[dolanbaker]

What's with all the plus signs? Trying to get the rest of us to be alarmists? Freaks love company I guess.

I prefer my alarmist stories to have an appropriate emoticon.
It could set the scene for a showdown though, but more likely just some political shouting before returning to "normal".

[Cog]

Checks will be written and life will go on.

[Cid_Yama]

Russian President Vladimir Putin has bitterly condemned the downing of a Russian warplane on the Turkish-Syrian border.

He described it as a "stab in the back" committed by "accomplices of terrorists".

The two pilots ejected as their burning aircraft plunged into a Syrian hillside. Video footage has shown what appears to be the dead body of one of the flyers, surrounded by armed rebels.

President Putin said the Su-24 was hit by air-to-air missiles fired by Turkish F-16s while it was flying over Syrian territory.

Putin said the Russian Su-24 jet was shot by a missile from a Turkish jet over Syria about 1 kilometer (just over a half-mile) away from the Turkish border, which he described as a "stab in the back by the terrorists' accomplices."

Putin warned that the incident would have "significant consequences" for its relations with Turkey and criticized Ankara for turning to NATO to discuss the incident instead of first explaining to Russia what happened.

Jahed Ahmad of the 10th Brigade in the Coast, a group affiliated with the Free Syrian Army, said his group would consider exchanging the body of the Russian pilot they are holding with prisoners held by the Syrian government.

Ahmad said on Tuesday about the Russian pilot: "This is the body of a Russian member of the military who was killing Syrian people."

He added: "We have the body and we will see what to do with it."

Jahed Ahmad of the 10th Brigade in the Coast tells The Associated Press that the two Russian crew members tried to land in their parachutes in government-held areas after they ejected, but came under fire from members of his group.

He adds that rebels shot one of the pilots, who landed dead on the ground on Tuesday.

The fate of the second pilot was not immediately known.

The group released a video showing gunmen standing around a blond pilot whose face was bruised and appeared dead.

I don't think this will be going back to normal. Turkey had been looking to join the SCO. I doubt that will happen now.

[Cog]

Russian rescue helicopter shot down. An interesting escalation.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/621 ... owned-jets

The Russian helicopter had been scrambled to the crash scene to search for survivors after the jet was shot down following 10 warnings in five minutes to leave Turkish airspace, a Turkish military official has said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed that the search and rescue helicopter was placed under fire by Syrian rebels.

The helicopter pilot was forced into a landing after being hit by a rocket fired by rebels

[Cid_Yama]

Syrian fighters allegedly shot at a Russian helicopter on Tuesday, forcing it to make an emergency landing, Reuters reports.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human rights stated that the helicopter rerouted to make an emergency landing at a military base in the government-held city of Latakia

While the exact name of the rebel faction has not been released, Reuters stated that the group is being provided with US-made TOW missiles.

Al Jazeera reports both pilots from the jet are dead. Black Sea fleet on the move towards the Med. Towards the straights that run through Turkey, on the way to the Med.

Also, Ukraine is fucking with Crimea. Things are starting to get heated there.

[EdwinSm]

Oil prices seem to be a little higher (Brent up by just about $ 1.50 to $46.2 ).

I suppose we will have to wait a few days to see if this makes any lasting impression or if it just a knee-jerk reaction.

[Cid_Yama]

The Turkish Straights are of extreme strategic importance to Russia. They are the only exit from the Black Sea to the Med. They would be the number one strategic target in a war with Turkey. Turkey could be just stupid enough to try to block them.

[shortonoil]

This is what Russians don't do!

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-2 ... kish-media

[Sixstrings]

So the plane, which had been bombing targets in the Turkmen Mountains which are in Syria, an area inhabited by Syrian Turkmens, who are Syrians of Turkish descent, crashed in the Syrian Turkmen Mountains, and one of the pilots has been captured by Syrian Turkmen in Syria.

Doesn't sound like they were in Turkish airspace, and it sounds intentional, in support of the Syrian Turkmens, who were being bombed by those planes. Who have now captured one pilot, and are looking to capture the other one.

I had CNN on and they were saying what you just said Cid, that while Turkey says Russia crossed its airspace, generally yes this is about supporting Syrian ethnic *Turkmen* that were getting bombed by Russia.

There's so much complexity to all this region, one cannot even fully understand Iraq and then Syria and now there's this "turkmen" thing that I never heard of before.

So I wonder -- what are the "turkmen" like? Are these radicals? Are they ISIS allies, what the hell are the "turkmen in syria?"

Why is Russia bombing so close to the Turkish border, is that really responsible of Russia or did they have good cause, like getting after some oil trucks headed that way or something like that? Or wtf was Russia doing, just bombing "turkmen villages" and then yeah the "turks" in "turkey" get upset about the "turkemen" in syria getting bombed.

And then I wonder where the kurds are in all of this. Do the turkmen fight the kurds? That would explain why Turkey wants to back "turkmen." Or, maybe the turkmen in syria are a hedge against kurds (turkey suppresses turkish kurdish minority in turkey).

Added to all this is the fact that Erdogan suppresses a lot of his people in Turkey and has been drifting dictator and has been going muslim fundy for years now -- to the distress, and alarm of many turks that want to keep turkey how it always was since Attaturk -- SECULAR muslim. *Not* a muslim fundy place.

Anthony Bourdain had a whole hour show on Turkey recently, it was really in depth and pretty good but I knew about these issues before that.

So anyhow, there's issues about Erdogan that really the Obama admin and Europe should have been paying attention to, years ago. Just that he's been making himself a dictator and pulling the country to fundy muslim.

So I don't who's good guy or bad guy in this, why Russia was bombing turkmen on the border -- what was the reason, maybe it was a good one (I do want to see ISIS defeated) but yet that's also a touchy thing to be bombing on the turkish border.

In general, Russia has a lot of ties to turkey -- it's the #2 holiday destination for Russians (news reports that Putin got on tv and is asking Russians to cancel holiday plans in Turkey).

Russia is also building a gas pipeline through Turkey, to go into greece, with plans to get away from Ukraine transit by 2018.

So there are long term ties and interests between Russia and Turkey, hopefully Russo-Turk problems don't get too bad, Gazprom does have a pipeline that needs to get built after all.

Generally, Russia really has been violating nato airspace in MANY member states for a couple years now. So, there's that.

With Russia being aggressive in so many places, this was bound to happen. They went into Syria but started hitting moderate rebels, not ISIS. Then they did start hitting ISIS and doing a good job on that, but now it's "turkmen in syria" off the turkish border so what's that all about?

And before all this started, Russian air force was crossing / riding up close on airspace all over nato, from the UK to the Baltics to Canada and US and all over.

edit: as a brief post script, in general I'm concerned by ISIS and that needs to be defeated more than I'm bothered by Russia flying up on / flying over borders the way Russia's been doing for a year now all over nato. But yeah, ISIS is still worse. The other is still a problem though (Russia crossing nato borders), and at the end of the day Turkey is a NATO ally.

What everything keeps coming back to is that liberals and libertarians / isolationist tea party are WRONG and their do-nothing foreign policy makes things so much more dangerous.

The policy we have needed on all this thing, all along, would be Jeb Bush and John McCain and Lindsay Graham. Those guys are right, they've been right all this time, and we're seeing that now.

[Satori]

would somebody please explain to me

what in the hell is a "moderate rebel" ?

[dolanbaker]

would somebody please explain to me

what in the hell is a "moderate rebel" ?

An enemy of an enemy, probably!
One who you can do business with.

[Sixstrings]

What does this thing really boil down to I wonder, is it that Russia was doing air strikes on assad rebels that AREN'T ISIS -- like bombing the "turkmen?" And I don't know, are "turkmen" like kurds and just an ethnic group that is rebelling against assad? But turkmen aren't ISIS?

And it's right off Turkey's border, and Turks in Turkey see "turkmen" getting bombed and they get upset?

So then the Russian fighter jet crosses the Turkish border for a few seconds and the Turkish air force says "okay you crossed our border now, that's that" and they fired?

Another possibility, by the way, is that Turkey may not have known the nationality of the Russian fighter jet and that it was just a unknown bogey in their skies. And, that the Russian pilot never heard the warnings, because of wrong frequency / language and I guess apparently there's no deconfliction agreement with Turkey.

But a deconfliction agreement with Turkey wasn't supposed to be necessary, just logically Russia shouldn't do air strikes right off the Turkish border and then cross the border too.

Bottom line about it -- if Russia did cross the Turkish border, even for a few seconds, then Russia really can't complain about it.

If a US fighter jet ever crossed Russia's border -- even if it were a few seconds -- then it would be logical to me if Russia shot it down and you couldn't really blame Russia it just is what it is, people need to say out of other countries' borders.

Russia has to stop doing this. It cannot cross nato borders, not even for five seconds. There is never an excuse.

[Plantagenet]

The Turkmen rebels in Syria are claiming they shot the Russian pilots as they descended with their parachutes. Supposedly a pic of one of the corpses has been shown on Turkish TV.

It seems curious that the Russians pilots were shot dead as they parachuted down over Syria, when the plane was supposedly shot down over Turkey.

turkmen-forces-syria-shot-dead-pilots-downed-russian

Putin is quite upset about it all----calls it a "backstabbing."

[Sixstrings]

The Turkmen rebels in Syria are claiming they shot the Russian pilots as they descended with their parachutes. Supposedly a pic of one of the corpses has been shown on Turkish TV.

It seems curious that the Russians pilots were shot dead as they parachuted down over Syria, when the plane was supposedly shot down over Turkey.

Well yeah, we don't know for sure, but it does sound like maybe the Russian fighter jet crossed the border for a few seconds and the Turkish air force was already hopping mad sitting there watching the turkmen get bombed -- so then when the fighter jet crosses the border for even a few seconds, it was "go time" and the Turkish air force may in fact have crossed over the border too and then engaged.

Bottom line about is that Russia can't cross borders.

If an American fighter jet ever crossed over Russia's border, even for one second, then I wouldn't blame Russia at all if their air forced pursued and engaged on the other side of the border.

In an age of GPS and all that, there's really no plausible excuse for Russia to cross borders. And it's happened a zillion times now, all over nato borders, for the last whole year.

Russia just needs to stop crossing borders -- some nato states won't do anything, and then some will shoot it down, so Russia just needs to not cross borders.

As for as overall right and wrong, I would be curious about more information on the "turkmen."

Are they like the kurds are and not isis but just an ethnic group rebelling against Assad and then here comes Russia bombing them?

Russia's got no excuse in this thing -- Russia cannot cross nato borders, not even for one second. There doesn't need to be any more escalation from this, just don't cross the border, it's as simple as that.

[Keith_McClary]

Nov. 21

All able states should join the fight against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq and redouble efforts to prevent further attacks by the militant group, the United Nations security council has declared in a unanimous vote.

The 15-member council adopted a resolution on Friday that was drafted by France after a series of deadly attacks in Paris killed 130 people and were claimed by Isis.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/n ... ainst-isis

[careinke]

Because that is what Russians do. They also shoot down civilian airliners although they deny it.

And these actions are different than the US in what way???

[Plantagenet]

it does sound like maybe the Russian fighter jet crossed the border for a few seconds and the Turkish air force was already hopping mad sitting there watching the turkmen get bombed -- so then when the fighter jet crosses the border for even a few seconds, it was "go time" and the Turkish air force may in fact have crossed over the border too and then engaged.

Bottom line about is that Russia can't cross borders.

Yup. That sure is possible.

And then maybe the wind was blowing back towards Syria, so after the Russian plane was shot down over Turkey the parachuting pilots were blown back into Syria where the Syrian rebels shot the pilots as they descended from above them.

Its all starting to make sense now.

[Newfie]

Because that is what Russians do. They also shoot down civilian airliners although they deny it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

[Sixstrings]

And then maybe the wind was blowing back towards Syria, so after the Russian plane was shot down over Turkey the parachuting pilots were blown back into Syria where the Syrian rebels shot the pilots as they descended from above them.

Its all starting to make sense now.

I was actually saying that it sounds like Turkey DID cross the border but they think they are justified because the fighter jet crossed their border first.

Border fights can get messy like that. The other nation crosses the border then goes back over again -- and maybe the nation whose border was crossed PERSUES.

Or maybe the peruit BEGAN in Turkish airspace and maybe there was a screwup or something and the engagement happened in Syrian airspace.

Or maybe the missile was fired in turkish airspace and when it hit the fighter jet it was in Syrian airspace by that time.

Or maybe Russia was doing airstrikes like RIGHT UP ON TURKEY'S BORDER, Plant. Like how you can go out to the four corners in new mexico and there's a spot where you can stand and you can jump around like 4 states all at once.

Russia shouldn't do air strikes right up on borders, Russia can't cross nato borders.

But I would be curious on more info about "turkmen" -- if they are bad guys, that makes a difference. If they're just like how kurds are, then that's different.

See look Plant, you can stand in four states all at once:



That wouldn't be a good spot to avoid a fight.

[Newfie]

Radar tracks from CNN.

https://twitter.com/CNNTURK_ENG/status/ ... wsrc%5Etfw



If I have this right:
Blue is border
Red is Russian plane
Grey is Turkish plane?