Clinton to remove Iranian exile group from terror list

During my time in Iraq as a contractor i was at FOB Grizzly/Camp Ashraf for 5 yrs. It was part refugee camp for those that wanted to leave the MeK and were awaiting repatriation and also to keep an eye on the remaining members.

The MeK/PMOI to me seemed more like a cult.

They're secular with a woman (Maryam Ranjavi) in charge and women make up most of the upper hierarchy. Ashraf itself is named after a female by the IRGC. Most members are highly educated with university degrees from throughout Europe.

They keep males and females separated, married or not. And no children allowed.

They go thru constant military training and political indoctrination.

They had a huge supply of weapons. We were still uncovering and disposing of weapons caches found in bunkers at Ashraf in 2010.

The town of Ashraf was kind of "fake". It had a soccer stadium in pristine condition, never used. It had a very large park with a fish pond and a large children's playground, but again there were no chilren. It had a mosque that looked very ornate and detailed on the outside. But when you got up close it was a facade that looked like it was from a Hollywood set. The actual mosque was a metal warehouse type structure. It did have prayer rugs inside, Korans, etc. There was no Imam present at the time, if they even had one. And the entire time i was at Ashraf i never heard the call to prayer one single time.

Since Ashraf is pretty close to the Iran border, some of the MeK came and went. I'm sure they provided intel on Iran thru the their liasion office on Grizzly.

It was an interesting experience to say the least.

I'd say in this situation, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" has been applied.

It's kind of ironic, Bill put them on the Terrorist watch list and Hillary is taking them off.

The Libyan Fighting Group (the rebels NATO and the UN backed) are still on the terrorist list, and still were when we decided to help them. The list is clearly a complete joke.

Originally posted by Blackmarketeer
From what I've read, they're an exile group from Iran living in Iraq. They aligned themselves with Saddam Hussein during the 8-year Iran/Iraq war in opposition to Iran. Because of that former alliance, the current Shi'ite Nouri al-Maliki Iraqi regime considers them enemies, and wants them relocated outside of Iraq - which can't be done until they're delisted as a terrorist group. Apparently they turned over their weapons to America in 2003 and have been working with America since then. They are opposed to the Shiites in Iran and advocates the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

That said - it ramps up the idea we are "setting them loose" to further escalate tensions with Iran. They were classified as "terrorists" because they once aligned themselves with Saddam Hussein who gave them land and a base of operations to carry out their opposition to Iran, which made them enemies of the USA as well, when we invaded Iraq. Now that is done and over and Hussein is gone, our attention is on Iran, and suddenly these "former enemies" are looking like "enemies of our enemies".

I remember when the republican administration pushed to take addamoff the US terror watch list so they could send him chencial and biological WMDs to fight Iran with...

The USA didn't learn with Saddam; Bush supplied Pakistan the Taliban's friend hundreds of billions of dollars;

now Obummer wants to supply yet another terror group but can't because of the "rule of law" dealing with terrorist organizations

You guys are missing the major underlying point here. They are going to be used as a fifth column against the Iranian regime in the upcoming war/conflict. It should be pretty obvious to everyone by now what is going to happen with regard to Iran. The table has been set for a while now, all thats left is for all involved to sit down and eat. The world is about to go nuts, I hope you're all ready for it.

Its a knocking bet that they will be our terrorists from now on. Fighting against Iran and spreading democracy for the west, along side our other terrorist allies. Al ciada. You couldnt make this chit up in a month of sundays. The war on terror? haha Starts in the white house thats were we should be attacking. I wish some one would help to liberate the USA from this gang of mad men that are running the show.

I think removing them from the terrorists list is mainly done for the purpose of being able to relocate them to another country.During the last decades this terrorist group has paid a lot of public figures (including some retired US congressmen and the former Jewish mayor of New york!) handsome amounts of cash so they support and promote their activities and help them appear stronger than what they really are...They have done many operations against Iran for the CIA, Mossad ,Mi6,saddam and god knows who else! and now they expect a return in favors....They have no credibility at all amongst the Iranians and are largely hated by most of the countries who know about them... They are rootless violent deluded and a very dangerous bunch of people who will do absolutely anything for the promise of power and money.Although in the real world they don't stand a chance at gaining power over an even some Island in the pacific ocean.The only thing they are good at is murdering spying and propaganda in a local scale,as their followers have absolutely nothing to lose,just like their brothers Al Ciada and Talbotan! ... American politicians know that very well....So this is a very delicate subject for some.

They may be dirty rotten terrorists...............
But theyre our dirty rotten terroists!

This is nothing new. The Americans have used whatever people not matter how violent-as a means for their own selfish greedy agendas. Good example: The Indian Wars. You had your 'Civilized Nations' then you had your 'savages'. The 'savages' were the Indians who fought against them. While the 'Civilized' tribes were those who helped install the country now called 'North America'. When I hear all these terrorist names that the government is using for their own greedy needs-I shrug my shoulders and say "Aint a damn thing changed."

Al-Qaida= Good Indian, Bad Indian.

MEK=Cree Indians

The list goes on, and on, but yea....3,000 US citizens killed by an organization still working for us.

"Ain't a damn thing changed."