Duggan was intensely opposed to the Iraq War, as were Chalifoux and his group of friends from the movement. Protests were taking place worldwide in the weeks leading up to the invasion of Iraq on 20 March 2003. Duggan began seeing more of Chalifoux's group and was invited to attend a Schiller Institute conference near Wiesbaden, the LaRouche movement's European headquarters. Duggan and his parents believed it was an anti-war conference. His mother searched for material about LaRouche on the web in vain; possibly she or her son misspelled the name as "Laroche."