this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2023
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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.
It literally is. Wikipedia:
They aren't trying to hold those 4 Russians accountable in international courts, they're charging them in American courts
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
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.
No one expects Russia to accept any foreign rulings. However as the Nuremberg trials proved, acceptance can be enforced by the stronger party. And in the likely case this doesn't happen, the court ruling can mean a lot less foreign diplomacy leeway for the US government when it comes to dealing with Russia. Also a US ruling would extend to every country that has extradition treaties with the US. So anyone proven guilty would effectively be a fugitive in a third and the most powerful and influential third of the world. Look at what the international criminal courts ruling already caused. Putin didn't attend the meeting of the BRICS+ countries in South-Africa. The same would go for Brazil who also accept den-Haag.
Even if the leadership of a country would like for any proven criminal to appear in their country and would like the justice department to not move, in any and every democratic country, they couldn't without causing a major breach of constitution.
Anyhow, trials like these must, without fault, be spotless examples of correct rulings, for there to be any resemblance of unpolitical justice
Don't feel too bad, though. Of all the logical fallacies possible, it's surely the most-fun to say.
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 :-)