The issue at hand.

THREE YEARS AGO, on March 20, 2003, the United States of America and the United Kingdom, plus a "coalition of the willing" (primarily land troops from Australia and Poland representing about 2 percent of the total), invaded the Republic of Iraq. The U.S. part of the action was called Operation Iraqi Freedom, though it was rumored it had originally been titled Operation Iraqi Liberation until someone noticed a potential public relations problem with its acronym. Forty-two days later President George W. Bush declared the "mission accomplished." Yet now, with the three-year anniversary upon us, "coalition forces" continue to occupy the country amid a devastating insurgency and growing popular discontent.

Throughout this span of time the conflict has generated a significant flow of information, disinformation, and divergent opinion that needs no recap here. Rather, in this issue of the Humanist we recognize the third anniversary by focusing on what is closest to Humanism: the "up close and personal" human face of the occupation and the mythical aspects of warfare that continue to haunt our world.

Regarding the first of these, videographer Jessica Anderson provides in "Why Are You Here?" a never-before-published eyewitness view of the occupation as it looked nearly three years ago in the fall of 2003, then contrasts that with the worsened situation today. And Associate Professor of Philosophy Shari Stone-Mediatore reveals in "Examined Lives in the Shadow of Iraq" some views from both the battlefront and the home front as increasing numbers of people with first-hand experience join the increasingly diverse antiwar movement.

Regarding the second of these, retired marine officer Camillo C. Bica takes on common distortions of reality in "The Mythologizing of War from Vietnam to Iraq," first as the myths were preached to him during the Vietnam era in which he served, then as imagery of that conflict is used and abused to advance the U.S. presence in Iraq.

In addition, Michael I. Niman keeps us up to date in his continuing "We Murder Journalists" series and Norman Solomon devotes his Media Beat column to "The Bogus Blurring of Terrorism and Insurgency in Iraq" Stephanie McMillan gives us her usual biting perspective in this issue's Minimum Security cartoon on page six, "The Uninvited Guest from Hell?' Then there's the civil liberties fallout from the war, addressed by columnists Rachel Gillett in Civil Liberties Watch, Ralph R. Reiland in Humanist Flashback, and Lisa Smith in Technology and Society.

But all isn't bad news. There are actually good ideas at work that can help us begin to reverse the trend of lost lives abroad and lost liberties at home. In the Up Front section, Jason Ben-Meir shows how it's possible amid today's "conflict of civilizations" to "Win the War of Ideas through Community Development." For the longer haul, Frederic Mousseau and Anuradha Mittal explain how something called food sovereignty can make a difference toward "Ending World Hunger in Our Time." And world-renowned social critic Theodore Roszak--in "The War against Pluralism"--goes right to the philosophical and psychological core of what leads people toward hostile and unhumanistic foreign and domestic policies, like those of the current U.S. administration.

Thus we bring the spirit and ideals of Humanism directly to bear on the central issue facing the United States and the rest of the world as we mark its unhappy anniversary.