This is true only if you want it to be. People are people, capable of brilliant achievements AND horrific atrocities alike. Which of the two prevails is entirely up to us. If you assume that the US is intrinsically evil and beyond redemption, you help to make it so. Every culture on the planet, however, has its “Cain and Abel” dichotomy: its capacity for both atrocities and genius. Being an American of European descent doesn’t make me intrinsically evil any more than if makes me intrinsically “better” than anyone else.