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The MEK Has Not Changed

Former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, and former FBI Director Louis Freeh are overflowing with admiration for a terrorist cult leader: In evaluating the bona fides of the MEK movement and its public commitment to a democratic and liberal Iran, the American people and the Congress have never […]

Former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, and former FBI Director Louis Freeh are overflowing with admiration for a terrorist cult leader:

In evaluating the bona fides of the MEK movement and its public commitment to a democratic and liberal Iran, the American people and the Congress have never had the benefit of hearing from its charismatic Paris-based leader Mrs. Maryam Rajavi. She has not been permitted a visa to visit the United States. But perhaps the time has come for a first-ever Congressional “Skype” hearing – allowing Senators and Representatives to put directly the questions that administration skeptics have floated for an answer by this intelligent woman who has endorsed a liberal democratic future for Iran.

We have never had the “benefit” of this because she is the leader of a terrorist organization. On the whole, Americans frown on letting leaders of terrorist organizations come into the U.S. to raise money and propagandize. How hard is it to understand that foreign political groups, militant or not, will adopt all the right rhetoric and claim to share our political values if they think it will get them what they want? When Americans are so eager to take claims of democratic values at face value, it is no wonder that even a totalitarian cult will attempt to present itself this way. The MEK’s attempt to reinvent itself as a democratic movement cannot be taken seriously, and the readiness with which so many prominent Americans accept these falsehoods suggests that they are either incredibly gullible or intent on misleading the public.

Update: One of the commenters alerted me to today’s NPR report on the MEK.

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