In Mesopotamia, irregular militias have managed to become a regional power factor and proclaimed an “Islamic state.” They wage their war in order to consolidate their existence and extend their reach. In the West, the new power, which rules over parts of Syria and Iraq, is perceived exclusively by the bloodthirsty ways they enforce their rule: mass executions of overpowered enemies, soldiers and civilians alike; brutal expulsion of ethnic groups with the wrong beliefs or wrong loyalty; but especially by the demonstrative beheading of people the jihadists consider to be representatives of the West. The Islamic state and its objectives are fully subsumed under these barbaric practices — and because they admit no justification, no good reason for it, politicians and public opinion in the West deny the unwelcome upstart absolutely any political motive and purpose. President Obama grants “neither religion nor state!” to the ravages of these warriors. They are the pure evil that wants nothing more than the destruction of the good: violence for the sake of violence, murder for the sake of murder. The Islamic state is declared to be an enemy of mankind that must be destroyed in order to save civilization. All violence against it is legitimate and the help of all countries is due.

In the spring of last year, the professional observers of world affairs reported bad news from the Far East: “China’s new development bank divides the West” (Die Zeit, Hamburg, March 17, 2015); “US isolates itself: China stirs up the world order” (Die Presse, Vienna, March 30, 2015); “The latest in de-dollarization: US forfeits credit” (telebörse.de, March 25, 2015); “The past month will be remembered as that moment when the United States lost its role as guarantor of the global economic system” (Die Zeit, April 15, 2015). The dollar’s dominance at an end, American power losing its allure as guarantor for the global economy, the unity of the West destroyed by China — all because of the founding of a bank. How come?

The modern world needs oil. The way it does business with it shows how progressively and rationally the world is set up.

Not a week goes by without someone accusing somebody of some human-rights violation. The accusers are politicians, journalists, and speakers from organizations committed to improving moral conduct in the world of states; generally they reside in the free West. The accused are generally politicians somewhere else, foreign governments, and “self-appointed” rulers. The court expected to take up the charge is primarily the international democratic public, i.e., more of an imagined judge, whose penal power consists in defaming the accused. When state powers capable of asserting themselves worldwide act as prosecutor, they not infrequently go ahead and declare themselves to be both judge and executor of their verdicts, which include quite harsh penalties. The club of European sovereigns and the U.N. in New York have additionally set up special courts that take up many an official action for human-rights violations in perfect legal form. The substance of the accusations is the great variety of more or less brutal acts that a ruling power commits against its subjects.

So how to judge such cases?

The United States, together with Great Britain, is at war with Iraq. Their declared goal is the removal of Iraq’s ruling regime. With that, they present the rest of the world with what are largely faits accomplis, demanding agreement by everyone and assistance from allies without allowing any other state any influence on their plans and proceedings, and thereby vexing these same allies quite a bit.

When condemning is on the rise, when consternation effortlessly makes the difference between human victims and damaged national security vanish; when horror not only prevails but is cultivated so thoroughly that it is only good for the unchallengeable call to military action, then explaining the events and the international situation in which they take place already counts as dissenting behavior. And yet, such behavior is directly invited by the official interpreters of "this senseless lunacy" when they publicly pronounce their judgements. Time and again they raise the question of how such a "boundless hatred for America and the entire West can come about." Unfortunately, this trace of curiosity is also continuously smothered — the prosecutorial ambition committed to "infinite justice" contents itself with the answer "inexplicable," certifies the assassins as having warped perceptions, and considers how to get hold of people who harbor and carry out such a dissenting and malicious world view. Everything that characterizes the "new world order" — along with all the usual biases of a free society — comes up in these considerations, everything that as well causes so many difficulties for those who have proclaimed it and intend to establish it.

The “new national security strategy of the United States” concerns everybody in some way. In order that everybody understand precisely why and to what extent it does concern them, the president, in his introductory remarks, gives himself the honor of first of all presenting his great country, which is so anxious about its own security. With commendable straightforwardness, he immediately comes to the essential point; namely to the matter of war and peace. After all, it is precisely through the wars that countries inflict on the globe that they leave their deepest impression on it. This is of course also the case for this mighty country, yet what is more important — if you follow your president — is that in all its likewise rather mighty wars, this nation has really and truly never acted with the selfish motives generally characteristic of nations.

With their common market, the European states have removed tariffs and trade barriers to set down the same conditions for competition for capital based in Europe. But they didn’t come to an agreement concerning the working class. For the treatment of labour, the member states have reserved special rights for themselves so that they can use all elements of the proletarian standard of living as instruments in their competition against each other. Great Britain has even refused to sign the European Social Charter, however limited it is, and is adamant that no regulations imposed by the European Union should come in the way of national self-assertion. Today, “pro-European” Blair is just as determined to defend the British right to “opt out” against Brussels as “Euro-sceptic” Thatcher was in her time. He, too, insists that only reckless treatment of the working population ensures the nation’s competitive edge, his prime objective. And he sees himself corroborated by the course of events.

“This is the most serious financial crisis that [Great Britain] has ever seen” (Sir Mervyn King, 6 Oct 2012), so the governor of the Bank of England has been saying since the crisis broke out nearly six years ago. The Prime Minister explains the reason for the crisis to the common folks: it started across the Atlantic with the property crash but “we were hit particularly hard by the banking crisis because of the significant size of our financial sector” (David Cameron, House of Commons, 13 May 2011). The nation whose capital city accommodates the greatest concentration of international banks and other financial speculators — this nation is a victim infected by the American financial markets? The matter is slightly different from what the national view would pretend. Along with the USA, Britain is the prominent cause of the global financial crisis. No wonder the country is also among those most affected by the crisis — and therefore one of the principal actors in the crisis competition of states.

America is going to have its war on Iraq: the aims of the troop deployments — “disarmament” and “regime change” — leave no doubt about it. Ever since the only remaining superpower learned that it, too, can be attacked on its own territory, it has considerably broadened its view of its own vulnerability: there are unbearable nations; nations that simply stand against America’s cause by exercising their sovereignty and pursuing their interests. America no longer endures such states; it demands a world of unconditionally pro-American states.