A brutal inconvenient truth. Most likely Russian assets in the Iranian military in Iran shot down the airliner near Tehran, to initiate a war.
It so happens that many in the USA and Canada believe that Tehran shot down the airliner near Tehran as a "mistake" . This view while understandable ignores the storied history of Russian active measures as seen in the Italian Red Brigades, which were largely a creature of the KGB and also at times assisted by the GRU for creating Mayhem in Italy and Europe for the benefit of advancing Kremlin objectives
Unfortunately the MEK in Iran may be playing a similar role, and their operatives would gain many strategic benefits from both the Russian government and US Neo Cons if they initiated military conflict between Western Europe, and America, and the Tehran government.
The benefits to PUTIN would be that he, Putin, would have a heaven sent opportunity to play peacemaker in order to gain influence in Washington DC, and Tehran, way beyond what we see today.
Here is a mini review of the Red Brigades, from Wikipedia
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Red Brigades
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the Italian militant group. For Japanese Red Army/Anti-Imperialist International Brigade, see Japanese Red Army. For Red Brigade, the women empowerment organization, see Red Brigade Trust.
Red BrigadesBrigate Rosse
Participant in Years of LeadFlag of the Brigate Rosse
The Red Brigades (Italian: Brigate Rosse [bri?ɡa?te ?rosse], often abbreviated BR) was a far-left[1][2] terrorist organization and guerilla based in Italy, responsible for numerous violent incidents, including assassinations, such as the murder of former Prime Minister Aldo Moro. The Red Brigades were also involved in kidnappings and robberies during the so-called "Years of Lead".
Formed in 1970, the organization sought to create a "revolutionary" state through armed struggle, and to remove Italy from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The Red Brigades attained notoriety in the 1970s and early 1980s with their violent attempts to destabilise Italy by acts of sabotage, bank robberies, kidnappings[3] and murders.[4][better source needed]
Models for the Red Brigades included the Latin American urban guerrilla movements and the World War II Italian partisan movement, which was itself a mostly leftist, anti-fascist revolutionary movement. The group was influenced by volumes on the Tupamaros published by Feltrinelli, "a sort of do-it-yourself manual for the early Red Brigades", and was influenced by and saw itself as a continuation of the Italian partisan resistance movement of the 1940s, which was interpreted as an example of a youthful anti-fascist minority using violent means for just ends.[5]
The group's most infamous act took place in 1978, when the second groups of the BR, headed by Mario Moretti, kidnapped the former Christian Democrat Prime Minister Aldo Moro, who was negotiating a compromesso storico, or "historic compromise", with the Communists.[3] The kidnappers killed five members of Moro's police escort, and murdered Moro himself 54 days later.
In the 1980s, the group was broken up by Italian investigators, with the aid of several leaders under arrest who turned pentito and assisted the authorities in capturing the other members.
1970: the first BR generation[edit]
The Red Brigades were founded in August 1970[6] by Renato Curcio and Margherita (Mara) Cagol, who had met as students at the University of Trento and later married, and Alberto Franceschini. Franceschini's grandmother had been a leader of the peasant leagues, his father a worker and anti-fascist who had been deported to Auschwitz.[7]
While the Trento group around Curcio had its main roots in the Sociology Department of the Catholic University, the Reggio Emilia group (around Franceschini) included mostly former members of the F G C I (the Communist youth movement) expelled from the parent party for extremist views.[8] In the beginning the Red Brigades were mainly active in Reggio Emilia, and in large factories in Milan, (such as Sit-Siemens, Pirelli and Magneti Marelli) and in Turin (Fiat). Members sabotaged factory equipment and broke into factory offices and trade union headquarters. In 1972, they carried out their first kidnapping: a factory foreman for Sit Siemens was held for around 20 minutes whilst pictures were taken of him wearing a placard declaring him to be a fascist.[9] The foreman was then released unharmed.[10]
During this time the Red Brigades' activities were denounced by far left political groups such as Lotta Continua and Potere Operaio (which were closer to the Autonomist movement). Although there has been an attempt to demonstrate a link between the Red Brigades and foreign communist State Security Services, nothing has been proved and such an idea has always been rejected by all the militants that after years of prison decided to speak their truth in books, interviews etc. In June 1974, the Red Brigades took action as two members of the Italian neo-fascist party, Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), were killed in Padua during a raid on the MSI headquarters.
Most of the Italian left-wing political parties of the time, including the Italian Communist Party (PCI), denied the Red Brigades' involvement in the murder and even the Red Brigades' existence itself. However, according to the BR leaders, the BR received support from a large number of people and this would be the reason for such a long existence of a military structure that counted a few hundred "effective members".[citation needed]
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The existence of this terror network was largely financed and abetted by the KGB itself , and the immense disruption of the terror of this group completely consumed over a generation of Italian governments, which for over 15 years were immobilized by this group's activity.
We see in Iran a similar situation, up to a point in the MEK, which is likely working in tandem with Russian operatives, and Neo Cons, in a manner which is insideous, nearly impossible to root out and which has enough credibility with some in the US Neo Con circles (e.g. Bolton)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Mujahedin_of_Iran
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People's Mujahedin of Iran
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
People's Mojahedin Organization
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AbbreviationMEK, MKO, PMOILeaderMaryam Rajavi and Massoud Rajavi[note 1]Secretary-GeneralZahra MerrikhiFounders[3]
National Liberation Army of Iran (NLA)[7]Participant in Iran–Iraq War, 1991 uprisings in IraqActiveSince 20 June 1987 - disarmed in 2003.[6]IdeologyShia Islamism
The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran, or the Mojahedin-e Khalq (Persian: ?????? ??????? ??? ??????, romanized: sazman-e mojahedīn-e khalq-e īran, abbreviated MEK, PMOI or MKO), is an Iranian political-militant organization[25][26][27] based on Islamic and Marxist ideology.[28] It advocates overthrowing the Islamic Republic of Iran leadership and installing its own government.[29][30][31] The MEK was the "first Iranian organization to develop systematically a modern revolutionary interpretation of Islam – an interpretation that differed sharply from both the old conservative Islam of the traditional clergy and the new populist version formulated in the 1970s by Ayatollah Khomeini and his government".[32] It is also considered the Islamic Republic of Iran's biggest and most active political opposition group.[7][32][33]
MEK was founded on 5 September 1965 by leftist Iranian students affiliated with the Freedom Movement of Iran to oppose the U.S.-backed Shah.[3][34] The organization engaged in armed conflict with the Pahlavi dynasty in the 1970s[30] and contributed to the overthrow of the Shah during the Iranian Revolution. It subsequently pursued the establishment of a democracy in Iran, particularly gaining support from Iran's middle class intelligentsia.[35][36][37][38] After the fall of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the MEK refused to take part in the constitutional referendum of the new government,[39] which led to Khomeini preventing Massoud Rajavi and other MEK members from running for office in the new government.[16] This created conflicts with Ayatollah Khomeini,[1][40] and by early 1981, authorities had banned the MEK with Khomeini carrying out a major "crackdown on the group’s members and supporters", driving the organization underground.[30][41][42]
The MEK organized a large demonstration in Iran against the Islamic Republic party and in support of president Abolhassan Banisadr, claiming that the Islamic Republic had carried out a secret coup d'état.[43][44] Afterwards, the government arrested and executed numerous MEK members and sympathizers.[45][46][36] The MEK initiated attacks targeting the clerical leadership that lasted until 1982.[47] According to Sandra Mackey, the MEK responded by targeting key Iranian official figures for assassination: they bombed the Prime Minister's office, attacked low-ranking civil servants and members of the Revolutionary Guards, along with ordinary citizens who supported the new government.[48] The MEK "have been careful to demonstrate their reluctance to resort to violence" and mention that violence is imposed on them.[49] Struan Stevenson and other analysts have stated that MEK targets included only the Islamic Republic’s governmental and security institutions.[citation needed][50]
The MEK attacked the Iran regime for "disrupting rallies and meetings, banning newspapers and burning down bookstores, rigging elections and closing down Universities; kidnapping, imprisoning and torturing political activists".[51][52][53][54][55][56] The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps raided MEK safe houses, killing Massoud Rajavi's first wife, Ashraf Rabi'i, and Musa Khiabani, MEK's second in-command at the time.[53]
In 1983, Masud Rajavi sided with Saddam Hussein in exchange for financial support against the Iranian Armed Forces in the Iran–Iraq War, a decision that was viewed as treason by the vast majority of Iranians and that destroyed the MEK's appeal in its homeland.[57] In 1986, the IRI requested France to expel the MEK from its base in Paris.[53][58] In response, it re-established its base in Iraq, where it was involved, alongside Saddam Hussain, in Operation Mersad,[59][60] Operation Forty Stars, and the 1991 nationwide uprisings.[51][61][62] In 2002, the MEK was a source for claims about Iran’s clandestine nuclear program.[63] Following the occupation of Iraq by U.S. and coalition forces in 2003, the MEK signed a ceasefire agreement with the U.S. and put down their arms in Camp Ashraf.[64]
The European Union, Canada and the United States have previously listed the MEK as a terrorist organization. This designation has since been lifted, first by the Council of the European Union on 26 January 2009,[65][66][67] by the U.S. government on 21 September 2012, and lastly by the Canadian government on 20 December 2012.[68] The MEK is designated as a terrorist organization by Iran and Iraq.[61] In June 2004, the U.S. had designated members of the MEK to be ‘protected persons’ under the Geneva Convention IV, relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War,[69] which expired in 2009 after full sovereignty of Iraq.[70]
HRW[16] and the government of the United States have described it as a cult built around its leaders, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi,[71] with many experts, describing the group as "resembling" a cult.[72][73] Those who back the MEK describe the group as proponents of "a free and democratic Iran" that could become the next government there.[74]
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Very likely, this group , the MEK, which has many connections with John Bolton, and Mike Pompeo, including other GOP members of congress would try to take over Iran itself if the present Tehran regime were sufficiently weakened in terms of a devastating war.
I am not saying that it is impossible to rule out an accident, in terms of downing of the Airliner outside Tehran but in terms of active measures, which were the specialty of the Red Brigades in Italy which went as far as killing senior members of the Italian government, it is also impossible to rule out the distinct chance that this entire hit on the aircraft was due to either the MEK, in the Iranian military, or some other group with a similar agenda.
Pompeo and Bolton have received large financial support from the MEK, and both these figures might well receive a boost, for being included in a post Trump US government in a peace deal brokered by Putin, if fighting between Tehran and Washington ensues in the following weeks.
The amount of active measures, and planning today between the US, Iran, and Russia has pushed into three dimensional chess territory. The stakes could not be higher and it is important that people stop thinking they understand the entire situation. There is much to be learned and none of it pleasant. But sleepwalking into history is also not an option . Sarvajeo in 1914 and the killing of Archduke Ferdinand of the Black hand shows us what willful ignorance leads to. i.e. world war.
In short, we need to smarten up. As soon as possible.
Andrew Beckwith, PhD