*doublepromote

And if you like Intercepted, listen to Citations Needed. It's every bit as good.

Double-Promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Monday, February 26th, 2018 6:51am PST - doublepromote requested by radx.

In a way Scahill is like a less educated\refined version of Noam Chomsky. He does good investigative work, and dedicates enormous energy into exposing and spotlighting the bad things that America does. That has a place, but without a similarly harsh and critical light being cast on America's targets/enemies it becomes propaganda.

Jeremy says he wouldn't work with Charles Manson to oppose trump, fair enough. What about kind of working with Stalin to defeat Hitler? Say, at least agreeing not to attack Stalin while you both deal with Hitler?

The world is incredibly complicated and the singular and lone focus on American mistakes paints a deceptive picture. Pointing out the problems with America's war in Iraq, like torture and Quantanamo and declaring these as so immoral we needn't even look at Saddam's past is propaganda. Saddam waged two campaigns of genocide against his own people. When America saw the abuses at Abu Ghraib, they shut it down and attempted to punish those responsible. When Saddam's brother used chemical weapons to exterminate Kurdish civilians Saddam commended him for it. Guantanamo is bad, but it doesn't mean we should fail to acknowledge the concentration camps that Saddam operated during his genocide of the Kurds. It doesn't mean it's unfair to observe that conditions in Saddam's prisons across the country were far more cruel during his entire reign.

There's a nuanced place here that Scahill and Chomsky and pundits like them just fail to acknowledge and encourages inaction at times were the lesser evil may well be for America to do something, even if aborting Gadafi's genocide doesn't make Libya a paradise after.

I see the fundamental difference really comes to the target of the "whatabout".

If you are talking about group A and they say "What about group B", then that is just trying to distract/deflect. For example, Trump's comments about the alt-left and alt-right.

If you are talking about Person A and B, and claiming that person B is better, "What about person B's war crimes" is not unrelated. The example of praising Bush over Trump, and Bush's history.

I am not fully convinced that people are confused by the difference, at least the folks that I deal with.

I'm not worried about people being confused, more like confirmation bias.

You can get an Alt-Right website that does nothing but post 100% accurate, verified true stories. You can even have them stick to the facts and stay away from any editorialising within their reporting. If they then proceed to exclusively and only report stories about violent crime by non-white or non-christian minorities, they would have loads of content from across the country to publish every day.

I'm hoping that it's easy to see the problem with that?

I'm merely saying you can swap out alt-right for Scahill, and violent crime by minorities for American foreign policy evils and you still have much the same situation.

By definition foreign policy involves the relationship of at least two countries, reporting exclusively on the problems of only one of those countries creates a problem, same as alt-right example.

It's a logical fallacy called Tu Quoque... and yeah everyone does it. And yeah it's always a dodge.
Does accepting that W said some good things we agree with mean we are ignoring his faults? I don't think so. He's an idiot and negligent war criminal AND (not but) he happens to say correct things once in a while. Both can be true. All these people like Olbermann are saying is that Trump is worse than Bush.
I don't get Scahill's pearl-clutching.

That is a good point.

Common hatred is a much more effective motivator than common goals. Sad, but true.

Acknowledging G W being demonstrably better than Trump is in no way an endorsement of him any more than acknowledging golden showers are cleaner than full blown fecalfilia is endorsing watersports....it's recognition that bad comes in gradations, not just pass/fail.

If a website wants to only publish about black on white crime, I'm fine with that, as long as they aren't saying they are publishing stories about crime in general. Specialization can be a good thing, allowing people to become an expert through time, repetition, and pattern recognition. Talking about all the other bad countries and dictators around the globe can be done by others, it's fine to focus your attention on one, which also happens to be the one we have the best ability to change(ie voting)

Back to the video then, Jeremy Scahill is absolutely declaring how evil and horrific GW's foreign policy was, but never makes mention of anything but American evil acts and nothing about their opposition, nor anything about any positives. Analogous to the black violence website proclaiming that blacks are violent because of the evidence presented. If we can agree one is unquestionably false and unethical, they both are.

One of my favorite podcasts.

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by lurgee.

Sadly, he (hopefully not willfully) has missed the point of "Whataboutism" entirely. The issue is not saying "what about..." this other thing about the thing we are talking about, but rather, when you say "what about..." this thing about something entirely unrelated. As an example, from his video, If someone were to say "Jeeze, Bush really wasn't that bad", you would be fully within your rights to say "What about all the people he inadvertently killed?".

It's when you, for example, say "Trump is a lunatic" and the response is "Yeah, but what about how Hillary sold children for sex in a pizza shop" that people have a problem with. The current Republican way of handling anything tricky is to throw out some non-sequitur and hope it sticks, while never actually discussing the original topic.

Again, saying: "Hillary was the best Sec. State ever" and having some one say "Yeah, but what about Benghazi?" is perfectly acceptable and not at all what John Oliver et al. are complaining about.

On another note, the clips he showed relating to how democrats would love to have Bush back, are being interpreted without the understanding that they are being spoken in jest (ie. sarcasm). They don't really want him back they are just attempting levity in that they want to show how much they think Trump is unfit for office by saying that they would even take the buffoon back if they could get rid of him. This is not an approval of Bush, but a lesser of two definite evils thing.

Absolutely, I would rather have a golden shower over a brown one, but I very much prefer hot water to either.
Republicans would counter with 'but what about hot tar and feathers?'

Hmm. I think Trump's healthcare and economic policies have consequences in human lives. War is not the only injustice.

Idk. Context is important, but then... life is meaningless and ephemeral - soon there will be nothing. It seems there is always a bigger picture to reach for to diminish somebody's argument.

I don't disagree with what Bush said about the state of politics now. If it was an anonymous comment I'd still agree with it, but it would less interesting. Perhaps it is fair to "whataboutbush" because so much emphasis was on the "who" of the comment rather than the "what". I think to the left we hope our acceptance of his comment is evidence to our impartiality. "look", we say, "we even agree with BUSH on this! Objectivity!". It seems to me to entirely be a concession to the opposition...but I can understand those who cannot abide any concession.