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Comment by ghshephard | Hacker News Reader

I don't know how serious it is - Bolivia is ranked #93 in the world in terms of GDP, and isn't particularly strategic. They can complain, but, at the end of the day, this won't amount to much.

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Apart from damaging even more the already quite low international reputation of the US.

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.

> And one day some country may use this as a precedent for a more damaging action

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.

That's the attitude that's made your country so despised by so many.

I'm not an American. Canadian. And we have a very long history with the United States that has taught us that when it comes to conflicts, the United States always ends up winning, regardless of perceived objective facts of the situation. Google "Softwood Lumber United States Canada" - Basically wiped out (economically) the province I was in (or at least if felt like that in Lumby). Shut down entire towns. Despite trade agreements, and ruling after ruling going against them, The United States was able to arbitrarily decide that the cost of Lumber in Canada was too low, and set tariffs high enough to protect their own industry.

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.

Indeed, but all the South American countries are outraged by this, so it's getting bigger.

Sometimes you just have to take a little country and smash it against the wall to show the world who's boss - is that the game you're playing?

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.

Not sure why everybody is downvoting you, especially sicne you don't claim to be happy about the facts, just stating them.

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.

Well, I'm happy to see the downvotes. It suggests that idealism is alive and well on HN. Ironically, I speak from the experience of being the citizen of Canada, in particular, BC that had a number of disagreements with the United States (Air, Water, Lumber Tariffs) over 10 years. Issues that I'm certain 99.99% of the United States has never heard of, were front page news of the Vancouver Sun on-and-off for a decade.

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's not as if Bolivia and the US live in a vacuum. The rest of the world can see what they are doing, and they might not be so impressed by it.

The rest of the world is the other 2 countries that matter (and shit like that doesn't happen to them), a multitude of countries that don't matter (the USA doesn't give a fuck what their impression is) and a handful of "allies" who are in it with the US.

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.

Well, that's why he flew to Hong Kong originally, and why he's currently transiting through a Moscow airport.

The trouble for Snowden is: neither the Chinese nor the Russians want to keep him.

This is just "might makes right". It's not an ideology that anyone who wants to live in a country or a world that values individual liberty should desire.

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".

Not really. There is a principled distinction between the two: people in other countries are not part of the same social pact and thus don't have rights. Its tribalism, sure, but tribalism has historically been pretty effective at maintaining different standards internally versus externally.

Yeah, well maybe the people in MY state are OK, but those bastards one state over are fair game. And don't get me started about the neighbours across the road. Their tribe has no rights in my book.

The people one state over are part of the same compact (the Constitution) with you. A compact which, by the way, bars you from discriminating against them in commerce, which actually causes a lot of problems in practice. E.g. states that want to enact social welfare programs for their own people have a difficult time doing so at the state level, because of free rider effects (it is unconstitutional to require a citizen of another state to live in your state for say a year before applying for welfare benefits). Trying to get around the free rider effect creates increased demand for solutions at the federal level, which undermines federalism and state sovereignty. At the level of sovereign nations, similar pushes for extending rights across national boundaries creates pressure for trans-national governments. It's no accident that the tearing down of economic barriers between European states went hand-in-hand with the creation of trans-EU legislative and executive bodies.

There is a lot of value to trans-national barriers that isn't immediately obvious, especially in a democracy.

No idea why you are voted down here. From a US POV Bolivia is nothing. Replies about US reputation are irrelevant. We clearly see that US reputation is irrelevant, since it has the financial and military power force its will.

Because Bolivia is 'nothing' from a US POV, doesn't make it any less wrong. Apart from right and wrong, there are several examples where countries which were 'nothing', are creating several problems for the US. Most of the middle-east, Afghanistan, Pakistan etc are countries which at some point were 'nothing'. It is because of this heavy-handed approach that he was being downvoted.

Reputation is extremely important for long term security. We're finding this out, and I think it'll only get worse if we don't start treating others with respect.

This is a real slippery slope. Just how "big" does a country have to be so that its rights will be respected?

I think people are taking my assessment of how "serious" this is to the United States as a indication of my belief as to how just/unjust or reasonable their behavior is. Over twenty or so years, I learned that when it suits their purpose/needs, the US is willing to step on much more important and strategically important countries than Bolivia. And, in this situation, apparently all they were asking for was countries (presumably friendly to the United States) to request a passenger/manifest inspection in return for over-flight privileges.

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...

The more the US make use and abuse it's force, the more it will lose it, the more it will try to keep control, the more authoritarian it will become, the more resistance will grow, the more the US will get alone. Keep thinking like that.

"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers." ―Princess Leia to Grand Moff Tarkin.

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