[DrCaleb]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

This is not the Cold War and incursions, even repeated ones don't necessitate a shoot down. Especially given that this incursion occurred while fighting a common enemy. It just wasn't necessary and is going to fracture an unsteady alliance.

And to further Bart's point - there is no 'common' enemy. There also is no alliance.

There are numerous factions fighting in Syria. There are Assad's forces, who without their brutal ways would be flayed alive if not for support from Russia. There are those opposed to Assad, commonly referred to as 'rebels' or 'opposition'. There are Kurds, who hate Assad and Turkey equally. There is Al Queda in Syria, funded by Qatar, who hate ISIS and Assad and the Kurds. And there are all sorts of variations on all of these themes.

Russia bombs 'ISIS', but make no distinction between Kurds, Turks, Al Queda or Rebels. There are only Assad's forces, The US Coalition, and ISIS.

The US and Allies are supporting the Rebels, and Kurds, minus Al Queda. Saudi Arabia has it's hands in there, sending arms and ammo to different groups. Then there are the soft rebels who will drop their US supplied weapons for ISIS to use. Then there is Hezbolla who fight Assad and ISIS on the Lebanese border . . .

In short, it's one messed up situation. And having Russia playing cold war games doesn't help things in the slightest. But much of the blame for that can be laid at Obama's 'Red Line' and lack of backbone enforcing it.

[ShepherdsDog]

$1:

Then there is Hezbolla who fight for Assad against ISIS on the Lebanese border . . .

fixed for accuracy.

[ccga3359]

Turkey says that this jet was 4km inside of Turkish airspace and judging by the map above, flew across about 4km of Turkish territory. Now Turkey is claiming that Russia is violating Turkish airspace 10 time before ordering the plane to be shot down. Now the cruising speed of an SU-24 is 710kts which is 1314km/h so that means that jet can cover that distance in mere seconds. how did Turkey have that time to "warn" the Russians 10 times then to fire a missile?

[andyt]

ccga3359 ccga3359:

Now Turkey is claiming that Russia is violating Turkish airspace 10 time before ordering the plane to be shot down.

Link? Are you sure you didn't misunderstand again? Russia has repeatedly violated Turkish airspace, this isn't the first instance. So maybe the 10x refers to other incidents. In this case, Turkey says they warned the plane that it was approaching Turkish airspace and that it then entered it.

[xerxes]

The US is saying the same; that the violation lasted mere seconds. Maybe the Turks were looking for a reason...

[BartSimpson]

xerxes xerxes:

The US is saying the same; that the violation lasted mere seconds. Maybe the Turks were looking for a reason...

The Turkish justification for shooting down a Russian aircraft is that it's Russian. The Turks have an axe to grind over a long history of Russia interfering with Turkish (Ottoman) imperial ambitions and the animosity between the two people runs pretty deep.

[DrCaleb]

xerxes xerxes:

The US is saying the same; that the violation lasted mere seconds. Maybe the Turks were looking for a reason...

This is my bet. Fed up, and saying 'enough is enough'.

[ShepherdsDog]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

xerxes xerxes:

The US is saying the same; that the violation lasted mere seconds. Maybe the Turks were looking for a reason...

The Turkish justification for shooting down a Russian aircraft is that it's Russian. The Turks have an axe to grind over a long history of Russia interfering with Turkish (Ottoman) imperial ambitions and the animosity between the two people runs pretty deep.

With a resurgent Russian Orthodox Church, perhaps liberating Constantinople may become a Russian ambition again I know far fetched, but we are talking about Tsar Vlad here.

[BartSimpson]

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

With a resurgent Russian Orthodox Church, perhaps liberating Constantinople may become a Russian ambition again I know far fetched, but we are talking about Tsar Vlad here.

I don't think that's far fetched at all. It is of note that Putin ordered the demolition of some Stalinist-era structures at the Kremlin and his plan is to rebuild/recreate a Tsarist palace and an Orthodox monastery. Retaking the Hagia Sophia and restoring it as the seat of Orthodox Christianity would go a long way in restoring the place of the Orthodox church with the Russian people.

[ShepherdsDog]

The claim to being the inheritor of Constantinople, and Moscow being the Third incarnation of Rome is a sentiment shared by many Russian nationalists.



Pretty sure the Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians and Romanians would get behind the idea......Fuck ....the more things change the more they stay the same.

[BartSimpson]

On the radio just now they're saying that Putin met with the Turkish Ambassador and told him that diplomatic relations with Turkey are at an end and that they have until the end of the day to leave Russia.

I'd say Putin is just a tad peeved.

Oh, and this shit's about to get serious.

[BartSimpson]

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b75_1448 ... zisoTLO7ij#w41kvMuD4kcoAoWR.99

Corroborating source for the above mentioned radio report.

[BRAH]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

This is not the Cold War and incursions, even repeated ones don't necessitate a shoot down. Especially given that this incursion occurred while fighting a common enemy. It just wasn't necessary and is going to fracture an unsteady alliance.

The Cold War never ended.

[BRAH]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Obama's Syrian 'rebel' buddies shot down the Russian rescue helicopter that was searching for the downed aircrew.

That's going to piss off Putin and the Russians far more that the shootdown of the fighter (which is being reported rather calmly on RT News).

Russian rescue helicopter 'shot down by Syrian rebels' while searching for pilots of plane downed by Turkey

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/russian-rescue-helicopter-shot-down-6891003
________

Syria is going to become Putin's Afghanistan.

[BartSimpson]

BRAH BRAH:

The Cold War never ended.

We had a brief interlude. Do recall that the USA and several other countries helped the Russians dispose of a lot of their stocks of chemical and biological weapons and we also helped them reprocess much of their weapons-grade nuclear material into fuel.

They also made some money by selling demilitarized military equipment to Western collectors. I recall there used to be a surplussed Russian diesel submarine moored in the Gorge at Victoria for a few years. I toured the thing with Mrs. Bart thinking that things had really changed.

I was wrong.