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The US has a strong trade and military relationship with KSA, despite their utterly appalling human rights record. It's entirely legitimate to say "If this is r

The US has a strong trade and military relationship with KSA, despite their utterly appalling human rights record. It's entirely legitimate to say "If this is really about human rights, why are you selling hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons to an authoritarian regime?". That isn't whataboutism, it's a fundamental critique of the motivations of foreign policy decisions. Analogy: Joe and Paul are gangsters with a nasty reputation. Paul is in hiding because the police department have declared him public enemy number 1, while Joe was a guest of honor at the last police benevolent society dinner. Are you not at least the tiniest bit skeptical about whether the police chief is really trying to fight crime? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia%E2%80%93United_States_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia%E2%80%93United_St...

randomGen99 7y ago
To your analogy, yes, police is fighting crime because getting Paul in jail would reduce rate by 50%. And after that, they can focus on Joe. It’s not nothing or everything (false dilemma/perfect solution fallacy).
- AsyncAwait 7y ago
  Except, they're not only not going after Joe, they're actively hosting him. That's a crucial difference.
lixtra 7y ago
As the saying goes, punish one educate hundreds. You can Paul first and then go after Joe later if he does not improve. This is not fair, but politics is not primarily about fairness. It’s about reaching you goals (here: establish human rights world wide).
kyboren 7y ago
It is possible for a person to believe that both Joe and Paul, broadly speaking, do nasty things. On one hand, they have dealt with Joe for a long time and, while the relationship is far from perfect, they and Joe have a sort of understanding and Joe takes their opinions into account, in part with all the opinions of other stakeholders, when they're very insistent about it. On the other hand, Paul in recent memory has committed truly unspeakable atrocities against masses of even his nominal stakeholders--and this hypothetical person may not even have the 'favor' of being one. Paul is obviously much more hostile to his stakeholders (Great Leap Forward, June 4/Tiananmen, Xinjiang concentration camps, Falun Gong genocide, ubiquitous hyper surveillance, etc. etc.). Paul has recently become much more rich and powerful, and has started asserting that power in ways that would totally violate the understanding between our person and Joe. At the same time, Paul has been asserting his power in other person-gangster relationships, dictating terms and helping those gangsters better oppress their own stakeholders. Are you even the tiniest bit skeptical about whether our person's interests best lie in a maximally adversarial relationship with Paul vs. with Joe? Our person may very much want a better relationship with Joe. If they see Paul as a bigger threat, though, then it makes perfect sense to focus on confronting Paul.

randomGen99 7y ago

To your analogy, yes, police is fighting crime because getting Paul in jail would reduce rate by 50%. And after that, they can focus on Joe. It’s not nothing or everything (false dilemma/perfect solution fallacy).

AsyncAwait 7y ago
Except, they're not only not going after Joe, they're actively hosting him. That's a crucial difference.

lixtra 7y ago

As the saying goes, punish one educate hundreds. You can Paul first and then go after Joe later if he does not improve. This is not fair, but politics is not primarily about fairness. It’s about reaching you goals (here: establish human rights world wide).

kyboren 7y ago

It is possible for a person to believe that both Joe and Paul, broadly speaking, do nasty things. On one hand, they have dealt with Joe for a long time and, while the relationship is far from perfect, they and Joe have a sort of understanding and Joe takes their opinions into account, in part with all the opinions of other stakeholders, when they're very insistent about it. On the other hand, Paul in recent memory has committed truly unspeakable atrocities against masses of even his nominal stakeholders--and this hypothetical person may not even have the 'favor' of being one. Paul is obviously much more hostile to his stakeholders (Great Leap Forward, June 4/Tiananmen, Xinjiang concentration camps, Falun Gong genocide, ubiquitous hyper surveillance, etc. etc.). Paul has recently become much more rich and powerful, and has started asserting that power in ways that would totally violate the understanding between our person and Joe. At the same time, Paul has been asserting his power in other person-gangster relationships, dictating terms and helping those gangsters better oppress their own stakeholders. Are you even the tiniest bit skeptical about whether our person's interests best lie in a maximally adversarial relationship with Paul vs. with Joe? Our person may very much want a better relationship with Joe. If they see Paul as a bigger threat, though, then it makes perfect sense to focus on confronting Paul.