Speaking Truth to Empire Talks Foreign Policy with Former State Department Official Ann Wright

Host Dan Yaseen interviews Ann Wright.

About Guest:  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, the largest evacuation since Saigon.

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 a 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 a violation of international law.

Since then, she has been writing and speaking out for peace. She fasted for a month, picketed at the US prison at Guantánamo, Cuba, served as a juror in Bush impeachment hearings, traveled to Iran as a citizen diplomat, and has been arrested numerous times for peaceful, nonviolent protest of Bush’s policies, particularly the war on Iraq.

She has been on delegations to Iran and was in Gaza three times in 2009, following the Israeli attack on Gaza that killed 1,440 and wounded 5,000. She was an organizer for the Gaza Freedom March that brought 1,350 persons from 44 countries to Cairo, Egypt, in solidarity with the people of Gaza.

She was on the May, 2010 Gaza flotilla that was attacked by the Israeli military and was an organizer for the US Boat to Gaza, The Audacity of Hope, in the 2011 Gaza flotilla. She lives in Honolulu.

She is the co-author of Dissent: Voices of Conscience and and appeared
in the documentary “Uncovered”.

Dan Yaseen

The esteemed Dan Yaseen is the host of the long-running anti-war radio show, Speaking Truth to Empire on 88.1 KFCF Free Speech Radio for Central California.

Dan was born in Karachi, Pakistan, and immigrated to the United States in 1974. He received MS in Electrical Engineering from Michigan State University. He has been an independent life and health insurance broker for over 40 years, specializing in Medicare.

Dan has always been interested in politics and history. He follows global issues and geopolitics. After the tragedy of 911, he decided silence was no longer an option and became an anti-war, anti-Empire activist.

He is a charter member of Peace Fresno, and was President from 2004-2005; he is currently Vice President – Membership. He is also on the board of the Fresno Center for Nonviolence.