Imagine the US as a gigantic elevator into which is piped background music that soothes riders with the affirmation that theirs is a society governed by laws. Their economic-military colossus of a country is “a nation of laws,” a place where “no one is above the law,” where “justice is blind”. Compared to other countries, theirs is exceptional, a place far more special than others.
This exceptionalism has had consequences for the rest of the world. Since its rise in the late 19th century, the US has restlessly scoured the globe for opportunities to deliver “export democracy” to others. Those consequences have often been destructive and even deadly, especially for those incalcitrants who needed persuasion through deliveries by showers of high-explosives.
(For each foreign military adventure, rousing debates continue decades after the fact as to whether the export of democracy was ever the true objective of the project designed, financed, and and carried out by Washington. In a city of, by, and for lawyers, a scrivener to contrive plausible-sounding legal justifications for violence has always been easy to find.)
The corollary to harms caused by Americans is the superpower bonus: immunity to legal accountability. The US rejects ever having to answer for its actions, not because the law says so but because it can do so without consequence. American policy makers know that no other country, alone or united with others, dares risk its own economic destruction to pursue something as abstract as holding the US to account for its lawlessness.
Which brings us to the calamity of Gaza, where the physical destruction and forced expulsion of its citizens are Israel’s explicit aims. Israel howls at this allegation even though its own statements aver exactly those aims. As for the thousands of civilians killed to date, Israel may not have targeted them but contrary to international law, has treated them as it always has, with deliberate indifference.
Israeli officials have publicly admitted that, without round-the-clock deliveries of US munitions, Israel’s orgy of revenge in Gaza would not be sustainable beyond a day. In other words, it’s the estimated 20,000+ American bombs—most of them “dumb” ones—along with American targeting intelligence which are destroying Gaza. This is leverage of the highest order.
Instead of using that leverage to stop the criminal carnage, Washington openly enables and participates in the willful destruction of civilian infrastructure and indifference to the mass killing of civilians, both of which international law prohibits. Washington’s morally corrupt embrace of both aims is branded as, “We stand behind Israel in its battle with Hamas”.
Part of the superpower immunity model, of course, is that its own public be lulled with elevator music that is little more than propaganda in the form of headlines like, “US urges Israeli restraint” or “Washington reminds Israel of the need to protect civilians”. Pure pap; as those headlines appear, another three 747 freighters will have landed at Ben Gurion with yet more munitions.
The only rational conclusion to be drawn from this jig danced by the US administration is that, whatever it says in public about the need for Israeli restraint (we have no idea what US officials really say to their counterparts in Israel), US policy is in favor of—jointly with Israel—making uninhabitable a place that more than a million people called home. Dollars-to-donuts, imperial clerks cum lawyers are working feverishly to justify the crime.
Were it otherwise, were Washington serious about its obligations under international law, a single phone call to Netanyahu would suffice: “No more deliveries.” Instead, we’re treated to American pleading with Israel to be less barbaric, as if US leaders were helpless in the face of Israeli homicidal psychopathy, with no leverage to force a change in policy.
Americans in elevators will not let their enjoyment of the background music be interrupted by references to crimes being committed in their name. They’ll continue to believe in their country’s exceptionalism. After all, they are occupants of a society governed by laws. That they unquestioningly (or enthusiastically, depending) fund the criminal annihilation of a people is of no import when law is seen as an à la carte menu.
