The British thought themselves exceptional, the French, the Spanish, the Czarists, the Turks, the Romans, the Greeks, the Persians, the Egyptians, the Chinese, the Inca, the Maya, and many more...all used the same twisted logic, usually in conjunction with being anointed by their imaginary, invisible god as special, to justify their actions as a rogue state to conquer and murder.
Many others, including Russian president Putin who wrote in his N.Y. Times op-ed 'A Plea for Caution From Russia' that, ”It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation." We've definitely stepped through the looking glass when Putin begins to sound and act like a stalwart of progressivism. Another very insightful article that looks closely at the truth of Amerika's culture instead of it's uber-patriotic bullshit and that includes some easy to understand graphs is 'The Real American Exceptionalism'
Perhaps one day the psychiatric community will diagnose exceptionalism, American and others, as the dangerous mental disease that it is. Perhaps one day the delusion of imperial exceptionalism will be seen, like the delusion of religious exceptionalism that it is an offspring of, as selfish and dangerous nonsense.
Until then it's important to remember that for 67 years successive US governments have resisted calls to reform the UN security council. Eighty-three times the US has exercised its veto. On 42 of these occasions it has done so to prevent Israel's treatment of the Palestinians being censured. On the last occasion, 130 nations supported the resolution but Barack Obama spiked it. Looming over all this is the great unmentionable: the cover the US provides for Israel's weapons of mass destruction.
Chemical weapons treaty wise: In 1997 the US agreed to decommission the 31,000 tonnes of sarin, VX, mustard gas and other agents it possessed within 10 years. In 1998 the Clinton administration pushed a law through Congress which forbade international weapons inspectors from taking samples of chemicals in the US and allowed the president to refuse unannounced inspections.In 2007 it requested the maximum extension of the deadline permitted by the Chemical Weapons Convention – five years. Again it failed to keep its promise, and in 2012 it claimed they would be gone by 2021.
Usage wise: The US used millions of gallons of chemical weapons in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. More recently they've poisoned Iraq for generations to come with thousands of tons of depleted uranium. They used white phosphorus on civilians in the battle of Fallujah.
The Empire, like every wounded beast, is more dangerous than ever. Drone murders, NSA spying, the black eye they received from the world community about Syria, the Iraq and Afghan wars, the banking debacle, even the corporate spawned global environmental catastrophe are all spears thrown by the world's war weary and poverty stricken at the belly of the beast. One day it will collapse as every other empire in history has. Meanwhile the wounded beast is more dangerous than ever.
