Russian SU-24 - Shot Down by Turkey

The speed of the Russian planes is such that a warning over 5 minutes would be entirely pointless as if the Russian plane was over Turkey ( which it clearly was not ) it would already have left the territory. Would Turkey have so acted without an ok from the USA which has bases in Turkey and from which it is monitoring the situation by the minute? Lets hope that Vlad teaches the Moozlem fundamentalist who runs Turkey a lesson. Ataturk ( who is a hero of mine) must be turning in his grave at the non secular way in which Turkey is going. Saddam ran an entirely secular state and must be greatly admired for the manner in which he managed the country ( one drawn on the map with straight lines by the British) Most in Iraq would welcome him back with open arms. Remeber everything in life is a pragmatic compromise!
 
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Gilly said:
Hopefully I'm not missing something here.

[Turkish President in 2012] Abdullah Gül after Syria bring down a Turkish fighter:



[US secretary of State in 2012] Hillary Clinton:



[British Foreign Minister in 2012] William Hague:





The Turkish plane entered Syrian airspace for 5 minutes, left and then came back. Not 17 seconds, 5 minutes, and was then downed outside Syrian airspace.

Seems eerily similar, except that Turkey is now the aggressor and NATO are no longer outraged at the shooting down of a plane for the same infringement, though the Russian infringement appears to be for a much shorter period.

Where is the outrage from NATO now? Where are the statements demanding that the regime in Turkey steps down, to echo those against the Assad regime? Why is it that Turkey can do what Syria did, but when Syria did it, it was an act of aggression, even war in some parts, but when Turkey does it, they are just defending themselves?

None of this even covers the other infringements that Turkey carry out on a regular and consistent basis. Russia may not be whiter than white but in this, at least, Turkey are worse than any.
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Its pretty hypocritical of them all.
 
marmalade said:
[...] Saddam ran an entirely secular state and must be greatly admired for the manner in which he managed the country ( one drawn on the map with straight lines by the British) Most in Iraq would welcome him back with open arms. Remeber everything in life is a pragmatic compromise!
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Best thing I've ever read.
 
marmalade said:
The speed of the Russian planes is such that a warning over 5 minutes would be entirely pointless as if the Russian plane was over Turkey ( which it clearly was not ) it would already have left the territory. Would Turkey have so acted without an ok from the USA which has bases in Turkey and from which it is monitoring the situation by the minute? Lets hope that Vlad teaches the Moozlem fundamentalist who runs Turkey a lesson. Ataturk ( who is a hero of mine) must be turning in his grave at the non secular way in which Turkey is going. Saddam ran an entirely secular state and must be greatly admired for the manner in which he managed the country ( one drawn on the map with straight lines by the British) Most in Iraq would welcome him back with open arms.
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:confused:
leaskovski said:
Its pretty hypocritical of them all.
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You're not wrong.
 
marmalade said:
Saddam ran an entirely secular state and must be greatly admired for the manner in which he managed the country ( one drawn on the map with straight lines by the British) Most in Iraq would welcome him back with open arms.
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LOL no they wouldn't, Iraq has a shia majority - they have had democratic elections, surprisingly enough the Baathists didn't win... It is Sunni discontent with their current lot that has partly allowed ISIS to gain so much ground so quickly in Sunni areas.

He kept a lid on the country the way most dictators do - by running an authoritarian regime and at times reacting brutally to uprisings. Just straying beyond the borders there, this is not me shooting you down, just guiding you out of airspace - Gilly
 
oulton said:
A deliberate and likely premeditated provocation.
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I don't see why it would be pre-meditated beyond something like "If Russia come into our territory, we'll give them no quarter".

It served their position in the region no favours by doing this. If anything, they look a little foolish and have ended up distancing themselves a bit further from their alllies in NATO.

What did they hope to gain by shooting this plane down? There could only really be a handful of outcomes:

1. Russia go ape and attack Turkey - Extremely unlikely, so why bother trying?
2. Russia fortify the hell out of their Ally, especially with air defences, meaning the slightest airspace transgression by Turkish aircraft will result in another plane being shot down. This seems to be what Moscow has done and has made Turkey look foolish, over-agressive and hypocritical.
3. Russia shrug it off and still don't look weak.

Complete and utter own goal by Turkey here.

NATO have been quiet - they sort of have to, they can't very well go around and lambast their allies in public in quite the same way that they can do to their enemies. As Gilly posted above, when you're trying to destabilise and oust a regime, you're going to use as much rhetoric as you can. It is probably easier to ride out an accusation of hypocrisy while talking "internally" in private than it would be to destabilise the whole alliance over the incident by entering a PR war with your ally...
 
DRZ said:
I don't see why it would be pre-meditated beyond something like "If Russia come into our territory, we'll give them no quarter".

It served their position in the region no favours by doing this. If anything, they look a little foolish and have ended up distancing themselves a bit further from their alllies in NATO.
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The first thing the Turks did after shooting it down was call NATO, so.....
 
If the Russian plane was flying on a direct course to Istanbul or Ankara and had been intercepted by Turkish jets and given visual/verbal warnings then perhaps Turkey could have considered shooting it down, but surely that should have been a last resort?

Let’s be clear here the plane was flying at about 500 mph in an area where the Turks knew there were Russian planes in the area. They also knew that the Russians weren’t going to attack Turkey (if they were it would have started WW3) and common sense would have dictated that there was no real threat to Turkey’s sovereignty.

I served in the Army where on numerous occasions Sandhurst trained Commissioned Officers (Captain Compasses) with 1:50,000 maps in their hand led convoys on German “A” roads and Autobahns travelling at something like 40 mph with the ability to stop and check the map whenever they wanted but still managed to take the wrong turning. None of us are infallible.

In my opinion Turkey was completely irresponsible Wasn’t it just a small incident where two peripheral countries (Serbia and Austria) “fell out with each other” which eventually brought about WWI.

President Obama stated that Turkey could lawfully protect it’s airspace but I bet beneath the surface he was livid to think that USA (and the rest of NATO) could have been involved in WW3 if President Putin had immediately, and justifiably in some peoples’ eyes retaliated.
 
oulton said:
The first thing the Turks did after shooting it down was call NATO, so.....
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Who were eerily quiet about the whole matter.

It doesn't serve Turkey's interest to see a NATO vs Russia war (which wouldn't take long) because Turkey are right around the part of the world that would be obliterated by that sort of thing.

They made a big mistake, shot themselves in the foot and now look silly in the eyes of just about everyone. Well played.
 
Do you know why NATO is relatively quiet and US supports turkey but at the same time relases info on the situation claiming the russian jet was inside Syria, the reason is that turkey with its cunning and short sighted policytried to draw NATO into a conflict with Russia for its OWN local interests. I dont think any ally would sent their boys to die so that erdogan and co. do their business.
 
DRZ said:
Who were eerily quiet about the whole matter.

It doesn't serve Turkey's interest to see a NATO vs Russia war (which wouldn't take long) because Turkey are right around the part of the world that would be obliterated by that sort of thing.

They made a big mistake, shot themselves in the foot and now look silly in the eyes of just about everyone. Well played.
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I can't beleive the fools in our govt issued a statement supporting the turkish actions? And Barry did.
 
Iraklis F.C. said:
Do you know why NATO is relatively quiet and US supports turkey but at the same time relases info on the situation claiming the russian jet was inside Syria, the reason is that turkey with its cunning and short sighted policytried to draw NATO into a conflict with Russia for its OWN local interests. I dont think any ally would sent their boys to die so that erdogan and co. do their business.
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The long-term impact on Turkey of a Russia-NATO conflict would probably be that Turkey is annihilated. Especially if Turkey started it.

I suspect this is easily explained by Hanlon's Razor, with the stupidity being firmly in the hands of an over-zealous implementation of a knee-jerk policy.
 
oulton said:
I can't beleive the fools in our govt issued a statement supporting the turkish actions? And Barry did.
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This is the sort of unpalatable thing that allies sometimes have to do to remain allies, even if anyone with a brain cell can see that there are divisions there.

The alternative would be to expel Turkey from NATO, which IMO is no bad thing overall, but they are useful in their geographical and political location.

It must be tricky to run an alliance with such broad membership and fairly divergent views on things...
 
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