NCRI – A big rally gathered Saturday 22 October 2011 at the White House to demand that the closure of Camp Ashraf in Iraq be postponed, arguing that a massacre will occur when US troops leave.
Protestors demanding “protection for Camp Ashraf,” the demonstrators also called on US President Barack Obama to remove the MEK/PMOI from a FTO list.
Speakers to the rally, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance(By recored Video);Governor Tom Ridge the first US Secretary of Homeland Security (2003-2005); Ed Rendell Governor of Pennsylvania (2003-2011); Colonel Wesley Martin, former Coalition’s counter terrorism commander in Iraq and former U.S. security commander in Ashraf; Nontombi Tutu, human rights activist and the daughter of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and DR. REVEREND LOWRY.
Here is text speech by Colonel Wes Martin:
Ladies and gentlemen, I am real pleased to be here today.
Before I start, I would like to say one thing. I noticed when the confetti went up and it was being thrown and I was seeing it raining on the ground, it reminded me one time of Camp Ashraf when we were outside the perimeter and we had an improvised explosive device go off just a short distance away.
The mist of gravel was falling down around us and parts of equipment were also falling down. Neither the members of the MEK or my troops flinched at all. We just looked at each other and recognized we survived another one.
I am honored to follow Desmond Tutu’s daughter, Naomi. She has done a lot of great work in her own right. Desmond Tutu has a strong philosophy of a democratic and just society without racial division.
The PMOI is very, very similar to that It’s a democratic and just society respecting people no matter their race, national origin, ethnic background, gender, or religion.
I know this for a fact. At the PMOI mosque, I used to watch Sunnis and Shi’as come into the mosque to pray. My soldiers, no matter their religion, and we had all — to include Christians and Jewish faith — they were welcomed inside the mosque as well.
The PMOI is not able to be here. The residents of Ashraf are not able to be here today to speak for themselves. As a former resident of Ashraf,I take that opportunity to do it.
The PMOI was founded on three principles. First was equality of those in power and those not. Now, detractors of PMOI have tried to say this represents Marx and Lenin. I disagree. The equality of those in power and not long before Marx and Lenin was highly fought for by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. They were also fought for by every American warrior who went into battle.
And the equality of those in power and those not, I guarantee you would never have offended Ronald Reagan, and I think we can all agree Ronald Reagan was no Communist.
The second philosophy was clergy does not have sole power over interpreting scripture, followed by clergy does not have the right to demand blind obedience from thecongregations. Let’s remember, that is what brought the religious reformation in Europe.
And let me ask you, how much better would Iran be today and its citizens and the world be today if those philosophies were enforced inside Iran right now? Yet the State Department claims PMOI is a terrorist organization.
As the Antiterrorism/Force Protection Officer for all coalition officers in Iraq, as the Operations Officer for Task Force 134 Detention Operations, as the first colonel of the command of Camp Ashraf, I know better.
PMOI welcomed us and worked closely with the United States, and they provided us valuable intelligence, intelligence that kept my soldiers alive and was used by my soldiers. The PMOI, the MEK, had good reason to welcome the coalition forces. We came to bring democracy to Iraq. They were already there working to do the same thing for Iran. It should have been a very natural fit.
From the very beginning, the Mujahedin, as I mentioned, cooperated with our forces. They surrendered their weapons, they consolidated their forces at Ashraf, they renounced terrorism as a means to prove they were not terrorists. They really didn’t have to renounce terrorism, because they weren’t terrorists. But if that’s what it takes to get one step closer, that’s what they were willing to do.
They accepted Protected Person Status under the Fourth Geneva Convention Meanwhile, they endured demeaning treatment of multiple arrogant State Department employees. And, by the way, one of those employees was continually feeding the National Security Advisor information about the PMOI and about our activities.
I was constantly being fed that information back from the MEK and their friends in Iran, and yet somehow the rumor is they don’t have any influence in Iran.Then when the State Department employees could not figure out what to do, the agreement of April 2003, Article 10, states that this agreement will not be broke unless both parties agree.That cease-fire agreement and that surrender-of-weapons agreement was just ignored, the Protected Person Status was revoked, and they returned over to the pro-Iranian Maliki government.
In all honesty, this is as despicable as the United States Government treatment of its own Native Americans. What we did to the Native Americans, we are now recognizing, was wrong and trying to correct it, but there is a lot that will never be corrected. We do have time to correct what we are doing to the MEK, and it’s time to get it fixed, and it’s time to get it fixed now. Instead, the State Department still calls them terrorists.
They don’t call Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army terrorists.And as the antiterrorism officer, I was going head to head with Muqtada on a daily basis, and, unfortunately, one of my own captains got shot up when Muqtada’s troops tried to take the Najef compound.
They don’t call Hakim’s Badr Corps terrorists. They don’t call Khomeini’s (unintelligible) Force terrorists even though we have recently learned of its planned attack on the Saudi minister. And, meanwhile, the State Department in our government is trying to struggle and figure out how to deal with that one. The comment now to our government is that they need to figure out at what level that attack was authorized. Let me explain something to the American Administration. Nothing of that magnitude is authorized to even start working on a(unintelligible).
Also, there was a comment about, well,what do we do? How do we treat them? I have no question upon how to treat them. Start treating Iran like it’s a spoiled child and trying to get its way all the time, and start treating them like an adult and hold them accountable for their behavior.
The State Department claims its intelligence specialists have gathered info and intelligence on the MEK. Remember, the State Department is the same organization that paid Chalibi $33 million for information despite the Central Intelligence Agency warnings that Maliki can’t be trusted.
State Department intelligence is the same organization that sent Colin Powell to the United Nations with information on weapons of mass destruction that we all know — that we all know now — is nonsense.
Those State Department employees are serving Secretary Clinton no better than they served Secretary Powell, and that intelligence was used as justification to go into Iraq after sending Chalabi to Tehran to make sure it was acceptable with the Mullah government that the United States invade and bring down Saddam Hussein.
Well, of course it was acceptable. We were doing for them what they couldn’t do for themselves. The result: 4,500 American dead, tens of thousands more crippled, and what we’ve accomplished is to destroy the balance of power in the Middle East and replace one tyrant regime with another.
As I mentioned, there was the planned attack on the Saudi (unintelligible). One of the responses coming out of our government is, well, we need to have increased diplomatic isolation of Iran.
Please, somebody, tell me, what does increased diplomatic isolation mean? I have no idea.I do believe whoever wrote that for the President and Secretary and whoever else spent their college years watching the movie Animal House and coming up with double-secret probation, because it means about the same thing.
Now, when Congress allowed the Foreign Terrorist List to be designated, there were two purposes identified in the Immigration Nationality Act. The first was to weaken support for terrorist activity, contain it, and also to pressure troops to get out of terrorism. They had three criteria.
First, it must be a foreign organization. MEK is a foreign organization. I will give the State Department that one.
It must be engaged in or retain capability and intent of terrorist activity. Well, we know that one is not true. The MEK does not do that. And they do not, the third one, threaten security of U.S. nationals or national security. They were standing beside my troops. I often tell people when we go to war in the middle of an engagement when that IED went off, you’re not thinking about your nation, you’re not thinking about your flag, you’re not thinking about your constitution. You are fighting for the one on your left and your right, and that’s the most important thing in your life.
I had in the field of battle the MEK on my flank, and I was very proud to have them there, and they never broke ranks, and they always stayed together. They were our ally.
Instead, the State Department has unlawfully used this FTO act as a bargaining tool in their failed attempt to appease a radical fundamentalist regime dedicated to the destruction of the West and the annihilation of Israel.
It was Khomeini, as we all recall, who stated, “The road to Jerusalem is through Kabbalah.”
Well, guess what? As an American nation, we are opening up the gates to Kabbalah for Khomeini’s forces.
We go back to the 2009 and 2011 videos of the Iraqi military attack in Ashraf, and, Mr. President, we have the videos that we will be more than glad to share with you. We actually request that you look at the videos, and you will see several things going on.
Mr. President, we will make those videos available, and we do humbly request that you have a look at them, and that will tell you much of what is needed to be known.
What we see are defenseless people being run over by American-supplied vehicles; at point-blank range almost, people being gunned down, unarmed and innocent people, women and men, it doesn’t matter.
We also witness something — and this becomes very special to me, and it reminds me every time I see it of what Ashraf was to me. The Ashraf residents are running to the aid of their fallen comrades knowing they may be the next one to be shot.
They don’t care. They are fighting for the one on their left and their right. They are staying together.
There’s one thing I know without a doubt: If we had been caught in an engagement and my troops were getting shot up, the Ashraf residents would be putting the same energy into running and rescuing them and pulling them out of the line of fire. These are the people who I served with proudly in Iraq.
Mr. President, I have no doubt the members of Ashraf would have put their lives on the line to defend members of my command and, just as important, Mr. President, to defend members of your command.
How dare Ambassador James Jeffrey tell Senators McCain and Levin that he is confident Maliki and Iraqi forces will protect Ashraf after U.S. departure.
Under Maliki’s rule, Iraqi forces have already attacked Ashraf twice. Let’s do the math.
Now Maliki states the PMOI must leave by the end of the year, yet he blocks every effort of the United States, United Nations, and European Union to work in bringing out the PMOI. He has already ordered buses and trucks to go to Ashraf in December. No doubt,those who survive the attack will be taken to Iran and taken to the very cities in Iran for public execution.
The bottom line is that we can never trust Maliki. He has his own agenda. Despite what we hear being put out by the Administration’s press right now, never trust Maliki. He has his own agenda.
He is influenced by my old adversary, Muqtada al-Sadr, by Hakim, by Khomeini, and Ahmadinejad. He has already attacked demonstrations of Iraqi citizens in his own country.
The execution of Saddam, I know for a fact having been with Task Force 134, Muqtada had contacted Maliki and said, I want Saddam turned over to us tomorrow so that we can execute him. Muqtada then promised his followers that Saddam would never live to see the light of a new year. Maliki was only too obliging. The American Commander of Detention Operations pushed back and told Maliki, no, you’ve got no organized plans, and this is going to be a mess.
The cultural advisor to the Commanding General went and found out what the true reason was that (unintelligible) had made that promise. They stood firm, except the State Department weighed in and said, This is an Iraqi matter, the same thing the State Department is now trying to say about Ashraf, This is an Iraqi matter. And we all remember what a fiasco the execution of Saddam was. I did not personally like Saddam, but there should have been a legitimate, professional execution, not that mess that we saw with everybody chanting Muqtada.
The election Alawi won. We know Alawi won. Hakim and Maliki went to Sistani trying to get him to do the same thing that Khomeini did and bless Maliki as Khomeini did Ahmadinejad. Sistani told him, no, you follow the Constitution. Hakim and Maliki ignored Sistani and decided, no, they will not follow the Constitution.
But we cannot completely fault Maliki for not following the Constitution and ignoring it, because the State Department is doing the same thing here. They have blatantly misused the Congressionally-established criteria on designating a Foreign Terrorist Organization when they put the MEK on the list. There is nothing there that says for appeasement of a fundamentalist regime.
When Congressman Rohrabacher held hearings this summer on Ashraf, State Department employees, not even the Secretary, told a chairman that we don’t have anybody available to attend your hearings. That is total disrespect to the United States Congress. And for 18 months, they’ve ignored the United States Court of Appeals’ decision to reevaluate themselves. So let’s not criticize Maliki completely without criticizing our own State Department for ignoring our Constitution.
As a soldier of the United States military sworn to support and defend that document, I find that personally appalling, and I hope you do too. It’s time for somebody in the Administration to stand up and stop ignoring the Ashraf situation.
Mr. President, we’re at your front door. Failure to do the harder right and correct a long-term wrong is a disgrace to democracy and will ensure the annihilation of 3,400 soldiers for freedom.
Mr. President, the residents of Ashraf need to be provided U.S. and UN security, and I’m ready always to go back with that force.
The ongoing UN refugee status determination must continue. Maliki states he wants it cleared out by the end of the year. Leave no doubt, if it does not happen, Ashraf will be attacked despite what Jeffrey is trying to tell the Senate.
As I mentioned, the attackers will make sure they shoot as many people as possible, run over as many people as possible, and then they will take the rest back to Iran. They will do that to show what happens to those who oppose the regime, and they will also do it to show what happens to those who trust the United States of America.
Maliki must be forced to lift the 31 December deadline. UN troops, if not U.S. troops, must be placed at Ashraf until the evacuation is complete.
President Obama, my president, we cannot rescue those already murdered. The United States does have the capability to extract those living. Ashraf is 20 miles due east of Air Base Balad, and we can move them out by air. We have installations being closed under the base realignment and training facilities in this nation to house them.
And, as always, the Mujahedin could do their own funding. They have never asked the United States for a penny. And even when they were having difficulty and we offered them food and anything else, they said we will take care of ourselves, and they did.
This would provide time and safety for the Mujahedin, and the United Nations team working the refugee status would have time to complete their work.
One action that does not require time is removing the PMOI from the terrorist list. They should have never been placed there in the first place. Bureaucrats, Mr. President, will be the first to state that neither should happen and we can’t make
it work.
Mr. President, I have seen what this nation can do, and I have seen what this nation’s military can do. We can do it. It’s time to do the harder right rather than to continue forward with the easier wrong.
In closing, in American history we have examples of soldiers for democracy enduring severe hardships surrounded by their enemy, (unintelligible), the list goes on.
I again point out that PMOI surrendered their weapons and signed the cease-fire agreement with Americans; no one else. We have the ability and the responsibility to ensure that Ashraf does not become the Alamo of an Iranian fight for democracy.
