Almost every single day you hear the news media report how Iran is arming terrorists and insurgents. What is almost completely absent from the news reporting is how America is actively engaged in an effort to overthrow the Iranian government.
In fact, that effort has now caused a large section of the northern Iraqi border to be an active battlefront with Iran.
Iraqi Kurdish officials expressed deepening concern yesterday at an upsurge in fierce clashes between Kurdish guerrillas and Iranian forces in the remote border area of north-east Iraq, where Tehran has recently deployed thousands of Revolutionary Guards.
Hundreds of civilians have fled the fighting and thousands of Iranian forces have crossed the border into Iraq.
And yet the American news media has been nearly silent on the matter.
Why do you think that is? Maybe because Iran has accused the Bush Administration of arming the rebels that have been attacking Iran.
Probably the most active rebel group in Iran is the Partiya Jiyana Azad a Kurdistan (Party of Free Life of Kurdistan, PJAK). Last November Seymour Hersch wrote about this issue.
In the past six months, Israel and the United States have also been working together in support of a Kurdish resistance group known as the Party for Free Life in Kurdistan. The group has been conducting clandestine cross-border forays into Iran, I was told by a government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon civilian leadership, as "part of an effort to explore alternative means of applying pressure on Iran." The government consultant said that Israel is giving the Kurdish group "equipment and training." The group has also been given "a list of targets inside Iran of interest to the U.S."
PJAK's ideology is democratic liberalism and traces its origin to non-violent student movements. It is considerably less radical than the PKK, but its leader, Haji Ahmad, is a member of Kongra-Gel (formerly known as the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK). The PJAK is listed as a terrorist group by the American government. It is reported that the PJAK killed 120 Iranian security forces members in 2005 alone.
But the PJAK's war became much more active less than two months ago when the leader of the PJAK visited Washington to lobby the Bush Administration for help fighting Iran. No official meeting was reported, but by some strange coincidence just a month later the PJAK declared a significant military victory when the PJAK killed 16 Iranian Republican Guard soldiers and destroyed an entire military base.
A little less coincidently the BBC reported an interesting observation about the situation on September 3.
What the politicians and intellectuals have realized is the fact that the USA will not abandon or adopt an act unless it serves its interests. It seems that it serves the US interests to disregard the Iranian shelling.
It seems a little suspicious that America would openly ignore Iranian military aggression on the border of a country where U.S. troops were stationed, doncha' think? A few days after that Iraqi President Jalal Talabani reportedly said the Iraqi army was "unable to stage an operation against PKK [Kurdistan Workers' Party] terrorist organization and/or PJAK - its extension in Iran."
This is only a few months after Turkey accused America of double-standards on fighting terrorism.
"Terrorism is terrorism everywhere," Erdogan said in Istanbul. "It is not possible to agree with a mentality that tolerates country A and displays a different attitude when it comes to country B."
Do What I Say, Not As I Do
Turkey is a little late waking up to the double-standards of the War On (some) Terror.
ABC has reported that the Bush Administration was currently cooperating with an al-Qaeda terrorist group.
The US government has been secretly supporting a Pakistani militant group that has staged a series of deadly attacks against Iran, ABC News reported, citing unnamed US and Pakistani intelligence sources.
Jundullah, which claims that Iran's Shiite regime is oppressing its Baluchi minority, has claimed responsibility for bombings, kidnappings, and televised beheadings that have killed more than a dozen Iranian troops and officials. In February the group said it carried out a car-bomb attack targeting Iran's Revolutionary Guard in Zahedan, the provincial capital in southeastern Iran, killing 11. Jundullah's leader Mr. Regi, who founded the group in 2003 at the age of 23, has – according to ABC; admitted to personally executing captured Iranian soldiers.
According to Tariq Jamil, chief of the Karachi police, "Jundullah has close ties with Al-Qaeda."
What is probably the most interesting about this link is not that the Bush Administration is supporting an anti-Iran terrorist group that is closely connected to al-Qaeda. It's that the Bush Administration is supporting a terrorist group that is anti-Pakistan and anti-American.
The group hit the headlines after a daring attack last month on the motorcade of Karachi's Corps Commander. The general narrowly escaped death, but 11 people, including eight soldiers were killed. It was the most serious terrorist action targeting the military since the two failed assassination attempts on President Musharraf in Rawalpindi in December last year. Jundullah has also been involved in attacks on rangers, police stations, as well as the twin car bombings outside the Pakistan-US Cultural Center last month.
You can't tell the players without a program
Of course supporting terrorism is not something that is new to the Bush Administration, nor American foreign policy. Just last year it was revealed that another terrorist group called the MEK (Mujahedeen-e Khalq) was being used by the DoD to attack Iran.
One of the operational assets being used by the Defense Department is a right-wing terrorist organization known as Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), which is being "run" in two southern regional areas of Iran. They are Baluchistan, a Sunni stronghold, and Khuzestan, a Shia region where a series of recent attacks has left many dead and hundreds injured in the last three months.
One former counterintelligence official, who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the information, describes the Pentagon as pushing MEK shortly after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The drive to use the insurgent group was said to have been advanced by the Pentagon under the influence of the Vice President’s office and opposed by the State Department, National Security Council and then-National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice.
If you will recall, the MEK was one of the original backers of the Islamic Revolution in Iran whose ideology is a weird mix of fundamentalist Islamism, feminism, and Marxism. They actively supported the 1979 embassy occupation in Tehran and had conducted several assassinations against U.S. civilians working in Iran during the 1970's. The MEK was chased out of Iran in the 1980's, when thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) were simply executed by the Iranian government. The MEK joined with Saddam's Iraqi government shortly before the 1988 massacre, and assisted in crushing the Shia revolt in 1991. The MEK is our leading source of information about Iran's alleged "nuclear weapons program".
MEK leader with Saddam
The MEK is currently lobbying to have it taken of the list of terrorist organizations, and it has friends in both the Bush Administration and in Congress.
Reps. Bob Filner, D-Calif., Tom Tancredo, R-Col., Ted Poe, R-Texas, Dennis Moore, R-Kan., and staffers for Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas, and James Talent, R-Mo., spoke to MEK supporters at a convention hall just four blocks from the White House.
The MEK has been listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department since 1997, but some in Congress and close to the Administration want the group to be removed from the terrorist list. Even President Bush has called the MEK a "dissident group."
Of course the Bush Administration's support for terrorist groups don't stop here. They also back violent Azeri rebel groups and yet another Kurdish group called Komala. There may be others that I'm not aware of.
Nothing new under the sun
To give you an idea just how hypocritical this "War on Terror" is, look at the guy the Bush Administration wanted as prime minister in Iraq - Iyad Allawi.
During the early 90's, Allawai was the head of the Iraqi National Accord.
Dr. Allawi's group, the Iraqi National Accord, used car bombs and other explosive devices smuggled into Baghdad from northern Iraq, the officials said. [...]
The Iraqi government at the time claimed that the bombs, including one it said exploded in a movie theater, resulted in many civilian casualties. One former Central Intelligence Agency officer who was based in the region, Robert Baer, recalled that a bombing during that period "blew up a school bus; schoolchildren were killed."
Dr. Allawi was a favorite of the C.I.A. and other government agencies 10 years ago...
But all of this pales in comparison to America's long time foreign policy.
Ronald Reagan once referred to the future Taleban in Afghanistan as "freedom fighters".
"Every country and every people has a stake in the Afghan resistance, for the freedom fighters of Afghanistan are defending principles of independence and freedom that form the basis of global security and stability."
- Ronald Reagan on Afghanistan Day, 1982-03-10
But then Reagan also called the Contras "freedom fighters". Of course he went a step further and called them the "moral equivalent of our founding fathers". Now I didn't live in the 1770's, but I'm pretty sure our founding fathers weren't drug traffickers like the Contras were. Nor do I think our founding fathers targeted "bridges, electric generators, but also state-owned agricultural cooperatives, rural health clinics, villages and non-combatants."
In 1984 a CIA manual for training the Nicaraguan contras in psychological operations was leaked to the media, entitled "Psychological Operations in Guerrilla War".
The manual recommended "selective use of violence for propagandistic effects" and to "neutralize" government officials. Nicaraguan Contras were taught to lead:
"...selective use of armed force for PSYOP [psychological operations] effect.... Carefully selected, planned targets — judges, police officials, tax collectors, etc. — may be removed for PSYOP effect in a UWOA [unconventional warfare operations area], but extensive precautions must insure that the people "concur" in such an act by thorough explanatory canvassing among the affected populace before and after conduct of the mission."
Maybe Republicans have some different idea of our founding fathers than I do. Or maybe its a different idea of what freedom is, and why it is worth fighting for.
But Democrats don't get a free pass on the terrorism issue either. All of these examples have an original source, and that original source is very bipartisan.
Anything goes in the Cold War
"Terrorism and violence, crimes against Cuba, have been part and parcel of U.S. policy for almost half a century."
- Ricardo Alarcn, President of Cuba's national assembly, 1999
Luis Posada Carriles, considered by the FBI as "the worst terrorist of the hemisphere", currently resides in Miami, Florida. He was released from prison on April 19 and a judge ruled that he is safe from deportation. The only charge against him was for illegally entering the country. The fact that he is directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of civilians of multiple nationalities wasn't important to Homeland Security. The State Department has denied extradition requests from Venezuela. Journalist Ann Louise Bardach, recently declared to Amy Goodman on Goodman's radio program, Democracy Now, that the FBI had destroyed in 2002 its documents and proofs (including Western Union originals) concerning Luis Posada Carriles.
Posada was being trained by the CIA in sabotage and explosives as far back as 1961. After the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, Posada became part of Operation 40, which was headed by Richard Nixon. Operation 40 included such legendary figures as Frank Sturgis (Watergate burgler), and Orlando Bosch (who assassinated Chilean former minister Orlando Letelier, in Washington, D.C. in 1976). It's worth noting that Bosch was pardoned of all American charges by President George H.W. Bush on July 18, 1990 at the request of his son Jeb Bush. Bosch remains free in Florida today.
The first major action by Operation 40 was to blow up the ship La Coubre in Havana Bay on March 4, 1960. A second, larger bomb was set nearby to blow up afterwards in order to kill civilians coming to rescue victims. 75 people were killed and 200 injured.
La Coubre bombing
Posada's career took him to south america, where he got involved in cocaine trafficking. But Posada's career peaked when he got involved with Orlando Bosch in the mid-70's. Together they plotted the bombing of Cubana Flight 455 on October 6, 1976.
"We have an explosion aboard, we are descending immediately! ... We have fire on board! We are requesting immediate landing! We have a total emergency!"
- last broadcast by captain Wilfredo, shortly before a second bomb exploded
Cubana Flight 455
All 48 passengers and 25 crew aboard the plane died: 57 Cubans, 11 Guyanese, and five North Koreans. Among the dead were all 24 members of the 1975 national Cuban Fencing team that had just won all the gold medals in the Central American and Caribbean Championship; many were teenagers.
Posada was arrested in Venezuela, but escaped before the trial. Bosch was acquitted because most of the most damning evidence was gathered until after the trial was over.
"We are going to hit a Cuban airliner... Orlando has the details"
- CIA document quoting Posada dated October 12, 1976
Posada assisted in helping the Contras during the 1980's. In 1990 he was shot by Cuban assassins while sitting in his car in Guatemala city. Richard Secord helped pay his hospital bills. Though recuperating in Honduras, the FBI believed that Posada was responsible for 41 bombings in Cuba, Posada himself admitted to planning numerous attacks against Cuba and seeking assistance from the Honduran military to aid his cause, which was not forthcoming.
In 1997 Posada was involved with a string of bombing at tourist sites in Cuba that killed an Italian tourist. In a taped interview with the New York Times, he said: "It is sad that someone is dead, but we can't stop."
And now he is free in America. A confessed life-long terrorist, protected by the American government.
Of course he is a far cry from being the only terrorist operating in America that targets Cubans. There have been literally dozens of bombing in America committed by Cuban exiles over the decades. Through both Democratic and Republican administrations, the government has turned a blind eye to their terrorist activity, and they continue today.
US official documents that have been recently been declassified show that, between October 1960 and April 1961, the CIA smuggled in 75 tons of explosives into Cuba during 30 clandestine air operations, and infiltrated 45 tons of weapons and explosives during 31 sea incursions. Also during that short seven-month time span, the CIA carried out 110 attacks with dynamite, planted 200 bombs, derailed six trains and burned 150 factories and 800 plantations.
Between 1959 and 1997, the United States carried out 5,780 terrorist actions against Cuba; 804 of them considered as terrorist attacks of significant magnitude, including 78 bombings against the civil population that caused thousands of victims.
Terrorist attacks against Cuba have cost 3,478 lives and have left 2,099 people permanently disabled. Between 1959 and 2003, there were 61 hijackings of planes or boats. Between 1961 and 1996, there were 58 attacks from the sea against 67 economic targets and the population.
The CIA has directed and supported over 4,000 individuals in 299 paramilitary groups. They are responsible for 549 murders and thousands of people wounded.
Quite probably the most hypocritical of the government's actions toward Cuba happened under the Clinton Administration in 1998, when five Cuban nationals were arrested and given long jail terms for spying on the anti-Cuban terrorist groups.
What can you say about an alleged War on Terror in which you:
a) install a terrorist as prime minister?
b) fund terrorist groups to undermine a government?
c) cooperate with a terrorist group that hates you and your allies?
d) allow terrorist groups to operate from your homeland?
It's a sick joke.