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Comment by farss | Hacker News Reader

The Morales incident wasn't simply one country choosing to deny airspace. It was a hegemonic superpower using it's leverage to create a wall of un-passable countries, and then having the plane boarded and searched before it was allowed to take off again. Belarus's version is a weapon of the weak to the same or very similar end.

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> It was a hegemonic superpower using it's leverage to create a wall of un-passable countries

Adjectives aside, that sounds very much like you're admitting that this was basically diplomacy. "You may not fly Snowden through our airspace", says NATO[1]. So Morales landed in Austria instead, proved Snowden wasn't aboard, and flew on. At no point were NATO military or law enforcement on his plane, and no one was arrested.

Belarus just forced down an Irish airliner after (1) granting transit under false pretenses, (2) lying about a "bomb threat", (3) forcing a landing with military assets, (4) forcing an evacuation of the aircraft, searching it, and arresting five people who never intended to enter Belarus legally at all.

And you really don't see the difference?

[1] Strictly France, Spain, Germany and Portugal. This wasn't a NATO action, but it was leveraging exactly that alignment of interests.

The methods used are somewhat apples to oranges, but they're comparable in that both the United States and Belarus used pretty brazen measures to go after the political crime of unwanted journalism. Faking a bomb threat and intercepting a civilian plane is more serious in a way; blocking off a sovereign leader's path en route & then boarding his plane is arguably more serious in another.

The "blocking" is the only thing the US arranged. The "boarding" was a PR stunt. The plane could have just flown back to Russia, but made up a pretext for why they had to land in Austria (claiming they "couldn't tell how much fuel they had", and yet they were originally intending on flying across the Atlantic).

I haven't seen evidence that it was merely a stunt. But in any case, the sovereign head of state was effectively detained for 12 hours, based on lies and coercion. That itself is outrageous. Belarus used a fighter jet pilot to deliver the lie about a bomb threat and convince the pilot to land, while U.S. lied to Western European governments through diplomatic channels about who was on the Bolivian plane. Both cases are a serious breach of international norms and rules in order to conduct rendition of a political criminal.

How is it anything other than a stunt? There was nothing stopping the jet from returning to Russia. The only reason the plan landed was because the pilots claimed they were "unable to get a correct indication of the fuel level". So either it was a totally innocent technical failure that forced the plane to land, or it was a pretext to land in Austria.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/07/03...

I don't disagree that the US should not have pressured countries to deny overflight, but that is _very_ different from sending a military jet to intercept a commercial airliner and force it to land at a specific airport for the purpose arresting a journalist (where he faces a potential death sentence for "terrorism").

The military jet was just a stunt, to reinforce the false pretext that there was a bomb aboard. There was no reported military aggression against the plane, and IIRC, the RyanAir pilot said he didn't see it as a threat, but as a form of routine emergency assistance. The plane may have already started to turn toward Minsk simply because ATC asked them to.

And keep in mind, the U.S. believed Morales may have granted Snowden asylum at that time, and was absolutely willing to flout international law and norms on asylum, on top of the norm for safe unimpeded transit for sovereign leaders. And all that based on mere rumor.

You can say in clarity of retrospect that Morales was free to return to Moscow, but that is a bit of a long flight back, and they had no idea what was happening at the time, or if other countries would also mysteriously deny them transit.

None of this is to take away from an absolutely outrageous incident, but I don't see how the two are so categorically different. Both are shocking abuses of international law and norms to shut down dissent and free and adversarial press. It's important to condemn Belarus without letting Western/American governments play so innocent.

Your argument relies on the fact that the plane "had" to land where it did. It did not. There was nothing preventing the plane from returning to its origin (which is what I would guess the actual intent was).

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