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this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2023
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If you adopt a specific outlook, the duplicity is less stark.
Russia is attacking a sovereign nation and when they took land, they took people. To most, that makes them the bad guys.
Backing away from that and making this a geopolitical chess game, both players have coaches. Sounds fair.
Geopolitics is never about fairness. The greater good is left to those who have powers. Iraq was a sovereign nation; but attacked, causing the deaths of their citizen, for no legitimate casus bellli. Just invent a reason, how about WMD? Yeah, that's good enough. And Iraqi are still left to obscurity and there's nothing they could do about it.
Iraq was absolutely fucked, but what Russia is doing in Ukraine is open genocide. Their media and politicians constantly talk about eliminating Ukrainian identity. The US media and politicians constantly talked about bringing democracy to Iraq (which it still kind of has).
The situations are comparable, but they are very different. An honest commentator would acknowledge the horrors of both if pressed, while also being able to qualify and separate that horror.
“But Iraq!” is literally all these people have. As if two things can’t be bad at the same time.
The reason people keep bringing up Iraq is not for some "whataboutism". It's simpler and more significant than that: it shows a hypocrisy, and double-standards. It's not that people are saying "what Russia is doing isn't bad because the USA did bad" (that is whataboutism, by the way); they're saying that the USA's (and the world's) feigned outrage over Russia is hypocritical because of what the USA has done. Nobody held (or intends to hold) the USA to account for what it's done, yet everyone is demanding Russia be torn apart, torn down, everyone tried for war crimes, etc. It's a double-standard. If the USA had been held to account for what it did, then people wouldn't be saying "but Iraq" (and if they did, that truly would be simple whataboutism). But until there is fair application of standards, it's fair to call the USA on its hypocrisy when it wants to pretend to be the world's police while simultaneously (ironically, in line with behavior of actual police) causing tremendous harm itself.
Your definition of whataboutism needs a serious overhaul. It's done to divert anger somewhere else or lessen the perceived severity.
Topic: China saying one thing and then covertly doing another to support an unjust invasion.
Thread: "But whatabout Iraq?!?!"
It flows from tribalist anger. Gotta point out how the other team screwed up so you don't feel so bad when your team shits the bed.
The difference is that most western liberals will eagerly acknowledge the horrors of that clusterfuck and denounce it entirely. Tankies on Lemmy will not engage in the same critical thought regarding this Russian genocide.
It's an extremely low rhetorical bar, but a notable one nonetheless. Whenever you attempt to engage this kind of introspection around here there is a zero percent chance of being rewarded with good faith discussion. It's mostly just conspiracies, and being called brainwashed.
Buddy, lots of us had outrage when the US invaded Iraq. You just can’t handle when the conversation shifts from it for 5 minutes because an even worse thing is happening.
The point is not how you feel about it. The point is the reality of the situation: despite whatever protest or complaint people had, it had no bearing on the actions of the USA and no punishment was brought on the USA. As such, the USA calling for punishment on someone else is hypocritical. It wants to pretend to be the world's police while simultaneously being the biggest crime boss, and it deserves to be called out for that.
An even worse thing than Iraq? JFC. Brainwashed.
Truth hurts.