Meet the new "Al Qaeda": (hint: they're Persian)

[theSaiGirl]

Meet the next "Al Qaeda" ...
The MEK - The People's Mujahideen

Perhaps an enemy more suitable to a new incoming administration in Washington; a change of faces, symbols, props and staging.
The MEK, our new "best enemy money can buy", would clearly shift the patronage, contracting and policy and media attention away from the quagmire in Iraq ..
and towards a new campaign to make the world safe for democracy...
in Iran:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EF26Ak01.html

[Neil Lisst]

1. the TV drama series is lagging, plot lines languish unresolved, losing

viewers ... what to do?!

I know! We need a new villain!! A new tragedy! A new war! A new enemy! A new sinister force trying to de-Bushificate the world!

Time to fire the writers and cancel the show.

[theSaiGirl]

5. Time to fire the writers and cancel the show.

The show must go on.

And, given the rapidly eroding credibility of the dollar, in tandem with a general collapse of confidence in the Iraqi gamble specifically and the regime's policies generally, the stage must now be shifted smoothly and seamlessly, to an entirely new and fresher venue; with new characters, and a marginally more plausible plotline, than the ill-fated "Al Qaeda".

It's the only way to breathe new life into the "War on Terror".

The MEK steps right out of an episdoe of "24" ...
I just can't seem to remember which one ... ?

[Neil Lisst]

7. when they're in trouble, look for a new scapegoat!

Hey, you'll do, MEK!!

[tatertop]

6. They are about to change the content of The Two Minutes Hate

Look for the MEK to join the line up soon

[Neil Lisst]

8. first MEK comes on a guest villain, then they hang around and

eventually become the NEW bad guy in this season's drama series

[tatertop]

9. Yes, I suppose they'll soften us up a bit before they roll out the product

[Neil Lisst]

15. they use marketing principles: foreshadowing and repetition

They will mention it over and over and insinuate it into as many stories as possible, then yell "ah-hah!" when the next terror event happens.

[NNN0LHI]

2. MEK is not new. They have killed Americans before and will do so again

http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/mek.htm

Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK)
Sazman-e Mojahedin-e Khalq-e Iran
Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO)
National Liberation Army of Iran (NLA)
People's Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI)
Muslim Iranian Student's Society
National Council of Resistance (NCR)
National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)

Description

The MEK philosophy mixes Marxism and Islam. Formed in the 1960s, the organization was expelled from Iran after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, and its primary support came from the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein since the late 1980s. The MEK’s history is filled with anti-Western attacks as well as terrorist attacks on the interests of the clerical regime in Iran and abroad. The MEK now advocates the overthrow of the Iranian regime and its replacement with the group’s own leadership.

Activities

The group’s worldwide campaign against the Iranian Government stresses propaganda and occasionally uses terrorism. 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. In 1981, the MEK detonated bombs in the head office of the Islamic Republic Party and the Premier’s office, killing some 70 high-ranking Iranian officials, including chief Justice Ayatollah Mohammad Beheshti, President Mohammad-Ali Rajaei, and Premier Mohammad-Javad Bahonar. Near the end of the war with Iran during 1980-88, Baghdad armed the MEK with military equipment and sent it into action against Iranian forces. In 1991, it assisted the Government of Iraq in suppressing the Shia and Kurdish uprisings in southern Iraq and the Kurdish uprisings in the north. In April 1992, the MEK conducted near-simultaneous attacks on Iranian Embassies and installations in 13 countries, demonstrating the group’s ability to mount large-scale operations overseas. In April 1999, the MEK targeted key military officers and assassinated the deputy chief of the Armed Forces General Staff. In April 2000, the MEK attempted to assassinate the commander of the Nasr Headquarters—Tehran’s interagency board responsible for coordinating policies on Iraq. The normal pace of anti-Iranian operations increased during the “Operation Great Bahman” in February 2000, when the group launched a dozen attacks against Iran. In 2000 and 2001, the MEK was involved regularly in mortar attacks and hit-and run raids on Iranian military and law-enforcement units and government buildings near the Iran-Iraq border, although MEK terrorism in Iran declined throughout the remainder of 2001. In February 2000, for example, the MEK launched a mortar attack against the leadership complex in Tehran that houses the offices of the Supreme Leader and the President. Coalition aircraft bombed MEK bases during Operation Iraqi Freedom, and the Coalition forced the MEK forces to surrender in May 2003. The future of the MEK forces remains undetermined with Coalition forces.

[Emit]

3. I think your analogy is off a bit. Not the new Al Qaeda. More like the

new Chalabi/The Iraqi National Congress.

From your link, and lots of other info I've been following, many of the neocons support the MEK/National Council of Resistance of Iran and the reports coming from RawStory and previously from Scott Ritter say that US is already using the MEK in Iran:


from your link, at the end:

With the student demonstrators lacking natural national leaders and the movement yet to develop into a broader reform protest, Iran lacks an organized anti-fundamentalist force that could lead and translate widespread public dissatisfaction into a popular street protest.

It is this vacuum that the MEK, and its front organization, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, will endeavor to fill. The dilemma for the US is, does it keep the MEK on its terror list, or does it acknowledge the organization as the best available conduit to promote political change in Iran?

[theSaiGirl]

11. " .... or more like Chalabi and the INC .." ?

Hmmm..
Interesting comparison.

How about .. more like the KLA ?
The Kosovo Liberation Army.
Just your average fun-loving, party-hardy guys, drug dealers, gun runners, collection agents and enforcers, ready to become jihadis for a few years.

Remember how NATO sponsored the KLA in the Balkans ?
Of course, Wesley Clark would have a different take on that.
He would argue that NATO (and "the West") talked the KLA in out of the cold, away from "terrorism", and onto the reservation, where they have now been domesticated and graduated to the rank of "partners in peace" and "nation building".
Just like the neo-cons claim they talked down that boogeyman Qadafi ..
Yes !!
That's it!
That's exactly how the savvy and erudite General Clark would explain it to us novices in the murky world of state-sponsored "freedom-fighters".

Hey ..
Maybe .. us being "democraticunderground" .. maybe we could lure General Clark over here himself, to this discussion thread:
on blowback, false-flag operations and "asymmetric" state-sponsored terrorism generally.
Clark probably knows all kinds of details he can't talk about, relating to the nuclear supermarket run by AQ Khan and his Pakistani ISI sponsors.
Certainly enough details and history to embarass and blackmail the current crop of time-servers at Langley and DoD.
Come to think of it.. that's probably his main qualification to be Prez.

He's worked "constructively" with real "terrorists" ... the Kosovo Liberation Army !

Now who would be better suited to controlling any off-the-reservation problems from the MEK ?

[Emit]

12. Even a better analogy!

(Although it seems we somehow have to work in the neocons' support of Pahlavi as the "new Chalabi" to your analogy)

And here's something fitting to your analogy, Clark is a board member of the NED... to "promote democracy and internationally-recognized standards of human rights in Iran."

As discussed previously here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=923696&mesg_id=934791

[theSaiGirl]

13. Neo-cons, neo-liberals, the NED, the CIA .... and the Democratic Party

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1199
"Carl Gershman,the long-time head of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), has been a central figure in U.S. sectarian politics for decades. He was a member of the Socialist Party USA when it split into two factions in the early 1970s: a left wing led by Michael Harrington and a right wing led by Gershman, Tom Kahn, and Rachelle Horowitz. The right faction morphed into Social Democrats USA (SD/USA), which in the early 1970s rallied around Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson, the hawkish Democrat from Washington State whose staff was made up of several key neoconservative figures, including Richard Perle, Frank Gaffney, and Elliott Abrams.

Like many of these neoconservatives, Gershman was tapped to serve in the Reagan administration. In 1984, Gershman took over the helm of the NED, a congressionally funded organization created by Ronald Reagan in 1982 to support groups in the Soviet Union and other communist countries that promote democracy. (7, 8)"
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interesting to see the "left" credentials of so many of these media-tagged "neo-cons", the presumed original authors of our recent foreign adventures and turns toward a domestic police state.

Leads one to wonder if the entire "left-right" paradigm isn't a bit of a red-herring; contrived play-acting to keep TV news talking heads, conservative talk radio and corporate media generally well supplied with domestic political plot-line.

Now just what does "social democrat" mean in the case of a Carl Gershman ?
Or a Lane Kirkland (AFL-CIO) ?
Or some of the New York "social democrats" around Hillary Clinton.
Or the ones around John Kerry, Howard Dean, ... etc. ?

Can someone define just what a "social democrat" is these days ?
Is it someone who supports the "War on Terror" ?
Like a Christopher Hitchens ?
Sure seems like it.
Well .. now that we have that settled, we can all be good little flag-waving patriotic war-supporting Democrats comfortably, can't we ?
It's just the oh-so "progressive" thing to do.

[Emit]

14. Leads one to wonder

"Leads one to wonder if the entire "left-right" paradigm isn't a bit of a red-herring; contrived play-acting to keep TV news talking heads, conservative talk radio and corporate media generally well supplied with domestic political plot-line..." ...while they continue with their plans for US hegemony ... imperialism ... globalism ... New World Order?

Yes, I often post on the PBS website, and I was quite surprised recently when Zbigniew Brzezinski was on Charlie Rose criticizing the Bush regime. Many of the progressives on that forum fell for it, and were complimenting his rhetoric (mostly they were just glad to hear an intelligent person critical of Bush on PBS/Rose). Some of us chimed in to remind them that Zbig advocates imperialism, just smarter imperialism. I respect his message -- I'm always impressed with his intelligence and ability to articulate, but, his message is really not that different than Bush & Co., on the whole scheme of things, it seems.

Anyway, interesting things you point out. Thanks.

[theSaiGirl]

4. More on the emerging legend of the MEK ...

reprinted with thanks to and attribution from the huffingtonpost:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/at-rummys-bizarro-pentag_b_5427.html

Subject: U.S. Prepared to Grab Iran's Southwesten Oil Rich Providence after Saturation Bombings

August 10, 2005 -- U.S. prepared to grab Iran's southwestern majority Arab and oil-rich province after saturation bombing of Iranian nuclear, chemical, and command, control, communications & intelligence (C3I) targets. According to sources within the German Federal Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst - BND), the Bush administration has drawn up plans to hit Iran's nuclear, other WMD, and military sites with heavy saturation bombing using bunker buster bombs and tactical nuclear weapons. The attack will be coordinated with urban and rural critical infrastructure sabotage carried out by elements of the People's Mujaheddin (MEK), Pentagon Special Operations units, and other Iranian dissident groups. The German intelligence comes from classified briefings provided by elements within the CIA that are concerned the neocons in the Bush administration will, in attacking Iran, set off a chain of events that will lead to world war. Intelligence on U.S. plans to attack Iran has also been passed by CIA agents to counterparts in France, Britain, Canada, and Australia. The Bush war plans for Iran also entail quickly seizing Iran's southwestern Khuzestan Province, where most of Iran's oil reserves and refineries are located. Khuzestan has a majority Shia Arab population that has close links with their ethnic and religious brethren in Iraq. The Bush plans call for a U.S. military strike across the Iraqi border and from naval forces in the Persian Gulf in answer to an appeal for assistance from the Al Ahwaz Popular Democratic Front and Liberation Organization rebel forces in Khuzestan, which will declare an independent Arab state of the Democratic Republic of Ahwaz and receive diplomatic recognition from the United States and a few close U.S. allies. After World War I, Khuzestan was annexed by Iran, then called Persia. There are also plans to incite rebellions among Iran's other minorities, including Azeris and Turkmenis in the oil-rich Caspian Sea region. Other minorities targeted by the neo-con planners are Iranian Kurds along the Iraqi and Turkish borders and Baluchis along the border with Pakistan. The neo-con plan seeks to separate Iran from its oil resources and create an "Irani triangle" centered around Teheran, Isfahan, Qom, and other historically Persian centers. In anticipation of the U.S. attack, the spy sub USS Jimmy Carter has placed taps on undersea communications cables in the Persian Gulf that carry Iranian commercial, diplomatic, and military traffic. In addition, Task Force 121 covert paramilitary forces have scouted Iran using the cover of journalists and businessmen to pinpoint military targets.

----------------------------------------------

Who's Behind the Coming War with Iran?

http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=39666...

===============================================================

The mainstream of intelligence community and military professionals seem very concerned about the prospect of an ill-considered adventure against Iran; especially one involving nuclear assets or targets.

Just who among those sagging chins at the Carnegie Endowment, or Brookings, wants to consider the attractiveness of a deadly "false-flag" event (something approaching the scale and scope of 9/11), now to be conveniently enabled by and attributed to a "shadowy network" of terrorists led by a mastermind,...over at the .. guess who ?

The MEK !
The People's Mujahiddin !

They have the motive !
They have the profile !
(yet to be provided by Judy Miller at the Times or Michael Ledeen at NRO)...
And as to the means and opportunity ?
Well just ask AQ Khan what he thinks about that.

Under present circumstances of, a soggy cornflake "opposition"
party in the US Congress; a willing and compliant corporate media;
a public passively paralyzed by the ongoing threat of terrorism;
an increasngly desperate and emboldened clique of neo-con crusaders at DoD and in the White House ...
What intelligence agency (foreign, domestic or corporate) worth its salt could resist the use of an instrument like the MEK, for plausible attribution of a conveniently staged false-flag event, providing the perfect pretext for shifting gears sharply into an escalated war on terror... now focused primarily on Iran.

The MEK is just too perfect a patsy ... not to be promoted in the media.
Look for it...

It seems that all the world-class intelligence agencies (and some private corporate consultants as well) dabble in the funding and sponsorship of groups like the MEK.

What makes this curious is the long history of Pakistani ISI sponsorship and guidance of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and, of course, what has come to be called "Al Qaeda".
The Pakistani ISI, long a protege of the CIA and British intelligence agencies, seems to have a verifiable success record with development of "terrorist threats";
The MEK seems a fitting successor to "Al Qaeda", with a less-stridently defined profile. The funding can be handled the way the Pakistanis and Saudis have always managed it, with help from European and American money-laundering experts, and a few bankers willing to take the fees:
http://www.saag.org/papers13/paper1224.html

Democrats.com, apparently is concerned about the CIA's current adventures on the Pakistan/Iran border, involving local guidance to cadres of the MEK, in presumably "terrorist" attacks on the regime of the mullahs in Iran:
http://www.democrats.com/node/2923

So it would appear that the stage for "shock and awe" (sturm und drang) now shifts from Iraq to Iran ?

[theSaiGirl]

10. The MEK ....... heir to a long and distinguished imperial tradition

False-flag operations.

How can a "democratic society" tolerate them ?

How they do it in Algeria:
http://www.salaam.co.uk/themeofthemonth/january03_index.php?l=60%82%22=0

We like to pretend that only gangster regimes in "banana republics" can get away with this kind of violence and political blackmail.


The engineering of elaborate, and often bloody, "false-flag" events, is an ancient tool of empire.
Well-suited to a population of "good Germans".

I recently watched a new production on cable, purporting to prove that, indeed, it was those subversive, terroristic ancient "Christians", who set fire to Rome in 64 AD and burned most of the city.
And the poor emperor, Nero, when he consigned these subversive arsonists and terrorists to the hungry beasts, crucifixions and burning stakes of the arena, did so, only in submission to the demands of a justifiably enraged Roman middle-class citizenry.
They knew how to handle terrorists in those days, didn't they ?
And urban redevelopment of the new metropolitan Rome could now proceed.

Here is how the Brits do it .. they're the best at it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/shayler/0,2759,339663,00.html
http://www.five.org.uk/security/mi5org/shayler.htm
http://www.thememoryhole.org/spy/shayler/welcome.htm

How our people like to do it ...
in Euope ..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladio

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=off&c2coff=1&as_qdr=all&q=Gladio+%22strategy+of+tension%22++bologna

or in our own hemisphere ...
http://www.webguild.com/SENTINEL/bush_pardon.htm
from an excellent discussion right here at DU...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/duforum/DCForumID70/4557.html

When we say "state-sponsored terrorism" .. just which states are we talking about ?
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB125/index2.htm
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=ISO-8859-1&safe=off&c2coff=1&as_qdr=all&q=%22state+sponsored+terrorism%22+&btnG=Search