Like every American who witnessed the September 11, 2001 attacks on America, I, too, remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when the attacks took place. During that tumultuous period in America’s history, it was hard to miss America’s mayor, Rudy Giuliani, when he came on TV and informed us all about the latest developments. America’s mayor was highly visible in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. He became an icon to all of us who watched and witnessed the devastation of 9/11 terrorist attacks.
I am always grateful that we had a right person at the right time during the most tragic event in America’s history. That’s how I got to know Rudy, and that’s why I supported him in his presidential run years after the 9/11 event.
However, this essay is not about Mr. Giuliani’s bravery during America’s tough time. This report is about the cowardice that he has shown by standing with a Marxist-Islamist group for the past ten years, the so-called Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK). Does Mr. Giuliani know that the group he has been supporting and receiving large amounts of money from has blood on its hands, including American blood?
For years, Giuliani has been one of the most prominent American officials to advocate on behalf of the MEK, a Marxist Iranian opposition group that claims to be the legitimate government of Iran and resembles a cult. “A Treasury Department investigation in 2012 examined whether speaking fees paid by several MEK front groups to a long list of U.S. politicians, including Giuliani, violated laws on Americans receiving money from designated terrorist organizations.”
It is mind-boggling how a group described by the US government as a cult and previously designated a foreign terrorist organization could be viewed by many Congressmen and other dignitaries as a champion of human rights and secular democracy. Unreal!
This radical Marxist cult is somewhat reminiscent of ISIS for the treatment that it gave to its members who no longer wished to stay at its camp and wanted to depart.
According to a 2003 New York Times report, “For more than 30 years, the Mujahedeen Khalq, or People’s Mujahedeen, has survived and operated on the margins of history and the slivers of land that Saddam Hussein and French governments have proffered it.”
The Times continues: “Led by a charismatic husband-and-wife duo, Maryam and Massoud Rajavi, the Mujahedeen had transformed itself into the only army in the world with a commander corps composed mostly of women. Until the United States invaded Iraq in March [2003], the Mujahedeen survived for two decades under the patronage of Saddam Hussein. He gave the group money, weapons, jeeps and military bases along the Iran-Iraq border — a convenient launching ground for its attacks against Iranian government figures.”
It is hard to imagine, but MEK members were completely cut off from the outside world. Those who escaped the camp revealed that they were not even allowed to watch TV, and were forced to divorce their wives. They had no idea what was happening around the world. All they knew came from the leader, Masoud Rajavi, and his cronies. This is the group our popular mayor has been in bed with for at least ten years or so.
“In 1990, Rajavi said all members must divorce their spouses. My own wife had already left the group by then. All members accepted these terms, and it [applied to] everyone except the leader and his wife Maryam. In a single day, everyone became celibate. Someone asked, ‘What about sex in the afterlife?’ He replied, ‘I know your trick—you want to fantasize about the afterlife. But no—you must be prepared to forget about sex, about spouses, about love.'”
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, throughout the 1970s “the MEK orchestrated terrorist attacks against the state that killed several Americans working in Iran, including military officers and civilian contractors, according to the U.S. State Department. (By 1978, some 45,000 of the 60,000 foreigners working in Iran were Americans.) The MEK denies any involvement with these incidents, asserting that they were the work of a breakaway Marxist-Leninist faction, known as Peykar, which hijacked the movement after the arrest of Rajavi….The MEK participated in the 1979 revolution that swept Ayatollah Khomeini into power, but refutes U.S. government claims that it also supported the hostage-taking raid on the U.S. Embassy in November of that year. ‘Though denied by the MEK, analysis based on eyewitness accounts and MEK documents demonstrates that MEK members participated in and supported the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and that the MEK later argued against the early release [of] the American hostages,’ said a 2011 State Department report on terrorism.”
Mr. Giuliani, along with other former US officials, ought to abandon the MEK and honor the wishes of the Iranian people inside Iran. Mr. Giuliani also should be reminded that both Americans and Iranians desire regime change in Iran, but for different reasons. While America wants to remove a threat in the region, the Iranians want democracy. They have been patiently waiting for forty years. These two are not mutually exclusive, and America would commit an unforgivable sin if it ignores the wishes of Iranians once again.