How did Elliot Carver put it? "
A serious conflict is brewing in the South-China Sea". Except, this time the conflict is brewing on the Turkish-Syrian border.
http://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-34908469
Just as we thought there would be a unified league of nations fighting ISIS --
incorporating many NATO members, NATO-member France, who just suffered the biggest ISIS terrorist attacks, but also Russia, who suffered one of their biggest ISIS terrorist attack on a jumbojet-- now this happens.
Turkish military just shot down a Russian SU-24 fighter jet, which was, according to Turkish officials, again violating Turkish airspace. Russia however disagrees and set the fighter jet was gunned down on Syrian-Turkmenian territory by Turkmen rebel groups on the ground.
The two Russian pilots saved themselves by ejector seats, though one of them is captured by the Turkmen Rebel Group, who are fighting Assad, and who are openly allied with NATO-member Turkey. Turkey is backed by the US and various other NATO-members. Russia however, is fighting ISIS and all other oppositions with help of Assad. Russia is co-supported by Iran and Assad-led Syria.
Putin's press secretary just declared: "
This is a very serious incident, but it is too early to draw conclusions."
Erdogan's press secretary just said: "
We have given 10 warnings before shooting down the plane."
Comments
:( . Yes, my thoughts exactly. And I was really hoping for a unified league against ISIS. And now this.
These things are known to get out of hand quite quickly so hopefully cooler minds prevail. From my point of view, if Russia is actually bombing ISIL (which it must be....otherwise why was their airliner bombed), and if Turkey is as well (I'm assuming they are, rather than trying to push forward with an anti-Assad agenda) then shooting a Russian airliner for violating its airspace (there is absolutely no evidence that Russia was planning to bomb Turkey) seems excessive.
Bad play on their part. If Russia retaliates, Nato gets the ability to invoke its Article 5 Charter, and the Military Industrial Complex starts clapping its hands even harder.
To quote Deep Throat: "Follow the money." It's too easy to write this off as The Law of Unintended Consequences. Some people are just too eager to see weapons use as the best way to settle any conflict. I think we need to put in some serious diplomatic time before Turkey & Russia give ISIS the apocalypse they're rooting for.
I thought Turkey was more interested in bombing the poor old Kurds. They've been bearing the brunt of the bombing ever since Churchill started bombing them in the early 20th century.
This afternoon there will be an extra NATO summit. But officials already said that it will not be about Article 5 from the NATO Charter.
There's one other thing though regarding Russia's intervention in the ISIS-conflict. And perhaps it's two-sided:
1) It makes sense right new with a weakened Russian (quite antique) economy, to focus the public opinion on something else. And a conflict in which Russia participates usually works well to boost up public opinion. Especially after one of their own jumbojets got bombed from inside the fuselage by an ISIS-terrorist.
2) The conflict in Syria was less complex before Russia entered Syria. No one was willing to support Assad (this man did kill millions of its own citizens too, and the man doesn't give a damn about all these Syrian refugees). The attacks were mainly focused on the real ISIS-occupied core area's, whereas now Assad has the support of Russia and Iran, to obliterate everything that's standing in Assad's way: Turkmenes, Kurds, opposition of Assad. And it works in Russia's advantage, as this will create A) more refugees that flood Europe, thus destabalizing politics on our continent (ultra-right wing, anti-Muslim, anti-EU, Russia-backed political parties are fiercely on the rise on the European mainland. And B) it will continue the lucrative arms trade between Russia and Syria/Iran. Plus Russia will gain more power in the region.
So this is one of the reasons that currently this conflict is escalating.
It's not coincidence that the countries doing the bombing have large defense industries that are major weapons suppliers and exporters
Yes, that's true. Russia is standing up for its interests again. It has concerns about its near abroad. As I said on the Paris thread, since the Soviet Union collapse, the Middle East has been a mess, primarily due to US incompetence and overreach.....with no clear strategy and no understanding of what mess it was cooking.
Prior to that, there was a delicate superpower check and balance in that area, with each side supporting their own sides in the region. A sort of mini-cold war.
Russia is bringing some of that back now under Putin, and the 'New World Order' is being reset again. It will not be an easy time until the dust settles. Instability is the new norm for now.
Agreed. The money trail usually is the key.
But have a look at this picture. I always found both Erdogan and Putin rather dangerous, too emotional, country-loving, ultra-nationalistic narcists. Thus very dangerous in conflicts like these.
It think it would more be a scenario like this:
:)
I can't actually think of a Bond film where the Russians are the bad guys apart from 'rogue' Russians like General Orlov, or the perceived enemy to be the Russians but not, a la FRWL.
I'm sure Putin's teeth are well chattered today.
This sounds exactly how Russia blatantly nullified Ukrainian and Georgian sovereignity. Hoppaaa.....just crossing the border and rescueing the Russian survivor, WITHOUT first tackling the already big crisis Russia is in now with Turkey. 'Careful' and 'Nuance' are words not to be found in the Russian dictionary.
And then this message came from Russian foreign minister Lavrov:
You must have some real guts to compare the Turkish NATO-backed military with ISIS-terrorists #:-S . Erdogan will follow with a reaction off course, one that perhaps outblows the Russian ludicrous reactions. Though Erdogan is now in a meeting with other NATO-countries first.
Maybe you can put put your nickname into practice :-P?
Further developments:
It seems that shortly after the Turkish F-16's shot down the Russian Sukhoi Su-24, the two Russian pilots got into safety with their ejector seats. But shortly before they landed in territory now in control of Turkmene rebels, they were shot dead by the 10th coastal brigade and part of the Turkmen Mountain Military, said Turkmen military leader Abu Ibrahim al-Sheghri.
So I think all hopes for a big anti-ISIS-coalition, containing Russia, and several NATO-countries, is now dead in the water. Russia will go wild now. And hopefully Turkey's rage can be maintained a bit better by the NATO.
I'm not sure though. He completely aleinates all neighbouring countries, from the Baltic states to Poland, from Ukraine to Turkey and Georgia. Putin is completely isolating itself. Even in the UN Security Council China frequently abstains from voting, whereas Russia objects every vote that is related to a Russian-border conflict..
Nope.