Turkey dubs Syria 'a clear threat', vows to retaliate

Yahoo ^

[Tzimisce]

...which side are we rooting for here?

[MeganC]

Will Russia back up Syria against Turkey?

[stuartcr]

Good question

[GonzoGOP]

which side are we rooting for here?

Fundamentalist Islamist government in Turkey fighting Fascist Islamist government in Syria. Rooting from the sidelines while munching popcorn appears to be the order of the day. Nobody here we like.

[frankenMonkey]

...which side are we rooting for here?

Both.
Let them beat each other to bloody hell. Keeps them distracted from messing with Israel.

[robowombat]

With words only I suspect. Russia is only at the start of trying to rebuild its conventional military capabilities. A costly and humiliating engagement with Turkey in the rough country of eastern Turkey which would also activate the NATO ‘An attack on one is an attack on all’ pledge would only make things much worse even if the NATO response was mostly press communiques.

[robowombat]

The Turkish military are more than a match for Syria even before the current near civil was. Turkey should be encouraged to involve itself as it will give the US and the UK coverage to quietly walk away from this imbroglio. A turkey distracted by a prolonged stay in a violently broken Syria would be to our interests as Syria would be finished as a player in the mid-east political drama for a long while. So the Islamaciizing regime in Turkey would be mostly tied up with managing the military presence in Syria. Syria would be finished as an Iranian ally. Which among other things would end any use of latakia as a Syrian staging base for their forward deployed naval scheme . (Actually a plan to eventually send surface units carrying cruise missiles with eventual nuke warheads to the Med disguised as fleet auxiliaries to support the small Iranian surface combatant element in the Med.) All in all the US should encourage Turkey in any way possible to intervene in Syria sooner rather than later.

[treetopsandroofs]

Someone on Hussein’s team kind of figured out what “Wag the Dog” was about, now they’re just scripting the media story to tell us who to support.

It was easier a while back to get the leftist buffoons to support muslims over Christians in Bosnia, but they have to be more careful with the propaganda this time.

The Great Clinton didn’t have to compete with as many reality TV shows to get the morons all worked up for his raids against empty tents and aspirin factories.

It will be interesting to see how well the Hussein Head media can stir us up to distract us from Hussein’s War on America.

[EEGator]

They all die?

[edcoil]

Lost one aircraft and they are going to do what?

President Bush lost and aircraft to two to friendly firm and president obama lost a drone to Iran and we did nothing.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I remember Turkish troops and South Korean troops were stationed temporarily in Japan in the 1950s. There was wide argument about which was meaner.
Setting aside the Turks’ more curious habits, we settled on the SKs since they liked to kick the crap out of each other just for fun.

[MeganC]

Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty would not apply here. Turkey would be the aggressor engaging Syria which is a Russian ally. NATO would be under no obligation to support Turkish aggression.

Also, it’s not out of line to note that Turkey has long considered Syria to be Turkish territory that was lost at the end of the Ottoman Empire. Edrogan may well be using the current situation in Syria to try to gain some territory.

[ichabod1]

Sadly, I have to pull for Syria because we don’t need them flipping slammy too.

[robowombat]

Presumably Turkey would claim self defense from Syrian attacks. If the Syrians truly are stupid shelling Turkish territory and shooting at patrolling Turk aircraft over and over again with escalating Turkish responses would be the way to go. This would play out amid a steady escalation of shooting between the two states. In any case a real Russian attack of even limited nature on Turkey would engender true rage in the US foreign policy and military establishment irrespective of party affiliation. One thing that seems to always be true about territorial disputes is the US is going to be firmly anti-Russian. The Dept. of State nurtures deep seated Russo-phobic attitudes and they are shared by the CIA and a good bit (but by no means all) of the armed forces. So irrespective of the technicalities of the case any Russian attack on Turkey would immediately , as far as the US is concerned, be blown into a true major crisis and the US would be quick to bilaterally menace the Russians. I don't say i agree with this attitude only that it exits in DC. The US foreign policy establishment remains as anti-Russian as it was anti-Japanese before 1939.

[crosshairs]

If it involves muzzies killing muzzies I’m all for it.

[Sea Parrot]

Hey Turk, if you are going to shoot, don’t talk, shoot.

[Rick_Michael]

I sincerely dislike views like yours. There definitely is a clearly crazy element within the muslim community, but to generalize and feel death as merely okay based on that factor alone (ie being muslim)....no.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

History doesn’t repeat but it does rhyme.

WWI started with a couple of 2nd or third rate powers (Bosnia and Serbia) while a bunch of superpowers egged them on (Austria, German, Russia).

The current Syria/Turkey issue seems not a little bit like that.

[servantboy777]

Destruction of Damascus??

We shall see.

Isa 17:1 The oracle concerning Damascus. “Behold, Damascus is about to be removed from being a city And will become a fallen ruin.

[Strategerist]

Russia doesn’t even border on Turkey anymore.

Dating myself a bit but I did a long undergrad paper on the defense of Turkey against Warsaw Pact attack; conclusion was that the Sovs even plus the Bulgarians & Romanians couldn’t possibly make any progress against the Turks without diverting forces from the Central Front in Germany, which would be obviously stupid.

Turkish military has modernized a lot since then. Russians couldn’t credibly touch the Turks militarily in any way, really, unless they wanted to nuke them.

[spokeshave]

Fundamentalist Islamist government in Turkey fighting Fascist Islamist government in Syria. Rooting from the sidelines while munching popcorn appears to be the order of the day. Nobody here we like.

Trouble is...both Turkey and Syria want to eliminate the Kurds.

[Strategerist]

Keep in mind that the Turkish government and the Turkish miltiary are two different things; the military is fanatically secular in a very deep rooted, top-to-bottom cultural way, and doesn’t instantly change just because the Turkish government has changed, or a few generals have been replaced.

[The Pack Knight]

Not through open warfare, but I can certainly see them providing some financial and other support in order to draw out any Turko-Syrian hostilities in order to make it more costly, both materially and politically, for Turkey. A weakened and less assertive Turkey is definitely in Russia’s core interests.

[MichaelCorleone]

***Erdogan said his government would retaliate “with determination” and take what he called the “necessary steps by determining the time, place and method by itself”.***

You mean they won’t wait to get UN approval or worry about world opinion?

[green iguana]

“...which side are we rooting for here?”

Both and neither.

Depth and length would be nice tho’.

[COBOL2Java]

Time to hit the links!

[green iguana]

Who’s that white boy? He doesn’t even have much of a tan.

[iopscusa]

A Syrian vs Turkey war could be the catalyst for a reuniting of the Kurdish Nation. This could be a good result but I doubt the Turks will do more than speak loudly unless they get Uncle Sugar or the Brits to backstop their little Turkish azzes.

[stuck_in_new_orleans]

So far Turkey is all talk

[Karliner]

This is a major international cluster****. No one wins, eveyone loses, mostly all them dhimmi Jews and Christians who have lived there for thousands of years.
Damasacus is going to be a heap of rubble very soon Isaiah 17.

[Little Ray]

I’m rooting for Turkey invading and Syria using the Iraqi WMDs that the Sov, er, Russians smuggled into Syria on them. Much munching of popcorn on that one.

[GonzoGOP]

Keep in mind that the Turkish government and the Turkish military are two different things;

Well aware of it, hence the use of the word "government" in my original post. Unfortunately it is governments who send the military to war. Perhaps if the Turkish military sees the results of blindly following the Islamist civilian leadership they may do something about it.

In any case they will bloody the Iranians and their proxies in Lebanon and Syria. Bad things happening to Iran is always a good thing for us. When the Turks get angry they have a long and well documented tradition of being bad things personified. Only the Russians have traditionally had good luck against them. Everyone else, from the Crusaders in the holy land, to the Brits at Galipoli, and the Chinese at Kumyangjang-Ni have found them tough customers.

[Morgana]

“...which side are we rooting for here?”

Not sure. Just sit back, watch the movie and eat some popcorn.

[wtc911]

...which side are we rooting for here?

___________________________________

It's a triangle. We are rooting for the third side....Israel.

[GonzoGOP]

Trouble is...both Turkey and Syria want to eliminate the Kurds.

Eliminating the Kurds would be like eliminating the Jews in Israel. A heck of a lot easier said than done. Everyone over there has tried it at least once, and nobody has ever managed to dig the Kurds out of their mountains.

[gandalftb]

After action report:

June 22, 1140 hours, Syrian coastal radar detected two unidentified aircraft 6 km. west of the coast, inbound due east towards the coastal village of Ra’es al-Baseet. Aircraft speed was about 800 kmh, altitude was about 100 meters.

The aircraft were automatically radar locked on by a ZSU-23-4 Shilka, a 4 barrel, 23 mm auto-cannon, self-propelled, radar guided anti-aircraft vehicle.

At lock on, both aircraft turned northeast and descended off radar. At 2 kilometers downrange they ascended to 100 meters and were reacquired and locked on.

The ZSU-23-4 automatically engaged fire, striking one of the aircraft in the tail. The disabled aircraft then banked hard left and crashed about 6 km out, offshore the coastal city of Latakia.

At that low altitude it is unlikely that the pilots survived. Wreckage has been recovered and delivered to Turkey.

In my opinion, the mission intended to test the Syrian air defenses from the west of Syria.

[F15Eagle]

If they didn’t get a signal from the pilots in the first hour or two after downing, I would assume they were killed in the missile explosion / crash.

Has the wreckage been located yet?

[F15Eagle]

We don’t know who he is. He keeps refusing to submit a paper LFBC to a court of law, civilian or military.

He’ll do anything but that, and has his lawyers fight doing exactly just that.

Of course, if he submits a forged document to a court of law ......

[F15Eagle]

yep

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

“Everyone else, from the Crusaders in the holy land, to the Brits at Galipoli, and the Chinese at Kumyangjang-Ni have found them tough customers. “

Although the Turks proved impossible to dislodge from the heights of Gallipoli during WWI, they got buttraped every where else...

[expat2]

A long drawn-out tie would be best, I think.

[popdonnelly]

If a fighter plane wanders into Syrian airspace, you might expect it to get shot down. The Turkish government is just looking for an excuse to intervene.

[ASA Vet]

MI Ping

This one bears watching!

[Chode]

no matter what we do, it'll prolly be wrong...

[HiJinx]

Have to chuckle at your ping list, ASA Vet.

The book Alas Babylon! used an inadvertant missile launch on the Syrians to lead up to nuclear hostilities between us and Soviets.

I don't reckon that will happen now, but it will be interesting to see how things shake out in the coming months. Or weeks?

[gandalftb]

Bingo!

[ASA Vet]

Зенитная Самоходная Установка.
Zenitny Samochodnaya Ustenovka (ZSU)

Шилка shilka

ZSU-23-4

The effective vertical range is 1.5 km (0.93 mi) at a direct range to target of 2.5 km (1.6 mi) and target speed of 250 m/s (up to 500 m/s if a modern fire control system is used.)

[Blood of Tyrants]

Certainly not Syria. But recently Turkey has been headed down the road to become another Jihadistan.

[Ax]

The Cuban Air Defense forces use the SHILKA. Whenever there was a flap, such as flotillas from Miami heading to the island to spread propaganda, the DAAFAR (Defensa Anti-Aerea Artilleria de Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias) would roll their SHILKAS to the beach on my street. I would lace up my running shoes and jog by units to try and get some unit markings. The soldier in the turret would wave his AK-47 in the air and yell at me to stay away.

The Cuban Ministry of Defense is organized along Soviet lines. The Air Defense forces are a separate component.