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.
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. It’s pointing out that since the US doesn’t respect international criminal courts, then they don’t really have a moral standing to try and hold Russians accountable in them.
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
Yes, people can claim they are calling out hypocrisy to justify actually whattaboutism, but that doesn’t automatically mean any claim of hypocrisy = whataboutism.
The key line from your own quote is.
which can take on the character of discrediting the criticism, which may or may not be justified
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.
Honestly my point isn’t “but America war crimes too!!!” Which would probably be fair to call whattaboutism, but pointing out that if americ adoesnt recognise other countries courts or international courts, then why should they expect Russia to care about what their courts say?
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
Fair point but that just raises the obvious point that Americans would never recognise the authority of a foreign court, even of their allies (like the UK for example) so do they really expect Russia to respect their ruling?
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’s not whataboutism. It’s pointing out that since the US doesn’t respect international criminal courts, then they don’t really have a moral standing to try and hold Russians accountable in them.
There’s a reason we have the word hypocrisy.
It literally is. Wikipedia:
Yes, people can claim they are calling out hypocrisy to justify actually whattaboutism, but that doesn’t automatically mean any claim of hypocrisy = whataboutism.
The key line from your own quote is.
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
I mean I literally never said that, but go ahead and jerk each other off over it.
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.
Honestly my point isn’t “but America war crimes too!!!” Which would probably be fair to call whattaboutism, but pointing out that if americ adoesnt recognise other countries courts or international courts, then why should they expect Russia to care about what their courts say?
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
Fair point well made.
I literally never said that, but sure, put words in my mouth if that makes you feel better.
They aren’t trying to hold those 4 Russians accountable in international courts, they’re charging them in American courts
Fair point but that just raises the obvious point that Americans would never recognise the authority of a foreign court, even of their allies (like the UK for example) so do they really expect Russia to respect their ruling?