South Lawn 10:34 A.M. EST Q Mr. President, what — do you hold Iran responsible for the death of the three Americans? Q Have you made a decision how you’ll respond to the attacks? THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Q And — Q Mr. President, do you hold Iran responsible for the death of those three Americans?…
Whataboutism or whataboutery (as in “what about…?”) is a pejorative for the strategy of responding to an accusation with a counter-accusation instead of a defense of the original accusation. … Leonid Bershidsky called whataboutism a “Russian tradition”, while The New Yorker described the technique as “a strategy of false moral equivalences”. Julia Ioffe called whataboutism a “sacred Russian tactic”, and compared it to accusing the pot of calling the kettle black. …
Discussing the crimes of our own country as well as the crimes of others is not always an effort to downplay other countries’ crimes—it can be a test of whether we are serious about our principles.
Anyone still repeating the “Uighur genocide” conspiracy theory in this day and age - long after the western media has backed away from it, independent bodies have found no evidence, Isreal demonstrating that you can’t ‘secretly’ genocide a population without evidence getting out, and all the original proponents of the conspiracy now one hundred percent on board for the genocide of Palestinians - is either knowingly lying or terminally propagandized.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
Ben Burgis @ Current Affairs: Is “Whataboutism” Always a Bad Thing?
Is whataboutism acceptable, when Israel defends its actions in Gaza by saying “What about Hamas crimes?”
As both pieces explain, it has its uses and its abuses.
Anyone still repeating the “Uighur genocide” conspiracy theory in this day and age - long after the western media has backed away from it, independent bodies have found no evidence, Isreal demonstrating that you can’t ‘secretly’ genocide a population without evidence getting out, and all the original proponents of the conspiracy now one hundred percent on board for the genocide of Palestinians - is either knowingly lying or terminally propagandized.
@Hyperreality@kbin.social expanded their comment after i posted my mine, making it seem as if I tacitly accept that framing, which I do not.