I thought even if a state deserved punishment, the leader should be contacted first before the retal takes place. I thought in general that was how FA worked in this game.
The thing is this round was a new start and nations were supposed to defend their own rules. ELD didn't post somewhere what was acceptable and what was not acceptable and I was not about to just volunteer punishment on my state if ELD wouldn't pursue it.
Basically, ELD declared war for a FA reason without even attempting FA. And this was at a time where we were busy with another war so I don't like how this went down.