I personally think we do have an obligation to help in cases where we have the knowledge and the power to help. I don’t believe those conditions are met in this case. Helping another sovereign country, particularly a hostile one, with a contrasting ideology, is a tricky proposition. If you send aid, are you propping up a government that is arguably harmful to its own people? If you agitate for social change, are you making things worse? Outside of providing immediate humanitarian aid in the event of a natural disaster, there’s little that can be done without becoming ensnared in politics and controversy. It is entirely unclear to me what “help” means in this situation.

Generally, I find that there are always people close to home who need help. Even in First World countries, there are people who are homeless and hungry. Even in Western Democracies there are people oppressed, unfairly imprisoned, etcetera. There’s a certain arrogance and hypocrisy in us being so quick to assume we can solve other people’s problems when we’ve done so little to solve our own.