Economically and militarily the US is doing sort of OK. Otherwise it's a colossal failure.

Check the prison population. Grim. What about the economic and educational opportunities for a ghetto kid. Drug dealing or slinging burgers.

How about economically? The empire supported Halliburton trying to lock up the water supply in Bolivia. And kills anyone who wants to use their countries resources for it's people instead of the mega-corporations. Criminal.

Morally and ethically the US is corrupt. All one has to say is Iraq and Afghanistan. Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo. And the excuse - "They made me do it." Our behavior is as bad as the worst, because "they made me do it!"

There's more, much more, but that's a representative sample. The US is not the country I was raised to believe. And as long as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer it will be the same. As long as there is a struggle for Universal Health Insurance. As long as the military is used for immoral purposes. As long as the children of the wealthy are exempt from military purposes. As long as an AWOL military pilot can be president for two terms and order thousands of Americans to their death in support of oil companies.

What counts is morality. America measures it's morality by the worst humanity has to offer. "They made us do it."