I think Russians generally like their country because it is their home, think it should continue to exist, prefer that it be strong and not weak, and that its citizens should be secure and not insecure. No scandal, crime, or shortcoming of particular rulers has any bearing on this.

Normal people in all countries are like this.

True but I separate my country from whatever government is currently in power. And if the government is running the country that I love into the ground... We rally around flags not people.

It's a thought-extinguishing tactic. It attempts to redirect or scatter attention away from the topic at hand. This could be in a misguided sincere attempt to draw analogies, or could be more nefarious. Whataboutism seems to commonly occur when some agent of power is being criticized.

People who cry whataboutism are the ones extinguishing critical thought. No one can think or compare or draw analogies anymore.

Analogy: Definition, a thing which is comparable to something else in significant respects. "works of art were seen as an analogy for works of nature"

Anytime anyone brings-up Western aggression, people cry whataboutism and so the topic cannot be discussed anymore.

It's fine for people to say that two wrongs don't make a right or that even if the Iraq invasion was based on lies about weapons of mass destruction that doesn't make Putin's invasion of Ukraine any less evil or harmful or destructive. But most people don't even bother and just cry whataboutism.

Whataboutism makes sense, victims of abuse are not allowed to abuse others just because they were abused themselves. But it's not whataboutism to critically analyse and compare what is the justification of the Iraq War and Ukraine invasion. President Biden probably wouldn't just cry whataboutism, he would state clear and convincing reasons why the Ukraine invasion isn't justified and why the Iraq invasion was. It's not whataboutism to analyze, compare, collect evidence and come to a judgment.

> Anytime anyone brings-up Western aggression, people cry whataboutism and so the topic cannot be discussed anymore

This is literally lie. There are both discussions and articles about Iraq, Afganistan and what have you all the time. Especially here in HN. Hey, why do you dare to talk about Iraque when you did not stopped Balkan conflicts, you never attempted to help Tibet or stop genocide going on in Chine, so no talking about anything until those two stop.

Whataboutism is not about analyzing or drawing paralel nor anything like that. It is transparently bad faith. Somehow twisting Ukraine and Eastern Europe in EU deserving punishment for Iraque and Syria from Putin, because Americans something something.

"Why dont countries surrounding Ukraine lock their borders to refugees, like I guess, they apparently demanded other countries surrounding conflicts to lock their borders ..." something something.

Here I'll give you a quick example:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30558245

Mikeb85

"> invades Iran The difference between Ukraine and all the other countries invaded in the last 50 or so years is that Ukraine is a real democracy and liberal, modern society.

Iran, Syria, Iraq, etc... are not the same as Ukraine."

femiagbabiaka

"Truly amazing. This statement shows that you know very little about the history of Ukraine or Iran, Syria, Iraq."

Mikeb85

"It's truly amazing how much whataboutism and Russian propaganda there is in the US."

Mikeb85 is claiming that Ukraine is not the same as Iran, Syria, Iraq as a "a real democracy and liberal, modern society". femiagbabiaka challenges this claim and is stating that Mikeb85 doesn't know the history of those countries. Mikeb85 responds with "So much Russian propaganda and whataboutism".

Honestly, where is the whataboutism in what femiagbabiaka said?

Answer: no whataboutism.

All femiagbabiaka said is that Iran, Iraq, Syria were/are real societies not deserving to be bombed by stronger powers just like Ukraine; whether that is true or not is debatable but what is not debatable is not there is no whataboutism in that statement.

My pet peeve is people mis-using "whatboutism", calling whataboutism at the very mention of other countries such as Iraq; and above is a simple example of that.

Mis-using whataboutism to just kill all discussion such as on the topic of justified Western or Russian aggression.

That is not example that would prove you are unable to discuss "western aggression" as a topic.

It is not even example of you trying to discuss it in context other then Ukraine.

I just realized that the spacing of the Mikeb85 quote was broken and so that affected the readability of his message.

Here is the message of Mikeb85 with proper formatting and it is clear here that he is using his claim of Iran, Iraq, etc.. as not being modern, liberal, democratic etc.. as justification for Western Aggression.

Mikeb85

"> invades Iran

The difference between Ukraine and all the other countries invaded in the last 50 or so years is that Ukraine is a real democracy and liberal, modern society.

Iran, Syria, Iraq, etc... are not the same as Ukraine."

See the parent comment of Ekaros below who is talking about USA invading Iran. Then Mikeb85 chimes-in with the claim that Iran, Iraq, etc are "not a real democracy and liberal, modern society". When femiagbabiaka challenges that claim, Mikeb85 responds with "Russian propaganda and Whataboutism".

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30556335

Ekaros

"I wonder would these actions be then applied equally. Let's say USA invades Iran. Should we then terminate all of the domains and tlds hold by any USA based entity. Reclaim all of the IP space hold by them too? Surely it would solve some starvation issue, and be just, but do we want that?"

Common justification for Western aggression in Iraq and Afganistan is that these countries are not worthy of the same protections as Ukraine since they are not democatic, liberal and modern. When somebody challenges that claim, the response is simply labeled "Russian Propaganda and Whatboutism" killing the discussion.

Any questioning of the justification for Western Aggression is responded with "Russian Propaganda and Whatboutism". One cannot even discuss with Mikeb85 whether his claim is true or not, as backed by evidence.

Here is an even better example:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30548787

Razengan

"Not resorting to Whataboutism, but try to see how the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan (two in a row, and the subsequent occupation for 20 years no less!) by the US was seen as “just” by all the nations now condemning Russia. Take a look at maps of NATO expansion:

https://old.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/t37zf4/countries_j...

If America was concerned about Russian nukes in Cuba, shouldn’t Russia be concerned about an alliance encroaching up to their literal border?"

selfhoster11

"This is basically whataboutism. I don't consider myself well informed enough on any Middle Eastern conflicts, but if I found anything objectionable there, I'm happy to call out both the US and Russia on their BS. BTW, "NATO expansion" was there for a reason, and you don't get to claim that the new members didn't want to join of their own initiative. Every post-communist country that wants to keep their self-determination is worried about falling back into being Russian puppets once more."

Razengan raises the perfectly valid point of how come invasion of Iraq and Afganistan was not met by any outcry or sanctions by those countries who supposedly value countries sovereign rights?

selfhoster11 instantly replies with "whataboutism" and so kills the discussion that way.

Question: how is asking about what makes the Ukraine invasion different from the Iraq invasion, whataboutism?

Answer: It's not whatboutism.

People just throw blindly throw whatboutism when there is any discussion about other countries even when there is zero whatboutism. In this example, selfhoster11 doesn't even bother to come-up with any explanation on the differences between Iraq and Ukraine and just cites "whataboutism" like it's a magic word.

Russia would be committing Whatboutism if they just said since USA got to invade Iraq and Afganistan and violated those countries rights', we should be able to do the same to Ukraine. Basically, USA committed a wrong and so we get to do the same as well.

But that's not what Russia is saying, what Russia is saying that there is such a thing as justified aggression versus a threat; USA's justification for the Iraq invasion was Iraq having WMDs. Russia's justification is threat of Nato Expansion and the interesting discussion would be if that justification is valid or not. But no, most discussions just cry "whatboutism" and all discussion ends there.

In addition Whataboutism never tries to deliver an argument in favour of your position, only arguments against other positions.

It is usually invoked in the fashion:

- We have this and that reason to do {thing}.

- These reasons are laughable and you still don't have excuse to do {thing}.

- What about when you did {thing} with ever worse reasons stated?

In this case I would say whataboutism is justified, or at least, no constructive dialogue is possible.

It is not justified because however worse the reasons of the other party are, it will never make your own argument true. Your example exhibits the tu-quoque fallacy.

You are right with the last sentence. Unfortunately few people are interested to find out what's true in our world nowadays — for them it is more important to feel justified with their position regardless if its true or false.

The key here is that when talking to an American, "you" means every American since the founding of the US. Collectively, that's an endless mine of material.

When talking to anyone else, "you" means one individual, like Putin, plus one can be sure an American won't remember a single thing he did more than a year ago and that can be dismissed as a digression in any case.

The reasoning is: Two wrongs don't make a right, and the subject being discussed is A not B.

That's what's wrong with whataboutism.

Yup, there's nothing wrong with it. Crying about it just an effective way to shut down dissent.

Loads of things wrong with this interpretation; just to point out a few:

- it’s pointless to insist on zero hypocrisy before entertaining the ideas of another because there’s no such thing in any human and never has been. You’re a hypocrite. So am i. Get over it.

- “what about x?” distracts from the issue being discussed and usually has absolutely nothing to do with it anyway

For example, imagine something like this:

Pro-Invasion guy: “Putin is right, the US pushed them into this, they’re acting in self defense!”

Not-Bullshit guy: “Oh come on, it’s not like the US or NATO launched an attack from a base of operations within Ukraine.“

PIG: “What about the US invasion of Iraq under the Bush doctrine of preemptive war?”

The two are entirely unrelated for a myriad of reasons. It’s a purely emotional reaction meant to vindicate your fragile little ego, and nothing more. Worst of all, it wastes time and effort that’s better spent working the real problem. We could have been finding ways to help the Russian people circumvent Putin’s news censorship instead of this just now, which would have done a hell of a lot more to promote the cause of human liberty than this discussion, and possibly could have indirectly saved lives in the long run.

But here we are…