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Raw Story: U.S. Outsourcing Iran Special Ops to Terror Group

By Jeralyn, Section Foreign Affairs
Posted on Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 10:44:02 AM EST
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Larissa at Raw Story has a new Iran report. She writes that on orders from Cheney and Rumsfeld, the terrorist group Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) is being used for special ops in Iran to pave the way for a military strike.

According to all three intelligence sources, military and intelligence officials alike were alarmed that instead of securing a known terrorist organization, which has been responsible for acts of terror against Iranian targets and individuals all over the world - including US civilian and military casualties - Rumsfeld under instructions from Cheney, began using the group on special ops missions into Iran to pave the way for a potential Iran strike.

"They are doing whatever they want, no oversight at all," one intelligence source said.

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    Raw Story: U.S. Outsourcing Iran Special Ops to Terror Group | 21 comments (21 topical)
    Re: Raw Story: U.S. Outsourcing Iran Special Ops t (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 11:07:21 AM EST
    Wait, does that make the United States a state sponsor of terrorism? Isn't Bush therefore obligated to engage in regime change?

    Re: Raw Story: U.S. Outsourcing Iran Special Ops t (none / 0) (#2)
    by kdog on Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 11:08:42 AM EST
    I guess we will never learn. Lets see if history repeats yet again and we have MEK attacking us in 20 years.

    Re: Raw Story: U.S. Outsourcing Iran Special Ops t (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 11:23:03 AM EST
    Unbelievable, if true. And outrageous claim if not true. Lord I hope it's the latter, but I'd bet otherwise.

    Re: Raw Story: U.S. Outsourcing Iran Special Ops t (none / 0) (#4)
    by squeaky on Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 11:26:51 AM EST
    Nothing new here. Don't forget about our long time ally
    the PKK or Kurdish Worker's Party, a violent group that has fought along guerrilla action against Ankara.
    Juan Cole We have a long and dirty history supporting terror. When called on it our leaders either deny it or call them freedom fighters. Out terrorist training camp is the largest in the world. WHISK the gussied up name for the infamous School of the Americas has trained aproximately 60,000 terrorists.

    Re: Raw Story: U.S. Outsourcing Iran Special Ops t (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 11:46:54 AM EST
    Okay...hold on...advisers...local guerillas...Iraq is Vietnam...GOT IT...Iran is Cambodia! When does the "secret" bombing start? These guys make me lust for simple "blowback."

    Re: Raw Story: U.S. Outsourcing Iran Special Ops t (none / 0) (#6)
    by Al on Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 11:59:01 AM EST
    FTA:
    Although the specifics of what the MEK is being used for remain unclear, a UN official close to the Security Council explained that the newly renamed MEK soldiers are being run instead of military advance teams, committing acts of violence in hopes of staging an insurgency of the Iranian Sunni population.
    Yup, I'm sure the Sunnis will eagerly join an uprising led by a group allied to the Americans.

    Re: Raw Story: U.S. Outsourcing Iran Special Ops t (none / 0) (#7)
    by aahpat on Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 12:00:59 PM EST
    Round and round and round we go....... This is priceless. The Council on Foreign Relations includes these actions attributed to this group: Assistance to Saddam Hussein's suppression of the 1991 Iraqi Shiite and Kurdish uprisings; The 1981 bombing of the offices of the Islamic Republic Party and of Premier Mohammad-Javad Bahonar, which killed some seventy high-ranking Iranian officials, including President Mohammad- Ali Rajaei and Bahonar; support for the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by Iranian revolutionaries; The 1970s killings ofU.S. military personnel and civilians working on defense projects in Tehran. So how do we try Saddam for crimes against the Kurds while his cohorts in crime are working for us?

    Re: Raw Story: U.S. Outsourcing Iran Special Ops t (none / 0) (#8)
    by aahpat on Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 12:05:13 PM EST
    TO njdem: According to a Justice Department report I have posted at my site the US is in the process of creating super stateless terrorist armies. As to regime change. That is our responsibility.

    Re: Raw Story: U.S. Outsourcing Iran Special Ops t (none / 0) (#9)
    by Punchy on Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 12:21:27 PM EST
    What's this mean?
    instead of securing a known terrorist organization,
    Does "securing" mean contacting, using, destroying, arresting, ignoring?? It couldn't possibly mean co-opting, could it? We're using a terrorist group to do terrorism? How does that make us any diff than, say, Iran????

    Re: Raw Story: U.S. Outsourcing Iran Special Ops t (none / 0) (#10)
    by desertswine on Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 12:51:32 PM EST
    "These guys are nuts," this intelligence source said. "Cambone and those guys made MEK members swear an oath to Democracy and resign from the MEK and then our guys incorporated them into their unit and trained them."
    "Nuts" is an understatement. I suppose that they are accompanied by US "observers" when they go on their killing missions.

    Re: Raw Story: U.S. Outsourcing Iran Special Ops t (none / 0) (#11)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 01:20:33 PM EST
    A little more background on the MEK here, including Bush's decision to grant "protected person" status to MEK members, and the MEK's activities as identified by the State Department in its annual report on Patterns of Global Terrorism. Back when terrorism was important enough to have an annual report. This part is nice:
    During the 1970s, the MEK killed US military personnel and US civilians working on defense projects in Tehran and supported the takeover in 1979 of the US Embassy in Tehran.
    Re: Raw Story: U.S. Outsourcing Iran Special Ops t (none / 0) (#12)
    by jondee on Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 01:36:30 PM EST
    Grow up, its called geopolitics. And I dont want to hear any profanity on this thread.

    Re: Raw Story: U.S. Outsourcing Iran Special Ops t (none / 0) (#13)
    by Che's Lounge on Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 02:01:03 PM EST
    There goes MY comment.

    Re: Raw Story: U.S. Outsourcing Iran Special Ops t (none / 0) (#14)
    by Johnny on Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 02:05:16 PM EST
    LMAO Jondee... You forgot: "An enemy of my enemy is my friend"

    Re: Raw Story: U.S. Outsourcing Iran Special Ops t (none / 0) (#15)
    by Dadler on Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 02:15:01 PM EST
    ...until they're my enemy, and then their friends are my friend, and their enemies are my ene...wait, there's an old saying in Texasee, or Texas, or maybe it Tennessee, but it goes like this: the enemas of my friends can fool me once, and the friend of my enemas can fool me again, but you can't fool me when my enemas are...when my friends are enemas...you just gotta invade the entire middle east, that's what I mean.

    Re: Raw Story: U.S. Outsourcing Iran Special Ops t (none / 0) (#16)
    by jondee on Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 02:20:46 PM EST
    Thats what they all need: a good enema. They could even use the Gippers "secret recipe" half water and half Royal Crown Cola.

    Re: Raw Story: U.S. Outsourcing Iran Special Ops t (none / 0) (#17)
    by jondee on Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 02:39:44 PM EST
    This must be another diplomatic outreach effort that those "thugs have rejected" eh Jim?

    Re: Raw Story: U.S. Outsourcing Iran Special Ops t (none / 0) (#18)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 02:56:21 PM EST
    So, let me make sure I've got this right. You can't even merely criticize the GOPresident for widespread abuse of power, without being accused of giving aid and comfort to the terrorists. But they can actually make use of a terrorist organization in order to prepare for their latest mad scheme in the Middle East. Right. Check. Got it.

    Re: Raw Story: U.S. Outsourcing Iran Special Ops t (none / 0) (#19)
    by Dadler on Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 03:04:17 PM EST
    One True, Excellent, you understand perfectly. What's the, ahem, problem?

    Re: Raw Story: U.S. Outsourcing Iran Special Ops t (none / 0) (#20)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 05:04:46 PM EST
    Our schizo relationship with MEK is old news. Multiple members of Congress have spun them, Contra-like, as freedom fighters, and have quarrelled with the State Department's designation of them as a foreign terrorist group. Yet as late as 1999 DoJ was prosecuting people for given them assistance (under the same statute later used on John Walker Lindh), and using MEK status as an excuse for indefinite detention during immigration proceeds well into the 2000s.

    Re: Raw Story: U.S. Outsourcing Iran Special Ops t (none / 0) (#21)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Apr 13, 2006 at 05:17:12 PM EST
    In fact, just to head off any "OMG 9/11 changed everything" excuse, the State Department (under Powell) reaffirmed the designation of MEK as a FTA as late as 2003 and even expanded that designation by adding two affiliate groups (one of which used to solicit for money for Iranian war orphans in airports): here.

    Raw Story: U.S. Outsourcing Iran Special Ops to Terror Group | 21 comments (21 topical)