Come you masters of war
Tuesday, November 6, 2001 x 2 - 17:21

I was a little hesitant to put the lyrics to Masters of War in my diary. It's an anti-war song, although written about a different war, of course. I didn't want people thinking that I was calling George W a master of war. At the Bridge School Benefit, Neil Young said that all the old songs have a different meaning now, and I realized today, as I was thinking about those Masters of War lyrics, how right Neil was.

Osama bin Laden is a master of war. Using his fucking money and religious rhetoric to play with my world like it's his little toy, using his followers to sacrifice their own lives for his cause, denouncing America and Americans, which means denouncing me and everyone and everything I know and love.

I'm not anti-war right now. What are we supposed to do? Say to the terrorists: "Thanks for killing thousands of innocent civilians. Now what can we do to help you?" Some guy actually suggested that on CNN today. Because America is so big, we should just put a bandaid on the wound and not punish the people who stabbed us. We should just sit back and wait to be stabbed again.

War isn't the best answer. The best answer would be to put the Bad Guys on trial, where they would be convicted and then punished. Unfortunately, other Bad Guys are hiding those Bad Guys, so we can't put them on trial. What would you have us do, anti-war people?

So when I read the lyrics to Masters of War, it wasn't the American government I thought of, and I hope I never have to. I hope this "conflict" doesn't turn into something as ugly and futile as Vietnam. I hope the Bad Guys pay.