In London, 750,000 people joined in the city's largest ever demonstration. One million marched in Rome. 300,000 took to the streets in Berlin. Anti-war protesters made their presence felt in Oslo, Stockholm, Dublin, Bern, Glasgow, Copenhagen, Vienna, Amsterdam, Damascus, Moscow, Kiev, Athens, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Tokyo, Sydney, Seoul, Canberra and Dhaka, Bangladesh. In the United States, the police tried to control a crowd of more than 150,000 (to as many as 250,000) who crowded the streets of New York. More than 100,000 people hit the pavement in San Francisco. And rallies were held in more than 150 cities from Yakima, Washington, to Augusta, Maine.

Here in the Pioneer Valley, more than 1,300 boarded buses for the New York demonstration. Traprock Peace Center organized a large contingent — you'll find pictures from the event on their site at http://traprockpeace.org/Feb15RallyNYC/. Traprock's site has an amazing collection of source material and resources, including Glen Ranwalla's review of the Blix and ElBaradei reports and response to Colin Powell's speech to the U.N, plus an extensive events calendar.

The voices of dissent are growing stronger. And though our fearful leader said following the demonstrations that allowing the protesters to influence him would be like deciding policy "based on a focus group," the people have been heard. And we cannot be ignored.

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