Re:U.S. citizens no longer have access to most of the world
by nimbius on Tuesday July 28, 2020 @12:39PM
(#23977625)
Agreed, and this was in the service of US drug policy. it worked in the interests of the US government and was permissible. To contrast, nationalizing a US citizens foreign property and ousting them from the country was impermissible. Much of Latin America was brought to heel under overwhelming sustained violence in the service of maintaining the US Citizens unspoken right to operate with impunity in any nation they saw fit. In short, the US can and has starved and destroyed entire nations for offending the interests of their citizens.
This is very much an exaggeration. Plenty of Americans were arrested along the Istanbul–Kathmandu trail 50 years ago for drug possession and spent some time in local jails, for example. And back then, if an American was arrested for drug infractions, he or she could expect as little sympathy from the local US consulate as today. Yes, for other sorts of crime, Americans might have been the beneficiaries of a very active consulate with some sway over local police and politicians, but Americans were hardly untouchable.