> I don't think anyone expects perfect adherence to "international law" by the USA.
> The phrase "violation of international law" tastes meaty, but it's just tofu.
Good and valid points, but mildly tongue-in-cheek my response to your first assertion is "I do!"
I'm not an American, but I deeply appreciate what America has done to move the whole world towards a system that values innate human rights, the rule of law, and representative democracy [1], so when America behaves in a way that contravenes its own publicly stated values I am genuinely disappointed -- even though America owes me nothing. I agree that "international law" can't be easily defined (and therefore can't be adhered to), and it is not always easy to judge the moral value of an act, particularly without the benefit of hindsight (one of the best known examples being the decision to use nuclear weapons on Japan), but there are other cases where it is clear. If America clearly acts against its values, it weakens its credibility when it tries to promote them to the rest of the world.
We can of course distinguish between America and Americans -- admitting mistakes and punishing those who commit them is the way that America can deal with them and keep its credibility with respect to its values in tact.
The case of the abduction of the German citizen seems on the surface to be a fairly clear case where America should allow due process in a friendly democracy to take its course. But perhaps there are other considerations that I don't know about... either way I'm grateful to wikileaks.
[1] However imperfect our democracies are, the current alternatives are a lot worse, and I'd prefer to be optimistic that we'll discover even better methods to govern people in future.