I guess the US has more luck running a case where they have access to one side at least but it’s not like this does anything as the US has no power to charge Russian citizens not in the US. Like this would sound more meaningful if the US worked with international institutions for this like the International Criminal Court in Hague for example.
The US does not recognize their authority due to judgements against US citizens concerning war crimes that the US is not signatory to. It’s an important legal distinction.
Well the person does not have to be in the US merely in a country that has an extradition treaty, is willing to extradite for a price in the game of geopolitics, or the US thinks it can perform a rendition.
In any way it is also a signal to the world. Do t forget about Ukraine and the Russians are doing terrible things there.
It probably also helps pressure the GOP to put forward a vote for aid to Ukraine. If they don’t they don’t care about Russians torturing Americans. And that’s not an easy thing to spin for the GOP spindoctors.
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?
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.
Jesus christ dude I can practically smell the smugness through the screen. I get you you like to feel like you’re oh so much smarter than other people, but maybe tone it down a bit?
Even though I fully expected this kind of knee-jerk reactionary given the community I’m posting on, I thought the responses wouldn’t be full on redditor. But unfortunately I was wrong.
‘’… 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 :-)
It's important to self regulate and prosecute wrong doing of your own people, but justice requires accountability to your accusers, those wronged. Ideally, these work in concert.
The point is America does not care about international criminal courts, so they have no business trying to use them for Russian war criminals.
If Russia tried its own soldiers for war crimes, you would rightly think they will probably go easy on them and won’t be a fiar trial with proper justice as it’s motive.
Key-point here being “if”, because Russia would never try their own soldiers. Apart from desertion of course, though I believe they’d rather execute those.
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"
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