Other than in Hollywood, wars are seldom white hats against black hats. Rather they’re almost always black hats against black hats. From Jonathan Cook at unz.com:
Any reluctance to submit is considered certain proof that the person is a Putin apologist or a Kremlin bot, and that their views on everything under the sun – especially their criticisms of equivalent Western war crimes – can be safely ignored.
How convenient for all those Western leaders who have committed war crimes at least as bad as Russia’s current ones.
I have repeatedly described Russia’s invasion as illegal; I have regularly called Putin a war criminal (you may not have noticed but I just did it again in the two preceding paragraphs); and I have consistently compared Putin’s deeds to the very worst actions taken by the West over the past two decades. But none of that is enough. More is always needed.
The demand for unequivocal denunciation is a strange, if common, one and suggests that those insisting on it are being dishonest – if only with themselves. The function of the demand is not to clarify whether any particular piece of information or an argument is credible; it is intended purely as a “gotcha” meme.
The Wests, and particularly America’s hands in Ukraine are much bloodier than Putin’s!