"He destroyed his own country" fallacy

Imagine a person, Mr. X, whose country is surrounded by powerful enemies, some of whom are exploiting it.

He gains power and begins to reform the political and economic systems. He fixes many problems, making his country strong enough to stop the exploitation and protect itself from foreign powers.

But the other countries' are jealous of his power, which they see as a threat to their economic world order. So they join forces and attack him. Eventually, they win, destroying Mr. X's country in the process.

The propagandists then accuse Mr. X of being a deranged tyrant "who destroyed his own country!"

What kind of fallacy is this?

Confusing cause and effect would be my guess but there may or may not be correlation. The other countries might simply want his countries resources.

There are a LOT of assumptions in this scenario including the assumption that the destruction of the country was, in fact, an effect of Mr' X's actions (the cause). It is important to do our best to remain objective when evaluating the logic and reason, otherwise, emotions and dogma may win over. But let's take the scenario at face value. What is happening is more an example of difference of perspective and values than logical fallacies. Let's look just at the facts:

• Mr. X came to power in a country that was being exploited by some enemies (country's base level).
  Mr. X made changes that stopped some of the exploitation (country's base level+ - country is better).
  The changes had unintended consequences/repercussions that resulted in the destruction of the country (country's base level-- - country is (far) worse then base level).

What if Mr. X only claims to have done the right things and others claim they are the wrong things? Then this can merely be the difference of political opinion. Assuming Mr. X did all the right things, is he to blame for the results of his actions? Some may say "no" and argue that doing the right thing, no matter what the consequences, is never wrong. Some may say "yes" arguing for the greater good and the importance of considering the repercussions of one's actions, even if those actions appear to be "right" at the time. This is the making of philosophical debate.

Personal story/example. When I took over a company, the VP was a sociopath who constantly lied and stole from the company. Unfortunately, without him, the business would have almost certainly collapsed. I chose to put up with him and ignore his misdeeds until I sold the company to an organization that didn't need him. Should I have fired him and dealt with the repercussions? Maybe. But this was judgement call.

Throughout human history, as also in our own daily lives, there are people who do what is good, which can be defined as that which helps people and, people who do what is evil, which can be defined as that which harms people. Generally speaking, we human beings do a mixture of what we perceive within our own minds as being good and bad within our daily reality. For example, we might carefully prepare a meal of organic fruits, vegetables, nuts and other theoretically "healthy" food, which we might believe in our own mind is healthy for both our self and our children to eat and thus, consider this in our own mind as being a "good" thing to do and a "good" example to set for our children. While on the other hand we might instead purchase fast food for our children and our own self, even though we might believe in our own mind that fast food is unhealthy and thus, a "bad" thing for us to feed our self and our children and, a "bad" example for them and other adults and children sitting at a fast food joint to emulate.

Of course, the above example is both simplistic and trivial compared to starting a war or murdering our neighbor, but small actions over time can add up to serious consequences. As in the example above, eating healthy food on a regular basis over time can cause both ourselves and our offspring to remain relatively healthy and also serve to set a good example for other human beings, while consuming a lot of fast food on a regular basis can either cause or greatly aggravate heart disease, obesity, diabetes and other significant problems, problems not only for ourselves and our own children, but for the human population as a whole, often for generations to come. Which brings up an obvious question, why do we humans often "treat" our children for their birthday or a special holiday, to the very worst kind of food for their health, rather than "treat" them to a healthy fruit and vegetable diet?

That said, there is a lot of money to be made in the fast food industry and, a lot of money to be made in the development, manufacture and sale of weapons and, there is a lot of money to be made in all kinds of things that ultimately come back to harm our own children. Which brings up another obvious question, which is why do both educated and non-educated people here in the 21st Century continue to manufacture, sell and own weapons, continue to go to war and continue to consume large quantities of unhealthy food, even though universities for centuries have had classes on ethics and morality and, even though we have been taught and believe such activity is harmful for both ourselves, our own children and, the human race and planet at large?

Which brings us to the well-meaning leader given in this example. Obviously we can't very easily control what other people freely choose to do, but we do at least have some control over what we ourselves choose to do. We can't very well control what the leaders of other nations do or even what the leaders of our own nation do, but we can individually choose to either pick up a sword or lay our sword down. And thus, while we can't control the evil that other people do, we can within our own beings at least attempt to add to the "good" side of the human activity equation, which in this scenario given here, is what the leader intended to do in attempting to reform his own nation.

As such, he is not to blame for the eventual disintegration of his own country, any more than you or I would be to blame for WWIII, if instead of just ignoring what our government is doing to ruin human lives for generations to come, we instead choose today to protest our government's evil anti-human rights (anti what is good for people) activities. And, if you don't believe that the United States government today is engaged in evil, consider that while many thousands of homes in California and elsewhere continue to burn to the ground, our government is in the process of getting rid of what little environmental protection we currently have and, consider that while there are an estimated 1-3 million homeless children alone in the United States (not counting homeless adults), neither the Democrat or Republican party even bothers to mention them within their election platforms of broken promises and empty rhetoric. What we do, whether good or evil, can and does have serious consequences in the larger picture of human civilization reality, whether we like it or not.

The question itself relies on a fallacious line of reasoning including petitio principii, selective arrangement, and loading the question, as it assumes or stacks the answer under an array of either biased assumptions (confirmation bias) or intentional agitprop.

As for the propagandist's assertion: "He destroyed his own country" - this could be a form of ipsedixitism.