Ehren K. Watada (born 1978) was a First Lieutenant of the United States Army. He was the first commissioned officer in the US armed forces to refuse to deploy to Iraq, in June, 2006. Watada refused to deploy for his unit's assigned rotation to Operation Iraqi Freedom, saying he believed the war to be illegal and that, under the doctrine of command responsibility, it would make him party to war crimes. At the time, he was assigned to duty with the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, part of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, as a Fire Support Officer. He was brought before a court-martial in 2007 which ended in a mistrial, and was discharged in 2009.

Watada was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Robert Watada and Carolyn Ho. His father served for 10 years as executive director of Hawaii's Campaign Spending Commission and himself refused to serve in the Vietnam War. Ehren Watada attended Punahou School, then transferred in his sophomore year to Kalani High School, where he played cornerback on the varsity football team. An Eagle Scout, Watada graduated from Hawaii Pacific University magna cum laude in 2003 with a B.A. in Finance.

Larry Gossett (b. February 21, 1945) is an American politician. He is a member of the King County Council, representing District 2 (portions of Seattle, Washington). He was first elected in 1993, and served as chair of the Council in 2007.

A native of Seattle, Gossett is a 1963 graduate of Franklin High School; he then attended and graduated from the University of Washington (U.W.). In 1966-1967, he was a VISTA volunteer in Harlem. He initially joined VISTA for the draft deferment; his time in Harlem politicized and radicalized him. Returning to Seattle, he became a founder of the Black Student Union on the U.W. campus and helped to organize nearly a dozen high school and middle school Black Student Unions throughout Seattle. As a student activist, he was instrumental in bringing about the U.W.'s Educational Opportunity Program minority recruitment program. He also played a role in the discrimination of black track athletes from Oregon State University, resulting in their early departure from a track meet. He graduated from the U.W. in 1970, receiving the university's first-ever degree in African American studies. Before he had even formally received his B.A., he became the first supervisor of the Black Student Division in the university's Office of Minority Affairs. The Seattle Civil Rights and Labor History Project describes him as having been, in the late 1960s, "one of Seattle’s best known young black radicals."

Hesham Tillawi is a Palestinian-American writer, TV talk show host, and political analyst living in Lafayette, Louisiana. He holds a doctoral degree in international relations from Bernelli University, (formerly Berne University in St. Kits), located in Virginia. He was elected vice president of the national executive committee of the Palestinian American Congress in 2004.

Tillawi's weekly two-hour television show, "Current Issues", began to be carried by Bridges TV, a Muslim television network, in late 2005. Tillawi used the show to vocalize criticism against Israel's treatment of Arabs and Muslims.^{[citation needed]} The Anti-Defamation League, however, said his show was "a megaphone for Holocaust deniers and white supremacists seeking to broadcast their hatred and anti-Semitism into American homes" with a "who's who" of notable American antisemites including David Duke, Willis Carto, Edgar J. Steele, Mark Weber, Kevin B. MacDonald and Bradley Smith.

After a 2006 episode in which he interviewed Lyndon LaRouche, Tillawi said he got phone calls and e-mails protesting LaRouche's appearance on the show. Tillawi defended his decision to have LaRouche as a guest, saying that people had to hear what LaRouche has to say and make their own judgment.