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>when an authoritarian regime

Why more so than when the US destroy Afghanistan or some other place? What makes it worse and more worthy of being repeated because of authoritarianism?




The structural distinction is in domestic accountability to moral standards that limits the scope of action. This highlights the false equivalence (the US did not annex Afghanistan, nor has it attempted a genocide there) that imbues the whataboutism inherent to such questions.

A better comparison would be to the imperialist colonialism of the the 17th-19th centuries, as characterised by massacre, dictatorship, annexation, rape, child abduction, and the systematic and intentional destruction of entire cultures. This corresponds much more directly to the multiple Russian invasions of its neighbours in recent decades.


The only whataboutism here is yours.

It doesn't matter what word you use: Genocide of X people is not worse than killing X+n in another country while calling it "victims from war on terror". This is not a competition of killing the most (if it were, the US would be in the lead).

The question is why does it matter what kind of government is causing the deaths? Why is it worse if X people are killed by an authoritarian regime than X people killed by a liberal democracy? If your Mother is killed by an authoritarian regime, is it worse than if your mother and child are killed by a democracy?

Instead of throwing whataboutism around, why not answer the question?


> Instead of throwing whataboutism around, why not answer the question?

The question is in bad faith and a straw man. Nobody in this thread is defending US conduct in Afghanistan.


You are very obviously avoiding the question and trying to paint something that isn't there. It seems you have some very sore point about the US in Afghanistan? Swap US with France in Afghanistan then. It makes no difference to the question. Why is it worse? Or is it actually not different but the point was from the start to attack between the lines? It reads like someone using weasel words or whataboutism: Writing one thing but clearly trying to convey something completely different.


What's the difference with regards to annexing or not annexing?

You storm into a country, you kill a lot of people, repeatedly, you do not care about these people in the slightest, you bomb weddings for a decade, you put up whatever government that you want there. But at least you did not annex the country, i.e. did not take responsibility for it and its citizens.

It is also "not a genocide", say you.

It's a totally different thing.




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