"Tom Tancredo, a US patriot, and a strong supporter of democracy in Iran", by Mehdi Ghaemi

The January 18th editorial in the Rocky Mountain News editorial entitled “Tancredo and the Mujahedin," echoes the “outright falsehood” and “wholesale packaged propaganda” of the Iranian regime and those who tend to appease them by attacking the only viable Iranian opposition, and ha conscientious, principled, and pathetic supporters in US Congress, such as the honorable Thomas Tancredo,

Astonishingly similar editorials with almost identical use of words have run in the main state-run newspapers of the Iranian regime What a coincidence! By dismissing the only viable opposition without offering an alternative, the editorial has in effect endorsed the continuation of the rule of the clerical dictatorship in Iran. After alt American people who have lost their beloved ones in the hands of sponsors of the most notorious terror network and the Iranians who have lost their family members through public hangings and stoning are not “naIve” to confuse the terrorist with the freedom fighter seeking to establish democracy, and human rights.

The attic failed to mention that the flail-page advertisement in The New York City, was sponsored by members of our “Colorado’s Iranian American Community” who have consciously supported the Mujahedin and their congressional supporters, and will continue to do so with even getter intensity.

It is a shame for the Rocky Mountain News to serve the purpose of the religious dictatorship ruling Iran by calling a movement, who has lost 120,000 people due to execution, public hangings, and stoning as “thugs,” and their congressional supporters as “gullible,”

In summer of 1991, according to media reports, nearly 7000 Iranian-Americans in Colorado gathered in Denver in support of the opposition Mujahedin and against Khatami right after he became president. A similar demonstration in support of the Mujahedin drew 10,000 in New York City (see Washington Times, October 29, 1998); 12,000 in Washington, DC.  Such an extensive support would not have been available to the Mujahedin if they were not independent. Youth in thousands have recently crossed border joining their National Liberation Army in the Iran-Iraq border region.

Arnold Beichnman, a Hoover Institution research fellow, and a columnist for the Washington Times on March 31, 2002 referred to the “worldwide support NCR! enjoys among a remarkable number of parliamentarians in the Western democracies,” -. and he then listed “for the record the several thousand parliamentarians who have endorsed NCRFs fight against the Iranian theocracy. The list included consistent support in ITS congress since 1992, in British Parliament since 1995 and thousands of parliamentarians in other European countries such as Italy, Sweden, Norway, Switzerlaz4 Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, and France to date.

Therefore, it is the author of the editorial --and not thousands of members of congress and parliaments-- that baa been “duped” by certain political lobbies to act in favor of the world’s most active state sponsor of terrorism. It is the ruling clerics -not the Mujahedin— that “presents a clear danger to U.S.”

Mr. Bruce McColm, the former Executive Director of Freedom House and President of International Republican Iran has testified as such: “The PMOI is not a terrorist organization in the meaning of the statute. It does not target civilians and it does not engage in or sponsor international acts of terrorism... In my opinion, the designation of the Mujahedin as a terrorist organization was not as a result of any allegations of terrorist acts or threats to our national security, but rather was a concession by our government to the Tehran government so as to encourage Iran to become more moderate in its own foreign policy and actions.”

In bears no fruit to echo the voice of the mullahs in Denver metro area where there are hundreds of Iranians who have lost a Loved one in the struggle for freedom and democracy In Iran by the barbaric regime in Iran. Freedom will prevail in Iran.

Mehdi Ghaemi
Chairman
Colorado’s Iranian American Community