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Comment by pphysch | Hacker News Reader

You can't invoke "international norms" and then in the very next paragraph "but no talking about precedent, that would be whataboutism".

Norms are established through precedents. There are considerable precedents in the 21st century that military invasions DO NOT lead to international sanctions. So this isn't a valid argument, and it's true that that decision was emotional and politically motivated.

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It’s a perfectly valid argument. All invasions are generally bad, some worse than others. And, yes, some perpetrators of unjust invasions are punished worse than others.

The idea that you turn a conversation about fairness for victims into a conversation about fairness for bullies means you don’t actually care about victims.

> And, yes, some perpetrators of unjust invasions are punished worse than others.

In other words, there are no norms or standards for handling these situations. It's purely political.

If you want perfect fairness for bullies, not victims, then you don’t actually care about victims at all.

This whataboutism is a circular argument where any brazen invasion can be justified by some previous perceived slight. Because someone somewhere got away with something, now anything is permissible.

This is arguing that we have not sanctioned murderous evil actions in the past therefore we must not do so now or ever after. It's a pretty bad argument.

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