The United States claims to be

a stickler for "the rule of law"

As has often been observed of great power politics,

respect for the rule of law at home

tells us nothing about respect for

the rule of law in the wider world

In reality, a limited form of 'democracy'

at home or abroad is just about acceptable to US elites

As long as it does not lead to a 'virus'

of independence and self-development

that might infect other nations,

and thus interfere with US

strategic interests and private profit

The United States claims to be a stickler for "the rule of law".

As has often been observed of great power politics, respect for the rule of law at home tells us nothing about respect for the rule of law in the wider world.

The claim is simply unsustainable, transparently so in light of the vast crime that is the Iraq war.

The invasion of that country, bringing with it the deaths of approaching one million people, is the supreme war crime: a war of aggression, denounced as "illegal" by Kofi Annan, then secretary-general of the UN.

Historical examples abound of the US bending, or ignoring, international law.

During the 1963 Cuban missile crisis, the respected liberal elder statesman Dean Acheson told the American Society of International Law that no "legal issue" arises when the US responds to a challenge to its "power, position, and prestige". (Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival, Routledge, 2003, p.14)

The pattern continues to the present era, and is not restricted to Bush I and II. As Madeleine Albright, Clinton's Secretary of State, once declared:

"We will act multilaterally when we can, and unilaterally when we must."

The rhetoric of 'freedom' and 'democracy' is of course forever deployed, with much bandying around of phrases such as "new world order". Thus, one US official said in September 1991:

"If you're going to build any kind of credibility for a new world order, you've got to make people accountable to legal procedures, and Saddam's flaunted every one."

Around the same time, the US upheld the "new world order" by cancelling Nicaragua's $260 million debt to Washington.

This was a "reward" to the country for caving in to intense US pressure to drop its $17 billion legal claim, sanctioned by the International Court of Justice, as recompense for US sponsorship of the Contra attacks of the 1980s.

Bear in mind, too, that the US has repeatedly blocked UN efforts to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict.

In 2002, for example, Washington boycotted a conference in Geneva of the High Contracting Parties of the Geneva Conventions called to review the situation in the occupied territories. Chomsky observed:

"The boycott yielded the usual 'double veto': the decisions are blocked, and the events are barely reported and erased from history. The conference reaffirmed the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the occupied territories, so that many US-Israeli actions there are war crimes under US law."

What are we to make of the grandiose assertion that the United States "has done more than any other on the face of the Earth to democratise life on this planet"?

All these large claims of benevolent intent based on wishful thinking, with a blind eye turned to a mountain of factual counter-evidence.

The most obvious point to make in response is that the United States has done a poor job of democratising life in the United States.

On the eve of the 2000 presidential elections, a large majority of the electorate dismissed them as an extravaganza run by rich contributors, party managers, and the PR industry.

More than 60 per cent of regular voters - that is, the people who even bother to vote - felt that "politics in America is generally pretty disgusting". The director of Harvard's Vanishing Voter Project reported that "Americans' feeling of powerlessness has reached an alarming high".

In their February 2005 analysis of the sources of US foreign policy, Lawrence Jacob and Benjamin Page found that the major influence was "internationally oriented business corporations," with a secondary effect of "experts (who, however, may themselves be influenced by business)".

Public opinion, by contrast, had "little or no significant effect on government officials". (Ibid)

Turning abroad, Thomas Carothers, director of the Democracy and Rule of Law Project at the Carnegie Endowment, has found a "strong line of continuity" running through US government policy in Latin America in the post-Cold War era; namely:

"Where democracy appears to fit in well with US security and economic interests, the United States promotes democracy. Where democracy clashes with other significant interests, it is downplayed or even ignored."

Another establishment figure - Robert Pastor, director of Latin American and Caribbean Affairs on the National Security Council through the Carter years - said of the US government:

"It wanted Nicaraguans to act independently, +except+ when doing so would affect US interests adversely. "

In reality, a limited form of 'democracy' at home or abroad is just about acceptable to US elites.

As long as it does not lead to a 'virus' of independence and self-development that might infect other nations, and thus interfere with US strategic interests and private profit. David Cromwell & David Edwards @ Media Lens via ZNet