> You basically said that US, in general, is a good guy and therefore it's justified in doing illegal, immoral things and then hunting down those who expose this behavior.
That's not what he said. He said the US is, on balance, less immoral than the dictatorial regimes he named. Yet those other regimes don't get the scrutiny the US does.
Yet those other regimes don't get the scrutiny the US does.
For better or worse, the US puts itself in that position by acting as the world police. The most visible nation will, of course, be under more scrutiny, and rightfully so. The more power one has, the more safeguards need to be available to ensure that power is used for good.
Also, Wikileaks posts leaks from countries other than the US.
> For better or worse, the US puts itself in that position by acting as the world police.
To an extent, yes, this is a valid point. But I'm not sure "world police" is the right term. The United Nations is supposed to be playing the role of enforcing standards of civilized behavior on all nations, but it has failed miserably. The US is more like one of the more civilized citizens who is getting fed up with the stuff the less civilized citizens get away with without being called on it by either the "authorities" (the UN) or the other supposedly more civilized citizens. Which is not to say that the US always does the "right" thing when it gets fed up like this; but in many situations I'm not sure there is a "right" thing to do. The sad fact is that there are a lot of nations and a lot of people in the world who simply do not care about upholding standards of civilized behavior.
> Also, Wikileaks posts leaks from countries other than the US.
Yes, this is true, and I didn't mean to imply that the US was the only country being "targeted". As far as I can tell, Wikileaks is an equal opportunity organization: they're willing to piss off anyone. ;)
this is also another really terrible argument that is used to rationalize bad behaviour constantly.
At least we arn't as bad as THAT guy.
If the USA does not have the level of human rights abuses of say china, does that give them a free pass? They cannot be questioned or criticized until china "cleans up its act", and everyone complaining should complain about china instead?
> If the USA does not have the level of human rights abuses of say china, does that give them a free pass?
No, but it means that if your goal is to fix human rights, you're going to get a lot more "bang for the buck" going after China than going after the USA.
That's not what he said. He said the US is, on balance, less immoral than the dictatorial regimes he named. Yet those other regimes don't get the scrutiny the US does.