Im thinking that because the District Assembly theme and talks are prepared a very LONG time in advance of the actual event, that the theme probably had nothing to do with the war since they didnt even know they were going to go to war and didnt even go until just this year. Perhaps they tweaked the talks to remove indications that the war in Iraq which to their disappointment Im sure, fizzled prematurely making their THE END IS NEAR proclamations basically sink to the bottom of the pool. Maybe if those elders got as upset as the rest of us did, when the Society suddenly CHANGED the whole GENERATION thing from CLOSE to well...sorta somewhere OUT THERE...they will disassociate too :) Being as the assembly is world wide and "unified" I doubt they would change the whole thing this late in the game.