The Foreign Service Journal, May 2009

M A Y 2 0 0 9 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 53 They Spoke Out Dissent: Voices of Conscience Ann Wright and Susan Dixon (foreword by Daniel Ellsberg), Koa Books, 2008, $17.95, paperback, 178 pages. R EVIEWED BY E DMUND M C W ILLIAMS In Dissent: Voices of Conscience , former U.S. Foreign Service officer (and retired Army colonel) Ann Wright and Susan Dixon, a journalist and author, review the history of op- position to the war in Iraq. As they document, this opposition came from the ranks of civilian and military offi- cials, both in the United States and other coalition governments. At the time of her resignation in March 2003, Wright had spent 35 years in government service, includ- ing 29 years in the military (13 years of them on active duty) and 16 at the State Department, during which she had received the State Department's Award for Heroism. She detailed her decision in a September 2003 Speak- ing Out column in the Foreign Service Journal : “Why Dissent Is Im- portant and Resignation Honorable.” (Two other Foreign Service officers who resigned in public protest of the war, John Brady Kiesling and John Brown, have also told their stories in the Journal .) She thus speaks author- itatively about the crisis of conscience that impelled each of the individual dissenters whose stories she tells to act upon their principles, often at con- siderable professional and personal cost. The three FSOs’ resignations were widely reported in U.S. media at the time, as were resignations in the United Kingdom by Leader of the House of Commons Robin Cook and Secretary of State for International Development Clare Short. But Wright and Dixon perform a real serv- ice by compiling many other cases throughout the “coalition of the will- ing” that have never been publicized. Particularly striking are the whistle- blowers who revealed critical official documents making plain the disin- genuousness of statements by their own governments (including the Bush administration) in the lead-up to the war. These officials endured official harassment and even prosecution as a result, sometimes undertaken at the insistence of Washington. The personal reflections of the var- ious whistleblowers, dissenters and resisters within the U.S. government uniformly reflect a common rationale for their actions. Virtually every let- ter of resignation or court martial statement cites the oath to “uphold, protect and defend the Constitution,” whatever the cost. And make no mis- take: the retribution meted out to dis- senters has at times been extralegal and vicious. The exemplary CIA career of Va- lerie Plame, wife of whistleblower Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was de- stroyed by U.S. government officials’ illegal revelation that she was a covert CIA operative. At the insistence of U.S. officials angered by revelations of their use of information gained through horrific torture perpetrated by the Uzbek government, British Ambassador Craig Murray suffered the leaking of allegations regarding his personal life aimed at forcing his res- ignation. (See his account in the Sep- tember 2007 FSJ , “The Folly of a Short-Term Approach.”) And Danish military intelligence officer Frank Grevil and Australian defense official AndrewWilkie were smeared by their own governments for revealing their These lonely, loyal dissents — like isolated stars in a black firmament — shine all the more brightly for their singularity. B OOKS