Putting the MeK in perspective

By now most people have seen the videos and read the stories about the recent ISF Operation at Camp Ashraf. What is too often missed is the truth about the residents of Ashraf and the organization they represent.

Their current goal to remove the Islamic Regime in Iran is laudable.

Their goal to replace it with a Marxist-Leninist State is most certainly not.

What is so often ignored is that the MeK is not just another revolutionary group seeking the overthrow of a government. They have a long and bloody history of Terrorist Activities. This is not to justify any humans rights violations against them, but perspective is in order.

Wikipedia lists a few of their terrorist activities in Iran prior to the 1979 revolution:

* The PMOI failed in an attempt to kidnap the U.S. Ambassador to Iran, Douglas MacArthur II, on 1971-11-30.

* USAF Brig. Gen. Harold Price was wounded in a May 1972 assassination attempt.

* The first success in the assassination campaign was the murder of Lt. Col. Louis Lee Hawkins, a U.S. Army comptroller. He was shot to death in front of his home in Tehran by two terrorists on a motorcycle on 1973-06-02.

* A car carrying U.S. Air Force officers Col. Paul Shaffer and Lt. Col. Jack Turner was trapped between two cars carrying terrorists. They told the Iranian driver to lie down and then shot and killed the Americans. Six hours later a woman called reporters to claim the PMOI carried out the attack as retaliation for the recent death of prisoners at the hands of Iranian authorities.

* A car carrying three American employees of Rockwell International was attacked in May 1976. William Cottrell, Donald Smith, and Robert Krongard were killed. They had been working on the Ibex system for gathering intelligence on the neighboring USSR.[37][38][39]

Most famously, in 1979, they participated in the capture of the US Embassy in Tehran.

The MeK have a long and bloody history that continued long after 1979, including their role in the suppression of the Kurdish and Shi'a Arab rebellions against Saddam Hussein in the aftermath of the First Gulf War.

So before we embrace the MeK as Freedom Fighters and rail against the Iraqi Government, it is important to look back on their violent, bloody terrorist path both against the United States and against the People of Iraq.

P.S. Camp Ashraf is an Iraqi version of Jonestown.