Because they are? Who decides whether a comment is an attack? You? Just as the you can claim a comment is not attack, the recipient can also claim it is. Your claim is no more correct than they are.
It is the same with other remarks. One person may consider a comment a joke while another can consider it as insult.
It sounds this is just an excuse to justify an offensive comment just because the person consider it to be true. True or not, the comment can still be offensive.
This sounds like a deflection or justification of toxic behavior and deflecting the blame onto something else.