Dissent: Voices of Conscience

Colonel (Ret.) Ann Wright and Susan Dixon

Foreword by Daniel Ellsberg

January 15, 2008 Publication Date

Publication was delayed 4 months
awaiting U.S. Government clearance

When the actions of government become dangerous to the security of the nation, it takes a special courage for men and women inside the government to speak out. If we care about keeping democracy alive, we must welcome this book.

—Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the U.S.

During the run-up to war in Iraq, Army Colonel (Ret.) and diplomat Ann Wright resigned her State Department post in protest. Wright, who had spent 19 years in the military and 16 years in diplomatic service, was one among dozens of govern-ment insiders and active-duty military personnel who spoke out, resigned, leaked documents, or refused to deploy in protest of government actions they felt were illegal. In Dissent: Voices of Conscience, Ann Wright and Susan Dixon tell the stories of these men and women, who risked careers, reputations, and even freedom out of loyalty to the Constitution and the rule of law..

Voices of conscience are usually smothered in spin. That the stories of these heroes are recorded here gives me great hope and shows that it is still possible to do the right thing.

—Ray McGovern, Retired CIA Analyst and Presidential Briefer for George H. W. Bush

As a soldier and a diplomat, Ann Wright always placed her country, its direction, and its welfare at the top of her priority list. She is, without question, one of the most honest and ethical individuals I have been privileged to know. I salute Ann Wright and the powerful voices of truth heard in Dissent.

—Brigadier General (Ret.) Pat Foote, Former Commanding General, Fort Belvoir, Virginia

This … illuminating and remarkably impressive … book should be leaked into the government. … This book could awaken … officials to withdraw their complicity and … tell the truth to [the public]. This country will not escape further human, legal, and moral catastrophes, or preserve itself as a democratic, constitutional republic, if that does not happen. If you're at all like me, you will have a whole set of new heroes when you finish reading this. …Dissent: Voices of Conscience could change your life. — from the Foreword, by Daniel Ellsberg

Ann Wright is not one to be silenced. —Ms. Magazine

Dissent: Voices of Conscience, by Colonel (Ret.) Ann Wright and Susan Dixon

Trade Paperback Original • 284 pages • $17.95 • ISBN 978-0977333844

Published by Koa Books, Maui, Hawai‘i • www.koabooks.com • www.voicesofconscience.com

Distributed to the trade by SCB Distributors, www.scbdistributors.com

About the Authors

Ann Wright grew up in Bentonville, Arkansas, and attended the University of Arkansas, where she received a master’s and a law degree. She also has a master’s degree in national security affairs from the U.S. Naval War College. After college, she spent thirteen years in the U.S. Army and sixteen additional years in the Army Reserves, retiring as a Colonel. She is airborne-qualified. In 1987, Col. Wright joined the Foreign Service and served as U.S. Deputy Ambassador in Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan, and Mongolia. She received the State Department’s Award for Heroism for her actions during the evacuation of 2,500 people from the civil war in Sierra Leone. She was on the first State Department team to go to Afghanistan and helped reopen the Embassy there in December 2001. Her other overseas assignments include Somalia, Kyrgyzstan, Grenada, Micronesia, and Nicaragua. On March 19, 2003, the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Ann Wright cabled her letter of resignation to Secretary of State Colin Powell, stating that without the authorization of the UN Security Council, the invasion and occupation of a Muslim, Arab, oil rich country would be a disaster. Since then, she has been writing and speaking out for peace. She fasted for a month, picketed at Guantánamo, served as a juror on an international impeachment commission, and has been arrested numerous times for peaceful, nonviolent protest of the Bush administration’s policies, particularly the war on Iraq. She lives in Honolulu.

Susan Dixon grew up in Connecticut and received a bachelor’s degree in Asian studies from Trinity College in Hartford. She earned a master’s degree in geography from the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, where she is a doctoral candidate. She teaches on the geography of peace and war as well as classes on political activism and nonviolence. She won a three-year fellowship from the National Science Foundation and the Frances Davis Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching at the University of Hawai‘i. She spent her senior year in college on a yearlong academic study abroad program focusing on “The World Politics of Peace and Conflict.” This international honors program was led by Johan Galtung, widely considered to be the founder of peace studies as a science. Dixon also taught English in a Japanese junior high school. She lives in Honolulu.

About Koa Books

Founded in 2005 by Arnie Kotler, the former director of Parallax Press, Koa Books publishes works on progressive politics, personal transformation, and native cultures. Koa’s titles include Maxine Hong Kingston’s Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace; Cindy Sheehan’s Not One More Mother’s Child; and forthcoming books by Robert A. Johnson, Manulani Aluli Meyer, Lama Surya Das, Sebastian Blanco, Sulak Sivaraksa, the Dalai Lama, and Margaret Trost.

Visit www.koabooks.com.

rRevised 11/5/2007

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