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\u201cArise and Witness,\u201d a collection of Sr. Anne Montgomery\u2019s poems and essays, along with reflections about her life, issues a call to rise and protect life. It reminds me of the work of Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese poet and peace activist whose witness on behalf of a nonaligned Buddhist movement helped build worldwide support for ending the Vietnam War. In one of his poems, he summons the grasses and plants to rise.<\/p>\n\n\n
Rise grasses and plants<\/em><\/p>\n The long night is over<\/em><\/p>\n Protect the seeds of life bursting on the cradle\u2019s rim.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n We both kept his work in mind when I lived with Anne in an unusual tent encampment, close to the Iraq-Saudi border, prior to and during the 1991 U.S. Operation Desert Storm waged against Iraq. Along with 73 other campers from various parts of the world, we were part of the Gulf Peace Team. Our intent was to intersperse ourselves between the warring parties. But as it turned out, the war opened with aerial attacks. On a shivery January night, we heard U.S. warplanes roaring overhead. Bundled under our blankets and sleeping bags, we sat on the ground, wondering what would be left of Baghdad and other areas if each of the bombers flying overhead dropped explosives on cities below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It seemed that every dog in the region had begun barking. Perhaps they had never heard planes flying overhead. I think the dogs may have barked till they were hoarse, or possibly worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The image of those dogs, and the work of Thich Nhat Hanh, may have been on Anne\u2019s mind when she wrote, in a poem called \u201cPsalter: The Second Watch,\u201d about when <\/p>\n\n\n in the moon\u2019s darkness, \u2028<\/em> Each evening they return, the mighty nations,\u2028 <\/em> they howl for their prey:\u2028<\/em> A year later, in an essay about the Gulf War, Anne observed how the war had been perpetuated in the economic sanctions. In several visits to Iraq following the 1991 Gulf War, Anne was sadly realizing that the economic war was far more devastating, far more lethal, than even the worst of the bombing. UN reports estimated that a half million children may have died as a direct result of the economic sanctions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Writing about one of her return trips to Iraq, she referred to the 1991 Operation Desert Storm as \u201cthe crucial violent event of our time, deliberately setting a future pattern.\u201d The pattern involved systematically destroying electrical facilities, sewage and sanitation plants, roads, bridges, infrastructure, health care, education, and livelihood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Iraqi authorities evacuated our team to Baghdad 10 days after the 1991 war had begun. Another evacuation was happening as Iraqi forces, many of them young conscripts \u2014 hungry, disheveled and unarmed \u2014 poured out of Kuwait along a major highway,\u00a0later called\u00a0\u201cthe Highway of Death.\u201d Iraqis attempting to surrender were stuck in a long line of Iraqi military vehicles. They were systematically slaughtered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was like shooting fish in a barrel,\u201d\u00a0said\u00a0one U.S. pilot of the air attack. Another called it \u201ca turkey shoot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
we first woke to the sound of bombers.\u2028\u2028<\/em><\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 and prowl the darkness;\u2028<\/em>
they snarl like dogs across the sky; <\/em><\/p>\n
the city,<\/em>
\u2028its children\u2028<\/em>
their mothers.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n