I’m not quite sure which country you were talking about?
While I agree with your general point, it just occurred to me that that could be applied to both leaders. It’s the country and the structure of that country that is different (e.g. leaders will change, vs not).
But he already expressed intention to get Greenland, no?
Yet something tells me that if, say, Mr. Obama did present Point Roberts ( https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Point+Roberts,+WA+98281,+US... ) to Canada (as Khrouschev did with Crimea) then nothing would stop Mr. Trump to take it back.
Whataboutism. And, yeah, that was super bad. So, for that matter, was the whole colonial era. But none of those guys are still the leaders of nuclear-capable nation states, so they're a little less relevant than Putin to our prospects going forward.
> are not proven beyond reasonable doubt.
This is not a court of law. My standard for "observing events as likely true on internet comment threads" falls somewhere below "beyond a shadow of a reasonable doubt" and somewhere above "preponderance of evidence." But I'd say for these cases we're way closer to the former than the latter.
> Wikipedia link.
On the other hand, Russian nationalists and apologists of Russian politics are sometimes criticised for using allegations of "Russophobia" as a form of propaganda to counter criticism of Russia.[14][15]
The argument here is that USA cannot claim moral high ground when USA is actively committing the same act. Blindly claiming whataboutism without even attempting to refute this argument and is, therefore, a form of intellectual dishonesty.
> This is not a court of law, so that's kind of irrelevant.
It is important to make reasonable arguments in defense of your claims even outside courts of law.
> On the other hand, Russian nationalists and apologists of Russian politics are sometimes criticised for using allegations of "Russophobia" as a form of propaganda to counter criticism of Russia.
This is neither here nor there. This whole argument is inconclusive.
I guess I just don't consider an annexation from the 1840s to be "active" the same way I think of one from the 2010s.
> Reasonable arguments outside court
Sure. And I think most reasonable external observers agree that Putin has likely ordered the assassination of at least several of his critics.