While all the examples are true, I don't really find the overall narrative tracing this to some particular leftist thought persuasive. Excusing dictators on 'our' side while condemning those on 'theirs' is a shameful but time-honoured tradition across the political spectrum – Pinochet, Hussein, Mobutu, MBS have all received strong support from the right or even the centre, and Assad for example has plenty of fans on both the left and the right because Syrian politics is so complex even the tankies can't figure out whose crimes they're meant to excuse.

I worry that ascribing this tendency to a particular strain of hard leftist though implicitly denies it in the rest of us – that they have this original sin that leads them to whitewash dictators that the rest of us don't. We'd be better off treating this as a human tendency to let taking sides cloud our moral judgement and excuse the inexcusable, and be ever vigilant as a result. I don't think there's a consistent philosophy behind it, just power and tribalism.