I think your example of SAP is spot on. People see all these news about war, US vs. the world, etc and they take sides, become angry, etc while not questioning the obvious: who is going to have a material gain from this all?

I've become quite a cinic about these things and I think economic power / money will usually be behind most of it. Unfortunately I don't believe in countries helping poor people in remote lands, government worried about killings, pride in being the beacon of democracy, etc. It's all about power and money.