Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin is an Irish-Catholic father of five children who lives with his wife of 39 years in West Virginia. Franklin is the former USAF Reserve Colonel Military Attaché to the U.S. Embassy in Israel. He also was the Iran Desk Officer in the Office of the Secretary of the Defense under Donald Rumsfeld. Franklin's doctorate is in Asian Studies. His primary foreign language is Persian Farsi. During the Cold War, Dr. Franklin served as the Defense Intelligence Agency's Senior Political-Military Analyst in support of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He has executed missions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and is well-traveled throughout the Middle East with many tours of duty in Israel.
Dr. Shakil Afridi, a Pakistani physician who helped the U.S. locate Osama bin Laden, has been in jail in Pakistan since he was arrested days after the raid on bin Laden's compound in 2011. In 2013, he was granted a retrial, with a new charge that appears politically motivated: charged with murder in regard to the death, eight years earlier, of a patient he had treated. Afridi has gone on a hunger strike protest his unspeakable prison conditions -- including torture. His former lawyer, Samiullah Khan Afridi, was murdered by the Taliban in March 2015.
