The United States charged four members of the Russian military with war crimes on Wednesday for the abduction and torture of an American citizen in Ukraine.
Whataboutism or whataboutery (as in “what about…?”) denotes in a pejorative sense a procedure in which a critical question or argument is not answered or discussed, but retorted with a critical counter-question which expresses a counter-accusation. From a logical and argumentative point of view it is considered a variant of the tu-quoque pattern (Latin ‘you too’, term for a counter-accusation), which is a subtype of the ad-hominem argument. … the tactic was “an old Soviet trick”. … “Kremlinologists of recent years call this ‘whataboutism’ because the Kremlin’s various mouthpieces deployed the technique so exhaustively against the U.S.” … Russian whataboutism was “part of the national psyche”. … “Moscow’s geopolitical whataboutism skills are unmatched”
It’s so prevalent in Russian propaganda, an almost Pavlovian response any time Russia’s criticised, that anyone still using it when Russia comes up, is either an idiot or pro-Russian.
It’s not whataboutism … There’s a reason we have the word hypocrisy.
It literally is. Wikipedia:
Whataboutism or whataboutery (as in “what about…?”) denotes in a pejorative sense a procedure in which a critical question or argument is not answered or discussed, but retorted with a critical counter-question which expresses a counter-accusation. From a logical and argumentative point of view it is considered a variant of the tu-quoque pattern (Latin ‘you too’, term for a counter-accusation), which is a subtype of the ad-hominem argument. … The communication intent is often to distract from the content of a topic (red herring). The goal may also be to question the justification for criticism and the legitimacy, integrity, and fairness of the critic, which can take on the character of discrediting the criticism, which may or may not be justified. Common accusations include double standards, and hypocrisy
You may not have expressively said that, but literally in every post or news article about Russian war crimes, there’s always at least one person pointing at NATO and in particular US war crimes.
No doubt did that happen, yet you don’t see Russian state attorneys trying the US in court. And they can, international criminal law can be ruled in in any country of the world. Now why don’t they or the Chinese do it? For one, because they don’t want to poke the US too much. But if that isn’t the case, the only explanation left is that they don’t want to be open to the possible repercussions of being held to whataboutism themselves.
No why does it happen in the US or NATO countries? Simply because the executive power holds very little sway on the legal proceedings of the attorney General offices, at least when compared to Authotarian countries such as Russia or China.
Given how the first reaction of Russia apologists, is so often whataboutism, so much so that the wikipedia article on whataboutism literally mentions it being part of the Russian psyche, anyone who’s first reaction to an article on Russian war crimes, is “what about America?” is pathetic.
Oh, and I notice you doubled down, edited your comment above and decided to add some “What About Ukraine?” and accused people here of being hypocrites too. Didn’t work the first time? Try it again.
Please understand. I’m not saying you’re a Russian troll. People who inadvertently propagandize without realizing it are often called useful idiots. But I’m not calling you a useful idiot either. I don’t think anyone would conceivably think your comment was useful.
‘’… I fully expected this kind of knee-jerk reactionary given the community …‘’
And you are talking about smugness ;-)
Really, people mostly blame others for their own shortcomings and project them onto others.
Talk about hipocrisy :-)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
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https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/tu-quoque
More specifically whataboutism.
It’s so prevalent in Russian propaganda, an almost Pavlovian response any time Russia’s criticised, that anyone still using it when Russia comes up, is either an idiot or pro-Russian.
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It literally is. Wikipedia:
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They aren’t trying to hold those 4 Russians accountable in international courts, they’re charging them in American courts
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Cool, so it’s okay to just condone torture then.
The worst bit wasn’t the Russian war crimes. It was the American hypocrisy! /s
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You may not have expressively said that, but literally in every post or news article about Russian war crimes, there’s always at least one person pointing at NATO and in particular US war crimes.
No doubt did that happen, yet you don’t see Russian state attorneys trying the US in court. And they can, international criminal law can be ruled in in any country of the world. Now why don’t they or the Chinese do it? For one, because they don’t want to poke the US too much. But if that isn’t the case, the only explanation left is that they don’t want to be open to the possible repercussions of being held to whataboutism themselves.
No why does it happen in the US or NATO countries? Simply because the executive power holds very little sway on the legal proceedings of the attorney General offices, at least when compared to Authotarian countries such as Russia or China.
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Don’t feel too bad, though. Of all the logical fallacies possible, it’s surely the most-fun to say.
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Given how the first reaction of Russia apologists, is so often whataboutism, so much so that the wikipedia article on whataboutism literally mentions it being part of the Russian psyche, anyone who’s first reaction to an article on Russian war crimes, is “what about America?” is pathetic.
Oh, and I notice you doubled down, edited your comment above and decided to add some “What About Ukraine?” and accused people here of being hypocrites too. Didn’t work the first time? Try it again.
Please understand. I’m not saying you’re a Russian troll. People who inadvertently propagandize without realizing it are often called useful idiots. But I’m not calling you a useful idiot either. I don’t think anyone would conceivably think your comment was useful.
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‘’… I fully expected this kind of knee-jerk reactionary given the community …‘’ And you are talking about smugness ;-) Really, people mostly blame others for their own shortcomings and project them onto others. Talk about hipocrisy :-)
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