re: "Iraq, U.S. at odds over Iranian rebels"

Robert at Jihad Watch covers this story and touches off an interesting comment thread. That is, it's interesting enough that I added to it.

Money quote(s):

"Why is the U.S. military protecting a jihadist organization designated as a terrorist group by the State Department?"

I commented as follows:

"As a group, the uniformed and formerly armed members of the MEK qualify for Protected status under the Geneva Conventions.

It took over a year from when they first made a ceasefire agreement with the U.S., but a decision to that effect was issued by the deputy U.S. military commander in Baghdad.

They actually prefer to be called PMOI or "People's Mujaheddin Organization of Iran," maintaining that MEK is what the "evil-mullah-regime" calls them.

In any case, the U.S. should be in no hurry to repeat our post-WW2 mistake of turning people we have taken responsibility over to their home governments when it's a near certainty they will be executed and/or tortured.

Likewise, it would be in our own moral interest to keep close tabs on how the Iraqi government handles the 100 it is prosecuting. That doesn't mean I think they didn't do it (whatever they're accused of doing), just that it's bad karma on us if they're not handled properly. Just as Saddam's final moments don't exactly cover us with glory, since he was a U.S. capture.

That doesn't make them good guys, but we (the U.S.) are pretty far down the list of people the PMOI has a beef with.

It might be wise to mentally revisit the who-what-why's of how the PMOI got on the State Dept.'s terrorist organization list."

Someone has already made a good attempt at nailing down that who-what-why of a previous administration.