What has the U.S. got against democracy?

The United States has never been particularly friendly to democracy in the Third World. Indeed they have been known to help overthrow democratic governments they didn't feel were acting in their interests, or at least in the interests of their investors, and replace them with dictatorships.

Recently they have been trumpeting democracy in the Middle East, but when the Palestinians elected a government they didn't approve of, they immediately began to undermine it. Now they are ramping up the assault. According to Aljazeera, they intend to spend $42-million on efforts to unseat the Hamas government. The money will be spent on a variety of tactics including funding other parties such as the notoriously corrupt Fatah, encouraging "watch-dog" groups and journalists to investigate the government, and setting up private schools. The $42-million is more than three times all the main parties and candidates spent in the last election, so it should be very effective.

The use of wealth to undermine democracy is firmly in the American tradition. Big money plays such a large role in American politics, the United States could just as well be termed a plutocracy as a democracy. Maybe that's what they really want in the Middle East -- little plutocracies.