News from the Institute for Historical Review — Feb. 24, 2004

A spirited audience packed the meeting room of a popular restaurant in Arlington, Virginia, on Thursday evening, February 19, to hear IHR director Mark Weber speak on the background and impact of the Iraq war.

Among the 40 men and women who attended the meeting were writers, political activists, authors and a documentary film producer. Two attendees from South Africa expressed interest in broadcasting Weber's address by radio in their homeland.

Weber was introduced by Peter Gemma, an editor and former editorial writer for USA Today.

In his well-received talk, "Behind the Propaganda: The Real Reasons for the Iraq War," Weber looked at why America's political leaders have sent hundreds of young Americans to their deaths, killed thousands of Iraqis, and expended tens of billions of dollars to violently remove a regime it had once supported.

In the months prior to the bombing, invasion and occupation of Iraq, said Weber, President Bush and other high-level US officials insisted that the Baghdad regime, armed with dangerous "weapons of mass destruction," posed a grave and imminent threat to America and the world. Those claims, which were the main reasons given for going to war, have proven to be untrue.

Weber drew historical parallels with past US military actions, citing extravagant lies by Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson and other American presidents to justify their war policies.

One repeatedly cited justification for the Iraq war, Weber said, has been that it will promote democracy in the Middle East. In this regard, he cited similar promises to promote democracy by earlier American leaders — including by President Wilson in the First World War, by President Johnson during the Vietnam war, and by President Clinton to justify the 1994 dispatch of US troops to Haiti.

The crucial factor in the decision to go to war, said the IHR director, was Jewish-Zionist prodding and pressure. As he explained in some detail, pro-war Zionist "neoconservatives" in the Bush administration played a decisive role in pressing the US to attack. In fact, Weber said, Jewish plans to overthrow the Iraqi regime by force were already in place well before George W. Bush became president.

This war, Weber stressed, does not serve the best interests of America or humanity, but is instead a war to further the interests of Israel and organized Jewry. Around the world, he continued, the Zionist role in pushing for war, and the scope and harmful impact of Jewish-Zionist power, are ever more obvious.

Before getting to the main theme of his talk, Weber spoke about the ordeal of Ernst Zundel, the German-born civil rights activist and publicist who has been held for a year in Canadian prison on the pretext that he is a threat to national security. Weber introduced Paul Fromm, a Canadian writer and activist who has been playing an important role in Zundel's defense. In his brief address, Fromm described Zundel as a pacifist and a political prisoner, and provided an update on his case.