re: "Ros-Lehtinen defends MEK as State Dept anger grows"

Josh Rogin at The Cable ("Reporting Inside The Foreign Policy Machine") provided an update on the unfolding PMOI/MEK situation.

Money quote(s):

"The State Department is growing increasing frustrated with the MEK and its American lobbyists, and now with two leading lawmakers who are injecting themselves into the cause of the Iranian dissident group.

Tensions between Foggy Bottom and supporters of the Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK), a State Department-designated foreign terrorist organization opposed to the Iranian regime, have been building for months. The plan to relocate 3,200 members of the group from its compound in Iraq to a former U.S. military base appear stalled as the group lobbies to be taken off the list of terrorist organizations.

A federal court has ordered the State Department to make a decision on delisting the MEK by October, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has indicated that the group's willingness to complete the move to the former base, Camp Liberty, will be a key factor in the department's decision. State Department officials, however, now believe the MEK is stalling."

Stalling or otherwise playing for time is something the PMOI is very good at.

"Administration officials believe the MEK is getting bad advice and unhelpful support from its team of American advocates, some of whom are paid handsomely to advise the MEK and lobby the administration on its behalf (though all insist they are promoting the MEK's cause out of sincere conviction). The Treasury Department has opened an investigation into the funds paid to these activists, which often come from Iranian-American groups in the United States and are paid through a speakers' bureau."

That these Iranian-American groups are acting as proxies for the PMOI and other NCRI-related groups should be obvious.

"The MEK seems to believe it can keep control of Camp Ashraf, its longtime compound near the Iran-Iraq border, and Clinton will still be under pressure to delist the group, this official said."

Camp Ashraf is where they have their own facilities, radio station, museum, cemetary, and probably weapon caches as well. Moving to somewhere they haven't had years to prepare, and during which movement they could be searched or otherwise molested, is not on their list of preferences.

"This week, the MEK got the support of two new powerful Americans, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA). The pair are circulating a letter this week to Clinton asking her to improve the conditions in Camp Liberty for the MEK."

&

"(L)awmakers are requesting that the MEK residents in Camp Liberty be connected to the Iraqi main water system, be given more power generators, and be given new cars and trucks and other supplies. The administration official said that some of the requests are valid but the characterization of the conditions in Camp Liberty as "dreadful" is unfair.

"Really, are new cars a basic human right?" the official said."

Nice snark, but are they asking for new vehicles (note that they included both cars and trucks in their request) to replace old, wornout, destroyed, or confiscated ones? Just thought I'd ask....

7/18

re: "Freedom vs Slavery: Ros-Lehtinen vs. Clinton"

Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs (" Evil is made possible by the sanction you give it. Withdraw your sanction. ") remarked on the chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Money quote(s):

"The UN is, at best, the collective negation of humanity. The reality is that it has become the headquarters of the modern universal caliphate, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. The American people are funding this supremacist monster. The backroom drama over this funding is heating up between Hillary Clinton and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is trying to get Bill H.R. 282 passed in Congress to de-fund the parasitic world body"

The U.N. encompasses quite a bit of programmatic territory, some good, some not-so-good, some downright counter-productive.

"Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is one of the great unsung heroes in what is otherwise a cesspool of spineless, feckless political hacks. She is unmatched in her pursuit of freedom."

Rep. Ros-Lehtinen has been making her mark with her outspoken support of various foreign policy objectives for quite some time. And now she's in a position to really do something about them.

10/17

re: "State snubs House request to examine Argentina-Iran ties"

José R. Cárdenas at Shadow Government ("Notes from the Loyal Opposition") assembled a nice summary of the issues.

Money quote(s):

"(T)hree members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) -- Chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Subcommittee Chairman Connie Mack (R- FL), and freshman member David Rivera (R-FL) sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressing their concern over information they had received on suspicious activity involving Argentina, Venezuela, and Iran and asking the State Department to investigate whether any nuclear cooperation is at play between the three countries."

This could bear watching. Argentina discontinued its own military nuclear program some years ago. Which is not the same thing as saying they no longer have any military nuclear know-how.

8/10

re: "House panel votes to defund the OAS"

Josh Rogin at The Cable ("Reporting Inside The Foreign Policy Machine") covers a possibly momentous development.

Money quote(s):

"The House Foreign Affairs Committee began its Wednesday markup of the State Department authorization bill by voting to end funding for the Organization of American States (OAS), with Republicans lambasting the organization as an enemy of freedom and democracy.

The one-hour debate over the GOP proposal to cut the entire $48.5 million annual U.S contribution to the OAS is only the beginning of what looks to be a long and contentious debate over the fiscal 2012 State Department and foreign operations authorization bill written by chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL). Democrats accused the Republicans of isolationism and retreat for their proposal, while the Republicans accused the OAS of being an ally of anti-U.S. regimes in Cuba and Venezuela. The OAS Charter was signed in 1948 at a conference led by U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall."

By their fruits shall you know them. Or something like that.

Despite the fine pedigree and charter, lots of international organizations have, to put it gently, not lived up to expectations. The OAS in recent years has acted more like a club of presidents rather than the umbrella group of Western Hemisphere democracies that it's billed as being.

This will, I expect, amount to nothing much. At least not this time. But it puts the OAS (and other international organizations who exist substantially on the U.S. dime) on notice. Personally, I'm rather fond of the OAS's Washington establishment. They do good work. Some of their principals' political wrangling, especially lately, had some pretty bad optics nonetheless.

When it comes to international fora and organizations in general, let's just say that CAA is a fan of the idea. As for the reality: they haven't come close to matching the vision, to say the least. It remains to be seen, in some cases, whether things would be better, in their individual areas of action/inaction, whether their absence would in fact be an improvement.

Be sure to read the whole article for the partisan play-by-play.