This is crazy.
Last time the US gov't claimed some stuff that turned out to be a lie, more than 100.000 civilians died as a consequence. And there are still civilians dying every day, because of that claim.
Last time?
If there were a clock that ticked every time high US government officials lied over matters of state, you could use it as a fan.
I just want to say how brilliant I thought this expression was. I can't believe people don't use it more often
Now, after we invaded in '03 and couldn't find the WMDs they started lying. Absolutely. But the basis for the war was incompetence.
Russia, France, and Germany seem to have much better intel, but we don't like listening to them. This seems to cross administration lines so it's not quite clear what the problem is (although that doesn't prevent a lot of speculation).
At what point does any sovereign nation that we disagree with become a threat because they have traditional munitions that we consider a WMD? At what point does having a 5gal gas can and a road flare in the back of a truck become a WMD... When ever enough of the public can be convinced of the new definition.
WMD was just a excuse, it was obvious to the entire rest of the world it was a lie.
From what I understand, most people believe that the invasion was instigated by Neoconservatives who believe(d) that the creation of a free democratic state in the Middle East would be a stabilizing force, which would be beneficial for US foreign/security policy.
WMD seems to be an excuse, but the true reason is well-intentioned (from a US point of view), albeit self-centered and naive. To think it had anything to do with the USD is a bit conspiracy theorist.
(Iraq did change reserve currencies from USD to EUR in 2001, however their total foreign reserves are $53b, not enough to spark a multi-year, trillion dollar war)
It is not a conpiracy theory, it is simple and obvious, many people outside US saw through the WMD accusation immediately, if everyone switched to buy oil with anything other than USD, US would be unable to print more money to keep getting indebted, and we all know that US currently has no way to sustain its economy without growing its debt.
It is just a matter of pre-emptive defense of domestic issues, the US cannot risk at all, even a minor risk, of other countries not allowing it anymore to generate loads of debt, because it depends deeply on it to sustain all its government spending.
Libya for example had the same kind of "protests" that turned into civil war, EVERY year, the only difference between the year they got a "no-fly" from others, is that Gadaffi also stopped selling oil for USD.
It is VERY CLEAR that US consider this a serious threat (and it is)
From some points of view, the government had no choice but to go to war...
(spelling edit)
[0] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/03/edward-snowden-a...
The point is, what stupid shit the president said has nothing to do with what is being discussed here.
Because I asked for evidence?
Le Monde reports[0] that government spokeswoman Najat Vallaud-Belkacem says that France "eventually allowed the plane to fly through its airspace", implying that they denied it at first. A more detailed official account of the incident is supposedly forthcoming.
[0] http://www.lemonde.fr/ameriques/article/2013/07/03/une-rumeu...
For example, the US Sec'y of State warned Iraq to deny access to airspace to any sovereign countries wishing to aid President Assad. In addition, several congressmen (both houses) have asked for the military destruction of the Syrian presidential plane.
Hussein, Gaddafi, Ceaușescu, etc., would have been treated similarly had they made a diplomatic attempt to fly over many countries during the times they were openly perceived as being international criminals.
I imagine this would be more than about Snowden. This is one of the first moves to show Morales that he is not in as strong a position now that Chavez is dead.
If that was the real aim, it's even more misguided: there's nothing better to solidify internal support than a bit of unprovoked foreign aggression.
Differently from many other Latin American rulers, Morales' (and before him Chavez's) power is directly linked to oil prices, not to perceived US benevolence.
Additionally, the plane has landed in Spain to refuel. No questions asked, no plane searched, no restrictions. This should clear many doubts.
After the plane was already searched in Austria. Doesn't seem to be much risk of letting them land at that point.
The real "risk" here is, press and citizens, jumping to false conclusions.
And one day some country may use this as a precedent for a more damaging action. There are international rules for a reason, and it took us centuries to get them in place and universally accepted.
Slightly related, but the 1993 Rwanda civil war was started because of a (let's say) similar incident: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Habyarimana_an...
> The airplane carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down as it prepared to land in Kigali, Rwanda. The assassination set in motion some of the bloodiest events of the late 20th century, the Rwandan Genocide and the First Congo War.
I wonder how many people here are aware that the United States requires this of every single flight from Canada that passes over the united states, in particular, " requires airline carriers to hand over the names, birth dates and gender of all passengers travelling through American air space." regardless of whether they are landing in the US.
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/pr...
This was front page news for 10+ years in BC. I have a gut feeling for what going against the (much larger) United States is like when you are smaller, even if you are a close trading partner and neighbor.
Consider how few hops it is between "it's ok to violate a country's sovereignty if it is small and powerless" and "it's ok to violate someone's 'rights' so long as they are powerless, unimportant, or poor".
There is a lot of value to trans-national barriers that isn't immediately obvious, especially in a democracy.
Americans loved international law as long as it was to our advantage; now it's passé to imagine that anybody but Americans or rich people might have rights endowed by their Creator. I guess it's not so self-evident these days.
Bolivia is, well, unimportant, and their complaints to the US will amount to nothing. There are exactly 2 countries in the world that the US cannot mess with. If it was a Russian or a Chinese plane, do you all think it would be denied airspace entry? (And EVEN IF it was denied entry and still decided to go through, do you think anything would happen to it?)
What should be downvoted is the state of affairs when a US whistleblower has to be escorted around the world by Putin himself to guarantee his safety.
There was a sense of anger, helplessness, and eventually resentment (but, to some degree, acceptance) that when engaging in disputes with much larger countries, you need to avoid going up against them head-on, because you will lose every time.
At least we got NAFTA out of it, which has worked out well for some percentage of the Canadian population.
It will take really coordinated efforts of multiple governments for the US to even start caring about "impressions" and so on. Highly unlikely to happen.
The trouble for Snowden is: neither the Chinese nor the Russians want to keep him.