Leading Rightists cheer on terrorist group on foreign soil!

Rudy Giuliani [source]

It seems like conservatives’ support of the unwritten rule about politicians not criticizing the United States whilst on foreign soil only extends to liberals. As Glenn Greenwald reports:

Imagine if a group of leading American liberals met on foreign soil with -- and expressed vocal support for -- supporters of a terrorist group that had (a) a long history of hateful anti-American rhetoric, (b) an active role in both the takeover of a U.S. embassy and Saddam Hussein's brutal 1991 repression of Iraqi Shiites, (c) extensive financial and military support from Saddam, (d) multiple acts of violence aimed at civilians, and (e) years of being designated a "Terrorist organization" by the U.S. under Presidents of both parties, a designation which is ongoing? The ensuing uproar and orgies of denunciation would be deafening.

But on December 23, a group of leading conservatives -- including Rudy Giuliani and former Bush officials Michael Mukasey, Tom Ridge, and Fran Townsend -- did exactly that. In Paris, of all places, they appeared at a forum organized by supporters of the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK) -- a group declared by the U.S. since 1997 to be "terrorist organization" -- and expressed wholesale support for that group. Worse -- on foreign soil -- they vehemently criticized their own country's opposition to these Terrorists and specifically "demanded that Obama instead take the [] group off the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations and incorporate it into efforts to overturn the mullah-led government in Tehran." In other words, they are calling on the U.S. to embrace this Saddam-supported, U.S.-hating Terrorist group and recruit them to help overthrow the government of Iran. To a foreign audience, Mukasey denounced his own country's opposition to these Terrorists as "nothing less than an embarrassment."

So a number of top conservative leaders are now cheering on a US government-designated terrorist group whilst sojourning in France. Not only does this yet again expose these neocons as pathological hypocrites, following their constant and borderline hysterical hammering of any Democratic or otherwise non-conservative politician for daring to proclaim anything less than the gleaming perfection of the United States whilst traveling abroad, but given the MEK’s classification and its long history of violent opposition to the US, this is treading a very fine line between verbally supporting an enemy to the US, which falls under free speech, and aiding them in a way that would then be considered treason as defined in the US Constitution as “levying War against [the United States], or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort”.