DSM Event from Highland IN made the local newspaper.

[sueh]

Below is an article from The Times, a local newsaper that covers northwest Indiana.

I live in Illinois, a few miles away from the Indiana border. I wasn't able to attend the rally, but hats off to those who did, no matter where you are.


Protesters want U.S. out of Iraq

WAR IN IRAQ: They contend Bush hasn't told the whole story

BY SHARON PORTA
Times Correspondent

This story ran on nwitimes.com on Sunday, July 24, 2005 12:21 AM CDT

HIGHLAND | While she supports her daughter, Brooke, serving as an Army medic, Janet Melton thought it was worthwhile to drive more than 100 miles from her home in Chalmers, Ind., to the corner of Indianapolis Boulevard and Ridge Road to take part in an antiwar demonstration Saturday afternoon.

"My daughter was in Iraq for all of 2004, that was the most horrible year of my life," Melton said. "I don't want her to get sent back and killed, along with the other young soldiers who are there."

Melton said she supported the war effort when her daughter enlisted in 2003, but changed her mind when she started watching alternative news shows and concluded that George Bush was lying to the American people.

More than 300 rallies were held as part of the AfterDowningStreet.org effort to bring national attention to questions left unanswered regarding the United States' involvement in Iraq, according to AfterDowningStreet.org.

That organization is comprised of 560,000 petitioners who signed the letter that U.S. Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., took to the White House last month. The controversy surrounds reports that the British memo indicated Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Bush agreed by the summer of 2002 to attack Iraq and that U.S. officials were deliberately manipulating intelligence to justify war.

Saturday was the third anniversary of the Downing Street memos. The local group was organized by Nick Egnatz, of Munster, a Vietnam veteran. There were about 20 people at the Highland protest.

"I was not involved in the anti-Vietnam movement until the war was over," Egnatz said. "Then I felt it was a huge mistake and felt betrayed by my country, just as I feel betrayed now." Egnatz said he has protested the war in several communities, including walking alone up and down Ridge Road in Munster. He organized the group in Highland to keep the Downing Street issue alive.

"We are protesting our continued occupation of a foreign country," Egnatz said. The presence of U.S. troops "is the gasoline that fuels the fires of insurgency."

Those in attendance Saturday signed a petition urging U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind., to join the other members of Congress who are supporting an end to the Iraq occupation. Other protesters, like Julia Chany, of Gary, a member of the Northwest Indiana Coalition Against the Iraq War, also support the withdrawal.

"It isn't working, we are spending our money and lives of the Iraqi people and our own young people," Chany said. "I don't think our actions will stop terrorism. We're not finding Osama."

Most of the people driving by honked their horns, although some showed signs of disagreement with the protesters.

"It's important for the United States to be out of Iraq," said Ruth Deweese, of Crown Point, who protested with her husband, Randy. "We shouldn't have been there in the first place."



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http://www.thetimesonline.com/articles/2005/07/24/news/lake_county/e0cd0ce064183bac8625704800005fd8.txt