Posted on 11/24/2015 1:45:02 PM PST by SeekAndFind
If you’re worried that Turkey’s going to use Article 5 of NATO to drag the U.S. and other western nations into a hot war with Russia, don’t be. Sounds from this response like NATO will fall apart before anyone goes to the mat for the Turks.
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.
On the one hand, this wasn’t the first violation of Turkish airspace lately by a Russian jet. Erdogan’s complained about it to NATO before; NATO’s secretary-general said last month that the frequency and duration of the intrusions made it hard to believe Russia isn’t doing it purposefully. Turkey got tired of asking Russia nicely to stay out — and asking, and asking, as they reportedly warned the pilots of the jet that was brought down today 10 times in five minutes to scram ASAP. (Did Russia actually violate their airspace today, though? Moscow denies it.) On the other hand, the point of Article 5 obviously isn’t to trigger a regional war because a Russian jet en route to a target in Syria strayed a mile into Turkish territory or whatever it was. The paradigm case for Article 5 is hundreds of Russian tanks rolling towards Warsaw or Berlin, not one jet being a little too cute about Russia’s new hegemony in western Syria. Show of hands: Who thinks Europe’s militaries are going to spring into action after a long hiatus from major wars to enforce the integrity of Turkish airspace to the last inch?
Putin called the shootdown a “stab in the back” by western allies who are supposed to be fighting ISIS with him and warned of “very serious consequences,” but he might be willing to endure one embarrassment without retaliating in the name of avoiding escalation. Would he be willing to endure two, though?
Turkmen forces in Syria shot dead the two pilots of a Russian jet downed by Turkish warplanes near the border with Turkey on Tuesday as they descended with parachutes, a deputy commander of a Turkmen brigade told reporters.
“Both of the pilots were retrieved dead. Our comrades opened fire into the air and they died in the air,” Alpaslan Celik, a deputy commander in a Syrian Turkmen brigade said near the Syrian village of Yamadi as he held what he said was a piece of a pilot’s parachute.
Turkmen are ethnic Turks in Syria who have no association with the state of Turkey, but that’s not the point. The point is that killing the pilots, while they were defenseless on their way to the ground, will make the affront of the jet being shot down sting even more in Russia. And there’s actually yet another incident in Syria today that the Kremlin can use for anti-western propaganda if it wants, and this one’s on video too. Watch the clip below of Syrian rebels using a TOW missile, presumably supplied by Uncle Sam, to take out a Russian-made helicopter being operated by Assad’s army. RT, a Russian house organ, has already picked it up and claimed that not only was the helicopter on a search-and-rescue mission for the downed jet pilots but a Russian marine was killed in the TOW strike. Why this is circulating so widely online, apart from the gee whiz factor, I don’t know; Russia’s been bombing U.S.-allied rebels since they began flying sorties in Syria so it’s not as if America’s allies attacking Russia’s allies is some strange new escalation of the reality on the ground. The proxy war has been raging for weeks. But between the jet blowing up, the pilots being machine-gunned as they fell to earth, and now U.S. weapons being used to undermine the Russian/Syrian “counterterrorist” effort, there’s ample reason to think things will get worse before they get better. I’m just grateful we’ve got Cool Hand Luke in the White House, laying down “red lines” he doesn’t intend to enforce and issuing warnings that Assad must go which he has no means to follow through on, at the helm of this ship at it enters choppy waters.
Because the Russians are cutting in on someone’s oil money action. That’s why.
L
Good question. Ask Obama.
There was no time. The Russian fighter was in Turkish airspace for less than a minute.
“Always follow the money” .... Rush Limbaugh ...
Even worse than shooting the plane down was shooting the parachuting pilots in midair.
i dont care WHAT reason nato uses for not going to bat for turkey, as long as they dont.
kick them out of nato. they are muslimm animals.
my older brother said some guy named Attaturk would be turning in his grave. too lazy to look him up.
Would not have served our purposes to do that. Our purposes are to get you involved on our side and to protect our leader’s businesses.
” The Russian fighter was in Turkish airspace for less than a minute. “
I read ear;ier 17 seconds. 10 warnings in 17 seconds? Fast talker!
The Turkish Air Force shot the plane down. Turkmen rebels inside Syria shot the pilots and then shot down the rescue helicopter.
L
Turkey is a muslim nation trying to get the west to chase Putin out of the mid-east for them.
He was the guy that brought turkey to modernization and secularism. He got the country away from Islam running it.
Kemal Ataturk, founder of the modern state of Turkey, was a rebel against the Ottomans during WWI. When the Ottomans fell after the war, he and his party took control of the state and instituted modernist, secular reforms.
He was also the one responsible for making those Fez hats the Turkish national headwear, to distance them from the turbans that all the other Muslims wear.
Okay. Thanks for the clarification. Were they working together? Is Turkey supporting the rebels? If so then I say again that Turkey is taking the offensive against Russia while trying to claim a defensive position.
“warned the pilots of the jet that was brought down today 10 times in five minutes to scram “
Wouldn’t take a fighter jet 5 minutes to cross that little spit of land!
Erdogan and Obama planned this at the G20 meeting
Don’t worry, Obama has the back of Turkey and there recent hard core muslim government.
Zero the Jerk doesn’t quite know what he did opening his mouth today on this.
This is going to be interesting real fast.
after Paris... European is in no mood for countries like Turkey and Obama having the US to be carrying ISIS’s water.
...
Obama’s mask might be pulled off in this showing he really sides with the Islamist
Turkey is allied with ISIS. No one should be supporting them.
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