A friend of mine in Britain I've come to know via e-mail wrote, "Blair looked VERY GAUNT on Saturday morning (GRIN). So he should. I hope Bush got an extra large dose of his own paranoia too. This was a most heart warming day for the ages."

Well, Bush isn't looking gaunt just yet, but he sure seems frustrated watching his political capital on the Iraq invasion sink with each mass protest against his war mongering getting larger and larger.

We'll know paranoia has set in when Bush joins Vice-President Cheney in his undisclosed bunker somewhere in Pennsylvania. Right now we have to put up with Bush blithely dismissing the protests by comparing them to a "focus group."

Focus group? Never before in history have so many people around the world marched in solidarity against a government policy. Not even during the WTO protests here and around the world on November 30, 1999. The Independent Media Center's international website kept a continuously updated rally ticker on the top of its home page through the day of February 15's anti-war protests. The day started in Australia with up to 200,000 marching in Melbourne and up to 100,000 in Sydney. Up to two-and-a-half million in Rome, two million in Madrid, one-and-a-half million in London, one million in Barcelona, 800,000 in Paris and 500,000 in Berlin. It's estimated that up to ten percent of 40 million people living in Spain protested.

Stateside, there were up to 500,000 people who demonstrated against the invasion of Iraq in New York City and 300,000 in San Francisco on February 16. Meanwhile, dozens of other citizens across the nation hosted their protests, most of them the largest protests of any kind ever held. Overall, tens of millions of people hit the streets on seven continents on to register their opposition to Bush and Blair. A small protest was even stage on Antarctica.

When up to 2,500 people are willing to show up Spokane in the middle of February for an anti-war protest, you know you've got the makings of an international anti-war movement.

Here in Seattle, when I finally made it to the newly constructed Fisher Pavilion at about 12:30, Seattle Center was teaming with people, probably at least 30,000 people at that point. The numbers would only grow as the afternoon proceeded.

I couldn't get anywhere near the rally. I slowly wound my way around the pavilion. Along the way, I was given a flier for an event titled "Make Art, Not War" by Pamela Belyea of the Seattle Academy of Fine Art, an institution I have labored for as an art model on dozens of occasions. The March 2 MANW event at Seattle Center will involve creating a an anti-war mural (See calendar on back page; for more info, http://www.togetherweareone.com/makeartnotwar/).

I eventually joined in at 5th and Denny. It was a spirited march with all the chanting, singing and sign waving protest veterans have come to know at these kinds of events. Most of the non-homemade signs were the ubiquitous "No Iraq War" signs now covering the city. Many of the signs were homemade with slogans like "War Is Terrorism," "Impeach Bush," "Disarm Bush," plus dozens more (Seattle Weekly editor Knute Berger put together a comprehensive collection of anti-war signs in his column: http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0308/berger.php). I marched next to a man in a suit with a Richard Nixon mask. He would turn to amused bystanders, make the peace sign and say, "Been there, done that."

The Sunday Times/P-I reported the turn out at 20,000. That was a considerable underestimate. It was impossible for the crowd to be that small, considering the Times/P-I story about the march reported the length of the procession at 2.7 miles. There was a period of time, perhaps 10-20 minutes, where the entire march routes was filled with marchers from Seattle Center to the INS.

Anti-war and alternative media activist Brian Allen stood at an intersection at 5th near the start of the march route and did a head count of the number of people who joined in. He counted about 55,000, plus or minus 5,000. Berger concurred: "Certainly, the crowd would have matched a sellout at Safeco Field (47,000)."

I felt a sense of urgency on February 15. There is a sense that the Bush administration's destructive policies will be bad for the entire world, including the United States. The most powerful government in history has proclaimed loudly that it intends to rule the world with military force and is a law unto itself. Whatever moral high ground the US had in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks was quickly lost the second a punitive bombing campaign was launched against impoverished Afghanistan in October 2001. The Bush administration was given an inch following September 11, and it took a million miles. Now the US government is seen by most of the world as a complete rogue state that must be stopped in its tracks before it becomes even more powerful. This government is too powerful militarily for its own good, and must be opposed now and again and again until it belligerence has been tamed.

Will the F15 protests stop the Bush administration plans to lead an invasion of Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein? No, they won't. The invasion will happen. The Bush administration is hellbent on doing it.

In only a year-and-a-half, the global justice movement has recovered from the tragic setback of September 11. On F15 countless thousands of Seattle area residents participated in their first anti-war march and the largest in city history.

The events of the past 18 months only demonstrate more clearly the moral bankruptcy of the right and why the global justice movement is correct. The right is helped by tragedies like September 11. Be fearless in the face of danger and keep marching.