Thousands show up to protest at UN today urging end to war Iraq.

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keep us free from the nazi regime/communism? What about the Korean War? They died, too, to keep communism from spreading.

Viet Nam was another story. They died and people here were so outspoken about it (just like it is happening now), and that it brought the moral of the tropps down. When our president pulled them out so quick, all he-- broke out. The Viet Cong and Cambodia armies slaughtered thousands.

Those fighting now mostly support and believe in what they are doing. If the troops are pulled out as quick as O wants, the same thing may happen there. This is why they are trying to get Iraq's military and police set up so another Viet Nam will not happen. Support our troops.

as you wish . . . we are entering a new era and there are those of us whose hearts are soaring with joy. Label it anyway it makes you comfortable, we are joyous.

Just because someone is against the anti-war movement does not make them pro-war. Just because a group protests the anti-war protestors does not make them pro-war. BTW, I know of only one person on the conservative board that is a member of Protest Warrior, but I will add that I like what they do. You do not have corner on the protest market. You don't have a corner on the free speech market either. I do believe you all have gained a big corner on the spin market, because you and the liberal press are masterminds of spin. How's that working for ya? Let's see. you lost the congressional/senate majority in 1996 and have yet to gain it back. You lost the Presidential elections in 2000 and 2004. The spin market doesn't look to profitable to me right now.

By Jonathan Weisman and Alan Cooperman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 14, 2005; A08

When hundreds of religious activists try to get arrested today to protest cutting programs for the poor, prominent conservatives such as James Dobson, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell will not be among them.

That is a great relief to Republican leaders, who have dismissed the burgeoning protests as the work of liberals. But it raises the question: Why in recent years have conservative Christians asserted their influence on efforts to relieve Third World debt, AIDS in Africa, strife in Sudan and international sex trafficking -- but remained on the sidelines while liberal Christians protest domestic spending cuts?

Conservative Christian groups such as Focus on the Family say it is a matter of priorities, and their priorities are abortion, same-sex marriage and seating judges who will back their position against those practices.

It's not a question of the poor not being important or that meeting their needs is not important, said Paul Hetrick, a spokesman for Focus on the Family, Dobson's influential, Colorado-based Christian organization. But whether or not a baby is killed in the seventh or eighth month of pregnancy, that is less important than help for the poor? We would respectfully disagree with that.

Jim Wallis, editor of the liberal Christian journal Sojourners and an organizer of today's protest, was not buying it. Such conservative religious leaders have agreed to support cutting food stamps for poor people if Republicans support them on judicial nominees, he said. They are trading the lives of poor people for their agenda. They're being, and this is the worst insult, unbiblical.

At issue is a House-passed budget-cutting measure that would save $50 billion over five years by trimming food stamp rolls, imposing new fees on Medicaid recipients, squeezing student lenders, cutting child-support enforcement funds and paring agriculture programs. House negotiators are trying to reach accord with senators who passed a more modest $35 billion bill that largely spares programs for the poor.

At the same time, House and Senate negotiators are hashing out their differences on a tax-cutting measure that is likely to include an extension of cuts in the tax rate on dividends and capital gains.

To mainline Protestant groups and some evangelical activists, the twin measures are an affront, especially during the Christmas season. Leaders of five denominations -- the United Methodist Church, Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church USA and United Church of Christ -- issued a joint statement last week calling on Congress to go back to the drawing board and come up with a budget that brings good news to the poor.

Around 300 religious activists have vowed to kneel in prayer this morning at the Cannon House Office Building and remain there until they are arrested. Wallis said that as they are led off, they will chant a phrase from Isaiah: Woe to you legislators of infamous laws . . . who refuse justice to the unfortunate, who cheat the poor among my people of their rights, who make widows their prey and rob the orphan.

To GOP leaders and their supporters in the Christian community, it is not that simple. Acting House Majority Leader Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said yesterday that the activists' position is not intellectually right.

The right tax policy, such as keeping tax rates low on business investment, grows the economy, increases federal revenue -- and increased federal revenue makes it easier for us to pursue policies that we all can agree have social benefit, he said.

Dobson also has praised what he calls pro-family tax cuts. And Janice Crouse, a senior fellow at the Christian group Concerned Women for America, said religious conservatives know that the government is not really capable of love.

You look to the government for justice, and you look to the church and individuals for mercy. I think Hurricane Katrina is a good example of that. FEMA just failed, and the church and the Salvation Army and corporations stepped in and met the need, she said.

Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, said the government's role should be to encourage charitable giving, perhaps through tax cuts.

There is a [biblical] mandate to take care of the poor. There is no dispute of that fact, he said. But it does not say government should do it. That's a shifting of responsibility.

The Family Research Council is involved in efforts to stop the bloodshed in the Darfur region of Sudan as well as sex trafficking and slavery abroad. But Perkins said those issues are far different from the budget cuts now under protest. The difference there is enforcing laws to keep people from being enslaved, to be sold as sex slaves, he said. We're talking here about massive welfare programs.

The Rev. Richard Cizik, a vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals, returned yesterday from the Montreal conference on global climate change, another issue of interest to evangelicals. Frankly, I don't hear a lot of conversation among evangelicals about budget cuts in anti-poverty programs, he said. What I hear our people asking is, why are we spending $231 million on a bridge to nowhere in Alaska and can't find $50 million for African Union forces to stop genocide in Darfur?

As far as your imagined knowledge of where I get my information, I refer you back to your very own post above:

You infer that you know how and where I get my information. If you're so freaking clairvoyant then what are you doing here? The elitism just oozes from you.

You made a fine point in your other post: Those in glass houses best not throw stones.

I don't know if you took the time to actually read the article I posted. Nowhere in my post did I negatively pass judgment on you, as you have me. Everywhere in my post, I discussed how and why I feel the way I do and I stuck to the issues.

What made me suspicious that the White House was behind the Israeli-Lebanon war was simply the sense of deja vu all over again, as if I were viewing the summer rerun of the Iraqi war because it was all carried out Bush style:

2. The feeling that the Israelis could easily win against Hezbollah when in fact Israeli troops also encountered fierce resistance from Hezbollah guerrillas, who took a page from the Iraqi insurgents by using explosive booby traps and ambushes to inflict heavier than expected casualties on the Israelis.

5. Other soldiers found equipment to be either inferior or inappropriate for battlefield conditions.

6. And once again, animals proved they are smarter than humans: One Israeli plan to use llamas to deliver supplies in the rugged terrain of south Lebanon turned into an embarrassment when the animals simply sat down.

The only element that was missing was the mythical claim that they would be greeted as liberators but who knows? Maybe all those roses just couldn't be delivered because the roads in Lebanon had been destroyed.

I totally agree that there are radical Muslims who want to kill us. What I totally disagree with is Bush's belief that everything can be solved with bombs. The United States is quickly becoming the most hated country in the world because of Bush's total lack of diplomacy, and I'm afraid that he is only provoking more terror attacks as a result.

The world doesn't like to be bullied by a country with a president that clearly wants to dominate the world. Ask the Soviet Union. Whoops. Sorry. The Soviet Union doesn't exist any more, do they? At least for the time being. I personally predict that even though Bush claims to know Putin's heart, we're soon going to discover that you can't take the KGB out of the Russian, and maybe, just maybe they're finding pure greedy capitalism isn't all it's hyped up to be. I believe Putin is going to prove to be a very dangerous and painful thorn in America's side, only proving once again that Bush's judgment is very poor.

I'd be glad to debate you further, but if you're going to continue to make it personal, pretending to know who I am, what I feel and where I get my news, then I'm not interested in communicating with you any further and once again refer you to your very own quote to another poster: You infer that you know how and where I get my information. If you're so freaking clairvoyant then what are you doing here? The elitism just oozes from you.

It may seem that those who believe abortion is wrong are in
a minority. It may seem like we have no voice and it's
shameful to even bring it up. Let us show our President and
the world that the voices of those of us who do not believe
abortion is acceptable are not silent and must be heard.

On March 31, red envelopes are being mailed to protest Obama's agenda of unfettered worldwide abortions at taxpayer expense. The envelopes will be empty.

Get a red envelope. You can buy them at Kinkos, or at party
supply stores. Or you can visit the Red Envelope Project for a source that you can order on line for $10.95 per 100.

On the front, address it to

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington , D.C. 20500

On the back, write the following message.

This envelope represents one child who died in abortion. It is empty because that life was unable to offer anything to the world. Responsibility begins with conception.

The envelopes are to be mailed on March 31, 2009.

Forward this event to every one of your friends who you think would send one, too. Share this ministry with your church. Bundle the envelopes in 5s or 10s and ask that the front be personally handwritten to Obama and ask that your church members take 5, 10, or however many they wish and apply the postage to each one so that no one is burdened unduly with the expense of the postage . To save time, print up labels for the message to be applied to the back of the envelope and place them on the envelopes before handing out. Be sure to supply with the bundle President Obama's mailing address to personally be handwritten.

All details of this worthy grassroots effort can be found at www.redenvelopeproject.org. Just click to see how many have signed up!!

This is an issue that reaches beyong partisan politics. This is an issue of life. I don't care whether you are pro-life or pro-choice, whether you voted for or against Obama. This is an issue of life. It is no longer about choice. It is an issue of global wholesale slaughter of innocent life. It is within my pay grade to protest, and I hope yours, too.

Of course, I am getting it from an international media source. Anyone seen this on TV?

While researching war protests from yesterday, I came across this interesting article.

I tried to view this video through numerous direct and indirect links. I am able to get video, but no audio. It appears that Amy Goodman, investigative reporter, age 51, and her crew were arrested while trying to report of the RNC convention protests. Without sound, it looks like she was not in the middle of anything particularly dramatic. All I could see was street and building, no spectators. It looked like she tried to talk to the officers and they spontaneously started manhandling her, detaining, cuffing and ultimately arrested her. I am curious about the conversation that was going on but have been unable to find audio and video together.

Is there anyone else who has viewed this video WITH the audio. If so could you possibly post the link you used. I am asking because my computer does not seem to be having any problem with other audio on video clips. For anyone who is not deeply offended by news reporting of the war protest, I have included another link to an LA Times article about the arrest below.

Check out this Canadian news article on this pitiful event -- this might answer your question about why no other news stations were giving this much air time -- NOT NEWSWORTHY!! Not even 10s of thousands, much less a million!! Where did you get your statistics? Is that what you heard on TRIX news?

Houston: Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned autobiography.

�He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,� said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. �It was on his mind. He said to me: �One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.� And he said, �My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.� He said, �If I have a chance to invade�.if I had that much capital, I�m not going to waste it. I�m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I�m going to have a successful presidency.�

Herskowitz said that Bush expressed frustration at a lifetime as an underachiever in the shadow of an accomplished father. In aggressive military action, he saw the opportunity to emerge from his father�s shadow. The moment, Herskowitz said, came in the wake of the September 11 attacks. �Suddenly, he�s at 91 percent in the polls, and he�d barely crawled out of the bunker.�

That President Bush and his advisers had Iraq on their minds long before weapons inspectors had finished their work � and long before alleged Iraqi ties with terrorists became a central rationale for war � has been raised elsewhere, including in a book based on recollections of former Treasury Secretary Paul O�Neill. However, Herskowitz was in a unique position to hear Bush�s unguarded and unfiltered views on Iraq, war and other matters � well before he became president.

In 1999, Herskowitz struck a deal with the campaign of George W. Bush about a ghost-written autobiography, which was ultimately titled A Charge to Keep : My Journey to the White House, and he and Bush signed a contract in which the two would split the proceeds. The publisher was William Morrow. Herskowitz was given unimpeded access to Bush, and the two met approximately 20 times so Bush could share his thoughts. Herskowitz began working on the book in May, 1999, and says that within two months he had completed and submitted some 10 chapters, with a remaining 4-6 chapters still on his computer. Herskowitz was replaced as Bush�s ghostwriter after Bush�s handlers concluded that the candidate�s views and life experiences were not being cast in a sufficiently positive light.

According to Herskowitz, who has authored more than 30 books, many of them jointly written autobiographies of famous Americans in politics, sports and media (including that of Reagan adviser Michael Deaver), Bush and his advisers were sold on the idea that it was difficult for a president to accomplish an electoral agenda without the record-high approval numbers that accompany successful if modest wars.

The revelations on Bush�s attitude toward Iraq emerged recently during two taped interviews of Herskowitz, which included a discussion of a variety of matters, including his continued closeness with the Bush family, indicated by his subsequent selection to pen an authorized biography of Bush�s grandfather, written and published last year with the assistance and blessing of the Bush family.

Herskowitz also revealed the following:

-In 2003, Bush�s father indicated to him that he disagreed with his son�s invasion of Iraq.

-Bush admitted that he failed to fulfill his Vietnam-era domestic National Guard service obligation, but claimed that he had been �excused.�

-Bush revealed that after he left his Texas National Guard unit in 1972 under murky circumstances, he never piloted a plane again. That casts doubt on the carefully-choreographed moment of Bush emerging in pilot�s garb from a jet on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in 2003 to celebrate �Mission Accomplished� in Iraq. The image, instantly telegraphed around the globe, and subsequent hazy White House statements about his capacity in the cockpit, created the impression that a heroic Bush had played a role in landing the craft.

-Bush described his own business ventures as �floundering� before campaign officials insisted on recasting them in a positive light.

Throughout the interviews for this article and in subsequent conversations, Herskowitz indicated he was conflicted over revealing information provided by a family with which he has longtime connections, and by how his candor could comport with the undefined operating principles of the as-told-to genre. Well after the interviews�in which he expressed consternation that Bush�s true views, experience and basic essence had eluded the American people �Herskowitz communicated growing concern about the consequences for himself of the publication of his remarks, and said that he had been under the impression he would not be quoted by name. However, when conversations began, it was made clear to him that the material was intended for publication and attribution. A tape recorder was present and visible at all times.

Several people who know Herskowitz well addressed his character and the veracity of his recollections. �I don�t know anybody that�s ever said a bad word about Mickey,� said Barry Silverman, a well-known Houston executive and civic figure who worked with him on another book project. An informal survey of Texas journalists turned up uniform confidence that Herskowitz�s account as contained in this article could be considered accurate.

One noted Texas journalist who spoke with Herskowitz about the book in 1999 recalls how the author mentioned to him at the time that Bush had revealed things the campaign found embarrassing and did not want in print. He requested anonymity because of the political climate in the state. �I can�t go near this,� he said.

According to Herskowitz, George W. Bush�s beliefs on Iraq were based in part on a notion dating back to the Reagan White House � ascribed in part to now-vice president Dick Cheney, Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee under Reagan. �Start a small war. Pick a country where there is justification you can jump on, go ahead and invade.�

Bush�s circle of pre-election advisers had a fixation on the political capital that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher collected from the Falklands War. Said Herskowitz: �They were just absolutely blown away, just enthralled by the scenes of the troops coming back, of the boats, people throwing flowers at [Thatcher] and her getting these standing ovations in Parliament and making these magnificent speeches.�

Republicans, Herskowitz said, felt that Jimmy Carter�s political downfall could be attributed largely to his failure to wage a war. He noted that President Reagan and President Bush�s father himself had (besides the narrowly-focused Gulf War I) successfully waged limited wars against tiny opponents � Grenada and Panama � and gained politically. But there were successful small wars, and then there were quagmires, and apparently George H.W. Bush and his son did not see eye to eye.

�I know [Bush senior] would not admit this now, but he was opposed to it. I asked him if he had talked to W about invading Iraq. �He said, �No I haven�t, and I won�t, but Brent [Scowcroft] has.� Brent would not have talked to him without the old man�s okaying it.� Scowcroft, national security adviser in the elder Bush�s administration, penned a highly publicized warning to George W. Bush about the perils of an invasion.

Herskowitz�s revelations are not the sole indicator of Bush�s pre-election thinking on Iraq. In December 1999, some six months after his talks with Herskowitz, Bush surprised veteran political chroniclers, including the Boston Globe�s David Nyhan, with his blunt pronouncements about Saddam at a six-way New Hampshire primary event that got little notice: �It was a gaffe-free evening for the rookie front-runner, till he was asked about Saddam�s weapons stash,� wrote Nyhan. �I�d take �em out,� [Bush] grinned cavalierly, �take out the weapons of mass destruction�I�m surprised he�s still there,� said Bush of the despot who remains in power after losing the Gulf War to Bush Jr.�s father�It remains to be seen if that offhand declaration of war was just Texas talk, a sort of locker room braggadocio, or whether it was Bush�s first big clinker. �

The notion that President Bush held unrealistic or na�ve views about the consequences of war was further advanced recently by a Bush supporter, the evangelist Pat Robertson, who revealed that Bush had told him the Iraq invasion would yield no casualties. In addition, in recent days, high-ranking US military officials have complained that the White House did not provide them with adequate resources for the task at hand.

Herskowitz considers himself a friend of the Bush family, and has been a guest at the family vacation home in Kennebunkport. In the late 1960s, Herskowitz, a longtime Houston Chronicle sports columnist designated President Bush�s father, then-Congressman George HW Bush, to replace him as a guest columnist, and the two have remained close since then. (Herskowitz was suspended briefly in April without pay for reusing material from one of his own columns, about legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden.)

In 1999, when Herskowitz turned in his chapters for Charge to Keep, Bush�s staff expressed displeasure �often over Herskowitz�s use of language provided by Bush himself. In a chapter on the oil business, Herskowitz included Bush�s own words to describe the Texan�s unprofitable business ventures, writing: �the companies were floundering�. �I got a call from one of the campaign lawyers, he was kind of angry, and he said, �You�ve got some wrong information.� I didn�t bother to say, �Well you know where it came from.� [The lawyer] said, �We do not consider that the governor struggled or floundered in the oil business. We consider him a successful oilman who started up at least two new businesses.� �

In the end, campaign officials decided not to go with Herskowitz�s account, and, moreover, demanded everything back. �The lawyer called me and said, �Delete it. Shred it. Just do it.� �

�They took it and [communications director] Karen [Hughes] rewrote it,� he said. A campaign official arrived at his home at seven a.m. on a Monday morning and took his notes and computer files. However, Herskowitz, who is known for his memory of anecdotes from his long history in journalism and book publishing, says he is confident about his recollections.

According to Herskowitz, Bush was reluctant to discuss his time in the Texas Air National Guard � and inconsistent when he did so. Bush, he said, provided conflicting explanations of how he came to bypass a waiting list and obtain a coveted Guard slot as a domestic alternative to being sent to Vietnam. Herskowitz also said that Bush told him that after transferring from his Texas Guard unit two-thirds through his six-year military obligation to work on an Alabama political campaign, he did not attend any Alabama National Guard drills at all, because he was �excused.� This directly contradicts his public statements that he participated in obligatory training with the Alabama National Guard. Bush�s claim to have fulfilled his military duty has been subject to intense scrutiny; he has insisted in the past that he did show up for monthly drills in Alabama � though commanding officers say they never saw him, and no Guardsmen have come forward to accept substantial �rewards� for anyone who can claim to have seen Bush on base.

Herskowitz said he asked Bush if he ever flew a plane again after leaving the Texas Air National Guard in 1972 � which was two years prior to his contractual obligation to fly jets was due to expire. He said Bush told him he never flew any plane � military or civilian � again. That would contradict published accounts in which Bush talks about his days in 1973 working with inner-city children, when he claimed to have taken some of the children up in a plane.

In 2002, three years after he had been pulled off the George W. Bush biography, Herskowitz was asked by Bush�s father to write a book about the current president�s grandfather, Prescott Bush, after getting a message that the senior Bush wanted to see him. �Former President Bush just handed it to me. We were sitting there one day, and I was visiting him there in his office�He said, �I wish somebody would do a book about my dad.� �

�He said to me, �I know this has been a disappointing time for you, but it�s amazing how many times something good will come out of it.� I passed it on to my agent, he jumped all over it. I asked [Bush senior], �Would you support it and would you give me access to the rest of family?� He said yes.�

That book, Duty, Honor, Country: The Life and Legacy of Prescott Bush, was published in 2003 by Routledge. If anything, the book has been criticized for its over-reliance on the Bush family�s perspective and rosy interpretation of events. Herskowitz himself is considered the ultimate �as-told-to� author, lending credibility to his account of what George W. Bush told him. Herskowitz�s other books run the gamut of public figures, and include the memoirs of Reagan aide Deaver, former Texas Governor and Nixon Treasury Secretary John Connally, newsman Dan Rather, astronaut Walter Cunningham, and baseball greats Mickey Mantle and Nolan Ryan.

After Herskowitz was pulled from the Bush book project, the biographer learned that a scenario was being prepared to explain his departure. �I got a phone call from someone in the Bush campaign, confidentially, saying �Watch your back.� �

Reporters covering Bush say that when they inquired as to why Herskowitz was no longer on the project, Hughes intimated that Herskowitz had personal habits that interfered with his writing � a claim Herskowitz said is unfounded. Later, the campaign put out the word that Herskowitz had been removed for missing a deadline. Hughes subsequently finished the book herself � it received largely critical reviews for its self-serving qualities and lack of spontaneity or introspection.

So, said Herskowitz, the best material was left on the cutting room floor, including Bush�s true feelings.

�He told me that as a leader, you can never admit to a mistake,� Herskowitz said. �That was one of the keys to being a leader.�

URL: http://www.gnn.tv/articles/article.php?id=761

Thousands show up to protest at UN today urging end to war Iraq.

Exclusive: Bush Wanted To Invade Iraq If Elected in 2000