The "good vs evil" polarised view of the world as espoused by Israel and the United States
... resulting in the normalisation of atrocities and war crimes
Introduction
To be “Manichaean” is to follow the philosophy of Manichaeism, an old religion that breaks everything down into good or evil. [1]
The state of Israel has long viewed the world in these Manichaean terms. Has the United States now followed Israel in viewing the world in such terms? Or has the United States in fact, always viewed the world through this lens?... that one is either a citizen of the “civilised” world or actively conspires against *our* “civilised” world. In the words of President George W. Bush (Bush 43) in his 2002 State of the Union address, “You are either with us, or you are with the ‘terrorists’. There is no in-between.” President Bush continues, “[... states like] Iran, North Korea and Iraq constitute an Axis of Evil [states that are] arming to threaten the peace of the world.” President Bush invokes the Manichaean mindset to justify a crusade by the United States against its enemies.
There follows three recent events, events that seem to confirm the endorsement by elements of the United States government of this Manichaean view of the world, and the consequent adoption of the type of tactics that adherence to such a Manichaean philosophy must elicit.
Un-people
The first of our examples concerns criminal behaviour(s) by the United States on the high seas. In October 2025, writes Andrew Napolitano, the Trump administration institutes a (criminal) foreign defence policy involving the destruction of boats on the high seas off the coast of Venezuela. When two of the survivors (of these attacks) -- whom the military had returned to their homes -- serve notice of their intent to sue the US government for a violation of their civil rights (for their attempt to kill them), and when the families of two of the non-survivors of the same attack also serve notice of their intent to sue the US government for wrongful death, we learn that the Pentagon ceases its policy of rescuing survivors and [instead] begins calling in the Coast Guard to be the responsible party for rescuing survivors at sea. Note that the Coast Guard is no longer under the control of the Pentagon but rather, is under the control of the US Department of Homeland Security.
Facts also come to light demonstrating that (on December 30, 2025), a subsequent attack -- by US military forces -- on the high seas leaves eight survivors, that the Coast Guard is then called to rescue them, and that the rescue plane takes 44 hours before arriving at the scene of the attack after taking a deliberately circuitous route that all but ensures that no survivors remain at the crash site when this “rescue” plane eventually arrives.
“What’s going on here?!”, asks Andrew Napolitano.
What’s going on here, is a deliberate series of secret macabre government decisions that imply that -- contrary to law -- it is better for survivors to drown at sea than have “all of this [these criminal killings]” played out in a federal courtroom (where survivors might have the opportunity to seek redress from their assailants in a court of law).
The law, of course, regards these uncharged persons, those attacked on the high seas by US military forces -- living and dead -- as innocent, and the law imposes upon the military that killed them the legal obligation to rescue the survivors as opposed to being rescued by the US Coastguard -- a largely domestic agency whom the military (it seems) mistrusts -- having said legal obligation.
This criminal indifference to human life, Andrew Napolitano states, transgresses the natural law, the Constitution and US federal statutes. But it is worse than that, he continues. It reveals a deep-seated nihilism animating the Trump administration. [2] Nihilism rejects all standards of human behaviour, recognises no restraints on the exercise of power and accepts no universal concepts of right and wrong. This type of nihilism is born of the Manichaean mindset. [1]
A further (recent) example of criminal behaviour by the United States on the high seas concerns the sinking by submarine torpedo of the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena by the United States off the southern coast of Sri Lanka in early March 2026. This “unprovoked” attack (launched without warning) occurs as the Iranian warship is returning to Iran, having taken part in the MILAN International Fleet Review held in the Bay of Bengal, India from February 18 to 25. The Iranian frigate is nowhere near a field of battle when the attack is launched resulting in the deaths of over 80 Iranian sailors. This again reflects the Manichaean mindset, a mindset that eschews the standard military rules of engagement as regards certain “unpeople”, George Orwell’s term for those unfit to enter history. [3]
Might is Right (as long as it is successful)
The second example (demonstrating the endorsement by elements of the United States government of a Manichaean view of the world) concerns comments by Craig Murray in his March 3 article for Consortium News wherein he references reporter, Matthew Lynn in the Washington Post. Craig Murray writes,
“We have seen [Marco] Rubio’s astonishing assertion of Imperialism as a positive force. Matthew Lynn in The Washington Post exemplifies the new Western doctrine... He [Matthew Lyn] mocks China for its pacific policy. He argues that for China to build infrastructure for the Global South is futile because the United States might simply seize, blockade or destroy any infrastructure by military force. This [Matthew Lyn] views as not shameful, but a great triumph.” [4]
This notion promulgated by Matthew Lynn is the belief that any system not developed under the auspices of Western capitalism (or controlled by Western capitalism) is an inherently less civilised system, a system that should not be countenanced. Such systems or infrastructure should therefore be (as promulgated by Matthew Lynn and supported by many others in US governmental circles) legitimate military targets.
Many Western political and military elites it seems, are taught (one might say branded or indoctrinated) with the notion that anything that is not “Western” is inherently authoritarian, evil and/or “not fit for purpose”, such beliefs to be disseminated among their own domestic populations. While the West employs (and exports) its own form of capitalism, China continues to export its version of globalisation (a type of globalisation based -- China would insist -- upon social values). [5] But what of China’s future foreign policy intentions? Might China engage in future foreign interventions? Could the citizenry of the United States (in the 18th century) have foretold of the United States’ future imperialistic ambitions and its predilection for foreign interventions?
This “enforcement” by Western political and economic elites of its form of capitalism (by various methods including international sanctions) requires a “certain mindset”, a mindset analogous to supremacy, whether Jewish supremacy or white (Western) supremacy. This Manichaean vision of the world seems designed to enforce subservience upon those nations outside of the “West”, thereby enabling supremacy.
We have already related some of the recently perpetrated destructive tendencies of the United States on the high seas. A further recent example is the abduction of Nicolás Maduro, President of Venezuela and the subsequent subjugation of that nation’s government to the will of the United States. As Craig Murray writes in his March 3 article of his recent visit to Venezuela:
“Here in Venezuela, having seen the major sites struck by the U.S. on Jan. 3, I have concluded that no act of betrayal [by elements of the Venezuelan government] was needed. Just overwhelming force and precision technology applied against a technologically unequal opponent whose key capabilities were all on open hilltops or in unhardened barracks.”
The subsequent announcement by the Trump administration -- as Nicolás Maduro endures the standard “perp walk”, an American ritualistic event specifically designed to portray the subservience of the captive and the supremacy of the captor -- states, “that a military assault was launched in Caracas, Venezuela... to bring outlaw dictator Nicolás Maduro to justice”. An “outlaw’ brought to justice by the “righteous” forces of the United States - another representative illustration of Manichaeism.
Gaza & Amalek
Our final example in demonstrating the United States’ and Israel’s Manichaean view of the world concerns (unfortunately) something that we have all become too familiar with today, the portrayal of all Palestinians by Israel (and by extension, the United States and most of Europe) as barbarians, barbarians who cannot be trusted and consequently with whom it is impossible to find common ground inevitably resulting in existential conflict. [6] This is the dubious framework under which Israel divines its Dahiya Doctrine ... that civilian casualties are no longer “unfortunate collateral damage due to attacks against the enemy’s military assets” rather, they [the civilian population] are treated as no less legitimate targets for attack than enemy military personnel and military infrastructure.
This “targeting of Palestinian civilians” by Israel’s occupying forces in Gaza was explicitly set forth in direct Manichaean language by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in October 2023 when addressing Israeli troops. He tells the troops about to go into battle that,
“[... Israelis] are committed to completely eliminating this evil from the world,” Netanyahu states in Hebrew... “You must remember what Amalek [7] has done to you, says our Holy Bible... And we do remember.”
“As can be seen in the erasure of Gaza”, writes Jonathan Cook, “Israeli soldiers did indeed accept their mission quite literally. After all, they were not just carrying out Netanyahu’s orders, but carrying out an order from God.” This is the critical point in Manichaean thinking, that God himself sanctions actions taken by those who serve his purpose, God’s ultimate purpose being the destruction of evil.
The concept of “Amalek” is the extreme manifestation of the Manichaean mindset. That [our] enemies (men, women and children) are sub-human, untermenschen and utterly expendable in the pursuit of “eliminating evil”. This is the radical change that has taken place in Israel during the past six years. “The seeds of these changes however”, continues Jonathan Cook, “have been gradually instilled in the vast majority of the [Israeli] population through persistent propaganda over decades.” Children [in Israel] from early school are taught that Palestinians are “Amalek”. [8]
Protecting against chaos?
What of the perspective of those who espouse this Manichaean view of the world? There we must sub-divide this class into ingenuous and disingenuous parties. There are those who believe (genuinely believe) that the world will fall into chaos should the United States -- under the umbrella of the so-called Western “rules-based” order -- not remain the pre-eminent global power. This opinion is not to be scoffed at as evidenced by, for example, the societal decay (including its political elite) of Columbia in the 1990s and Mexico during the same period in which senior government officials were found to be involved in the murder of US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) operative, Kiki Camarena. [9]
We must be wary however of this Manichaean mindset being utilised by other disingenuous forces who would use fear of such global chaos to institute their own supremacist rule, be it Jewish supremacy or white supremacy (implicit colonialism).
And so (as individuals), we must be cautious in supporting such a polarised Manichaean view of the world. We must be cognisant that perhaps our political and military elite are using this Manichaean view of the world as a tactic of war and as a tactic of division, a tactic designed to implant a “certain mindset” in the domestic population... that these people (the people defined by our elites as “other” or “unpeople”) are expendable, expendable because they are “not the same as us”. This notion of “good and evil” (as a black and white concept with no shades of grey) is deeply ingrained in all of us from childhood stories and myths: Heavenly angels & Hellish demons, Cowboys and Indians, Star Wars’ the Force & the Dark Side etc.
This predisposition in all of us -- to adopt such a “binary moral code” -- can easily be exploited within the arena of current events and become particularly potent (within the hands of skilled narrators who may deliberately create false narratives) as a method of alienating one section of humanity from another. [10]
We are constantly bombarded by such messaging -- both consciously and subconsciously -- as Western media (news media and entertainment media) continue to mould us to the view that we (in the West) are the sole agents of “good” while those who dissent from Western foreign policy and Western capitalist (market) values are implicit supporters of Western civilisations’ enemies and thus are agents of “evil”.
Those who would render the “reality” of our world in Manichaean terms -- religious institutions, nation states etc -- may do so as a tactic to advance their own objectives with their ultimate aim being the securing of specific strategic outcomes.
Note that in global affairs, the strategic objectives of nation states are often superseded (or usurped) by supranational entities. Behind the scenes, these supranational entities (eg. private equity funds such as Blackrock Inc, The Vanguard Group etc) often exert financial pressures upon nation states in pursuit of their own “profit motive”. These supranational entities have no sense of the Manichaean mindset themselves, because... they have no principles of their own, excepting their single overriding objective, the attainment of profit above all else.
Once our political and military elite convince us of this (alternate) Manichaean reality, they can then proceed -- in the words of Alastair Crooke -- to replace the “rules based order” with moral relativism by developing a different form of value judgement in global affairs eg. that civilians (including women and children) are expendable in pursuit of the destruction of “evil”. This moral relativism is again representative of the Manichaean mindset. [1]
The future, the past
The concept of Manichaeism of course has existed since the dawn of time, being a major contributing factor to various religions... in the Bible, for example (God versus the Devil, the Devil in the form of the serpent in the Garden of Eden), and in Islam (God versus Iblis in Jannah).
The governmental-developed and sanctioned version of Manichaeism in nation conflicts begins circa 1915 in the United States as George Creel and journalist Walter Lippman develop “the hun” campaign, a propaganda campaign designed to transform the American army into a battle hardened cohesive fighting unit and to imbue a passive American domestic population with a sense of loyalty to the state... all, so as to bolster the United States’ participation in World War I. Lippman and Creel’s propaganda campaign against the German race is an undignified and highly jingoistic campaign in which Germans (both military and civilian members of German society) are portrayed as bloodthirsty subhuman monsters (note the blood-soaked bayonet and fingers in the poster above). In this new guise, the enemy is transformed into an “evil” entity, an entity that must be defeated at all costs. [11] Modern propaganda serves a similar purpose, as in the following example where the conflict in Gaza is portrayed in purely Manichaean terms.
There had been until the early 20th century a certain “respect” -- in times of war -- for one’s enemy and certainly no expressed animosity toward the enemy’s citizenry even though war itself remained brutal. This demonisation of enemy nations “as a whole” continues through the 20th century eliciting -- in World War II -- associated atrocities from the German army (eg. the Einsatzgruppen military campaign in Russia), from the British (with its indiscriminate bombing of German cities such as Dresden), from the Japanese (during the Bataan Death March) and by the United States (with its firebombing of Japan’s mostly wooden cities).
Once one defines one’s enemy as “not human (inhuman)”, such atrocities become more palatable to those in positions of power in their pursuit of “defeating evil”.
This “fact” was recognised as being (in and of itself) antithetical to humanity at the International Criminal Tribunals (1946) in Nuremberg, the war crimes tribunal convened by the Allied powers after World War II.
History is “written by the winners” of course and so, such tribunals “tend” to omit certain events. For example, the International Criminal Tribunals (1946) “exclude” the war crime and wartime atrocity of indiscriminate firebombing of civilian targets on the Japanese mainland by the United States in 1945. [12] This belief, the belief that certain heinous acts can be permitted is integral to the Manichaean mindset… that, by definition, such acts -- acts executed in the pursuit of “destroying evil” -- cannot “in and of themselves” be considered crimes. The Manichaean logic continues... that civilisations outside of “the West”, civilisations that execute similar heinous acts, execute such atrocities only to “propagate evil” upon benevolent and benign civilisations and, as such, these civilisations must be prosecuted to the full extent of international law for the commission of these atrocities and war crimes.
Regardless, the sentiment espoused by the International Criminal Tribunals (1946) in Nuremberg is clear - that events in World War II resulted in the degradation of humanity as a whole, and that laws (international laws) should be drafted and agreed to so as to prevent a repeat of this degradation of humanity in the future.
If we are to maintain our “common humanity” today, we must recognise the danger in adopting the Manichaean mindset (on both sides of the civilisational divide) before we are once again faced -- in the words of Robert Jackson, Chief of Counsel for the United States at Nuremberg 1946 -- with a fanaticism that leads to the commission by our political and military leaders of further war crimes and atrocities:
“In our country [the United States] are evangelists and zealots of many different political, economic and religious persuasions whose fanatical conviction is that all thought is divinely classified into two kinds - that which is their own and that which is false and dangerous.”
“... and [that] the wrongs, which we seek to condemn and punish [those crimes of the Axis nations], have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilisation cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated...”
Robert Jackson concludes the final quotation above by elevating Western democracies to a higher moral plane than their (defeated) adversaries:
“[...] That four great nations [the Allied nations], flushed with victory and stung with injury, stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that power has ever paid to reason.”
Subsequent history belies this tribute (by Robert Jackson) to Western power and Western hagiography as evidenced by subsequent events and particularly its recent complicity in the Gaza genocide, a complicity referenced by John Mearsheimer during his keynote speech to the Arab Centre (Washington DC) in April 2026 :
“What is truly remarkable to me...”, John Mearsheimer states, “is the extent to which liberals (dedicated liberals who profess to believe in human rights) said virtually nothing when this genocide was taking place”,
“[...and ] in a fundamental way, what shocked me even more was that the United States was complicit in the genocide... If we had Nuremberg trials -- we’re not going to have them -- but if we had Nuremberg-like trials, Joe Biden and his principal lieutenants and Donald Trump and his principal lieutenants would be hanged. There’s no question in my mind about this.”
(BF)
The Present
Finally, as events today of such a callous and brutal nature become prosaic and normalised -- events analogous to those examples cited above -- we in the enlightened West (sub-divided between those who propagate these Manichaean ideals and those subjected to this propagation) *should* naturally become aware that our humanity is once again degrading... but the very fact that such events continue [13] to be normalised — normalised within our primary political and media spheres — predisposes us to (passively) “ignore” such atrocious events resulting in the further degradation of humanity, ad-infinitum! Additionally, there are much more effective means available today to our political and military elites to generate “hatred” for an enemy (equivalent to the hatred propagated against “the hun” in World War I) than has been available in prior generations... the dissemination of Manichaean propaganda through the ubiquitous “direct communication device” in our hands... such propaganda and tactics now possessing their own unique label and framework, the hybrid revolution and/or the hybrid war.
How can we (the ordinary folk) find a way out of this maze? Can we find an exit ramp?
The first step is shining a light on the problem itself.
Further reading:
The Lippmann “Gap”: The Great Society & the Good Society (Further information on Walter Lippmann)
Alistair Crooke (Conflict’s Forum)
Jonathan Cook (Substack)
Craig Murray (Substack)
Andrew P. Napolitano (judgenap.com)
Notes
[1] To be “Manichaean“ is to follow the philosophy of Manichaeism, an old religion that breaks everything down into good or evil. It also means “duality,” so if your thinking is Manichaean, you see things in black and white. The origins of Manichaeism are from a dualistic religious movement founded in Persia in the 3rd century CE.
[2] This Manichaean view of military action is not just confined to the Trump administration.
The Obama administration for example, engaged in many “extra judicial killings”. The Bush 43 administration employed a similar mindset when denying all those so-called “enemy combatants” -- the worst of the worst -- in Guantánamo Bay detention of the right of habaeus corpus.
[3] Both of these attacks by the United States on the high seas illustrate the type of nihilism representative of the Manichaean mindset, that these persons (unpeople) are regarded as uncivilised and unworthy of receiving standard legal due-process, indeed unworthy of receiving simple common human dignity.
[4] This “indifference” (as demonstrated by Matthew Lynn) to the fate of Pacific nations is once again emblematic of the Manichaean mindset, a mindset that is being [openly] adopted by the Trump Administration. One might say that this has always been the American mindset, the contrast with past presidential administrations being their skills in obscuring such a mindset with propaganda, propaganda that presents the United States’ foreign policies as “enabling the spread of democracy and freedom to the greater world”.
[5] Ben Norton provides further information on, “How China’s socio-economic model works“ on the GeopoliticalEconomyReport.com podcast.
Notes (contd-6)
[6] The Palestinians are barbarians and not to be trusted... This self-reverential “righteousness” now extends to Iran as the United States and Israel forgo (on February 28, 2026) diplomatic negotiations in favour of militarily vanquishing -- as labeled by Donald Trump -- “the terrorist regime of Iran“.
[7] Amalek: Benjamin Netanyahu here is referring to the historical enemy of Israel, the Amalekites (pronunciation, ‘A - maw - lik - kites’ or ‘Amah - lik - kites’). In Chapter 15.3 of the first Book of Samuel... God commands King Saul to carry out the total annihilation of the Amalekites:
“Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”
[8] “[...] Children [in Israel] from early school are taught that Palestinians are “Amalek”. We must be cognisant that the reverse may also be true... That certain Palestinian children are taught that Israelis are their bitter enemies, cannot be trusted and are expendable. It is this Manichaean mindset (on all sides) that has the potential to continually degrade our own humanity.
[9] This corruption in the senior ranks of the Mexican government is explored in Amazon Prime’s recent documentary series, “The Last Narc“). Note that American DEA & CIA officials were also found to be corrupt during the subsequent investigation into the murder of Kiki Camarena.
[10] A forthcoming article will examine the role of “the other” in the context of colonialist and “divide and rule” strategies.
[11] Some further examples of how the German race was portrayed in international media during World War I.
[12] The United States military in its 1945 firebombing campaign of Japan utilises incendiary bombs concocted with the jellied explosive, napalm which is particularly suited to starting uncontrollable fires (Napalm is also utilised on German cities in WWII). The use of napalm becomes more widespread during the Vietnam War. In some of the bombings, horrific tornado-like firestorms result on the ground, overwhelming firefighting capabilities, superheating the air, and burning, baking, or boiling everything in sight (whether military assets, civilian infrastructure, military personnel or ordinary civilians). Some reports tell of people and animals burnt to ash. As an example of the scale of the firebombing, it is estimated that (during 1945) Tokyo was 51% destroyed.
[13] The very latest examples of the “normalisation” of these callous and brutal events are exemplified in the targeting by the the United States and Israel of Iranian civilian infrastructure (including hospitals)^ and the assassination of Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, Ali Larijani. The U.S. counterpart to Ali Larijani would be Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne Mullin or Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard. One might pose the question, “Would there be such a passive attitude in Western media to the assassination (by Iran) of Tulsi Gabbard?”
Tulsi Gabbard is a civilian in the U.S. government and is not directly involved in U.S. military actions. Such killing(s) of civilians is a criminal offence under international law. Of course, there are those who can always find and/or claim legal justification for the murder of civilians as this online conversation on international law demonstrates. The argument from the Western perspective of course, is that we in the West (as the agents of good), by definition are perfectly justified in executing such killings while our enemies (the agents of evil) are not... the Manichaean view of the world, once again.
^ None of the following words appear in this article by The Guardian: crime, criminal, violation, offence, unlawful, wrong, wrongful, atrocity, illegal.
What is the purpose of shininglight news digest?