[NovemberWhiskey]

It is not in any sense a USA-centered opinion. Look at the list of countries and supra-national organizations which have comprehensive sanctions in place against North Korea: which include not only the US, but Japan, the European Union, Australia and Taiwan.

You can adopt whatever degree of moral relativism suits your purpose, but there's basically not a lot of people anywhere in the world who are looking at what's happening in North Korea and saying "looks good to me".

[solardev]

To be fair though, those are all Western-aligned countries dependent on US force. They'll typically go along with whatever the US says. They're not exactly vassal states but close enough.

NK is just another tiny country caught in a proxy war between imperialists.

Look at China, which I think is bigger (or nearly so) than all those countries combined, and they don't have nearly as big a problem with NK as we do.

I'm not saying NK is a model country, but the US has a long history of demonizing random small countries to suit its purposes, from Afghanistan to Iraq to NK to Vietnam to much of Central/South America. That we use our military and propaganda to coerce our allies doesn't mean we automatically get the moral high ground. It just means we're the biggest bully.

[elefanten]

"They're not exactly vassal states but close enough."

This is a comical overstatement. If you followed the ins and out of international relations you'd know this is far from true. The health of those relationships (and any security arrangements included) is constantly debated up and down, and there are periodic crises of various magnitudes that kick up conversation of security arrangements ending.

If you think those countries are not acting in their own carefully-measured self interest and just show up blank faced to support the US... you have a very uninformed notion of the reality.

"they don't have nearly as big a problem with NK as we do."

You're really shooting from the hip. China has enormous problems with North Korea, which it primarily solves by appeasing them and working with them because it's easier than fighting them. As long as North Koreas spends most of it's energy being an active and passionate combatant against democracy and human rights, that suits China just fine.

"That we use our military and propaganda to coerce our allies doesn't mean we automatically get the moral high ground."

Every political regime tries to play these narrative and influence games. And every political regime will gravitate towards what works for it. It's an absurdly myopic American delusion to think that America is pulling all the strings among a world of puppets. That's not serious stuff.

But what you are failing to consider is that there are regimes willing to be far more horrific than whatever failures you see in American behavior. Criticizing America's faults is good. When you end up at "shrug is North Korea worse?" then you've ended up lost.

[dssagar93]

That's not entirely true. America has forever been a bully. It's more like a crybaby. CAATSA act states that if you don't like anything of country X sanction them and force others to do the same. This makes every other country as a puppet of America.

[skybrian]

That's not a fair summary of European politics.

Compare the actions of France and Germany in the first Iraq war with the second. They don't always agree with the US.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governmental_positions_on_th...

[maccard]

So swap North Korea with Tibet and the US with China and the result is exactly the same.

> They're not exactly vassal states but close enough.

It's laughable that you would consider the EU a vassal state of the US, to the point I'm reasonably certain you're not being genuine in your argument

[NovemberWhiskey]

>To be fair though, those are all Western-aligned countries dependent on US force.

They're not, but whatever ...

There is also the matter of nine United Nations Security Council resolutions calling for sanctions, of twenty one total resolutions relating to non-proliferation; and a UN Commission of Inquiry report on human rights that found, amongst other things that:

"systematic, widespread and gross human rights violations have been and are being committed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. In many instances, the violations found entailed crimes against humanity based on State policies"

"there is an almost complete denial of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, as well as of the rights to freedom of opinion, expression, information and association"

"police and security forces of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea systematically employ violence and punishments that amount to gross human rights violations in order to create a climate of fear that pre-empts any challenge to the current system of government and to the ideology underpinning it. The institutions and officials involved are not held accountable. Impunity reigns"

Of all the hills to die on, the one that involves takes a moral relativist position on the badness of the North Korean regime is one of the oddest ones.

(the report being quoted is https://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/HRC/25/63 for those that want to take a fuller read)