Lila Garrett: So You Think God Loves Wars? Dream Up A Better God!

By Lila Garrett

I long to wake up on Memorial Day to find our country at peace with the world. Instead of mourning the young men and women who think they died fighting to protect their country, let us mourn the truth. Let us mourn the fact that most of the time our beautiful youth died to keep our permanent war economy alive. They died for what Eisenhower referred to as the military-industrial complex. They died for the power and profit of strangers.

Had they thought of the expression “die for your country” as a public relations con job would they have risked their lives in such massive numbers? Of course not. But profiteers & presidents are so good at selling war -- and most of us are so bad at knowing when we’re being manipulated, it hurts us to recognize that practically since its inception our country has been in a state of perpetual war. This is a cause, not for celebration but for shame.

You feel I’m being disrespectful of our fallen perhaps? I am not taking into consideration the sacrifice, the “glory” of Memorial Day? You feel perhaps this should be a day of prayer and other religious rituals? Very well . . . How about this?

No one knows for sure of course, but let’s say God actually is an old guy with a white beard. And he stood on top a mountain holding out his arms like Charlton Heston and he had the attention of millions of armed service people below him, about to be shipped off to war. What would he say? I don’t know about your God, but my God would roar:

"Stop! You think you’re going off to save democracy, to protect your country, to create freedom and equality? Know that you are going to protect the oil companies and the drone makers, Halliburton, Blackwater Bechtel, General Electric, all of corporate America as well as the military. You think you’re going to feed the hungry? Know that you are going to feed the fat-cats that profit by these war.
You think you’re going to war to protect your country from attack? Know that your country is in less danger of attack from the outside than the outside that is from your country. You think you are going to fight the terrorists . . . wherever they are? Know that the most lethal terrorist technology ever invented is the drone."

Drones that kill recklessly, randomly, turning everything and everyone in their path to rubble. Unmanned murderers capable of wiping out hundreds, potentially thousands, even millions in a plane with no pilot that looks like a toy. It’s all done by remote control from some safe office cozily tucked away in some American town by military people who play the drone like a video game. Fun for the cowardly sender. Death for the unsuspecting receiver. Drones have been proudly added by our Masters of War to the lethal inventory which is at the root of our economy.
Years ago Bob Dylan wrote a song about those “masters of war”, richer and more powerful now than they ever were:

(INSERT: Keaton Simons recording of Masters of War)

What happens when sweet, well meaning young people equate patriotism with obeying blindly when ordered to kill strangers? What happens when public relations campaigns convince young people with their slogans that war is “serving your country.“

Mess with the best, die like the rest,” the Marines tell us. “cocked locked ready to rock” they brag. And who can resist when you can join “the Marines: the few, the proud.”