[Ozzie_osman]

> In most dictatorships, the concern is usually "What does the country's leadership want the official story to be" rather than "What actually happened".

This also occasionally happens in non-dictatorships, unless you considered George W a dictator when he was deciding to invade Iraq.

[Moru]

Whataboutism isn't really the answer here. When the population knows this is the way it works and bends themselves like a pretsel to make their government not kill them, it's not good. You can't compare that to a western country, not even the US is that bad.