Whataboutism or Whataboutary is the technique or practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counter-accusation or raising a different issue.
Examples:
The USA to Russia: "You invaded Ukraine and killed tens of thousands of people."
Russia to the USA: "What about Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan,...?"
Now, my question is, why is "Whataboutism" often criticized?
Those who criticize whataboutism, What better type of reply do they suggest?
It's a logical fallacy. It notably doesn't argue that the act was justified, at most it only argues that you and I are both in the same boat - so if you are wrong, I am wrong too.
Concretely:
The USA to Russia: "You invaded Ukraine and killed tens of thousands of people."
Russia to the USA: "What about Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan,...?"
Say Russia is right that the Vietnam War, the Iraq War, and the Afghanistan War are unjust (implied by the original claim "You invaded Ukraine and killed tens of thousands of people"). Then Russia's argument only shows that the US is just as unjust as Russia is.
The USA could reasonably say "OK, so I'm a hypocrite and I invaded Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and killed tens of thousands of people. And you still invaded Ukraine and killed tens of thousands of people." The original claim - that it was unjust to invade Ukraine and kill tens of thousands of people - is not refuted.
The kind of response that is needed is an argument that shows why it was just to invade Ukraine.
Whataboutism isn’t a reply, Whataboutism is a deflection of an accusation.
It is not an attempt to address a concern, but instead an attempt to change the subject.
As politics is getting people to agree with you, it is as valid as anything else politicians do, but is frequently less effective than simply attacking the opposition directly. Those that agree with you will appreciate the attack, those that don’t may be moved by it. Whataboutism rarely persuades people as it is recognized as a deflection, and unless the Whatabout is significantly worse than what is being deflected, that makes the Whataboutism seem guilty.
Sometimes the “what about” is a totally different subject, which makes the changing of the subject rather obvious, but doesn’t really change much else.
Politically it’s chancy.
To put it simply, just because someone else does something bad doesn't mean you(or someone else) can do something bad.
If you break the rules it doesn't matter that someone else in the past has broken the rules. Or if you commit a crime it doesn't matter that others have also committed that same or other crimes.
"Whataboutism" is criticized because this is a way to escape an issue rather than to discuss an issue, and that's why that most of conversations start at a point but they would never end where they've been started, when someone uses this technique it means they have no justification for their acts or false claims and by bringing up a weakness or controversial issue mostly pertaining the second party of the discussion they try to hide their own weekness at responding. (Please note that I'm talking about general situations not particularly Russia and America or the war in Ukraine)
This would be a successful attempt to escape if you know what to bring up, if you can bring up a very sensitive issue that the second party can't leave alone you have changed the course of discussion but it necessarily doesn't mean that you have won the discussion, when you bring up something sensitive about the one who is criticizing you, you can actually make the conversation to backfire cause the second party would try to acquit themselves from the alleged charges so your wrongdoing is forgotten.
This is criticized cause it never answers the question in the minds of the audiences, like your example, the US says "Your crimes in Ukraine" and Russia says "what about your crimes in Iraq, Vietnam and....", Russia is actually pointing out an important issue because horrific things happened in Iraq, Vietnam and other places, but the question is not answered and the issue is just screwed.
So if Russia is really doing those alleged crimes, the point that the US has attacked many countries itself and killed many people doesn't justify the crimes of Russia and if Russia isn't really doing those crimes so why don't they bring up an evidence and prove the falsehood of the words of the US? The fact that the US attacked Iraq for the phony pretext of WMDs doesn't give any permission to Russia to do the same.
But there's still a point that should not be overlooked and that is can a criminal be a witness? If a drug dealer that is arrested can't be a witness for the crimes of his gang so who can be? (Again i'm saying that I'm discussing in general not specifically about Russia and the US), the fact that the guy himself was a drugdealer doesn't make his words about his gang useless that if it did, why the detectives interrogate the person to make him rat on his gang?
So we can't really say that if the person X is a criminal, that person can't accuse the person Y of a crime. But still this is the pot calls the kettle black. If the US killed people in Iraq it doesn't mean that they can't condemn Russia for killing people in Ukraine. (this is just an example, I don't claim Russia is really killing or not), but of course if you think someone is doing a wrong thing, you shouldn't do it yourself, that if you do, then you're a hypocritical guy.
This is actually true about both parts, if Russia condemns the US so why itself attacked Ukraine? And if the US condemns Russia why itself has attacked many countries? And that's why the pot calls the kettle black, but again it doesn't mean that the pot or kettle aren't black!
As user366312 says, "A criminal can be a witness, but a criminal can't be a judge." the fact that the US can criticize Russia doesn't mean that the US has any right to punish Russia too, as I mentioned in the comments, you can't wipe off a dirty window with a dirty cloth, if we want to punish, we have to have an impartial third party that punishes both sides cause both of the drugdealer and his accomplice have committed crime.
As I mentioned above, the best answer on behalf of the party which is being accused is to bring up evidence to prove the falsehood of the charges, or else by screwing the word they only leave an unanswered question in the minds of the audiences which would cause distrust.
This is like whe Russia says I have attacked Ukraine cause they were neo-Nazi, I( supposedly) come up and say, so what about the crimes of the Soviet Union? This is pretty absurd, the right thing is to ask Russia if you claim that they are Nazis, can you bring an evidence to support that?
'Whataboutism' isn't a fallacy (neither formal nor informal). 'Whataboutism' is a collective ego defense: a way of justifying, excusing, or obviating improper or immoral behavior by someone one side identifies with, through a superficial reference to ostensibly improper or immoral behavior by someone the other side identifies with.
'Whataboutism' isn't wrong as much as it's degenerative. A critique or condemnation generally carries a moral imperative of the sort:
What X did is not something that is acceptable at any time or place, by any person.
'Whataboutism' inverts that to produce an amoral imperative such as:
Someone on your side have done things akin to what X did, so you have no standing to criticize X for doing it.
'Whataboutism' produces a race to the bottom, where (potentially) every act, no matter how heinous, is defended to preserve the prestige of the group as a whole (or often merely to lower the prestige of some other group, so that one's own group seems prestigious by comparison). It's a sign that people have given up the idea of being good or virtuous in its own right, and instead put all their efforts into appearing marginally better than others.
"What better type of reply do they suggest?"
The main question has, I feel, been well-answered, but the sub-question here has not been sufficiently addressed.
I can at least offer one suggestion towards it: Whataboutism can become somewhat valid if it is rephrased to point to precedent-setting incidents.
Example 1
An example would be if a US Supreme Court Justice slot opened in 2024, and US Republicans said "Biden should not appoint Supreme Court Justices in an election year! This was established as the correct rule with the 2016 Merrick Garland nomination at the end of the Obama administration!"
An invalid whataboutism would be "You can't argue with me on this, since you supported the Amy Coney Barret nomination in 2020!"
A valid precedent-cite would be "A more recent precedent is the Amy Coney Barret nomination in 2020. You yourself supported this change in precedence."
Example 2
The same approach could be used with the example given in the OP:
There are moral rubrics that illustrate that this is a ridiculously unjust war of aggression, but "UN charter violation" isn't one that really works, given the history.
The US speaker can then respond in a few ways, including:
What's the difference?
Whataboutism is a tu coque/poisoning-the-well attack on the actions of the opponent. The goal of this argument is to establish "you have no standing to debate us on this, as you are just as bad" - a fallacy, since speaker-morality does not affect argument-validity.
Prior precedent is a citation of historical precedence in defense of the action being discussed. The fact that the precedent was set by the opponent is not used to attack the opponent, but to strengthen the citation: the opponent cannot reasonably argue that they are unaware of, or disagree with the precedent, if they are the ones who set it. The goal of this argument is to establish "we are not in violation of previously-agreed standards."
Those who criticize whataboutism, What better type of reply do they suggest?
A more productive, but similar tactic to Whataboutism is using analogous arguments to analyze a given argument.
For instance, someone might argue, "Fireworks should be outlawed, because, when misused, they can cause wildfires." An unhelpful response might be, "Well what about alcohol? When misused, it can cause fatal car accidents. Why don't we outlaw alcohol too?" As established by other answers, this only serves as a distraction from the original argument.
A more helpful response would be, "a similar argument might be made for outlawing alcohol. If you don't support outlawing alcohol, let's consider your reasons for not doing so, and see if any of those reasons might also be a reason for not outlawing fireworks." This opens the door for discussion/debate about the relative merits of each argument, which ideally can clarify whether the argument is valid.
The unspoken part of whataboutism is "therefore you should let me continue what I was doing".
You're a mass murderer! Killing people is wrong!
Well, you got a speeding ticket. Speeding is wrong. (Therefore you should let me continue to kill people.)
In whataboutism, the criticised party accepts that they're doing something wrong but they deflect attention to the other party. Instead of the criticising party attacking the other party's behaviour, they are now expected to defend their behaviour.
And of course, "two wrongs don't make a right". Sure, maybe the other party is being a hypocrite, but that doesn't mean that their objection is invalid. If both parties are doing something wrong, both should stop. A party should not continue doing bad things because the other party also does or did bad things. If a murderer criticises you for speeding, that criticism is valid despite their own crime.
Moral Proposition: Alice: “I think moral governments do not invade the sovereignty of others, that’s why the recent acts of the Russian government renders it immoral.”
Whataboutist’s Counter Bob: “What about the U.S. government? It’s history of invading the sovereignty of countries like Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan implies that, by your measure, it too lacks morality.”
At this point Alice can:
As others have said, whataboutism is the logical fallacy tu quoque that literally means 'you too'. It is literally the childish logic that if someone else does something bad, I should be allowed to do something bad too. Many times it is used by dictators, authoritarians (like Chinese propagandists when pressed on Uigyhr concentration camps), and governments that commit crimes against humanity to say if someone else did something bad, I should do bad things too (like when the Soviet Union would bring up the mistreatment of black people in the United States to deflect issues with their government). It is not only a bad faith attempt at a logical fallacy disguised as an actual argument and just a way to easily shut up criticism of evil actions, it is literally the kind of logic that would make society collapse if it was applied to a larger scale. Imagine if someone was allowed to rape and murder as much as they wanted simply because someone in the past or the present got away with it?
Plus, those who fling whataboutisms forget that this logic can work both ways and create a world where leaders try to 'justify' terrible actions by saying other people do bad, so I should do bad. If Putin brings up the bad things America has done when pressed about Ukraine, then American politicians could one day attack a Baltic nation or Middle Eastern country and bring up all the wars involving Russia, working with the Taliban to put bounties on US soldier's heads, and the supporting of Islamic terrorist groups as well all Soviet war crimes in a similar whataboutism conversation. Basically, now even US politicians and others have an excuse to not try to be better and instead claim that if anyone who calls them out has ever done anything bad, then any terrible actions they do are now justified.
Whataboutism also often uses false equivalency by comparing two things with different contexts to try to justify a bad action. Imagine if someone tried to get away with murder by claiming that someone who killed a person in self-defense got to kill someone, so they get to kill someone? This line of reasoning completely ignores the context of why one action is considered justified and the other isn't: the fact that 1 person took a life to defend their own and the other takes a life because they simply felt like it. You could have one person say they should be allowed to speed because ambulance drivers speed, but that ignores that one person speeds simply because they want to and the other speeds to try to save a life!
The examples listed as "what about" are often large, complex cases on they own, each deserving separate question, answer, source and discussions. When listed as "what about", it is usually in comments, without sources, without context and often even without enough information that would help finding these sources independently. "What about USA invading Kuwait in 1990?" Looks like just sit and decided to invade Kuwait at that year, likely with no reasons at all and simply having nothing else to do. The lazy reader is pressed to accept the claims on belief because it seems way too much work to verify them.
Due what, whataboutism is most often seen (and is) a propaganda technique. And this is not counting that it is also logical fallacy even when listed cases are relevant, as already well addressed in other answers.
"Whataboutism" is often criticized, but usually by the people who made the original comment that someone has replied to with a Whatabout.
The Whataboutists may well feel that the Original Commenters have somehow grabbed the attention of the audience by unfair means and they are upset that the OC's points are getting more attention than similar comments that they may have tried to make about other issues that they consider equally or more grave. E.g.
"It's outrageous that people are damaging art works as a protest." "But it's even worse that people are pointing at that, when Climate Change is causing an Emergency, and they are ignoring that."
It's fairly obvious that this question is not a genuine attempt to ask about "whataboutism," but to sneak in the actual bona fide fallacy of false-equivalence under the guise of using a "whataboutism."
Nevertheless, it still ends up asking a relevant question.
"Whataboutism" is not evil. Nor is it even wrong. It's a dysphemism used to excuse hypocrisy.
More specifically, it's a word used to vilify arguments which point out hypocrisies. Rather than addressing the hypocrisy by, at the very least acknowledging that a multifaceted argument can have components which are present in arguments on the other side, a dysphemism is used to dismiss a perfectly valid concern.
It usually goes something like this (capital letters are principles states in arguments for the sake of this example):
pro: A & B ==> X
is followed by a counter
con: C & B ==> not X
pro(vilification): "nice whataboutism! you are refusing to address B!"
con: "well, no, I am pointing out the hypocrisy that B can also be a component of 'not X."
The dysphemism is used to create a he-said-she-said-type situation in order to divert attention from the hypocrisy.
This is effective because hypocrisies cause moral panics. But using vilification terms also cause moral panics.
And when people do not analyze argument coolly, but only pay attention at a superficial level, the two counteracting moral panics provide 2 opposing incentives, thereby weakening the impetus produced by the initial accusation of hypocrisy.
it is probably important to mention that while "whataboutism" is a false "logical fallacy," there is a closely-related logical fallacy, which is real. And that is a "false equivalence."
And, in fact, the OP question is a good example of a false equivalence. False equivalence is comparing things which have common elements and uncommon elements, but ignoring the uncommon elements while insisting that the common elements are the only ones which are present.
It goes something like this:
pro:
A & B (without mentioning C which is true and relevant) ==> X
A & B (without mentioning C which is NOT true and which is still relevant) ==> Y
con:
whether or not C happened is extremely relevant here. It was present in X, so X is true. It was absent in Y, so Y is false.
Of course, there is obviously a very large difference between the military actions taken during wars by the United States and the unprovoked war of aggression, being waged by Russia against Ukraine with the stated purpose of committing genocide of Ukraine.
I guess it is particulary just, because it exposes double standards. Say, a girl says - I like guys with long beard (Stmt1). Whataboutism approach is - " But your friend is without a beard". This may point to the falcity of Stmt1.
The right answers in difference between USA and Russia, is for example - "Russia, what type of power do you export in the regions, assume you have conquered it? Will you export corrupt oligarch dictature in those territories?" This clarifies the sides
