Comment by defrost

> I take slavery and starving people pretty poorly regardless of where it happens.

A great many of us feel that way, however historically GreatPowers do not - it's control of resources that move the needle for them.

Currently the US makes much of 30K protesters killed in Iran (number in dispute) but it is very much an action rooted in petro dollar geopolitics, oil, and Israel.

Starving people globally no longer get USAID .. a fractional cost compared to the Iran excursion.

The US didn't feel the need to get involved in regime change following any part of the Rwanda Genocide, and the US took the side of Indonesia (who were going for the resource control) against the West Papuans .. the US and UN turned a blind eye to exactly who and how people were tortured to get a favourable vote.

There's a long long list of starving and essentially enslaved people globally that have been ignored in favour of others by the French, the Dutch, the British, Belgium, USofA, etc.

> That said North Korea routinely acts against the rest of the world in ways that are only possible because the rest of the world is unable to retaliate

In real politik terms the same can be said about the USofA and has been said about the former British Empire.