US hiring MEK terrorists for secret war in Iran

Hasn't the US learned not to hire terrorists to harass its geopolitical enemies? Osama Bin Laden got his start on our payroll when he was fighting the Russians in Afghanistan.

Now, it appears that the US is teaming up with another terrorist group, the MEK to create unrest inside Iran.

During an interview on CNN Friday night, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner claimed that U.S. military operations are already 'underway' inside Iran, RAW STORY has found. [...]

Last Thursday, Raw Story's Larisa Alexandrovna reported (On Cheney, Rumsfeld order, US outsourcing special ops, intelligence to Iraq terror group, intelligence officials say) that, according to former and current intelligence officials, the Pentagon has been using a right-wing terrorist organization known as Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) as an operational asset "to create strife in Iran in preparation for any possible attack." [Raw Story]

A little background on the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK), courtesy of the State Department:

• 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 starting in the late 1980s.

According the State Department, the MEK continues to commit terrorism inside Iran to the present day. The MEK signed a cease-fire with the United States in 2003.

Digby has more.

Sy Hersh's influential New Yorker article suggests that American troops are already fomenting unrest on the ground in Iran:

American combat troops have been ordere into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting dat and to establish contact with anti-governmen ethnic-minority groups. [...]

If the order were to be given for an attack, the American combat troops now operating in Iran would be in position to mark the critical targets with laser beams, to insure bombing accuracy and to minimize civilian casualties. As of early winter, I was told by the government consultant with close ties to civilians in the Pentagon, the units were also working with minority groups in Iran, including the Azeris, in the north, the Baluchis, in the southeast, and the Kurds, in the northeast. The troops “are studying the terrain, and giving away walking-around money to ethnic tribes, and recruiting scouts from local tribes and shepherds,” the consultant said. One goal is to get “eyes on the ground”—quoting a line from “Othello,” he said, “Give me the ocular proof.” The broader aim, the consultant said, is to “encourage ethnic tensions” and undermine the regime.

The new mission for the combat troops is a product of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s long-standing interest in expanding the role of the military in covert operations, which was made official policy in the Pentagon’s Quadrennial Defense Review, published in February. Such activities, if conducted by C.I.A. operatives, would need a Presidential Finding and would have to be reported to key members of Congress.

“ ‘Force protection’ is the new buzzword,” the former senior intelligence official told me. He was referring to the Pentagon’s position that clandestine activities that can be broadly classified as preparing the battlefield or protecting troops are military, not intelligence, operations, and are therefore not subject to congressional oversight. “The guys in the Joint Chiefs of Staff say there are a lot of uncertainties in Iran,” he said. “We need to have more than what we had in Iraq. Now we have the green light to do everything we want.”

A number observers have wondered why so many retired generals have denounced Secretary Of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The general staff has plenty of reasons to hate Rummy.

As Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld is in charge of the Counterintelligence Field Activity:

CIFA is a three-year-old agency whose size and budget remain secret. It has grown from an agency that coordinated policy and oversaw the counterintelligence activities of units within the military services and Pentagon agencies to an analytic and operational organization with nine directorates and ever-widening authority.

Its Directorate of Field Activities (DX) "assists in preserving the most critical defense assets, disrupting adversaries and helping control the intelligence domain," the fact sheet said. Those roles can range from running roving patrols around military bases and facilities to surveillance of potentially threatening people or organizations inside the United States. The DX also provides "on-site, real time . . . support in hostile areas worldwide to protect both U.S. and host nation personnel from a variety of threats," the fact sheet said.

This is just one illustration of the growth of Pentagon activities in the United States and abroad as part of the terrorism fight. Last week, news accounts revealed that President Bush authorized secret eavesdropping on Americans with suspected ties to terrorist groups.

Another CIFA directorate, the Counterintelligence and Law Enforcement Center, "identifies and assesses threats" to Defense personnel, operations and infrastructure from "insider threats, foreign intelligence services, terrorists, and other clandestine or covert entities," according to the Pentagon. [WaPo]

It's not hard to see how CIFA could be an ideal tool for fighting an illegal and dirty war. CIFA is ostensibly concerned with "force protection" as opposed to intelligence gathering or military operations. So, it can operate without Congressional supervision in many spheres. Perhaps the generals are speaking out against Rumsfeld now because they are trying to prevent him from doing an end-run around the safeguards that make it more difficult to rush the country to war.

Comments

[John]

Hasn't the US learned not to hire terrorists to harass its geopolitical enemies?

Tomorrow never comes for these assholes. That's why they couldn't give a shit about our political estrangment from our allies or our soaring deficit. So who cares if we create ANOTHER bin Laden? As long as we have color-coded terror alert levels we'll be okay.

[Cass]

Didn't you get the memo? They're now "freedom fighters".

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

Chicken Littlism makes for bad delegating skills. It's a very strange thing about America, that throughout the Cold War, to the modern day, instead of delegating defensive duties sensibly, we've alternated between megalomaniacally micromanaging, taking over every task ourselves, and when we must delegate, delegating to truly frightening people like Osama's Afghani Mujahedeen or fascistic Pinochet, who absolutely have no sympathy for our ideologies, and in some cases, no especial allegiance to us at all.

Our foreign policy always shows up our anti-cosmopolitan attitude. Cosmopolitanism has drawbacks, when we allow our allegiances to others to override our national interest (presuming that our interests are primarily national, instead of humanitarian), but without cosmopolitanism, we have no understanding of what's going on in those foreign countries, and we're likely to flail.

[Wade]

While I'm none too happy to hear about this, I don't think there's any danger of our creating another Osama bin Laden (a Saddam Hussein, maybe). The MEK have got to be running on ideological fumes. The Marxist association, however tenuous it may be, makes them immediately suspect, and they have none of the pan-Islamic thrust that makes Al Qaeda so compelling.

[Norman Costa]

I posted this on the Bunker Buster discussion, as well.

Sorry about the 'commentorrhea', but here goes.

In a prior post I proposed that the White House and the DOD wanted the nuclear bunker buster (NBB) come hell or high water. When I said DOD, I mean Donald Rumsfeld and the civilian executive appointees. If we accept much of the Sy Hersh article, then the actual uniform-wearing soldiers and generals at the DOD are opposed to developing and using NBBs and prefer conventional bunker busters (CBB). It appears that the generals understand, all to well, the NBB whirlwind that we will reap for ourselves and our children.

Now put this in the context of the criticism of the retired generals who call for the resignation of Rumsfeld. At first blush this sounds like a whisper of sanity and courage we thought was extinct at the DOD. In part it is, but not so fast. True, the generals have learned from history and have tried very, very hard to put these lessons on warfare to practice. For example, General Colin Powell was one of the more aggressive and articulate proponents of overwhelming force, clear objectives, domestic political support, international participation, and decisive outcomes. Hersh states several times in his article how the military has studied history and learned from it, but the present civilian administration still believes that Hitler can win WWII by bombing London and demoralizing the population and getting the politicians to cry uncle. Need I say the same thing about the Allied bombing of German cities?

So does this mean that the military have got it right, and we ought to encourage more of the generals to speak out? This obvious question is really a false choice for us. To the extent that the uniformed members of the DOD believe the use of NBBs, or any tactical nukes, is insanity, then I'm for the generals. But, no NBBs is only part of the story. The generals have signed up for the notion that a nuclear capable Iran, or even just the potential to complete a nuclear weapons program, is TOTALLY AND COMPLETELY UNACCECPTABLE. They have signed up to the inevitability of military action, unless there is a complete capitulation by Iran on their nukes. However, they do not want to use NBBs or any kind of nukes when the time comes. The time may be very soon.

Prior to 9/11, Noam Chomsky and others talked about a plan for a series of wars in the Middle East that was ready to unfold from our DOD. Iraq was conveniently lauched after 9/11 because the fortuitous timing was just to good to pass up. Remember, Colin Powell had already signed up for the invasion of Iraq before 9/11. He wanted Bush to wait one more year, as did the rest of the brass, until we were better prepared, staffed, and armed. Powell was never an opponent of the Iraq war, only an opponent of going as soon as we did.

So where does this discussion take us on NBBs and CBBs, what works and what doesn't, who's insane and who has their heads screwed on correctly? The generals know we are going to war with Iran and they approve. They just want to make sure it's done the right way, with all the proper planning and resources, without nukes, and without the fantasies and delusions of Rumsfeld, the DOD civilians, and the White House. Now add one more ingredient to this ready-for-war stew. Today, Israel's Peres said, "Ahmadinejad represents Satan, not God." 'Satan' is an image that more blantantly provokes American conservative Christians, and not so much for Israelis. Israelis do not need the image of 'Satan' to formulate their response to Ahmadinejad. American conservative Christians do.

Our administration is not going to blink. For everyone's sake, I hope Iran does.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

the present civilian administration still believes that Hitler can win WWII by bombing London and demoralizing the population and getting the politicians to cry uncle. Need I say the same thing about the Allied bombing of German cities?

A huge problem here, that probably doesn't need repeating but here goes anyway, is that we have no boots on the ground. Even if we had the manpower to spare, which of course we don't or we wouldn't have tried to use only half the soldiers our generals requested in Iraq, Iran has for hundreds of years proved very hard to conquer. Even before the mid-20th century, the shahs often only ruled at the sufferance of the hill tribes. America's staying power as a colonial power, Puerto Rico and Hawaii notwithstanding, isn't exactly a given anymore. I can only imagine us trying to pacify that country. So we don't even seem to be entertaining the possibility anymore.

I agree with one of the posters on another thread: the genie is out of the bottle. Pretending that it's 50 years ago, and we can remain the only game in town, ignores Pakistan, with its blabbermouth nuclear scientist Abdul Kadeer Khan; North Korea, with a nutjob Stalinist leader that makes Ahmedinejad look almost warm and fuzzy; devolved SSR Kazakhstan; and whichever other Stans among Uzbeki-, Turkmeni-, Kyrgyz-, and Tajiki-stan, stan, stan, and stan all have nukes. Who are we kidding, going to war whenever an unfriendly country gets a nuke? Unless it's for some other reason.

[Norman Costa]

I also posted this comment on the bunker buster thread.

TOGOLOSH commented, a week or so ago, about the use of a non-nuclear device, a tungsten rod, lauched from space or on a ballistic missile, which would be a 'supersized' version of the armor piercing depleted uranium rod. My understanding is that the incredible speed of impact would produce kinetic energy and destruction of near-nuclear yield. I do not believe using ballistic delivery systems of such weapons is palatable to other nations who would be horrified at watching 75 missiles being launched and unable to determine whether the warheads are filled with nukes or heavy metal rods, or be sure as the the intended targets. Such a use of ballistic missiles is also insane.

The Hersh article suggests, very strongly, that the uniformed military has no illusions about the difficulty of using conventional means (not just CBBs) for an attack on Iran's nuclear capabilities. But, they seem to feel it is doable with a lot more in the way of tactics and boots-on-the-ground special operations. Also, the military believe that taking out every single nuke facility, known and unknown, is not a necessity. In fact, there would only be a few that would be neutralized, along with many more non-nuke targets like command and control, communicatins, and air attack and defense. Very deep bunkers would be disabled by sealing them.

The expectation by the military is that such a strike would produce a collapse of the present government and a power-vacuum-filling rise of Irani political forces that we are preparing and funding. Both the brass and the Rumsfeld civilians (including Bush) agree on this, but the soldiers don't want any nukes, and they don't want any overconfidence in technology at the expense of manpower and good tactics.

Once again this sounds so much like, "The repressed citizens will rise up against their oppressors, they will greet us with flowered wreaths, and welcome us as their liberators." Before we dismiss this as one more example of not learning from our own mistakes, consider this: Christopher Hitchens, and to a lesser extent Thomas Friedman, proffer the notion that Iranis would be so grateful if the U.S. came in, destroyed the nukes, got rid of the Mullahs, and then left right away. Whether this is true or not, or makes good policy or not, is beside the point. This is what 'Nuke-'em' Rumsfeld and the 'Near-Nuke-'em' military believe they can accomplish, regime change and all. It will begin with the Bush administration identifying several Irani nuke facilities, ordering the Iranis to shut them down and submit to inspections, declaring that all vehicles and personnel that approach entrances or depart from exits will be destroyed, and a time certain ultimatum delivered to Ahmadinejad.

As much as I hate to see a policy of quick-draw succeed and persist into the future, there is a very real possibility that our military could pull it off. If the Iranis capitulate on their nukes before a strike, the policies of this administration would be validated for some time to come.

The gauntlet has already been thrown down. I repeat the close of my last post, "Our administration is not going to blink. For everyone's sake, I hope Iran does."

[Blar]

Obviously, we're fighting the Islamo-terrorist version of WWII. As Glenn Greenwald describes it today,

Iran, of course, is Nazi Germany. Its leaders are Adolph Hitler. And we are France & England in 1936, faced with the only historical choice people like Kristol are capable of understanding -- we either wage glorious battle and take our rightful place beside the noble Winston Churchill, or we shrink away from our grand historical calling and are instantaneously transformed into the lowly coward, Neville Chamberlain.

So we need someone to play Josef Stalin, and these Islamomarxist terrorists look to be the perfect ally to go up against the Islamofascist axis of evil.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

That's not at all obvious. They wish it were, but it's rightwing oversimplification, better known as propaganda.

1930s Germany was a country with a decades-long history of fighting very nearly every major power in Europe, except the failing Ottoman Empire, but including England and Russia (in World War I), France (in WWI and the Franco-Prussian War), and Austria-Hungary (in the Austro-Prussian War). Germany itself was created by fighting the latter two. 1930s Germany was ruled by a dictator whose stated aim was to conquer the entirety of Slavic Europe and Soviet Russia, for use as its breadbasket.

Iran, on the other hand, has a history, for centuries, not just decades, of mainly fighting exactly two countries: Iraq and Israel. This is detestable, and it obviously intends to keep fighting in Iraq, as it's doing now, and is likely to trouble Israel, and the US if we stay in the region, with terrorism, which is also detestable. However, we were unable to keep them from doing so in Lebanon, and we are unable even to prevent them doing so in Iraq, even though we're occupying Iraq. A bombing campaign will not suffice.

As in Germany, only a very costly occupation, in terms of lives even more than in dollars, will achieve our goals there. We are not prepared for this very costly occupation. Therefore, the US's shelling campaign would have to be augmented with a Russia, if this analogy were anywhere near accurate, which it's not. Who shall we choose, to protect a capitalist, liberal democratic, stolidly anti-communist and anti-socialist America, and a Jewish, capitalist, liberal democratic Israel? Why, some Islamic Marxists, of course! They're sure to remain our staunch allies in the region, and, just like Stalin's Russian, to meekly give obeisance to our every desire, after the war! Good thinking.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

Should read: "solidly anti-communist."

[R. Mildred]

we either wage glorious battle and take our rightful place beside the noble Winston Churchill

You mean spend the first couple months of actual war fucking up a navel campaign in norway?

The only way the WW2 comparison works is if we are Nazi Germany, Iran is the USSR, the EU is Britain, Britain is Italy and China is the USA.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

Daniel Ellsberg was interviewed by Salon.com yesterday. He says:

Men in power are willing to gamble with any number of human lives in order to keep power. There is virtually no limit to the number of people they will risk killing in the future in order to keep their jobs. There is no real limit to it.

When I say there is no limit, I am ultimately referring to nuclear war. [...] There would have been a genuinely inadvertent and unforeseen effect if the U.S. government had carried out its plan for general nuclear war while I was in the government, say, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. There would have been nuclear winter. Bombs would have hit every city in Russia and China. They would have caused so much smoke to rise that all highly complex life on Earth would have been wiped out.

Well, I hope to live another ten to twenty years -- I could die anytime -- but my father lived to be ninety-six, and I'll be very surprised if there are not some more Hiroshimas during that time. Really surprised. In fact, I would say within ten years. The promise made to the dead of Hiroshima -- "Let all the souls here rest in peace, for we shall not repeat the evil" -- is not going to be kept. At this moment, I think that it will probably be a terrorist weapon. Katrina is a pretty good taste for what will happen when we lose a city. Of course, the death rate will be much bigger.

Let's say a small terrorist weapon goes off, and because Bush has done his best to cut funds for safeguarding Russian nuclear materials, that action is exactly comparable in its irresponsibility to flood control in New Orleans although the effects will be much greater. After all, if a hole occurs in that dike around Russian nuclear materials, there's really no limit to what can come out of it in the way of plutonium and uranium. Which takes us back to the market theory. If terrorist organizations can't use Saudi money and drug money to buy a Russian nuclear warhead, then Adam Smith's theory of markets can be almost discarded.

In other words, we're plugging a hole in one end of the dike (or bursting one) by attacking Iran, but allowing a huge hole to widen, or widening it ourselves, in the other end, by failing to mind Russia's old stock of nuclear material.

Ellsberg also mentions Nazi Germany, but in terms unfavorable to the US.

[Jackmormon]

Connie Bruck's New Yorker article, "The Exiles," suggested pretty strongly that Israeli intelligence was using the MEK as a cut-out to get information about Iran to the US.

A tangled web.

[Jackmormon]

Connie Bruck's New Yorker article, "The Exiles," suggested pretty strongly that Israeli intelligence was using the MEK as a cut-out to get information about Iran to the US.

A tangled web.

[rob helpy-chalk]

The only way the WW2 comparison works is if we are Nazi Germany, Iran is the USSR, the EU is Britain, Britain is Italy and China is the USA.

Wow, that's an elaborate analogy, but it seems to work.

Is Japan still Japan? Maybe Israel is Japan? Is Canada Sweeden? Does someone get to be France?

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

Certainly: half of the country is overrun, with a puppet government installed, and an insurgency. France is Iraq.

[neal]

oh boy. this is incredibly scary. i'm amazed at the lengths to which the US has fucked iran up since 1952. thanks for posting on this, lindsay.

[Blar]

To anyone still reading this who paid any attention to my comment, let me just add that you really should click through to the Glenn Greenwald post that I linked, or even better, to this Glenn Greenwald post, which the earlier linked post was just a teaser for.

[Blar]

I meant this post. My last comment just re-linked the same teaser post.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

Begging your pardon, Blar. Read it on the fly, didn't click through to your link, and so thought you were either a right-wing troll, and were serious, or if not serious about the WWII analogy, were linking to someone who was.

[1984 Was Not a Shopping List]

This part of your original comment shows that that was wrong. Sorry to have missed it earlier.

>faced with the only historical choice people like Kristol are capable of understanding

[Tacker]

Now put this in the context of the criticism of the retired generals who call for the resignation of Rumsfeld. At first blush this sounds like a whisper of sanity and courage we thought was extinct at the DOD. In part it is, but not so fast. True, the generals have learned from history and have tried very, very hard to put these lessons on warfare to practice. For example, General Colin Powell was one of the more aggressive and articulate proponents of overwhelming force, clear objectives, domestic political support, international participation, and decisive outcomes. Hersh states several times in his article how the military has studied history and learned from it, but the present civilian administration still believes that Hitler can win WWII by bombing London and demoralizing the population and getting the politicians to cry uncle. Need I say the same thing about the Allied bombing of German cities?