Unless we all speak out, we just might. Because the tenor of the debate is exactly what President Bush said: if you’re not with us, you are against us. If you don’t support war on Iraq, you must be Saddam’s best friend. If you don’t support “turning the place into glass,” you must be anti-American. If you don’t support slaughtering innocent civilians abroad, you must support terror against Americans at home.

I’m a combat veteran, and I reject that argument. If we give up the civil liberties on which our society was founded, then what are we fighting for? If we trade in our brains for the spin of the oil-company-controlled White House, we’re in trouble.

But then again, if I believe another one of the emails I read in my inbox, I’m just a radical with a liberal left-wing nut, anti-everything agenda.

Charles Sheehan-Miles, a decorated Gulf War combat veteran, is the author of “Prayer at Rumayla” (XLibris, 2001) and is a former President of the National Gulf War Resource Center. He can be contacted at: http://www.sheehanmiles.com

The Veterans for Common Sense statement can be read at: http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org

Charles Sheehan-Miles
Midwest Book Review calls Prayer at Rumayla "a compelling novel." -
Preview Charles' upcoming novel Murphy's War
http://www.sheehanmiles.com