Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

At last, erdogan has signed his death sentence.
Such a holy day !
I cannot stand this arrogant being.
But, as others said, turkey is, unfortunately, part of NATO...

What Obama says about that?

 godardc wrote:
At last, erdogan has signed his death sentence.
Such a holy day !
I cannot stand this arrogant being.
But, as others said, turkey is, unfortunately, part of NATO...

Why are they even part of NATO anyway ?
(Yep, dumb as hell question)

(Hope they'll get steamrolled, though)

 Freakazoitt wrote:
What Obama says about that?

Nothing, probably. This really doesn't involve the US yet and hopefully it stays that way.

 LethalShade wrote:

 godardc wrote:
At last, erdogan has signed his death sentence.
Such a holy day !
I cannot stand this arrogant being.
But, as others said, turkey is, unfortunately, part of NATO...

Why are they even part of NATO anyway ?
(Yep, dumb as hell question)

(Hope they'll get steamrolled, though)

Why is Turkey in NATO?

http://www.ibtimes.com/why-turkey-nato-704333

 Freakazoitt wrote:
Turkey what the hell are are you doing

Turns out that just because one country thinks it has every right to do as it pleases, doesn't mean that any other countries care.

 obsidianaura wrote:

 LethalShade wrote:

 godardc wrote:
At last, erdogan has signed his death sentence.
Such a holy day !
I cannot stand this arrogant being.
But, as others said, turkey is, unfortunately, part of NATO...

Why are they even part of NATO anyway ?
(Yep, dumb as hell question)

(Hope they'll get steamrolled, though)

Why is Turkey in NATO?

http://www.ibtimes.com/why-turkey-nato-704333

I believe its called an "expendable southern buffer".

Turkey has traditionally been a regional rival to Russia (ever since the old Ottoman Empire, ever wonder why they were on Germany/Austria's side in WWI?), making it pragmatic for them and NATO for Turkey to be a member; Turkey joined in 1952. On top of that, modern Turkey likes to think of itself as being a European state, and has always sought close relations with Western nations..

 LordofHats wrote:
On top of that, modern Turkey likes to think of itself as being a European state.

Not under Erdogan. Erdogan is a conservative pro-islamist and has favoured cooperation with Arab states over cooperation with Europe for quite a while now. Relations with Europe are pretty bad, actually. There is a very strong divide in Turkey between secular, westernised people (who want to see Turkey as an European state) and conservative muslims (who want to see a traditional islamic state).

Time to make Byzantian People"s Republic

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Not under Erdogan. Erdogan is a conservative pro-islamist and has favoured cooperation with Arab states over cooperation with Europe for quite a while now. Relations with Europe are pretty bad, actually.

That's mostly in relation to growing tensions the past decade over the Palestine-Israel Conflict, where Turkey has becoming increasingly pro-Palestinian. It's also really rich hearing criticism of Erdogan from Russia. Erdogan took all his plays from Putin's playbook. Seriously the political careers of the two have shocking parallels. I've always assumed it's just a matter of time till the guy tries invading Armenia or something.

Trying to paint this as "Turkey's really on their side" is just bs though. Turkey opposes Assad, and backs the non-ISIS Syrian rebels, and has ever since the Syrian Civil War started. Russia has decided to back Assad and bomb those rebels, and on top of that started a war in Ukraine. Turkey has every right to be very concerned about Russian intentions right now and it has nothing to do with the majority religion of the country.

If Assad was a strong ruler he wouldn't have been mired in a crappy multi-sided civil war for the past 18 months.

Erdogan is a moderately but not massively popular right-Islamic leaning president who has been trying to parlay his democratic majority into a very non-democratic semi-dictatorship.

Turkey isn't the problem. As usual, extremists are the problem.

I wouldn't like to be a Turkish airman tasked with a flight into Iraq, just now.

Islamist is a bad term to describe what Erdogan wants. The guy is pretty much the big head of the Neo-Ottoman movement in Turkey, and he's never been particularly quiet in stating his goals (he's actually be really bad at hiding them). It of course includes Islam as a core aspect, but it's a much bigger political movement with much wider goals than Islamist can really describe.

Like I said. The guy is the Turkish Putin. He's spent most of his political career undermining his county's democratic processes, building a cult of personality, and reigniting nationalist favor of "the good old days" when Turkey was a world power. EDIT: Speak of, it flew under the radar at the time, but Erdogan was very 'concerned' about the treatment of Crimean Tartars after the Annexation. He had a whole bit about it back in 2014. Want to know who else was especially 'concerned' about Crimean Tartars?

History. It's a cyclical thing sometimes

Turkey is idiotic or what?

Expect a lot of nice wargear to be delivered to the Kurds and Russia intensifying bombardments against Turkey's pet rebels.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Not under Erdogan. Erdogan is a conservative pro-islamist and has favoured cooperation with Arab states over cooperation with Europe for quite a while now. Relations with Europe are pretty bad, actually.

That's mostly in relation to growing tensions the past decade over the Palestine-Israel Conflict, where Turkey has becoming increasingly pro-Palestinian. It's also really rich hearing criticism of Erdogan from Russia. Erdogan took all his plays from Putin's playbook. Seriously the political careers of the two have shocking parallels. I've always assumed it's just a matter of time till the guy tries invading Armenia or something.

Trying to paint this as "Turkey's really on their side" is just bs though. Turkey opposes Assad, and backs the non-ISIS Syrian rebels, and has ever since the Syrian Civil War started. Russia has decided to back Assad and bomb those rebels, and on top of that started a war in Ukraine. Turkey has every right to be very concerned about Russian intentions right now and it has nothing to do with the majority religion of the country.

Agreed.

I hope, Russia will really support Kurds now.

 Freakazoitt wrote:
I hope, Russia will really support Kurds now.

Maybe don't violate other country's air spaces? Like seriously. What, you expect Turkey to just step aside a let a Russian military plane fly over them? A certain country seems really quick to jump the gun here and demand retribution when all initial evidence suggests they were in the wrong. I get that you don't like Turkey (to be honest they're kind of the red headed step child of Europe and the Middle East, everyone kind of dislikes them one way or another ), but come on. Is Russia really this far gone?

Besides, you're already supporting the Kurds (everyone but Turkey, Iran, and Jordan are). We are too. At this point it would seem a future War of Kurdish independence is something we'll all probably have to deal with whenever ISIS finally gets knocked out. Oh what fun that'll be...

 LordofHats wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Not under Erdogan. Erdogan is a conservative pro-islamist and has favoured cooperation with Arab states over cooperation with Europe for quite a while now. Relations with Europe are pretty bad, actually.

That's mostly in relation to growing tensions the past decade over the Palestine-Israel Conflict, where Turkey has becoming increasingly pro-Palestinian. It's also really rich hearing criticism of Erdogan from Russia. Erdogan took all his plays from Putin's playbook. Seriously the political careers of the two have shocking parallels. I've always assumed it's just a matter of time till the guy tries invading Armenia or something.

Trying to paint this as "Turkey's really on their side" is just bs though. Turkey opposes Assad, and backs the non-ISIS Syrian rebels, and has ever since the Syrian Civil War started. Russia has decided to back Assad and bomb those rebels, and on top of that started a war in Ukraine. Turkey has every right to be very concerned about Russian intentions right now and it has nothing to do with the majority religion of the country.

Turkey had suspicious activities concerning ISIS before they shot down that aircraft.

Pilots were shot by "moderate rebels" as they hung on their parachutes in the air.

 thenoobbomb wrote:
Pilots were shot by "moderate rebels" as they hung on their parachutes in the air.

This should be a war crime if it's not already.

There's no reason to shoot them as they're stuck there helplessly.

Even if they've been bombing them for the last few months. They should have been taken prisoner and treated with respect.

Turkey is run by a modern-day hitleresque leader, so yeah, not much sympathy for them. Go wild, Russia.

 obsidianaura wrote:

 thenoobbomb wrote:
Pilots were shot by "moderate rebels" as they hung on their parachutes in the air.

This should be a war crime if it's not already.

There's no reason to shoot them as they're stuck there helplessly.

Even if they've been bombing them for the last few months. They should have been taken prisoner and treated with respect.

Well, yeah, it is a war crime.

It's just even further support to the statement that the rebel groups in Syria are variants of "ISIS lite" and "diet ISIS".

 obsidianaura wrote:
They should have been taken prisoner and treated with respect.

This isn't how war works.

As far as I can ascertain, the Russian SU was doing its rounds in Syria, but doing it in the same way as several other planes have been recently. That is to say, violating Turkish airspace for a few minutes at a time whilst conducting its operations.



Turkey has given several warnings recently about this, and Russia clearly chose to ignore them when instructing their pilots about correct protocol. Generally speaking, planes warn multiple times before engaging in airspace violations though, and it is unlikely the Russian jet was in Turkish space long enough for the normal procedures to have been followed.The fact that the Turkish planes opened fire indicates that either orders must have been handed down previously instructing Turkish pilots to make an example of the next intrusion, or the Turkish pilots took it upon themselves to do so (unlikely).

On one hand, Putin should not be permitting his pilots to engage in such clear repeat violations of Turkish airspace. It shows a level of disdain for Turkish sovereignty, and that he miscalculated just how far he could throw his weight around with nobody daring to react to Russian incursions.

On the flip side, Erdogan is clearly posturing to the internal crowd here (much like Putin), and has just effectively killed two men and stoked international tensions for an ego boost.

tl;dr Posturing strongmen dictatorial politicians engage in genital measuring contest and people die.

 thenoobbomb wrote:

 obsidianaura wrote:

 thenoobbomb wrote:
Pilots were shot by "moderate rebels" as they hung on their parachutes in the air.

This should be a war crime if it's not already.

There's no reason to shoot them as they're stuck there helplessly.

Even if they've been bombing them for the last few months. They should have been taken prisoner and treated with respect.

Well, yeah, it is a war crime.

It's just even further support to the statement that the rebel groups in Syria are variants of "ISIS lite" and "diet ISIS".

Rules of war only followed by those signed up to them. However your a liar if you think the rebels are good, there just more toleable than the likes of Isis. There more moderate yea, when compared to a wild dog that's rabid and requires putting down for the good of the planet.

There is no good guy in Syria, just shades of grey

Just read that one of the pilots died while being shot in-air.

/Now/ gak has really hit the fan.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Just read that one of the pilots died while being shot in-air.

/Now/ gak has really hit the fan.

Both of them in fact.

 jhe90 wrote:


Rules of war only followed by those signed up to them.

Only if made publicly. Pretty much all states use mercenaries that act covertly (and much more efficiently, might I add) and do not adhere the "rules of war".

LethalShade wrote:Turkey had suspicious activities concerning ISIS before they shot down that aircraft.

So only countries that don't do sleazy things can defend their borders? Boy is that gonna play out in all kinds of fun ways

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a fan of Turkey in this. From the start they've been using the Syrian Civil War to achieve their own ends, namely sleazily using it to try and get a bunch of people they don't like to kill each other. They don't like Assad. Use the war to try and get rid of him. ISIS comes up and spoils that little party. Use the war to try and get rid of them. Now they're really upset about the Kurds. Use the war to get rid of them.

Can't really blame Turkey for all that though. In part, the mess is the result of the inability of other players to actually do anything or in making moves that do directly threaten Turkey's interests. Russia is now backing Assad, who Turkey went all in on trying to get rid of. The US-Coalition is backing the Kurds, who make Turkey really nervous because there is a very real (and probably inevitable) possibility now that Kurdish Nationalism is going to fight for independence in the near future. In short, Turkey is probably screwed in the next decade or two. Bit of karma there.

So Turkey ends up trying to play everyone with hope Assad, ISIS, and the Kurds somehow manage to eliminate each other.

And really, all of that is separate from the issue that; you don't go after another country and expect them not to defend themselves. Whether or not we approve of them is separate from their right to self defense

thenoobbomb wrote:Pilots were shot by "moderate rebels" as they hung on their parachutes in the air.

Well yeah. Russia has been bombing them for weeks and killing lots of civilians (more than they've been bombing ISIS). Turkey's been pretty sleazy, but Russia is being equally so. Their involvement in the conflict has quickly evolved into token support of the anti-ISIS forces, while focusing real effort in propping up the Assad government. In all honesty, it's probably a purposeful attempt on their part to undermine Turkey as part of a more long term foreign policy goal.

Like I said. Turkey and Russia are historic regional rivals. Once Russia annexed Crimea, conflict between the two became an unavoidable outcome. Lots of people focus on theories of another Eastern European state being the next target of a resurgent Russia, but it's likely Turkey is the next target as the most powerful state in the immediate area.

tl;dr Posturing strongmen dictatorial politicians engage in genital measuring contest and people die.

Why didn't I put it this way... Save myself the damn time typing XD