[JshWright]

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).

[farss]

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.

[JshWright]

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").

[farss]

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.