The irrationalization of imperialism

Reading GR again, the episode involving Katje's ancestor and the dodo. This segment is as good an example as any of Pynchon's continual scrutiny of the irrationality of power:

Did we tell them 'Salvation'? Did we mean a dwelling forever in the City? Everlasting life? An earthly paradise restored, their island as it used to be given back? Probably. Thinking all the time of the little brothers numbered among our own blessings. Indeed, if they save us from hunger in this world, then beyond, in Christ's kingdom, our salvations must be, in like measure, inextricable. Otherwise the dodoes would be only what they appear to be in the world's illusory light--only our prey. God could not be that cruel (111)

Scientific ridiculousness, of the sort deployed seriously in rationalizing imperial war.