Wednesday, August 16th

@ 8pm EDT

Ann Wright spent 29 years in the U.S. Army and Army Reserves, retiring as a colonel.

In 1987, she 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, at the time 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.

In 2003, on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Ann 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 would be a violation of international law. She was one of only three persons who resigned from the U.S. government in opposition to the Iraq war. Since then, she has been writing and speaking out for peace. She has an MA in law degree from the University of Arkansas, and an MA in national security affairs from the U.S. Naval War College. She is the co-author of Dissent: Voices of Conscience.

Matt Hoh is the Associate Director of the Eisenhower Media Network, an organization of expert former military and civilian national security officials who seek to reach broad, cross-partisan audiences in diverse media outlets and among the American people – who increasingly sense that U.S. foreign policy today is not making them, or the world, safer. Matt is a former Marine Corps captain, Afghanistan State Department officer, disabled Iraq War veteran and Senior Fellow Emeritus with the Center for International Policy.

Matt has been a prolific writer and speaker about issues of war and peace. He has been a Senior Fellow with the Center For International Policy since 2010, has served advisory boards of many peace organizations including Veterans for Peace and World Beyond War, is an associate member  of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, and was recently the North Carolina Green Party candidate for the US Senate.