Justified in my mind and in international law. Whether or not the Turks are savages (they are) is not the point. The Russians flew into Turk airspace and got shot down. Lesson for the Russians: stay out of sovereign airspace unless they have permission to use it. Hours, seconds, moments... irrelevant. They have been warned by Turkey on several occasions for such infractions.
Sometimes a barking dog — even it is a toy poodle — will bite.
They, the Russians, ignored the barking and went where they were not allowed. They got bit.
I will just let the Kremlin know that achilles2000 says the Russians can use U.S. airspace anytime they feel like it.
If you think Russia is the good guy and just wants to destroy the evil Islamists then you are a bit misguided. Putin is expanding the Russian sphere of influence any way he can to regain the “glory” of the old USSR. He is filling the vacuum left by Obama.
The fact that Putin is blowing up bad guys in the process is a happy side affect in the short-term. Long term, however, Russia is on the move. The work of Reagan in collapsing the USSR has been undone by the Marxist/Islamist in the White House. Putin is simply using Obama’s weakness to his every advantage.
In a perfect world, the Russians will destroy Islamic terrorism and be destroyed in the process. One plane at a time.
So, you defend the shooting down of KAL 007 under “International Law”? What specific “International Law” are you referring to? It’s obvious that the overflight was inadvertent...and the Soviets did overfly US airspace slightly on occasion, typically with TU-95s, and we didn’t shoot them down. We just escorted them out. BTW, what is “International Law” today? Do you care to defend the nonsense coming out of the UN, Brussels, and other transnational organizations as the last word on moral judgments in these matters? Turkey has been supporting Islamic terrorism, which is sufficient reason to take whatever measures are necessary to stop them from interfering with the war on ISIS.
Evangelicals love Putin: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2015/january-web-only/russia-evangelical-god-putin-crimea-ukraine.html
Jehovas Witnesses percecuted in Russia the Orthofox state: http://forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=2128
Russia is now the epicenter of the orthodox vs protestant divide and this may spill over. Russians fight for an orthodox country now, not for the glory of the dark old days of soviet supremacy.