What the hell? (Turkey downing Russian jet)

Factual Questions
1

What the hell is going on?

Have the Turks lost their mind?

Has Putin lost his?

I thought they were all bombing Syria, what’s a couple moment of navigational confusion between friends?

Isn’t shooting down planes a BIG deal? Don’t we (NATO), Russia and Turkey (part of NATO) have a (more or less) common goal?

I hope someone can shed some light on what’s going on, because I can’t see much rationale in this news.

2

No, we don’t have a common goal. We want Assad to go, Russia wants their client state top stay in power, and Turkey wants to fuck up some Kurds.

3

Another thread on the same subject.

4

Turkey’s interests lie in keeping the fighting on the other side of their border. And, yes, if they can lay a beat-down on the Kurds, then bonus! (from the Turkish POV).

There will be a minor diplomatic kerfuffle over this, but nothing more than that. Especially since it sounds like the pilots survived.

5

Turkey is claiming the Russian jet was in Turkey’s airspace.

6

Well, correction, it’s looks like a Rebel Turkish group (but not ISIS) killed one of the pilots, and is hunting for the other. In related news, the forcast for that part of Syria is mild temperatures, with heavy saturation bombing this evening.

But as far as Turkey is concerned, this will be a minor incident. Either they or Russia will end up apologizing, depending on whether or not the jet really entered Turkish airspace.

7

There are unconfirmed reports that both pilots are dead.

Putin ain’t apologizing just yet:

Harsh language, that.

8

And Russia is claiming that the airplane was in Syrian airspace. Both are stating their opening positions. It would be helpful to know if the Russian jet was doing photo recon or a strike mission or a freedom of navigation mission.

This either goes away fast, with Russia being shown evidence that yes the planes were in turkish airspace, and ignored several warnings. Turkey gets shown evidence that , um no, the Russians are in the right, and they gotta pay reparations , and have some updated Rules of Engagement to avoid accidents.

Declan

9

Since there is already a thread in the correct forum, and this one is in the wrong one, I’m going to close this one. I refer further comment to the thread in the link.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator