Turkey Shoot

Robert

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FluffyMcDeath

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Robert said:
Could get interesting.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/24/turkey-shoots-down-jet-near-border-with-syria
Click to expand...

Wonder if this is the same bit of disputed border where Turkey shot down the Syrian plane - the spot where Turkey unilaterally moved the border 5km apparently. On the other hand, it could be rebels from the ground as Russia claims (or that may be face saving) but if the rebels shot the pilots on the way down it sounds like they were over Syrian territory (or Turkey is sheltering rebels).

It's clear that the US is fully resolved to topple the Syrian government no matter what the price - but there would be a much bigger press response if Syria had downed US aircraft violating (and deeply) its airspace as it has a perfect right to - especially if Turkey can claim the right to knock out a major power jet for a few hundred meters (if that).
 
cecilia

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and here I thought this thread was going to be about Thanksgiving :)
 
FluffyMcDeath

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Robert said:
And well outside Turkish airspace by the time the missile hit.
Click to expand...
Which the US seems to be agreeing with now - but through "an official" rather than any named source. The Russians deny that their pilot crossed into the Turkish land finger at all, but even if he did, the radar track that Turkey provided demonstrates that it clearly wasn't an attack on Turkey and the transit time didn't even allow for enough time for a Turkish escort. The surviving Russian pilot said that he got no warning from Turkish forces before the shoot-down.

While Turkey probably can't officially use the idea of its unilaterally declared buffer-zone to justify the shoot-down as being Turkish airspace, they may internally justify it. This article talks about the buffer zone that Turkey claimed after one of their jets got shot down over Syria. Looking at that map then the area where the Russian jet was shot down (west of Idlib) is well within Turkey's claimed buffer zone.

Russia is (at least publicly) holding the line that this was a deliberate provocation - and maybe it is, but to what end? Perhaps to complicate relations with NATO and to prevent any NATO / Russia cooperation, and then would that mean it is a unilateral act or one carried out at the behest of some group represented in the western elite? Officially NATO is telling Turkey to get a grip.

On the other hand, a Turkish blogger last month wrote that Erdogan was itching to shoot down a Russian plane to ramp up tensions with Russia to improve his election chances. When politicians are involved it's not necessarily a stretch to say that they can only think as far ahead as the next election and screw the consequences. On even another hand, this article speculates that it could be other groups perhaps in Turkish military or intelligence that would find this destabilization useful to bring Erdogan down.

Perhaps it's just more likely that the Turkish elite are basically OK with ISIS as a tool to topple Syria and is probably helping them quite a lot. This shoot-down looks like it was pretty close to Kessab, a town which Turkey played a part in having overrun with rebels. It's also pretty interesting to read about the media management that the rebels had been instructed in by advisers.

In the end, and this is just my own feeling, the shoot-down seems to be a bit of a panic move and the justifications seem post-hoc to me. Since this is an area where Turkey has facilitated operations before I think it's quite possible that they may have been caught by surprise with some fairly high value assets in the area and they just made a snap decision to protect them and try to explain it away later.
 
metalman

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FluffyMcDeath

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metalman said:
NATO ambassadors called on Ankara to show “cool-headedness” on Tuesday following an emergency meeting in Brussels, after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border, diplomats said.
Diplomats present at the meeting told Reuters that while none of the 28 NATO envoys defended Russia’s actions, many expressed concern that Turkey did not escort the Russian warplane out of its airspace.
Click to expand...
The Russian plane, even going by Turkey's story, was only in Turkish airspace for 17 seconds (before it left again and was shot down in Syrian airspace) and that is NOT enough time do an escort. Any Turkish plane trying to do an escort in that space would have a difficulty getting there in and then in staying within Turkish airspace.
 
metalman

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FluffyMcDeath said:
The Russian plane, even going by Turkey's story, was only in Turkish airspace for 17 seconds (before it left again and was shot down in Syrian airspace) and that is NOT enough time do an escort. Any Turkish plane trying to do an escort in that space would have a difficulty getting there in and then in staying within Turkish airspace.
Click to expand...

It's obvious that Turkey ( Erdogan ) preplanned this "incident", the Turkish fighter plane had to be pre-positioned in that area, even the cameramen who recorded the incident had to be pre - positioned
There was no reason for Turkey to shoot down a Russian plane flying parallel to the border, you meet it and escort it out of your airspace.

Erdogan has been supporting ISIS covertly, and would like to annex the Turkmen majority area of Syria
 
metalman

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He also found it remarkable that, for all the many months of the siege of Kobani, ISIS fighters came and went as they pleased across the Syrian-Turkish border. The second-largest army in NATO stationed soldiers, tanks, and armored personnel carriers was within spitting distance of one of the most intense war zones of the Syria conflict and did virtually nothing, apart from sometimes firing water cannons at Kurds trying to flee into Turkey.

“During the Kobani war, shipments of weapons arrived to ISIS from Turkey. Until now, the gravely wounded go to Turkey, shave their beards, cut their hair, and go to the hospital. Somebody showed me pictures in Kobani. You see ISIS guys eating McDonald’s french fries and hamburgers. Where did they get it? In Turkey.”
 
Robert

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Hehe - she did seem a little taken aback by him.
 
FluffyMcDeath

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Are the wheels coming off Erdogan? Seems like Turkish intelligence was sending a convoy of arms to ISIS - but someone, probably inside, ratted them out to the military. The military stopped the convoy and now a couple of Turkish Generals have been detained for doing that. So ... who told? And is Erdogan working to support the MIT over the army? And if you're gonna piss someone off is it better to piss of intelligence or the army? An interesting game.
 
metalman

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since Wednesday, Nov. 25, Russian heavy bombers and warplanes have been hitting every Turkish vehicle moving or stationary inside Syria. The Russians bombed the Bab al-Hawa border crossing, located on the Turkey-Syria frontier, as well trailers and tractors parked in an area belonging to the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation, on the Syrian side of the border. (a terrorist organization in disguise)
 
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