The rest of the world loves to whinge and moan about U.S. aggression—until it needs something done, of course. And then they're happy we haven't given in to the reigning international order like the rest of the failed imperial powers out there.
Consider the action America has taken against FIFA, the body that governs international soccer and puts on the World Cup every four years. Literally everyone in the world agrees that FIFA is a corrupt horror show. It's a walking joke, one step below the IOC in terms of respectability. And, like any terrorist entity, it used fear as a weapon: "Attempt to punish us," the implicit threat went, "and your futbol hopes and dreams would be dashed." Given the cravenness of our decadent friends overseas, it's no surprise that fear has worked to keep them in line for years now.
Fortunately, America DGAF. And it hasn't been GAF since 1776. We G so few Fs that we literally went after our own portion of FIFA, searching for corruption amongst CONCACAF officials. Now, sure, some people will be upset. Bad people. The oligarchs in Russia will petulantly stamp their feet and denounce American politicians for making the world a better place. The sheikhs in Qatar—who are literally building a shining city in the sand on top of a mountain of enslaved corpses to host the 2022 World Cup—will cry about losing face when their corruptly purchased event is stripped from them. Would-be elites who hail from former international powers with broken spirits will wring their hands and worry about a projection of international power they could never dream of mustering:
But the pertinent question is: what’s this got to do with the US in the first place? After all, none of the seven Fifa officials arrested and now facing extradition are American citizens, and most of the alleged crimes did not involve Americans. Nor were they on US soil at the time. That, however, is to ignore the extraterritorial powers uniquely claimed by US law, and how little it takes to be caught by the prosecutorial net.
Indeed! The lesson here is that if you do wrong in the world, the United States will find you, will punish you, will hold you to account. Sepp Blatter, who resigned yesterday after American pressure on his organization mounted, should feel fortunate we didn't call in the Predators for he and his band of goons. We would've been more than justified in eliminating this leader of a rogue semi-state, just as we'd be more than justified in eliminating any senior member of ISIS.
Imperialism gets a bad rap. Exporting values by force or the threat of force is not necessarily an unjust endeavor. Sometimes a superior power simply needs to show the rest of the world how to behave.