recently found that an anti-regime Iranian activist, who had written extensive media columns about Iran, appeared, in fact, to be an invented persona created by MEK trolls.
When leading political figures came to visit, the rank-and-file MEK members were told to do everything to make sure their high-level guests felt appreciated. Heyrani remembered a visit by John McCain in 2017, who was greeted by a chanting crowd of MEK members. “We had to cheer and clap. One of the commanders told us: ‘You speak English. Please tell him he is the best of democracy,’” he said.
For the MEK leadership, the election of Trump in 2016 was a godsend. Those who have left the camp since recalled that in the run-up to the election the group often prayed for a Trump victory and the defeat of Hillary Clinton.
One person who left the compound in 2018 said: “Everything changed when Obama left and Trump came to power. The leaders came from France to talk to us. They said you must wait a few months and suffer the conditions here and then soon we’ll be in power.”
The MEK did not respond to several requests for comment sent to a Paris-based spokesman, nor to a request left with the security guards outside its compound in Albania.
In Albania Shedding Light on Bizarre Behaviour of MEK Cult
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Also read:
Iran Interlink from Asieh Namdar, CGTN, August 22 2019:… AN: Let me move on to Bolton and Giuliani, Rudi Giuliani’s relationship with this group, that calls itself an opposition group. Many inside Iran have deep distrust of the MEK. They consider it a cult. Giuliani and Bolton have taken payments from this group. Members of Trump’s inner circle though Ambassador… John Bolton Next Stop Albania
Reza Alghurabi, Mehr News, August 22 2019:… The terrorist People’s Mojahedin Organization (MEK) is a leftist political organization that was formed in the 1940s and gradually changed in nature into a true cult. The leader of this cult, Masoud Rajavi, has been missing in the past 13 years, just after the US-led war against Iraq in 2003 that toppled Saddam,… John Bolton Next Stop Albania
Anne Khodabndeh (Singleton), The Iranian, August 19 2019:… President Rama is unrepentant. In an interview with FaxNews (see translation below), journalist and activist Aulon Kalaja commented that Rama has used hosting the MEK for America as an excuse to remain in power and delay the reforms to the judicial system which are necessary if Albania is to accede to the EU.… John Bolton Next Stop Albania
Professor Tim Anderson, Balkans Post, August 19 2019:… Yes it is quite possible that Albania will de destabilized by U.S. proxies the MEK, and also by DAESH members. Between 2013 and 2016 Washington moved the 2,900 Camp Ashraf MEK members to Albania, where they had also moved some former DAESH/ISIS fighters (Spahiu 2018; Khodabandeh and Khodabandeh 2018). The U.S. and… John Bolton Next Stop Albania
Nejat Society, August 18 2019:…The love affairs of prominent US politicians with the insurgents, extremists and terrorist groups including the Mujahedin Khalq (MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ the Cult of Rajavi). In case of the MEK, the relationship is more controversial because of the group’s past anti-American, Anti-Imperialism background. “The Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), which was once a sworn enemy of the United States,… John Bolton Next Stop Albania
Amil Imani, PipeLineNews, August 15 2019:… OIAC or MEK is an Islamist-Marxist cultish group headed by Maryam Rajavi, the wife of the deceased co-founder of MEK, Massoud Rajavi. During the 1970’s they rebelled against the Shah and were involved in bombing and shooting American and Iranian targets . The MEK or (OIAC) executed U.S. Army Lt. Col. Lewis Hawkins in 1973 as… John Bolton Next Stop Albania
Jordan Michael Smith, The Intercept, August 14 2019:… the MEK is covered heavily and favorably, despite having almost no support inside Iran, a history of terroristic violence, and a well-founded reputation as a cult. A VOA employee, who asked to speak anonymously for fear of reprisal, said, “VOA Persian, for the first time in decades, has been acting as media… John Bolton Next Stop Albania
Nejat Society, August 13 2019:… This year’s so-called “grand gathering” of the Mujahedin Khalq Organization (the MKO/ MEK/ PMOI/ the Cult of Rajavi) was held in Albania, instead of holding it near the group’s headquarters in Paris. The group held a five day ceremony to inaugurate its lavish headquarters in a rural region in Albania. The newly built camp is… John Bolton Next Stop Albania
Ebrahim Khodabandeh, Iranian Oral History, August 13 2019:… According to the Iranian Oral History website, the 304th ‘Night of Memorials of Holy Defense’ was held on Thursday evening, July 25, 2019 at the Sureh Hall of the Hozeh Honari. In this meeting, Bakhshali Alizadeh, Ibrahim Khodabandeh and Mohammad Mosaheb, related some of their memories of Mujahidin Khalq Organization and Mersad… John Bolton Next Stop Albania
Fars News, August 12 2019:… An ex-member of the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO, also known as the MEK, PMOI and NCRI) said the terrorist group moves in line with the White House policies and is now seeking to empty the Iranian society from hope. Khodabandeh, a former high-ranking MKO element, made the revelations in an interview with FNA on Saturday.… John Bolton Next Stop Albania
Jonathan Harounoff, Haaretz, August 11 2019:… Massoud Khodabandeh, tells Haaretz in an email interview that the group was no longer the highly organized and influential student-led movement of the ’70s that opposed the shah. By the ’80s, Khodabandeh says, the MEK had evolved almost unrecognizably into a violent, anti-ayatollah and pro-Saddam guerrilla organization that had no clear objectives other than… John Bolton Next Stop Albania
Shenaz Kermalli, Canada’s National Observer, August 10 2019:… More recently, investigative reports published by The Intercept, British broadcaster Channel 4 and Al Jazeera English have depicted MEK “troll farms” where members create thousands of inauthentic accounts on a daily basis and promote hashtags and tweets, targeting anyone that favours diplomacy with Iran. Human Rights Watch has reported that MEK leaders force people to issue false confessions.… John Bolton Next Stop Albania
