The Fuzzy Line of Terrorism

And what kind of mind-boggling corruption -- of the worst kind -- influence-peddling by a "foreign power" (as defined by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to include foreign terrorist groups) -- lies hidden behind the curtain?

Could some members of the MEK "foreign terrorist organization," their murderous history magically erased, be sent to a nice suburb somewhere to live as your next door neighbor as happens with the organized crime "witness protection program?"

Since we cannot seem to learn from history and therefore seem doomed to repeat our mistakes, all of the above could be true. In any event, the old movie script will require few changes.

From MAK to MEK

The popular 2007 movie "Charlie Wilson's War" found a way to glorify a rather derelict Texas congressman's exploits and secret appropriations to fund CIA covert assistance to Mujahedeen "rebels" in Afghanistan (one faction recruited and trained by Osama Bin Laden himself), based on the repeatedly discredited notion that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." Hollywood and Tom Hanks also found a way to edit out the real truth:

"That the U.S.-aided Mujahedeen's ouster of the Soviets in 1989 ultimately led to civil war and the ultra-orthodox Islamic Taliban coming to power in 1996, an event that also enabled anti-Soviet fighter Osama bin Laden and his fledgling al Qaeda to set up a base from which to plan the 9/11 attacks."

Or as Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed wrote in an article, "Our Terrorists," for the New Internationalist Magazine:

"Osama bin Laden arrived in the country ... sent by then-Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faisal, where he set up the Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK) which helped finance, recruit and train mujahidin fighters.

"Bin Laden, the MAK, and the Afghan mujahidin in total received about half a billion dollars a year from the CIA, and roughly the same from the Saudis, funneled through Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). ... Continued US sponsorship of the al-Qaeda-Taliban nexus in Afghanistan was confirmed as late as 2000 in Congressional hearings.

"Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on South Asia, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher -- former White House Special Assistant to President Reagan and now Senior Member of the House International Relations Committee -- declared that 'this administration has a covert policy that has empowered the Taliban and enabled this brutal movement to hold on to power.' The assumption is that 'the Taliban would bring stability to Afghanistan and permit the building of oil pipelines from Central Asia through Afghanistan to Pakistan.'"

In other words, Charlie Wilson's War seriously backfired and was a significant factor that gave rise to the 9/11 attacks. (Incidentally -- and a big reason why there's so little hope of anyone having learned from this sordid history -- is that Dana Rohrabacher happens to be one of the main congressmen who has now taken big sums of money from the MEK front groups!)

An October 2010 report ("Restoring Afghanistan's Tribal Balance") for the New World Strategies Coalition described U.S. covert support of the Mujahedeen as follows:

"During the 'jihad' against the Soviets, the Judeo-Christian West teamed up with violent Islamic radicals of the worst sort, against the Soviets, because they shared a common hatred for the godless communists.

"The same people American leaders once called 'freedom fighters' throughout the 80's are now [in the current war] violent extremist jihadist terrorists who commit immoral acts and heinous human rights violations that all Americans should find deplorable.

"Of course, before 9/11 when these 'terrorists' were fighting against the Soviets, they were 'our terrorists' and such human rights violations and war crimes hardly ever made the press. Today, people aren't really supposed to remember nor point out this interesting historical irony, especially within the media."

By fast-forwarding 30 years and changing one vowel, (MAK to MEK) we see history repeating almost exactly. There's ample evidence that Iranian MEK terrorists, "our new terrorists," are responsible for conducting assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists.

U.S. officials confirmed the charges leveled by Iran's leaders as well as the fact that the killings and bombings in Iran were financed, trained and armed by Israel's secret service. In an exclusive report, NBC reported that:

"The group, the People's Mujahedin of Iran, has long been designated as a terrorist group by the United States, accused of killing American servicemen and contractors in the 1970s and supporting the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran before breaking with the Iranian mullahs in 1980.

"The attacks, which have killed five Iranian nuclear scientists since 2007 and may have destroyed a missile research and development site, have been carried out in dramatic fashion, with motorcycle-borne assailants often attaching small magnetic bombs to the exterior of the victims' cars." [From NBC Rock Center exclusive report, February, 2012]

Last April, Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker article "Our Men in Iran" that members of MEK were also being trained in Nevada by U.S. Joint Special Operation Command for covert actions to topple the Iranian government.