Other Right-Wing Groups and the Gulf War

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Conservative groups overwhelmingly supported sending U.S. troops to the Gulf. Right-wing forces aligned with Rev. Sun Myung Moon and those supportive of the Israeli political right forged a pro-war coalition that placed ads in newspapers and purchased television commercials.

Other rightists, primarily those who have politics that are more accurately termed reactionary than conservative, staked out an isolationist or "America First" position, and opposed sending U.S. troops to fight the Gulf War. The LaRouchian antiwar theories parallel many of the themes promoted by the Liberty Lobby, and the John Birch Society. According to one flyer issued by the LaRouchians, "If war is to come, it will be the result of deliberate `geopolitical' plotting by British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Lord Carrington, and other London friends of Henry Kissinger."

At the 35th Anniversary Liberty Lobby convention held in September, 1990 there was considerable antiwar sentiment expressed by speakers who tied the U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia to pressure from Israel and its intelligence agency, Mossad. No matter what actual political involvement, if any, forces that support Israel may have had in shaping the events that led to the Gulf War, the themes discussed at the Liberty Lobby conference tilted toward undocumented anti-Jewish propaganda rather than principled factual criticisms.

Prouty's topic at the opening session of the 1990 Liberty Lobby Convention was "The Secret Team." The new Institute for Historical Review's Noontide Press edition of Prouty's book The Secret Team was released at the Liberty Lobby conference. Prouty assured the audience it was an "enormous privilege" to have his book republished by the Institute for Historical Review, a group, Prouty claimed, that keeps people "from revising history." Prouty thanked Willis Carto and Tom Marcellus of IHR for the "guts and good sense" to republish his book.²⁵ Following Prouty to the Podium was the infamous anti-Jewish bigot Eustace Mullins, who spoke on "Secrets of the Federal Reserve."

Prouty has been a guest at least nine times on Paul Valentine's Radio Free America program--syndicated by Liberty Lobby. An ad in "Spotlight" for a tape of Prouty's January 23, 1991 interview reads: "Was Bush's War [against Iraq] actually a "Secret Team" operation? Col. Fletcher Prouty, expert on this government within a government, argues that it has all the earmarks."

Prouty also moderated a panel where Bo Gritz wove a conspiracy theory which explained the U.S. confrontation with Iraq as a product of the same "Secret Team" outlined by Prouty. Spotlight's coverage of the Gritz presentation featured a headline proclaiming "Gritz Warns...Get Ready to Fight or Lose Freedom: Links Drugs, CIA, Mossad; Slams U.S. Foreign Policy; Alerts Patriots to Martial Law Threat."

Other conference speakers and moderators at the September 1990 Liberty Lobby convention included attorney Mark Lane, who has drifted into alliances with Liberty Lobby that far transcend his role as the group's lawyer, and comedian and activist Dick Gregory, whose anti-government rhetoric finds fertile soil on the far right. Dick Gregory also spoke in 1991 at the January 19th antiwar rally in Washington, D.C. Organizers of the antiwar event say they were unaware of Gregory's previous appearance at the Liberty Lobby meeting.

Mark Lane and Dick Gregory co-authored a 1977 book on the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and both have circulated complex conspiracy theories about other world events which could account in part for their drift towards the conspiratorial Liberty Lobby network.

People associated with Liberty Lobby or the Populist Party circulated antiwar and pro-isolationist literature, including Liberty Lobby's weekly newspaper Spotlight, at several antiwar rallies, including demonstrations in Boston, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and West Palm Beach, Florida.

According to the Center for Democratic Renewal:

The Florida Populist Party attended [the Florida] anti-war rally...handing out a leaflet that read in part: `The most conspicuous foes of war have been on the left, and we in the Populist Party support their efforts.' Don Black, a former Klan leader, had a taped message on the Party's phone line: `Make no mistake, this is Israel's war, and American sons and daughters are fighting it for them.'

In its January 7-14, 1991 edition, Spotlight carried an article titled "Volunteers Flock to Iraq To Help Fight U.S., Israel." This phenomenon was favorably compared to "the building of the Waffen SS legions in Europe during World War II, when almost 1 million men from all over Europe and as far away as India voluntarily enlisted to fight communism under the leadership of the German high command. That development was also suppressed and never mentioned by the Anglo-American press. Allied commanders, however, knew the Waffen SS as an extremely effective fighting force."

An advertisement in the same issue of Spotlight touted a book "Israel: Our Duty...Our Dilemma" under the headline "How Will You Respond To The Next Mid-East War?" While Spotlight itself usually avoids the loaded language of this ad, the pages of Spotlight are frequently used by racist, anti-Jewish, and pro-Nazi groups to call attention to their products, publications, events, and views. The ad copy is also significant because it encapsulates many of the themes used by anti-Jewish bigots in criticizing Israel and Jews:

If you are like most Americans you will react as the pro-Zionist media has programmed you to react.

But if you have read "Israel: Our Duty...Our Dilemma" you will see the whole picture--how Israel's ruling elite are using terrorism, Holocaust sympathy, twisted Bible verses--toward one objective: Power.

Power in America. Power in the Middle East. Power in the world.

Distilling 14 years' research in semi-secret Jewish sources, evangelical writer Theodore Winston Pike demonstrates that through Kabbalistic occultism, international banking, communism, liberalism, and media control, Israel is doing exactly what the Bible prophesies: establishing a power base in the Middle East upon which her false messiah, AntiChrist, will someday rule.

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