American Wars: Illusions and Realities

American Wars: Illusions and Realities

"Contributing Authors for American Wars: Illusions and Realities:

• Vic Blazier (Marion, OH) is an Iraq War veteran and active member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. He served in Iraq from April to November of 2003, and was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his service.

• Gayle Brandeis (Riverside, CA) is the author of Self Storage and The Book of Dead Birds, which won the Bellwether Prize for Fiction in Support of a Literature of Social Change. She is on the national staff of CODEPINK: Women for Peace.

• Paul Buchheit (Chicago, IL) is a professor with Chicago City Colleges and the founder of Global Initiative Chicago (GIChicago.org), a consortium of universities and human rights organizations dedicated to promoting awareness of critical global issues.

• Maurice Carney (Washington, DC) is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Friends of the Congo. He has worked as a research analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, an Africa working group coordinator for Reverend Jesse Jackson, and a research consultant to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.

• Maureen Dolan (Chicago, IL) is a Visiting Professor and Adjunct Interfaith Chaplain at DePaul University, teaching peace and justice courses as well as yoga and meditation. She is an ordained priest in the Kriya Yoga tradition and writes a regular column (as Swami Shraddhananda) for Yoga Chicago Magazine.

• Tod Ensign (New York, NY) is an American veteran's rights lawyer and the Director of Citizen Soldier, a non-profit GI and veterans rights advocacy group which has 7,500 members nationwide.

• Maria de Jesus Estrada (Chicago, IL) was born into a farm-worker community in Yuma, Arizona. Jesu Estrada has been a longtime antipoverty and equal rights activist, and was a key organizer in an anti-war walkout in Washington state. She is currently a professor of English in a Chicago city college, where she emphasizes peace studies. Jesu Estrada also sits on the editorial board of the Tribuno del Pueblo, a bilingual-anti poverty newspaper based out of Chicago.

• Arun Gandhi (Rochester, NY), a grandson of India's late spiritual leader Mahatma Gandhi, is the founder and director of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence at Christian Brothers University, Memphis, Tennessee.

• Tom H. Hastings (Portland, OR) is director of Peace & Nonviolence Studies track in the Conflict Resolution MA/MS program at Portland State University and author of: The Lessons of Nonviolence; Nonviolent Response to Terrorism; Ecology of War & Peace; Power; and Meek Ain't Weak: Nonviolent Power and People of Color.

• Marc Herold (Durham, NH) is a professor of economics at the University of New Hampshire and the author of 'Blown Away: The Myth and Reality of 'Precision Bombing' in Afghanistan.'

• Joshua Holland (Washington, DC) is a senior writer at AlterNet and contributes regularly to several blogs. He is also editor of AlterNet's corporate accountability and Iraq special coverage areas. Holland is the recipient of a Schumann Center for Media and Democracy writing grant for independent journalism.

• Raed Jarrar (Washington, DC) is an political analyst and activist. He was born in Baghdad and spent most of his life in Iraq. Since August of 2006, Raed has worked towards bridging the gap between Iraqi leaders and U.S. Congress members. He is a member of the steering committee of the NY-based coalition United for Peace and Justice, and a consultant for the American Friends Service Committee.

• Kathy Kelly (Chicago, IL) is an American peace activist, pacifist, threetime Nobel Peace Prize nominee and one of the founding members of Voices in the Wilderness.

• Amy Meyers (Chicago, IL) is an active member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), Chicago Coalition Against War & Racism (CCAWR), and other social justice organizations. Her primary organizing efforts focus on anti-war issues, veteran support, and counter-recruitment.

• Judi Nitsch (Chicago, IL) is an English professor with the Chicago City Colleges and an activist for human rights and women's rights.

• Sherwood Ross (Miami, Florida) is a free-lance writer who covers military and political topics. He has worked as a reporter for the Chicago Daily News and several wire services and is a contributor to numerous national magazines.

• Anup Shah (United Kingdom) has written and managed the globalissues.org web site since 1998. The site, which has a global audience and receives 50,000 page views daily, contains over 500 articles on critical world issues.

• Cindy Sheehan (Crawford, TX) is an American anti-Iraq War activist, whose son, Casey Sheehan, was killed during his service in Iraq. She attracted international attention in August 2005 for her extended demonstration at a peace camp outside President George W. Bush's Texas ranch.

• Ghada Talhami (Lake Forest, IL) is a professor of Middle East politics at Lake Forest College, where she holds the title of D.K.Pearsons Professor of Politics. She is the author of five books and is a frequent speaker on Arab, Palestinian, and Muslim issues.

• Howard Zinn (Boston, MA) is an American historian, political scientist, social critic, activist and playwright, best known as author of the bestseller, A People's History of the United States.