In the wake of the 9/11 Attacks US president George W. Bush gave several speeches...

You are either with us or you are against us in the fight against terror.*
States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.*
I've often spoken to you about good and evil, and this has made some uncomfortable. But good and evil are present in this world, and between the two of them there can be no compromise. Murdering the innocent to advance an ideology is wrong every time, everywhere. Freeing people from oppression and despair is eternally right. This nation must continue to speak out for justice and truth. We must always be willing to act in their defense—and to advance the cause of peace.*

But the Iraq war was a disaster from humanitarian point of view. It was based on the big lie and mass deception that Iraq was producing weapons of mass destruction. The intervention in Libya was a disaster from humanitarian point of view. The US and the UK are the world's leading weapons exporters, including weapons of mass destruction. The war on terror brought more terror and violence to the world. Every aggressive war that was fought by these same power elite was fought for economic and financial reasons, not love.

"Good versus evil" rhetoric is an age-old propaganda technique used by the power elite to create support for an imperialistic agenda. They always present themselves as the "good" guys fighting the "bad" guys. They make use of polarization to create an atmosphere of ideological extremes in which their ideology is of course the only right one.

In May 2014 Barack Obama speeched...

I believe in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being. But what makes us exceptional is not our ability to flout international norms and the rule of law; it is our willingness to affirm them through our actions.*

The president of the United States propagandizes the belief in American exceptionalism. But what about reality?

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Only if we don't consider ourselves better than others will we be exceptional human-beings.*

Any effort that has self-glorification as its final endpoint is bound to end in disaster.

The leaders of a nation who believe to be special and should play global policemen tend to place themselves above the law. Exceptionalism is a driving force of imperialism and it's an illusion presented by the power elite in order to create the support of the ignorant sheeple for their imperial agenda. The United States is a military and intelligence empire waging aggressive wars around the world related to power, not because of nonsense like "spreading democracy" or "making the world safe for democracy" as these professional liars try to make the world believe. See also James Gustave Speth's list of things that show that America is the best country in the world at being last *.

This is a vision of the world in which might makes right -- a world in which one nation's borders can be redrawn by another, and civilized people are not allowed to recover the remains of their loved ones because of the truth that might be revealed. America stands for something different. We believe that right makes might -- that bigger nations should not be able to bully smaller ones, and that people should be able to choose their own future.*

But did the United States never bully smaller nations? Might makes right asserts that a society's view of right and wrong is determined by those in power. The most powerful people place themselves above the law simply because they can. The power elite make use of coercion in order to persue their goals. They do so by means of for example financial, economic or military preponderance. The involvement of the United States in the many aggressive wars and regime changes around the world related to power is a fact of history.

In the 5th century St. Augustine told a story...

Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? The band itself is made up of men; it is ruled by the authority of a prince, it is knit together by the pact of the confederacy; the booty is divided by the law agreed on. If, by the admittance of abandoned men, this evil increases to such a degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes possession of cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes the more plainly the name of a kingdom, because the reality is now manifestly conferred on it, not by the removal of covetousness, but by the addition of impunity. Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, 'What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor.'

We live in a materialistic world. Whoever gets to rule in this world will not do so in the best interest of all the people, but first of all in his own best interest. Whoever gets to rule holds the power to place himself above the law or to change the law in his own favor.

The problem today is not just lying but "immoral morality," doing evil in the name of good.

In an interview in 2002 Tony Blair said: I believe that weapons of mass destruction are a real evil, yes. I certainly do believe that.* The truth is that the power elite of the Anglo-American Empire possess more weapons of mass destruction than the rest of the world. The Anglo-American power elite are certainly exceptional when it comes to using atomic weapons on innocent civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki after they carpet-bombed German cities during World War II intended to kill as many innocent German civilians as possible in order to "demoralize" the German population, long after the war was won. Etcetera. See also Dark Triad.

The pervasive rhetoric of good vs. evil, dark vs. light, civilization vs. barbarism that underpins US policy in the war on terror makes possible both interstate wars in/on Afghanistan and Iraq and the global torture system (manifest in Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo) of disappearances, extraordinary renditions, indefinite incarceration without trial, psychological intimidation and abuse of prisoners, and the undermining of civil rights in the US. All in the name of 'freedom'. The articulation of 'we' the US as 'innocent and unsuspecting' erases the history of US actions in the Middle East, its complicity in the imperial origins of most Middle Eastern states and in repeated military and covert political operations, and its support of Israel against the Palestinians.