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How many Americans know where Belarus is? Or, more appropriately, if considering the general public’s level of knowledge of international goings-on, most would ask, “What’s a Belarus?”
In the true spirit of Washington – to hate all things Russian – Belarus, a Russian ally, was “breaking news” in America over the past several weeks.
On 23 May 2021, a commercial jetliner operated by Ryanair (an Irish airline) was flying from Athens, Greece to Vilnius, Lithuania. Over Belarus, the crew was informed that a bomb was on board, and the pilot was instructed to land in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. A Belarusian MiG-29 fighter jet was dispatched to intercept the passenger plane and escort it to the airport.
A Ruse by Belarus
The action has been characterized, rightfully, as the plane having been “forced to land.” No bomb was found. The entire episode was at the behest of Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko to apprehend 26-year-old Roman Protasevich and his girlfriend traveling with him.
Protasevich, who had been living in exile in Lithuania and was returning from an economics conference in Athens, is a Belarusian dissident and outspoken critic of the authoritarian Lukashenko (now in his sixth term as president of the former Soviet republic, which became independent in 1991).
Charged with various national security crimes and declared a terrorist, Protasevich now faces a death sentence or many years in prison.
Outrage from U.S and EU
The incident has been fiercely condemned by leaders of the U.S. and the EU. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken expressed indignation at “the Lukashenko regime’s brazen and shocking act to divert a commercial flight and arrest a journalist,” and he called for an international investigation.
Leaders of Lithuania, Ireland, and the EU called for serious retaliatory measures. Virtually all mainstream press coverage has characterized the event and the tactics employed as “dangerous,” “illegal,” and “unprecedented.”
Thanks, however, to an in-depth essay by journalist Glenn Greenwald, posted on 24 May on Substack.com, while this incident is certainly dangerous and illegal, it is most assuredly not unprecedented… indeed, it’s the “American way.”
In documenting its precedent, Greenwald pointed out the brazen hypocrisy and deceitfulness of those who now find themselves so outraged.
Return with Us Now to Those Days of Yesteryear…
The year was 2013, not really all that long ago. A name in the news back then was Edward Snowden, the former CIA systems analyst turned whistleblower who leaked highly classified information from the U.S. National Security Agency, revealing the extent of U.S. and U.K. surveillance of telephone and internet communications.
Long Story Short
Snowden had left the U.S. for Hong Kong when he leaked the information, and the U.S. charged him with violating espionage laws, revoked his passport, and demanded extradition from Hong Kong, which Hong Kong refused. Snowden managed to fly to Russia but spent a month in limbo, living at the Moscow airport, until he was granted temporary asylum.
The Obama administration desperately wanted to get their hands on Snowden, issued an international warrant for his arrest, and had then-Vice President Biden warn every country in Europe and South America of the “grave consequences” of granting asylum to Snowden.
The Same Kind of Stunt
But Bolivia’s president, while in Moscow, expressed that his country might grant Snowden asylum. The next day, as the Bolivian presidential jet left to return home, the U.S., believing (erroneously) that Snowden was on board, and with the cooperation of the EU countries in the plane’s flight path, pulled the same kind of stunt Belarus just did.
Although no bomb threat was employed, the U.S. had pressured France, Italy, and Spain to inform the Bolivian plane, in mid-flight, that permission to use their airspace had been revoked, forcing the plane to turn around and land in Vienna, where everyone aboard, including the Bolivian president, was detained for 12 hours until it was determined Snowden was not among them.
Two-Faced
That incident drew the same vehement condemnation of the U.S. and EU that the U.S. and EU are now hurling at Belarus. And the case can be made that the 2013 incident was even worse, not just because it was based on mere suspicion that proved baseless but, from a diplomatic angle, the plane forced down was not a commercial airliner but the official aircraft of a head of state (tantamount to Air Force One being forced to land by a foreign power).
And who was sent out by the Biden administration to condemn the Belarus action as “a shocking act” and “a brazen affront to international freedom and peace and security”? As Greenwald notes, none other than Jen Psaki, who, as the spokesperson for Obama’s State Dept., had done everything in her power to deny, obfuscate, or sidestep any U.S. involvement in the Snowden incident.
TRENDPOST: We note this article to again emphasize how Washington ignores the atrocities they and their “allies” commit… while condemning those who perpetrate similar crimes and injustices. Also, to illustrate how the Presstitutes put out what their corporate pimps and government whoremasters tell them to without questioning the validity of what is being sold.