Accidental violations of airspace/territory happen regularly and usually they are no big deal. A situation that comes to mind is the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. US/Afghan forces regularly accidentally violated Pakistani territory. This was ignored, unless Pakistan wanted to make an issue of it at that particular moment.
As for Russia refusing to coordinate their airstrikes that’s not strictly true. They have worked with the US coalition and Turkey at a technical level. The reason that Russia isn’t cooperating with the US and Turkey is (mostly) not cooperating with either is because they have divergent interests.
Russia is pro Assad first, anti ISIS second, and doesn’t care about the Kurds. Turkey is anti Kurd first, anti Assad second, and doesn’t fight ISIS as a priority. The US is anti-Assad first, anti-ISIS second, and pro Kurd. So Russia isn’t cooperating because they’re dicks. They aren’t cooperating because their interests are different from Turkey and the US lead coalition.
If this wasn’t an accident, it’s probably Turkey stirring shit up. They really don’t want Russia supporting Assad in Syria. Something like this is a way to make Russia pay.
According to the map Turkey released, the Russian plane transversed a tiny neck of Turkey that extends into Syria. It was over Turkey for less than 30 seconds, and probably more like 10-15. It also was not on a course that was towards the rest of Turkey. Ultimately, the missle struck the plane several miles into Syrian territory. There simply was no realistic threat, and they shot down the plane simply because they could.
According to a BBC article I read, the pilot(s) were killed by a group of Turkish-trained, Kurdish-allied, anti-Assad, anti-ISIS ethnic Turkmen. I think the equivalent would be if Syrian gov’t forces fired on ejecting western pilots. I don’t even want to think about the implications of that.
That’s a fair point. I’d point out that the US points to Assad as the root cause of the entire situation. So while it’s true that they are not taking the most active role against him, I think it’s fair to say that they feel the most important step is for Assad to go.
I don’t know that we can think that. This was an air-to-air missile fired from a Turkish F-16. I’d hope the pilot got close enough to visually confirm his target rather than firing beyond visual range. I haven’t seen details on the missile used or the range yet, but I expect those will be released eventually.
Also think Turkey is being more than a little harsh here. You don’t have to shoot down a plane for violating your air space. You can intercept the plane and try to determine his intent or force a landing…firing on another country’s fighter should be a last resort.
My understanding is that Turkey was in communication with the jet, and warned the pilot something like 10 times before shooting, so I’m pretty sure they knew exactly what they were doing.
[QUOTE=treis]
Accidental violations of airspace/territory happen regularly and usually they are no big deal. A situation that comes to mind is the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. US/Afghan forces regularly accidentally violated Pakistani territory. This was ignored, unless Pakistan wanted to make an issue of it at that particular moment.
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Except the US violations of Pakistanian airspace have been more wink wink, nudge nudge ‘violations’, in that at a certain level the Pakistani government was aware of them and allowed them. If Pakistan was REALLY pissed off about said violations they would have shot at the US/coalition air craft involved, or make more of a big deal about them than they actually did.
Do you have a cite for this? I know one of the big things Obama has harped on is that Russia ISN’T coordinating with the other powers doing air strikes in Syria, and that this has lead to a number of close calls.
Do you deny that Russia violated their air space multiple times and have been warned against it in the past?? I don’t see this as ‘Turkey stirring shit up’, I see this as yet another example of Russia stirring shit up…or, Russia basically not giving a fuck that they are violating Turkey’s or anyone else airspace and doing what they want, when they want to do it. They have been stirring shit up a hell of a lot, lately, doing their cold war schtick against multiple countries by pushing them. Obviously Turkey was tired of being pushed.
According to YOU it was no threat. Of course, you seem perfectly willing to get Putin et al the benefit of the doubt and bend over backwards for only violating Turkey’s airspace a tiny winny little tad bitty bit. Why should a country (that has warned against such violations that have happened multiple times in the past) be all bothered about such a tiny violation?? Must just be because they could be, right? :dubious:
You’re probably right, and maybe I’m getting soft in my old age, but this incident did not have to end violently. People made choices that led to violence. Violence that I believe could have been avoided. Sigh.
Well, it’s not like the Russian jet was dropping candy; it was already engaged in violence, killing Turkey’s allies on the ground. They had a chance to take it out and assert their sovereignty, so they took it.
It appears that Russia has made a fairly regular practice of having warplanes violate Turkish airspace. Russia didn’t have to do that, and I don’t think that there’s any reason that Turkey has to accept Russian overflights of armed aircraft.
I feel badly for the pilots who were apparently murdered by the opposition troops on the ground, though. That is inhumane and unacceptable.
I don’t think Russia intentionally violated Turkish airspace. So yes, they’ve violated it, but most likely accidental each time.
Let me put it this way, if these were US plans targeting Assad, Turkey would not have shot any of them down. Because it’s Russia acting against Turkey’s interests they did. It’s an escalation of the situation.
Was there a threat according to you? As in, was it likely that this plane was going to attack Turkish soil or a plane in Turkish airspace?
I realize this is a serious situation but I saw the thread title before I’d heard about the news, and especially with this being Thanksgiving and all, I still can’t shake the image of a flying turkey going into the intake of a Russian jet engine. It had to be said*. Carry on.
It’s tragic that it appears that at least one pilot has died, but at least Putin is reacting with some degree of restraint. And Putin being Putin, his claim that the jet didn’t violate Turkish airspace is practically proof that it did. Let’s also remember that these are the guys who shot down a civilian airliner with nearly 300 people on board.
First, just to be clear, the U.S. isn’t bombing Assad.
Second, you’re right, Turkey wouldn’t shoot down U.S. warplanes, because we are allies and Turkey has made its airbases available for American use in the ISIL bombing campaign.
Third, the escalation is Russia repeatedly violating the border. If you do something annoying to me – maybe like give me a wet willie – a time or two, I should let it slide even though I could defend myself. If you keep doing it, again and again, it isn’t fair to say that I should have exercised more restraint than punching you in the nose.
[QUOTE=treis]
They did shoot at them on many occasions:
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Ok. Does that change your perspective on this incident then? Or do you feel Pakistan wasn’t justified in shooting at US/coalition aircraft?
Again, thanks for the cite. So, no…Russia isn’t doing anything but the very basic level of ‘cooperation’ with other allied air powers in the region. Does that change your perspective on this?
Whether it was intentional or not, they have been warned not to do it. In fact, this particular plane was warned repeatedly that they were doing so and the ignored those warnings and continued. At a certain point the ‘accidental each time’ thingy either means it really isn’t or they simply don’t give a fuck and are going to do what they want regardless. No?
The US wouldn’t have violated Turkish airspace basically. We had to fly longer, convoluted air patterns in fact until Turkey finally agreed to let us use their air space recently. Would Turkey have shot down a US air craft? No, probably not. But then, we wouldn’t have been bombing Turkish allies along their border and then violating their air space and expecting them to just swallow it either, so it’s kind of hard to make a good analogy to the Russian actions wrt what the US might have done.
It was attacking allies or groups supported by Turkey and then flying into their air space as if they had every right to do so. Was it a direct threat to Turkey, i.e. would the fighter have fired on Turkey? Nope. And makes fuck all difference that they weren’t, either.
Even short range missiles can be fired from dozens of kilometers away, they were in Turkish airspace a short time and both Syrians and Russians fly the model of plane shot down. I think it’s wishful thinking that the Turkish pilots got a good look at the paint job before firing.
It’s not even a given at this time that the Russia planes did in fact fly over Turkish territory (Turkey claims 5 miles into Syrian territory), and if they did they were shot down while leaving it. And the parachuted airmen killed by supposedly pro-Western rebels, since the whole critique of Russia rests on there not being any ISIS or Al Qaeda in the area.
Turkey has frequently violated the airspace of pretty much all its neighbors. Greece, Cyprus, Armenia, Iran and of course Syria. The world will be a much more dangerous place if we start to shoot down such miniscule transgressions. That was not how it was done even during the Cold War. And I expect Turkey will not like it one bit if their helicopters flying into Armenian or Greek airspace will get downed next time.
Turkey fucked up big time. The USA knows this, and probably the West will have to give some concessions to Russia on account of this Turkish fuck up.