Middle East and North Africa 20 - The End of the Beginning in Syria? SPECIAL BONUS RUSSIAN JET CRISIS EDITION

[MerenthaClone]

 

oh dear...how can Americans be happy that a close ally supports AQ? it's like the US supporting AQ (via the NATO link)...

We've been okay with Saudia Arabia doing it for years, though I don't know if you'd call them a "close" ally.  

[Shryke]

Ah yes those brave Turkmen freedom Fighters (quite probable allied with Al Qaida) executed one of the pilots...

I don't understand American foreign policy...when is a dictator a good dictator?

Why is dictatorship in Egypt ok but not in Syria? @Shryke: can you please answer me that question?

Can you please explain why you are even asking me that question?

Or are all your posts built on bias and strawmen?

[Shryke]

You have to see the irony...

Turkey actively supports Al Nusra in Syria. 

Al Nusra = Al Qaida. Fact

Turkey = NATO

NATO supports Al Qaida???

oh dear...how can Americans be happy that a close ally supports AQ? it's like the US supporting AQ (via the NATO link)...

No it's not. Like, just because Turkey is a NATO member doesn't mean the US controls or approves of all NATO-member's foreign policy. That's not how NATO works.

Turkey has been a NATO member for a long time. Long before Edrogan and his shittier-then-previous policies.

[Arakan]

Just saw on Youtube the video where the terrorists killed the pilot...

if these are the people Turkey supports then fuck the NATO. I don't want to be allied with a nation who supports terrorists. 

Hopefully Russia will arm the only sympathetic rebel group in the Region (YPG). 

[MerenthaClone]

Just saw on Youtube the video where the terrorists killed the pilot...

if these are the people Turkey supports then fuck the NATO. I don't want to be allied with a nation who supports terrorists. 

Hopefully Russia will arm the only sympathetic rebel group in the Region (YPG). 

Good luck with that.  

[Altherion]

I'm not sure if this is significant enough to matter at this point, but a bus full of presidential guards was blown up in Tunis killing at least 12 people. Tunisia was the only country in which the protests of the Arab Spring led to the kind of democratic government the West hoped for, but it seems that even they are not immune to the troubles of the region (this is not the first attack there).

[Shryke]

I'm not sure if this is significant enough to matter at this point, but a bus full of presidential guards was blown up in Tunis killing at least 12 people. Tunisia was the only country in which the protests of the Arab Spring led to the kind of democratic government the West hoped for, but it seems that even they are not immune to the troubles of the region (this is not the first attack there).

Tunisia still has issues with islamist rebels and terrorists and such. I also think I remember reading that AQ (and probably ISIS these days) are trying to hit them to destabilize the government because a functioning democracy in the area where various groups have all learned to at least tolerate one another is a bad precedent for them.

[Arakan]

Things are getting clearer: the Russian plane was shot down in Syrian airspace. 

[Arakan]

 

www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-18584872

Mr Erdogan spoke of Turkey's "rage" at the decision to shoot down the F-4 Phantom on 22 June and described Syria as a "clear and present threat".

"A short-term border violation can never be a pretext for an attack," he said. The Turkish jet was on a training flight, testing Turkey's radars in the eastern Mediterranean, he said.


Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said: "It is another example of the Syrian authorities' disregard for international norms. Nato allies will remain seized of developments."


Hypocritical anyone ?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I get that clarity is important, though I'd say that online forums aren't really places to expound on the details as it would take ages. Granted, it can lead to unfortunate simplifications of reality.

That said, and speaking of the US/NATO role, it's also true that they had their own training/arming/financing programme that largely failed as well (as the administration admitted recently). Many of those resources, human and otherwise, also ended up with bona fide terrorists. 

You know what Captain Picard told Worf and Chancellor Gowron when they asked him for Federation's support in the Klingon Civil War? We don't involve ourselves in other people's civil wars. 

Smart man, Jean-Luc. 

Mr. Fixit,

You're remembering that story incorrectly.  Picard was argued for Federation intervention because Romulan support for the Duras faction made it more than a simple Klingon Civil War.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Things are getting clearer: the Russian plane was shot down in Syrian airspace. 

Arakan,

Could you please provide a data point supporting this statement.  The BBC report I linked earlier showed the Russian plane in Turkish airspace.

[The Mance]

Arakan,

Could you please provide a data point supporting this statement.  The BBC report I linked earlier showed the Russian plane in Turkish airspace.

Your link showed that the jet had passed through Turkish airspace.  I don't think it indicated where the jet was when the missile was fired, or when it was struck.  And considering the distances and the speeds involved it could be that the missile was fired while the jet was over Turkey, but that the jet wasn't "shot down" until it was in Syrian airspace. 

[Horza]

Even had it been a much more prolonged incursion, there were a number of intermediate steps that Turkey could have taken before resorting to armed force. This was an idiotic response, regardless of whether the Russian plane was behaving recklessly.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Horza,

No argument on that score.  Shooting down the Russian plane was stupid even if it was in Turkish territory.

[Altherion]

Even had it been a much more prolonged incursion, there were a number of intermediate steps that Turkey could have taken before resorting to armed force. This was an idiotic response, regardless of whether the Russian plane was behaving recklessly.

Right. There is a history of incursions of this sort all over the world and I don't recall anybody ever responding by shooting down the plane (not in my lifetime, anyhow). I can't quite grasp the reasoning behind such a reaction -- it seems intended to provoke retaliation and Russia has a variety of ways to retaliate (if nothing else, simply give money and materiel to the Kurds). What's the upside here for Turkey?

[Shryke]

Right. There is a history of incursions of this sort all over the world and I don't recall anybody ever responding by shooting down the plane (not in my lifetime, anyhow). I can't quite grasp the reasoning behind such a reaction -- it seems intended to provoke retaliation and Russia has a variety of ways to retaliate (if nothing else, simply give money and materiel to the Kurds). What's the upside here for Turkey?

There is a history of this sort of incursion being really dangerous because of exactly this outcome. Which many people (including SoS Kerry as I remember) have been warning Russia about. This seems at this point to be that kind of reckless behaviour finally biting them in the ass.

[The Fallen]

Russia has been doing this all year throughout Europe.

ETA:

Just to reiterate Shryke's point that eventually there will be consequences.

[Altherion]

Everybody does it. The US, France, etc. have been not merely violating Syrian airspace, but actually bombing locations in Syria without any regard for international law. Turkey has been bombing Iraq and they also harass the Armenians every once in a while (i.e. violation of airspace, but no bombing). The standard reaction to this is to scramble fighters and tell them to go away. Nobody -- and I mean this worldwide -- has actually been shot down in one of these games of chicken played with planes in at least a quarter century before this incident. Can anybody find a counter example? I mean not an allied force getting lucky with a surface-to-air missile, but an air-to-air attack from a fighter.

[The Fallen]

Well, France and the U.S. aren't going to ask Syria for permission to enter their air space so that they could drop bombs on them.

It's also one thing to violate the air space of Sweden or the Baltic nations during peace time.

But this is a war zone. With jets from many countries dropping bombs. It's a lot easier for something like this to happen in this environment.

[The Fallen]

This is a good article about the negative effects of this incident. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/2015/11/turkey_shot_down_a_russian_jet_fighter_tension_with_russia_will_make_peace.html

On Nov. 14, delegates from 20 countries—including Secretary of State John Kerry and the foreign ministers of Russia, Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia—met in Vienna to discuss a political transition to a post-Assad Syria. Prodded by the ISIS-sponsored attack on Paris, which took place just hours before the conference, the group produced a formal statement calling for a transition process to begin on Jan. 1, followed by a cease-fire, with elections for a new Damascus government in 18 months.

There were holes in that diplomatic statement, not least this one: “The ceasefire would not apply to offensive or defensive actions against Da’esh [ISIS] or Nusra [an al-Qaida affiliate] or any other group the [conference of 20 nations at Vienna] agrees to deem ‘terrorist.’ ” (Italics added.) Even at the time, Russia and Iran said they considered all groups fighting in Syria, except for the Assad-backed Syrian army, to be terrorists. Now that the Turkmen militia—which calls itself the 10th Brigade and is associated with the Free Syrian Army, one of the U.S.-backed “moderate” rebel groups—has shot at Russian pilots as they helplessly parachuted to earth, Putin will likely be more insistent on this point. If that’s true, there will be no real cease-fire and thus no prospects of a political transition and thus no end to the war.