Posted 12:08 PM by Scoobie Davis

John McCain, The U.S. Council for World Freedom, the World Anti-Communist League, and Sun Myung Moon
(Updated below)
This morning on Meet the Press, when the topic of the discussion was the attempts by the McCain campaign and the right's media to link Barack Obama to former Weather Underground member William Ayers, Democratic strategist Paul Begala noted that McCain has his own problem with consorting with extremists considering his membership of the board of the U.S. Council for World Freedom, an affiliate of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL), headed by former general John Singlaub. Begala noted that the Anti-Defamation League has documented how the WACL (now known as the World League for Freedom and Democracy) “has increasingly become a gathering place, a forum, a point of contact for extremists, racists and anti-Semites.”

That's putting it lightly. I have done some research on the WACL for my Sun Myung Moon blog when I heard that Moon had been a major financial supporter of the League in the 1970's and 1980's. The definitive book on the League is Scott and Jon Lee Anderson's Inside the League: The Shocking Expose of How Terrorists, Nazis, and Latin American Death Squads Have Infiltrated the World Anti-Communist League. I used information culled from the book for my YouTube video "The World's Most Powerful Cult." What the book documents is shocking. The League has served as a resource for neo-Nazis (Roger Pearson,former chairman of the WACL, was expelled when media stories emerged that he been in various neo-Nazi organizations including Willis Carto's notorious Liberty Lobby). The League did what it could to prop up undemocratic regimes and aided Salvadorian terrorist death squad leader Roberto D'Aubuisson whose nickname "Blowtorch Bob" was coined because of his favorite instrument of torture (quick aside: D'Aubuisson had also received support from figures beloved by "values voters": Jesse Helms and Jerry Falwell).

The big difference between Obama and McCain: Obama did some educational reform projects with William Ayers decades after his Weather Underground activities. McCain was affiliated with the WACL at the time in which it was a nest of neo-Nazis and was openly supporting terrorist like D'Aubuisson. How come I didn't know about McCain's affiliation with the group until today?

UPDATE I: The Center for Media and Democracy's SourceWatch has more on The U.S. Council for World Freedom.

UPDATE II: Welcome Crooks and Liars readers. Check out the front page of this site for other informative posts. Also, check out the sidebar for transcripts of on-air conversations I've had with Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and others--they're priceless. Also, check out my blog devoted to exposing Sun Myung Moon's rise as a Washington power player.