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For all who have long read about downingstreetmemo, Sibel Edmonds, Hamdan, Mejia, and of course Colonel (Ret.) Wright herself, there is a treat. The book is a carefully documented account of conscientious citizens of the United States and elsewhere who put their lives and livelihoods on the line for the sake of principle.
How this book was developed is a study in cooperation. Colonel Wright, who spent 29 years in active and reserve duty in the military, and 16 in the Foreign Service, resigned from the State Department in March 2003. Her team was the first to go into Afghanistan. When the president announced his preemptive strike in Iraq, she offered her resignation.
Since then she lectured extensively. All the time, she collected information about other government employees who were outraged enough to assert themselves. Because she was tied up on the lecture trail, she enlisted the help of Susan Dixon to compile the data. Ms. Dixon, a doctoral candidate and teacher at the University of Hawai'i in Manoa, specializes in geography of peace and war.
The appendix consists of 80 pages with important documents, notes, bibliography, resources, a thorough index, and a postscript. The latter was added since much news occurred between the time the manuscript was completed and when the US government finished checking it for security flaws.
The authors let the dissenters speak for themselves after a brief resume of their circumstances. Letters of resignation are included, and most entries have web or email addresses for each person.
The kind of position dissenters held are placed in chapters: Diplomats who resigned: Coalition of the Willing; U S Whistleblowers, and Opposition within the Military.
For all Americans who have searched frantically for basic facts concerning Supreme Court cases involving Guantanamero, disenchanted generals and intelligence officers, conscientious objectors, and soldiers who have gone AWOL, there is substance in this book.
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