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Transnational Thursday for July 25, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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... sentenced to 16 years for espionage charges. The trial was closed so evidence was not available to the public ...

Sadly, just as our invasion of Iraq makes our complaints about Russia's illegal invasions ring somewhat hypocritical, our embrace of closed trials with secret evidence in the past 20 years puts Americans in an embarrassing position when Putin uses same.

Let's not forget Belarus forcing that plane down to capture that dissident journalist vs the US forcing a plane down over Europe because the USG thought Snowden was on it. (thankfully he wasn't)

There's no shortage of examples of American hypocrisy in the exercise of power...

Although I think more and more that reflects the nature of the exercise of power than the nature of America. The nation's founders were wiser when they checked or limited it than when they exercised it.