After previously heralding the Egyptian protests as a triumph for democracy, the Iranian government has made it clear that such demonstrations are best viewed from afar. After cracking down on tens of thousands of protesters yesterday, Iranian legislators are calling for the leaders of the protests to be executed. This followed the announcement that the government will be opening special courts to punish journalists.
Hardline Iranian lawmakers called for swift trials and executions for all those who lead protests yesterday. Dozens have already been arrested, access denied to leaders, and the Internet interrupted in the crackdown. Iranian leaders used the open session of the parliament to lead chants of “death to Mousavi, Karroubi and Kahatami,” referring to opposition leaders. Nothing like a demonstration of democratic values . . . Iranian style.
Just another disturbing day in America… (“Good” morning and you’re welcome, Gene H. 😉 )
anon nurse,
Thanks for that utterly disturbing update.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/04/mek.html
Notes on Washington and the world by the staff of The New Yorker.
April 6, 2012
Our Men in Iran?
Posted by Seymour M. Hersh
Excerpt:
From the air, the terrain of the Department of Energy’s Nevada National Security Site, with its arid high plains and remote mountain peaks, has the look of northwest Iran. The site, some sixty-five miles northwest of Las Vegas, was once used for nuclear testing, and now includes a counterintelligence training facility and a private airport capable of handling Boeing 737 aircraft. It’s a restricted area, and inhospitable—in certain sections, the curious are warned that the site’s security personnel are authorized to use deadly force, if necessary, against intruders.
It was here that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) conducted training, beginning in 2005, for members of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a dissident Iranian opposition group known in the West as the M.E.K. The M.E.K. had its beginnings as a Marxist-Islamist student-led group and, in the nineteen-seventies, it was linked to the assassination of six American citizens. (article continues)
http://www.salon.com/2012/04/06/report_us_trained_terror_group/singleton/
Report: US trained terror group
By Glenn Greenwald
Friday, Apr 6, 2012
Excerpt:
When the U.S. wants to fund, train, arm or otherwise align itself with a Terrorist group or state sponsor of Terror — as it often does — it at least usually has the tact to first remove them from its formal terrorist list (as the U.S. did when it wanted to support Saddam in 1982 and work with Libya in 2006), or it just keeps them off the list altogether despite what former Council on Foreign Relations writer Lionel Beehner described as “mounds of evidence that [they] at one time or another abetted terrorists” (as it has done with close U.S. allies in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, along with the El Salvadoran death squads and Nicaraguan contras armed and funded in the 1980s by the Reagan administration). But according to a new, multi-sourced report from The New Yorker‘s Seymour Hersh, the U.S. did not even bother going through those motions when, during the Bush years, it trained the Iranian dissident group Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) at a secretive Department of Energy site in Nevada:
It was here that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) conducted training, beginning in 2005, for members of the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, a dissident Iranian opposition group known in the West as the M.E.K. . . . The M.E.K.’s ties with Western intelligence deepened after the fall of the Iraqi regime in 2003, and JSOC began operating inside Iran in an effort to substantiate the Bush Administration’s fears that Iran was building the bomb at one or more secret underground locations. Funds were covertly passed to a number of dissident organizations, for intelligence collection and, ultimately, for anti-regime terrorist activities. Directly, or indirectly, the M.E.K. ended up with resources like arms and intelligence. Some American-supported covert operations continue in Iran today, according to past and present intelligence officials and military consultants.
Despite the growing ties, and a much-intensified lobbying effort organized by its advocates, M.E.K. has remained on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations – which meant that secrecy was essential in the Nevada training. ”We did train them here, and washed them through the Energy Department because the D.O.E. owns all this land in southern Nevada,” a former senior American intelligence official told me. “We were deploying them over long distances in the desert and mountains, and building their capacity in communications—coördinating commo is a big deal.”
A JSOC spokesman told Hersh that ”U.S. Special Operations Forces were neither aware of nor involved in the training of M.E.K. members,” but a MEK lawyer refused to confirm or deny the report, arguing that any such training would undercut the U.S. Government’s claims that MEK belongs on the Terrorist list. (and the article continues)
And in Libya the president has ordered a number of brutal attacks directed at innocent people who have come into the streets to fight against his oppressive regime.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/15/packers-support-workers/
we have our own who misuse their positions…
I would like to know how an “Islamic republic” justifies making protest a capital offense. While capital punishment has been allowed under Islamic law, the offenses, circumstances and standards of proof are very stringent (although we’ve all seen the safeguards and standards ignored time in and time out in places like Iran and Afghanistan).
I fear you are right, raff.
It will get bloody before it gets better . . . or worse. Mubarak was your standard greedy dictator. Those zealots in Iran are another kettle of fish altogether.
Yikes,
It would be amazing if the Iranian people actualy were able to bring down the idiots running their country. I fear some lives are going to be lost in Iran.
Unverified reports are saying as many as 1,500 protesters have been arrested in Iran.
Lotta,
I said it on another thread that the South Dakota proposed law is an example of what the American Taliban looks like.
arthur harris md aka Wizard 2048:
When I clicked on your link the first thing that leapt into my mind was “Sharia Law”. It just seems to me that this is the toe in the door for honor killings once-removed. A very bad idea indeed.
Arthur Harris md,from your link:
“South Dakota Moves To Legalize Killing Abortion Providers
A bill under consideration in the Mount Rushmore State would make preventing harm to a fetus a “justifiable homicide” in many cases.
By Kate Sheppard on Tue. February 15, 2011 3:00 AM PDT”
BIL,your thought:
“With loons like Coulter running about saying “There should be more jailed journalists’, it’s only a matter of time before the cold war against the poor and middle class and those brave enough to speak against corporatism turns hot.”
Getting really scarey out here.
rats!!! hahaha.. i am no good on the net.. i meant to use my ^$#@^$#@$^#@ net name… groan!!!!
dear professor,
i often read your posts. sometimes getting a chuckle. often leaving your site a little worried about our country.
this article made me think, ”how sad for the iranians” and ”glad i am here”… then read the buddha’s post and thought.. no.. not here… omg.. then i saw this about south dakota!! what kind of mindless activity is going on there?
http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/south-dakota-hb-1171-legalize-killing-abortion-providers
they already started voting on this? where are we going? are there not sufficient forces to keep america safe from idiocy?
help professor!! help!!
Ah the other green guy….Buddha hast posted and the Professor has recognized his oh so valued efforts…..
Wow. We are on the same wavelength today, Prof. I had just refreshed after posting a link to this story on an earlier Iran thread to see you had given this story space.
My initial reaction was “How long until we start hearing this kind of thing from the Far Right in this country?”
With loons like Coulter running about saying “There should be more jailed journalists’, it’s only a matter of time before the cold war against the poor and middle class and those brave enough to speak against corporatism turns hot.
Can’t have the Infidels living can we now…