The US would not like to think of itself in that company. But it seems that quite a few Americans see ourselves as better only because of our identity as Americans and not because of any difference in behavior.

American exceptionalism goes both ways. Yes, people who see the US as uniquely moral and good are wrong. So are people who see the US as uniquely bad. It’s somewhat better than most countries in the world, and somewhat worse than some others, especially Western and Northern Europe, i.e. the most developed part of the world.

If it’s not fair to compare the US to Yemen, then it’s not fair to compare it to Norway either. It simply is what it is.

Yeah, there's two ways to look at this:

* The US is doing better than you might expect from an influential, powerful country, that could be abusing its power much more (but that's how empires fall, and the US has learned from the lessons of history)

* The US is doing worse than you might expect from a prosperous and stable country, one that doesn't need to be driven by desperation and genuine threats to survival

I wouldn't compare countries. But I can recognize what the OP said, that for many Americans the cruelty is the point, and I find that unpleasant all on its own. The comparison to the worst may not be apt, but I feel disgusted to be even inaptly associated with it.

By saying “Americans” rather than “human beings in general” you are implicitly comparing countries.

I am referring to a specific movement within the US.

Unlike these countries US is supposedly a part of the democratic and free where rule of law and human rights are a thing.

Also, apples and oranges. Cartel violence is a failure of the state but at least not a systemic cruelty by the state itself.

Lots of countries bake apple pies too.

Those countries aren’t first world, and they most certainly don’t claim to be the world superpower.

Plenty of cruelty has been perpetrated by rich, Western countries too, the Holocaust for example. What’s your point?

Also, whether a country is a superpower has no obvious connection to whether it commits human rights violations.