4 ms·

Don't forget that the country that started to divert planes to catch democrat dissidents was the United States. But Snowden wasn't in the plane. Details here:

• Calvin02 5y ago
  It is asinine to compare the two situations. Greenwald is wrongly equating the two together for his puppeteers. 1) Snowden had already been charged at that point and was running from the law. Morales's plane was diverted because it was believed to be providing passage to a criminal. While I don't know what Snowden did was right or wrong, it is clear that Snowden broke laws. His intentions might have been good but he broke some very serious laws. 2) Roman Protasevich, on the other hand, is a blogger. He hasn't released any state secrets that he swore an oath to protect.
  • bb611 5y ago
    Even if you believe that there's little difference between Snowden and Protasevich, the scenarios are clearly different. Rescinding permission to transit is a far cry from falsely reporting a bomb threat, backing it up with military force, and then searching the plane and taking multiple passengers into custody as a condition of the plane's release.
    • dingaling 5y ago
      > Rescinding permission to transit Thought experiment: what could have been the immediate consequences of disregarding that rescindment and continuing with the flightplan as filed?
      • FeeJai 5y ago
        They might have been intercepted by military. It is doubtful that they would have been shot down, but it would have been legal to do so. The big difference is: No one forced them to land at a specific location -- they could have turned around and fly all the way back to Russia had they desired to do so. They landed in Austria because they decided to go to a neutral country and that they wanted to avoid NATO. It is fairly obvious that not letting someone enter is very different from letting enter and then coerce.
        • ric2b 5y ago
          > they could have turned around and fly all the way back to Russia had they desired to do so. Not sure if it's that simple, the plane has limited fuel and if they are banned from most of Europe's airspace on the way back it might become inevitable to choose between unauthorized entry or crashing down. And that's assuming Russia would also not ban them, which is also a risk when you're already in the air.
  • coolspot 5y ago
    Same as Snowden, Roman Protasevich is fugitive wanted by a country’s law enforcement. There’s a warrant and all.
  • retrac 5y ago
    Morales was the President of Bolivia. Thought experiment -- if a country like China or Brazil forced Air Force One down to search, how do you think the Americans would react? It was really rather close to an act of war. There's a reason the Austrians rushed their president out of bed to go have tea with Morales while he waited.
  • neves 5y ago
    Asinine Puppeteers Great way to start a debate. Snowden case is worse than Protasevich. They diverted a plane of a president of another country. Snowden dennounced a government that was breaking the law. He wasn't convicted of anything, so he as innocent. The two cases are a menace to democratic societies. I'm appalled that someone can find one terrible and the other one something normal. Great example of double standards.
• newacct583 5y ago
  The US (really its NATO allies) made no attempt to arrest Snowden (not that he was present) on the Morales plane. They simply said you can't fly him out over NATO airspace. If they wanted to pull the trick used here, they would have let Morales into German airspace and then intercepted the aircraft and forced it down. They did not.
  • neves 5y ago
    You can't fly over here. And you also don't have enough gas to go anywhere else. See, I'm not really forcing you to do anything.
    • newacct583 5y ago
      > And you also don't have enough gas to go anywhere else. This is just laughably spun. That airplane was fueled up for a flight To South America. Pretending like somehow it had to go through Germany or else run out of gas is just ridiculous. Turn around, fuel up in Moscow where you took off from, and fly back to the east if you want. It's an airplane. Don't be silly. And it's a digression anyway. Even if this would have prevented Morales from reaching Bolivia in that jet, it's STILL not the same thing as forcing his plane down with threat of arms, forcing an evacuation, and arresting his passengers.
• A_non_e-moose 5y ago
  I have seen this line of whataboutist reasoning as a counterpoint in every single forum that approaches this topic. I can't understand how such a contrived equalization is spread in so many different forums. The other replies make excellent, well-sourced points for the distinction of the Morales and Belarusian situations, so I won't repeat them. It seems easy to understand and prove this distinction. I'm genuinely curious if this whataboutist reasoning could be contributed to by an active campaign to muddy the Belarus discussion or just anti-west/pro-anarchy idealisms.
  • ric2b 5y ago
    As someone who has brought this up in previous discussions, I just want people to criticize both events (not necessarily equally) and pressure their own governments to be better instead of forgetting Snowden, who is still not able to go back home or to most of the western world.
• ashtonkem 5y ago
  The whataboutism is exhausting.