A montage of the SU-24 crashing. Reuters/Haberturk TV.
Video of the SU-24 crashing.
Turkey has shot down a Russian SU-24 after claiming it had violated its airspace. Reuters. Russia claims that the jet was shot down inside of Syria and can prove it. The incident is the first since the 1950's where a NATO member has shot down a Russian plane. The SU-24 crashed in Syria, in an area the Turks call Turkman mountain. The two pilots were able to eject though Syrian rebel groups on the ground have released footage that appears to show one of the men dead. The Turks claim that the Russian jet was warned 10 times to turn back from their territory and was intercepted by a Turkish flown F-16. The F-16 fired a missile and destroyed the aircraft. The attack may have also destroyed hopes for a reconciliation of sorts between Russia and the West after the duel attacks on Paris and a Russian jetliner. Turkey, a member of NATO, was furious at Russian airstrikes in the area due to the fact that the Russians were targeting Syrian Turks who were fighting against the Syrian regime.
The Guardian has a live feed for this event here. Also, Vladimir Putin just released a statement calling the attack a "stab in the back". He also claimed that the plane was downed 4km inside of Syria. They are also reporting that both pilots may be dead, though this has not been confirmed.
My Comment:
What on Earth are the Turks thinking here? This is just insane. Even if the Russian fighter jets were violating Turkey's border, shooting them down was not the answer. Russia likes to test the borders of all kinds of countries and the proper response to these kinds of incidents is to deploy your fighters and meet with the Russian ones, just to keep an eye on them. You don't shoot them down after trying for five minutes.
I also think Turkey's claim that this jet was in their territory are unlikely at best. The fact that the plane crashed inside of Syria, nobody is denying that at this point, tells me one of three things happened. Either the jet was on a trajectory that was taking them out of Turkey, the jet was never in Turkey in the first place, or the jet turned after it was hit. Two out of three scenarios I just mentioned mean that this attack didn't even have the slim justification of defending Turkey's borders. Obviously if the jet was in Syria then this was in no way justified. If they were leaving then they were complying and the attack was in no way justified. The third scenario may be somewhat justified but it is still really, really stupid. It's too early to tell at this point and we may never know the truth at this point.
It also seems as the two pilots died. I have seen video that showed at least one of the pilots dead on the ground surrounded by rebels. I won't post it because it is fairly graphic. What I want to know is how they died. Both pilots made it out of the airplane at least as there is video out there of them parachuting down. Were they killed on landing or were they murdered on the ground? If it's the second option then the accusation that the Russians are leveling at these men, that they are terrorists, is a lot harder to argue against. You don't kill pilots after they bail out. You capture them under the rules of war. Once again, we just don't have the information right now, but I just saw an unconfirmed report on the Guardian feed that they were shot as they were parachuting.
There is going to be hell to pay for this. Already Russia's foreign minister has canceled a trip to Turkey and I have also heard unconfirmed reports that they are cutting off gas sales to Turkey as well. And I feel I must point out that Turkey is a member of NATO and an US ally. We are bound by treaty to fight for the Turks if they get attacked. They can not invoke that now because they were not attacked. But if a major war breaks out between Turkey and Russia, we might be stuck fighting with them. I personally would argue that they chose to shoot down this airplane and any attack by Russia should not invoke our alliance. I can't imagine the west going to war over this incident but stupider things have happened. And this is just colossally stupid.
This is not the first time that Turkey has shot down something that they claimed crossed their border. Just a little while ago they shot down a Russian made drone after it entered their airspace. Back then I said that if they were to shoot down a manned plane that there would be hell to pay. Well, looks like that has come to pass. I said that people would need to keep a cool head and hopefully things will calm down. After all, this kind of thing has happened before, as recently as the MH-17 crash in Ukraine. That didn't provoke a war and this shouldn't either. Calmer heads will prevail. At least they damn well better. The alternative is unthinkable.
So why did Turkey do this? I don't buy for a second that it was actually about their border. Helping their Syrian Turkman allies is a possibility too, but I think there is a much darker and more cynical reason for shooting down this SU-24. The attacks on Paris and the destruction of the Russian airliner had signaled a new stage in the war. It really looked like that France and Russia would be fighting together and that the tensions between the West and Russia were going to go down. That would be very bad news for Turkey because it means that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad would stay in power. They couldn't have that so they shot down this plane to derail and cooperation between Russia and the West. Can I prove that it happened that way? Not at all. But I would bet money on it.
The Turks have proven time and again that they have their own agenda in Syria, and that agenda has very little to do with what is actually good for the country. They looked the other way when ISIS was expanding. They said they were going to go to war against ISIS but ended up striking the Kurds, our best ally in the region, instead. They hate the Kurds and want to make sure that they will never have an independent country. And they look like they are willing to plunge the world into war just to stop that from happening. If it were up to me I would immediately kick them out of NATO and assist the Russians with whatever they want to do against the Turks. Too bad that will never happen.
I may have another post tonight about this issue if things develop. For now though, I have other things to attend too. But I have a feeling that this attack will have consequences for years to come, and I doubt any of them will be good...
EDIT: I'm adding a link to a liveleak video that apparently shows the rebels in Syria shooting at one of the pilots as he parachuted down. If it is authentic, and I have every reason to believe that it is since the Turkmen are saying that that is what they did, then they have committed a war crime. Killing pilots who have ejected from an airplane is unconscionable, no matter what the situation. For whatever reason it won't let me embed the link, so the video can be found here.
EDIT #2: Fixed the liveleak link to the correct video.
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