Mach Report This Comment Date: January 20, 2011 04:45AM
Reps and Dems...............
[
www.salon.com]
Leading conservatives openly support a Terrorist group
By Glenn Greenwald
(updated below - Update II)
Imagine if a group of leading American liberals met on foreign soil with -- and
expressed vocal support for -- supporters of a terrorist group that had (a) a
long history of hateful anti-American rhetoric, (b) an active role in both the
takeover of a U.S. embassy and Saddam Hussein's brutal 1991 repression of Iraqi
Shiites, (c) extensive financial and military support from Saddam, (d) multiple
acts of violence aimed at civilians, and (e) years of being designated a
"Terrorist organization" by the U.S. under Presidents of both parties,
a designation which is ongoing? The ensuing uproar and orgies of denunciation
would be deafening.
But on December 23, a group of leading conservatives -- including Rudy Giuliani
and former Bush officials Michael Mukasey, Tom Ridge, and Fran Townsend -- did
exactly that. In Paris, of all places, they appeared at a forum organized by
supporters of the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK) -- a group declared by the U.S. since
1997 to be "terrorist organization" -- and expressed wholesale support
for that group. Worse -- on foreign soil -- they vehemently criticized their own
country's opposition to these Terrorists and specifically "demanded that
Obama instead take the [] group off the U.S. list of foreign terrorist
organizations and incorporate it into efforts to overturn the mullah-led
government in Tehran." In other words, they are calling on the U.S. to
embrace this Saddam-supported, U.S.-hating Terrorist group and recruit them to
help overthrow the government of Iran. To a foreign audience, Mukasey denounced
his own country's opposition to these Terrorists as "nothing less than an
embarrassment."
Using common definitions, there is good reason for the MEK to be deemed by the
U.S. Government to be a Terrorist group. In 2007, the Bush administration
declared that "MEK leadership and members across the world maintain the
capacity and will to commit terrorist acts in Europe, the Middle East, the
United States, Canada, and beyond," and added that the group exhibits
"cult-like characteristics." The Council on Foreign Relations has
detailed that the MEK has been involved in numerous violent actions over the
years, including many directed at Americans, such as "the 1979 takeover of
the U.S. embassy in Tehran by Iranian revolutionaries" and "the
killings of U.S.military personnel and civilians working on defense projects in
Tehran in the 1970s." This is whom Guiliani, Ridge, Townsend and other
conservatives are cheering.
Applying the orthodoxies of American political discourse, how can these
Terrorist-supporting actions by prominent American conservatives not generate
intense controversy? For one thing, their appearance in France to slam their own
country's foreign policy blatantly violates the long-standing and rigorously
enforced taboo against criticizing the U.S. Government while on dreaded foreign
soil (the NYT previously noted that "nothing sets conservative
opinion-mongers on edge like a speech made by a Democrat on foreign
soil"
. Worse, their conduct undoubtedly constitutes
the crime of "aiding and abetting Terrorism" as interpreted by the
Justice Department -- an interpretation recently upheld as constitutional by the
Supreme Court's 5-4 decision last year in Holder v. Humanitarian Law. Georgetown
Law Professor David Cole represented the Humanitarian Law plaintiffs in their
unsuccessful challenge to the DOJ's interpretation of the "material
support" statute, and he argues today in The New York Times that as a
result of that ruling, it is a felony in the U.S. "to engage in public
advocacy to challenge a group's 'terrorist' designation or even to encourage
peaceful avenues for redress of grievances."
Like Cole, I believe the advocacy and actions of these Bush officials in support
of this Terrorist group should be deemed constitutionally protected free
expression. But under American law and the view of the DOJ, it isn't. There are
people sitting in prison right now with extremely long prison sentences for
so-called "material support for terrorism" who did little different
than what these right-wing advocates just did. What justifies allowing these
Bush officials to materially support a Terrorist group with impunity?
Then there's CNN. How can they possibly continue to employ someone -- Fran
Townsend -- who so openly supports a Terrorist group? Less than six months ago,
that network abruptly fired its long-time producer, Octavia Nasr, for doing
nothing more than expressing well wishes upon the death of Sayyed Mohammed
Hussein Fadlallah, one of the Shiite world's most beloved religious figures. Her
sentiments were echoed by the British Ambassador to Lebanon, Frances Guy, who
wrote a piece entitled "The Passing of a Decent Man," and by the
journal Foreign Policy, which hailed him as "a voice of moderation and an
advocate of unity." But because Fadlallh had connections to Hezbollah -- a
group designated as a Terrorist organization by the U.S. -- and was an opponent
of Israel, neocon and other right-wing organs demonized Nasr and CNN quickly
accommodated them by ending her career.
Granted, Nasr was a news producer and Townsend is at CNN to provide commentary,
but is it even remotely conceivable to imagine CNN employing someone who openly
advocated for Hamas or Hezbollah, who met with their supporters on foreign soil
and bashed the U.S. for classifying them as a Terrorist organization and
otherwise acting against them or, more radically still, demanding that the U.S.
embrace these groups as allies? To ask the question is to answer it. So why is
Fran Townsend permitted to keep her CNN job even as she openly meets with
supporters of a Terrorist group with a long history of violence and
anti-American hatred?
There is simply no limit on the manipulation and exploitation of the term
"terrorism" by America's political class. Joe Biden and Mitch
McConnell support endless policies that slaughter civilians for political ends,
yet with a straight face accuse Julian Assange -- who has done nothing like that
-- of being a "terrorist." GOP Rep. Peter King is launching a
McCarthyite Congressional hearing to investigate radicalism and Terrorism
sympathies among American Muslim while ignoring his own long history of
enthusiastic support for Catholic Terrorists in Northern Ireland; as Marcy
Wheeler says: "Peter King would still be in prison if the US had treated
his material support for terrorism as it now does."
And WikiLeaks this morning published a diplomatic cable from the U.S.
summarizing the long-discussed meeting on July 25, 1990, at which the U.S.
Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, talked to Saddam -- a month before Iraq's
invasion of Kuwait -- about the history of extensive American support for his
regime, the desire of the U.S. for friendly relations with Saddam, and her
statement that the U.S. does not care about Saddam's border disputes with Kuwait
(Glaspie recorded that she told Saddam: "then, as now, we took no positions
on these Arab affairs"
. Months later, the U.S. attacked Iraq and cited
a slew of human rights abuses and support for Terrorism that took place when the
U.S. was arming and supporting Saddam and during the time they had removed Iraq
from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism in order to provide that
support.
The reason there isn't more uproar over these Bush officials' overt foreign-soil
advocacy on behalf of a Terrorist group is because they want to use that group's
Terrorism to advance U.S. aims. Using Terrorism on behalf of American interests
is always permissible, because the actual definition of a Terrorist -- the one
that our political and media class universally embraces -- is nothing more than
this: "someone who impedes or defies U.S. will with any degree of
efficacy."
Even though the actions of these Bush officials violate every alleged piety
about bashing one's own country on foreign soil and may very well constitute a
felony under U.S. law, they will be shielded from criticisms because they want
to use the Terrorist group to overthrow a government that refuses to bow to
American dictates. Embracing Terrorist groups is perfectly acceptable when used
for that end. That's why Fran Townsend will never suffer the fate of Octavia
Nasr, and why her fellow Bush officials will never be deemed Terrorist
supporters by the DOJ or establishment media outlets, even though what they've
done makes them, by definition, exactly that.
UPDATE: Amazingly, Fran Townsend, on CNN, hailed the Supreme Court's decision in
Humanitarian Law -- the Supreme Court ruling that upheld the DOJ's view that one
can be guilty of "material support for terrorism" simply by talking to
or advocating for a Terrorist group -- and enthusiastically agreed when Wolf
Blitzer said, while interviewing her: "If you're thinking about even
voicing support for a terrorist group, don't do it because the government can
come down hard on you and the Supreme Court said the government has every right
to do so." Yet "voicing support for a terrorist group" is exactly
what Townsend is now doing -- and it makes her a criminal under the very Supreme
Court ruling that she so gleefully praised.
UPDATE II: In 2008, an Iranian-American woman --Zeinab Taleb-Jedi -- was
convicted in a federal court of providing "material support for
terrorism" based solely on her membership in MEK. She argued that MEK
should not be deemed a Terrorist group and that she has the First Amendment
right to belong to it, but the judge rejected both claims. While she joined the
group as opposed to merely advocating for it (the way these conservatives are
doing), the Supreme Court in Huminatarian Law made clear that both can be means
of providing "material support." Why should Taleb-Jedi be prosecuted
but not Giuliani, Townsend, Ridge and friends?
