> I'm only pointing out these two incidents aren't quite in the same category.
they are the same in motives and principles - in both cases a state pressure was applied to extract an undesirable to the regime citizen from a plane. Focusing on technicalities of the act doesn't resolve the issue with the nature of the act - the corrupt state acting as a bully to coerce its rightful citizen into submittance, with all available means. It shouldn't be a revelation that a scoundrel-of-a-state is ready to escalate the means to fighter jets sooner than later.
"in both cases a state pressure was applied to extract an undesirable to the regime citizen from a plane"
As I explained - in case of Snowden they would only have prevented him from getting to South America. They wouldn't have extracted him from the plane. If Snowden was on board, he'd simply be flown back to Russia - back to square one.
An analogy in this case would be Belarus merely prohibiting the RyanAir flight from entering their airspace.
> in case of Snowden they would only have prevented him from getting to South America.
And you know this how, were you working for the Austrian government at the time, and were you a member of the team who searched the plane?
Chances are that they would have at minimum detained him and allowed the US to start extradition proceedings. Whether they would have eventually extradited him, is not certain; but they would not have searched the plane (and sent the Austrian President to talk directly with Morales) if they were not minded to detain him.
You seem to have started writing your reply before (or instead of) reading my commment in full.
My point was that if Snowden actually was there, they wouldn't land in Austria to begin with. Unlike the RyanAir flight, the plane wasn't forcefully grounded (under a false pretense). It just wasn't let through any further, but returning was still an option.
Because of the constraints on fuel, there was no realistic alternative to going down. And again, once that happened, the fact the Austrian government sent a search party says it all, no matter how hard you want to spin it.
Look around in the various threads, this has been discussed and also in the past. The plane had barely enough range to make it back home with one refuelling stop on the way. NATO countries were closing airspace while it was in the air, even going back to Russia would have been a challenge having to fly back over the likes of Hungary - which by then could well have been closed too.
Look, ignoring moral standing, every countries have fugitives they want to capture. Talking about motive is meaningless. How that being carried out is important. Morales' entourage weren't in danger. They could have chosen to land in Vienna to send a message for all we know.
Belarus disregarded convention and put passengers in the harm way. Ryanair's flight didn't have a choice. Simple as that.
> Look, ignoring moral standing, every countries have fugitives they want to capture.
if you ignore moral standing, you ignore a code of values that, when applied to fugitives of all kinds, allows you to distinguish those on the good side from those on the bad side. Your effective position in that regard is that there are no principles by which people bear responsibility for their actions, which is a basis of the notion of fairness and the whole body of knowledge that we call justice. And if there's neither responsibility nor justice, there shouldn't be a concern about the incident in the first place, as everyone is in their own right to do whatever they want, including forcing a plane to land with a means of fighter jets.
Next, to the point of "Talking about motive is meaningless. How that being carried out is important". Observe that by this standard, in an alternative universe, a hitler would have been acquited if, instead of gas chambers and concentration camps, people were given "vitamins" that would silently kill them in their sleep at their homes.
It is possible to disagree with both actions; but it doesn't destroy "but you did it first" defense. The precedent[1] happened and was generally accepted, so unless you want to go the quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi route, it is supposed to be acceptable defense.
The principal way is to reject that defense for all cases, including the first one.
[1] And not just Morales' plane; this happened more often than that. Morales and Snowden were just high profile.
Yeah, the Snowden affaire should have been the impetus for a new convention on civil airspace. It would have been a good chance to also mop up some of the worst abuses post-9/11, and re-commit US and NATO to a respectful and democratic future. Sadly the chance was completely missed, even after the red rage for the leak had somewhat dissipated. And here we are.
I don't the think the thread was about defending Lukashenko's terrorist act, it was about reminding everyone that, shamefully, such acts are not limited to demented regimes like his.
We are all right to be outraged by what happened in Belarus. We should also be even more outraged when our own governments,which we nominally have some control over, do similar things.
If they were over Austria, are you sure the other countries on the way to Russia would have let them through? Or would they have suddenly also refused access over their air space?
We will never know of course, but the closeness of the situation is still alarming.
I'm not saying I support that action - I'm only pointing out these two incidents aren't quite in the same category.