Through the World Beyond War book club program, co-authors of Dissent, Colonel (ret) Ann Wright (who herself resigned from the US government in opposition to the US war on Iraq) and Susan Dixon, a university professor, interview some of the profiled–14 years after the 2008 publication of the book to ask, “Was your dissent worth the price you paid?”
CIA waterboarding whistleblower John Kiriakou, who spent 30 months in federal prison; James Yee, U.S. Army Muslim Chaplain at Guantanamo who was accused of being a spy, put in jail for 80 days, and finally exonerated; and Matt Hoh, a Marine captain who served two tours in Iraq and worked as an official in the State Department before resigning in opposition to U.S. policies on Afghanistan.
With war resisters Jeff Paterson, who refused to go to Gulf War 1 and remarkably was not put in prison; Kevin Benderman, who refused to deploy a second time to Iraq and served 15 months in prison; and Ricky Clousing, who went AWOL for 14 months instead of Iraq and served three months in prison.
U.S. Diplomats Brady Kiesling and Ann Wright resigned in 2003 in opposition to the US War on Iraq. US Army war resister Ehren Watada refused deployment to the US war on Iraq.
FBI Whistleblower Coleen Rowley and Department of Justice whistleblower Jesselyn Radack and our acknowledgements of Katherine Gun and Craig Murray for their acts of conscience.
Ann Wright is a 29-year U.S. Army/Army Reserves veteran, a retired U.S. Army colonel and retired U.S. State Department official, known for her outspoken opposition to the Iraq War. She is a member of the Veterans For Peace Advisory Board. She received the State Department Award for Heroism in 1997, after helping to evacuate several thousand people during the civil war in Sierra Leone. She is most noted for having been one of three State Department officials to publicly resign in direct protest of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Wright was also a passenger on the Challenger 1, which along with the Mavi Marmara, was part of the 2010 Gaza flotilla. She served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia and Mongolia. In December 2001 she was on the small team that reopened the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. She is the co-author of the book Dissent: Voices of Conscience. She has written frequently on rape in the military.
