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IPS Writers in the Blogosphere » Howard Dean http://www.ips.org/blog/ips Turning the World Downside Up Tue, 26 May 2020 22:12:16 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 Fox Host: Material Support To Terror Groups Is Okay If You ‘Believe’ In Their Cause http://www.ips.org/blog/ips/fox-host-material-support-to-terror-groups-is-okay-if-you-%e2%80%98believe%e2%80%99-in-their-cause/ http://www.ips.org/blog/ips/fox-host-material-support-to-terror-groups-is-okay-if-you-%e2%80%98believe%e2%80%99-in-their-cause/#comments Thu, 29 Sep 2011 21:47:04 +0000 Ali Gharib http://www.lobelog.com/?p=9992 Reposted by arrangement with Think Progress

This week on Fox News, anchors Bill O’Reilly and John Stossel discussed former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean’s advocacy for the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), an exiled Iranian opposition group designated as a “foreign terror organization” by the State Department. The leadership of the group is [...]]]> Reposted by arrangement with Think Progress

This week on Fox News, anchors Bill O’Reilly and John Stossel discussed former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean’s advocacy for the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), an exiled Iranian opposition group designated as a “foreign terror organization” by the State Department. The leadership of the group is based in Paris, while more than 3,000 former fighters linger in Camp Ashraf — a base set up outside Baghdad in the 1980s when the group allied with Saddam Hussein against Iran — where they face violent harassment by the Iraqi authorities.

O’Reilly and Stossel went through some background about the group and Dean’s history of paid speeches advocating for their removal from the terror rolls and U.S. recognition of the group’s leader, Maryam Rajavi, as the president of Iran.

Their history is shoddy. For example, Stossel blames the group’s U.S. designation solely on acts committed in the 1970s, which he says were carried out by a “nasty fringe” and occurred “30, 40 years ago.” But the MEK only renounced violence in 2001 and fighters were separated from their tanks in Camp Ashraf only in 2003. The U.S. government actually directly accuses the MEK of carrying out terrorist acts as recently as the late 1990s.

But the really staggering ignorance on the part of Stossel is his misunderstanding of the statutes that criminalize material support for groups designated as terrorists. Stossel compares Dean’s paid speeches advocating for the MEK to speeches on behalf of medical industry groups and Stossel’s own paid speeches. O’Reilly, to his credit, pushes back:

O’REILLY: He’s lobbying, and he’s getting paid by this group, Dean, to…

STOSSEL: We don’t know that he’s lobbying for them. He’s made speeches for them, but so has Rudy Giuliani.

O’REILLY: Come on. Why would these guys do that unless they were getting paid?

STOSSEL: Because they say, “Oh, we have Howard Dean speaking here in Belgium. Come over and meet Howard Dean.”

O’REILLY: That’s right. And Dean wouldn’t do that unless they were greasing him.

STOSSEL: Right. They’re greasing him.

O’REILLY: Yes, so he’s getting money from these people.

STOSSEL: So? I make speeches for money.

O’REILLY: Yes.

STOSSEL: If he checked them out and he believes…

O’REILLY: You do the chamber of commerce in Toledo. Not the Muhajadeen.

STOSSEL: If I believed in their cause, as he says he does.

O’REILLY: Oh, yes, he believes in their cause. Socialized medicine people? That’s what he believes in.

STOSSEL: He’s also taken money to change the patent rules for pharmaceutical companies. I don’t blame him for doing that.

O’REILLY: Dean is a lobbyist now, that’s what he does. And he gets paid by MSNBC.

Watch the whole exchange:

Stossel’s defense closely mirrors that of Rudy Giuliani, Tom Ridge, and Fran Townsend (a paid CNN contributor), who argued after they were accused of material support for terrorism that they didn’t consider the MEK to be a terror group.

That Dean was paid by the group — or more accurately, American supporters of the group (if that’s indeed the case) — is less important than whether or not he made what is considered speech that was “coordinated” with the group. Having spoken to actual MEK rallies in Europe alongside Rajavi, that is a difficult defense for Dean and other paid or unpaid advocates to make. (This is not to say one shouldn’t be able to speak in favor of delisting the MEK, or that they do not deserve today to be delisted, but simply that until they are delisted, the laws on the matter are clear.)

But one does not simply get to choose which laws they follow and which designations they recognize. In a nation where the rule of law matters, it needs to be applied equally to all violators, irrespective of what they or others feel about it. That’s why the false comparison between the MEK and the Toledo Chamber of Commerce is so staggering.

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Patrick Kennedy Paid $25K To Speak At Rally For Controversial Iranian MEK Group http://www.ips.org/blog/ips/patrick-kennedy-paid-25k-to-speak-at-rally-for-controversial-iranian-mek-group/ http://www.ips.org/blog/ips/patrick-kennedy-paid-25k-to-speak-at-rally-for-controversial-iranian-mek-group/#comments Tue, 30 Aug 2011 05:42:10 +0000 Ali Gharib http://www.lobelog.com/?p=9709 Reposted by arrangement with Think Progress

By Ali Gharib and Zaid Jilani

Former U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) told ThinkProgress he was paid $25,000 to speak at a rally to remove a controversial Iranian exiled opposition group from the U.S. terrorist rolls after previously not saying if he was paid.

Kennedy Reposted by arrangement with Think Progress

By Ali Gharib and Zaid Jilani

Former U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) told ThinkProgress he was paid $25,000 to speak at a rally to remove a controversial Iranian exiled opposition group from the U.S. terrorist rolls after previously not saying if he was paid.

Kennedy wouldn’t tell Foreign Policy’s Josh Rogin whether or not he was paid to speak at the rally to remove the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) from the State Department list of foreign terror organizations. But asked by ThinkProgress, Kennedy replied that he had been paid $25,000 and that he wouldn’t accept the money if he didn’t believe in the cause:

THINKPROGRESS: Were you paid for this appearance or the other one?

KENNEDY: Yes, I have.

THINKPROGRESS: Do you mind if I ask how much it was?

KENNEDY: Y’know, $25,000.

THINKPROGRESS: By whom?

KENNEDY: By the Iranian-American diaspora. [...] I have no problem with it. I wouldn’t support a group just because I was paid for it if I didn’t believe in them. And the implication of some of these questions is, “Well, if you’re getting paid you must be getting paid for something you don’t agree with.” [...]

The real thing is that the money is being funneled out of Tehran to oppress this group. So let’s be balanced when people start talking about follow the money.

Watch the video:

The MEK has been on the U.S. list of terror groups since 1997, which prevents members from traveling to or raising funds in the U.S. The group, whose leadership is based in Paris while about 3,400 members live in a camp in Iraq, renounced violence in 2001 and was forcibly disarmed by the U.S. in 2003. Critics allege that the group’s renunciation of violence may not be genuine, de-listing them could hurt Iran’s indigenous Green opposition movement, and that the group has no backing inside Iran as a democratic opposition group.

The camp in Iraq, called Ashraf, was under U.S. control until 2009 when the U.S. handed over security control to the Iraqis as part of a larger deal. Since then, residents of Ashraf have accused Iraqi forces of abuses including attacks that reportedly killed dozens of members of the group.

Speaking before a large crowd outside the State Department that included attendees bused-in from afar on all-expenses-paid trips, Kennedy cited one such attack — in April, which reportedly killed 34 Ashraf residents — as having spurred his support for the group.

The campaign to de-list the MEK has drawn attention because of the millions of dollars spent on the effort.

Kennedy joins other former U.S. officials, mostly from conservative circles but including some liberals, such as former-Vermont governor and DNC chairman Howard Dean.

To cheers from the crowd, Kennedy — invoking the memory of his father, the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), and his uncle, President John F. Kennedy — compared the MEK’s Paris-based leader Maryam Rajavi to South Africa’s first post-Apartheid leader Nelson Mandela, who led a spate of guerrilla sabotage bombings against the Apartheid regime before going to prison and eventually leading the country’s transition. (Mandela admits his guerilla past and his group’s human rights abuses. Rajavi’s MEK often denies having committed any acts of terror over it’s 45 year history and disputes allegations made by Human Rights Watch about abuses against the group’s own members.)

Kennedy told ThinkProgress his work to de-list the MEK and support for them as a democratic Iranian opposition was in line with his long-standing support of human rights worldwide.

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