This seems like a variant of anti-self defense logic. ‘The other guy has a right to beat you in the face with a bat, as much as you have a right to take it’.

Hint: bussing in out of towners to astro-turf ‘town discussions’ is also seen as shitty.

A quick way to test this kind of thing is, if the roles were reversed, would they still be okay with it?

I guarantee you that China and Russia would absolutely not be okay with the US doing the same thing in their territory.