Moral authority in regard to matters of freedom and self-government.
Of course, you may be one of those ultra-social conservatives who think we "asked for" 9-11 due to moral decline. But even they can't deny that we still have some right to judge other countries with respect to freedom and self-government. That fact that you try to deny this suggests that you don't have much respect for your country.
You sound like a standard-brand liberal, and an especially dumb one, at that.
You don't know that. You ought to know that we have allowed our international moral authority, which was unchallenged at the end of WW II to be steadily eroded. We have the power, but there are limits to that.
Moral Authority, isn't that why we bombed the Serbs for the Kosovo Liberation Army islamics? Yup, something like that.