Raed Jarrar is an Iraq-born architect, blogger, and political advocate. He currently lives in Washington, DC where he is the Iraq consultant for the American Friends Service Committee and a Senior Fellow at Peace Action. He first gain international prominence as the person referenced in the blog, “Where is Raed?” which was written from Baghdad by the pseudonymous author Salam Pax while the US invaded Iraq. Jarrar and his family compiled their own posts in the book, The Iraq War Blog, An Iraqi Family’s Inside View of the First Year of the Occupation. In 2003, he worked as the country director of CIVIC Worldwise, the only door-to-door civilian casualties survey in Iraq. He also founded Emaar, a non-governmental organization that carried out humanitarian and reconstruction work in Baghdad and southern Iraq. He has an article today on truthout.org titled, “Obama’s Iraq Speech: Don’t Expect Him to Say the War is Over.

Amjad Atallah Co-Directs the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation. Previously, Mr. Atallah headed Strategic Assessments Initiative, a not-for-profit organization committed to providing legal and policy assistance to parties involved in negotiations in conflict and post-conflict situations, where he worked on international policy and advocacy efforts of the Save Darfur Coalition, advised the Kosovar constitutional process, and prepared scenario planning exercises for the Palestinians and Israelis. Prior to that, Mr. Atallah advised the Palestinian negotiating team in peace negotiations with Israel on the issues of international borders, security, and constitutional issues, and served as their liaison to U.S. government officials in Washington, D.C.

Daniel Levy is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Middle East Policy Initiative of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. He was the lead Israeli drafter of the Geneva Initiative and directed policy planning and international efforts at the Geneva Campaign Headquarters in Tel Aviv. Previously, Mr. Levy served as senior policy adviser to former Israeli Minister of Justice, Yossi Beilin, and under the Barak government he worked in the prime minister’s office as a special adviser and head of the Jerusalem Affairs unit. He was a member of the Israeli delegation to the Taba negotiations with the Palestinians in January 2001, and of the negotiating team for the “Oslo B” Agreement from May to September 1995, under Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Harry Shearer is an actor, author, director, and radio host. The Los Angeles native and New Orleans resident has enjoyed enormous success over the last twenty years for his voice work for The Simpsons, on which he plays a stable of characters including Mr. Burns, Smithers, and Ned Flanders. He is also known for his work in such films as This is Spinal Tap and A Mighty Wind, and his weekly radio program Le Show airs on radio stations across the globe. He has just completed a new feature-length documentary called, The Big Uneasy. It will screen in theaters nationwide for one night, tomorrow, August 30. Go to www.thebiguneasy.com for show times and venues near you. 

Leslie Carde’ is an Emmy Award-winning investigative broadcast journalist with deep personal and professional ties to New Orleans. Carde’ has covered stories from the hostage crisis in Tehran to the Daniel Pearl murder trial in Islamabad. She was one of the first anchors at CNBC when it launched in 1989, was a foreign correspondent for CNN, and went on to create a variety of news and entertainment programs. She wrote, directed, and produced the feature-length investigative documentary, “America Betrayed.”

John Judis is a senior editor at The New Republic where he has been a contributor since 1982. An active member of SDS and the left of the Sixties, he taught philosophy at Berkeley and at the San Francisco Art Institute. His books include The Paradox of American Democracy: Elites, Special Interests, and the Betrayal of Public Trust, William F. Buckley: Patron Saint of the Conservatives, and Grand Illusion: Critics and Champions of the American Century. His article “The Unnecessary Fall: A Counter-History of the Obama Presidency” appeared August 12 in The New Republic, and has generated considerable commentary. On August 25, Judis published a response to his critics, defending his analysis.