An US F-16 shoots down a drone from Turkey after it overflew American troops in Syria.

 

A Turkish Bayraktar TB2. Politico/AP.

An US F-16 shot down a drone operated by Turkey after it overflew American troops in Syria. Politico. The Bayraktar TB2 drone was shot down after it launched strikes at Kurdish fighters only a mile away from US troops near Hasakah. The drone was destroyed after it reentered an exclusion zone. Turkey has stepped up attacks on Kurdish YPG units after a PKK terror attack hit Ankara. The destruction of the drone will likely cause tensions between the United States and Turkey, two NATO allies, to increase. No US Troops were injured in the attack and Turkey has denied that they owned the drone. 

My Comment:

The war in Syria is certainly heating up again. Turkey and the Kurds are going at it, so is the United States and Turkey. And somebody, nobody seems to know who, blew up Syria's war college today via a drone strike. For a war that has faded into a background it's a bad sign that things are returning to chaos. 

This was, of course, in response to the terror attack in Ankara. Given that that attack mostly failed, only two cops were injured and one totally innocent man was murdered by the terrorists, it's amazing how much chaos is erupting from it. Nobody expected Turkey and the United States to be threatening each other like this. 

From what I can tell the shootdown was justified, Turkey was flying the drone and bombing targets right next to American forces. As it approached an exclusion area they shot it down. I think given the behavior of the drone it was totally justified. I don't think the Turks would attack American troops on purpose but there is a real chance they could have done it by mistake. There is no way the commanders on the ground there could risk their troops like that, they basically had to shoot this drone down. 

I do have to wonder why on Earth we have troops there in the first place. We don't really have much interest in Syria anymore with al-Qaeda and ISIS gone and zero chance of Bashar al-Assad will be removed at this point, so one wonders why we would be there in the first place. Especially among the Kurds, who are the enemies of Turkey right now. 

As for Turkey, this was a pretty big blunder by them. I understand why they are attacking the Kurds, they hate them and blame all of them for the actions of the PKK terrorists. The PKK deserve the hate, given that they are radical communists who are willing to use suicide bombers, but the YPG aren't and it's dumb that they are attacking them instead of concentrating on the PKK. But I think they are just using the PKK as an excuse to do what they want to do anyways, which is bomb the Kurds. 

Will anything come of this? I would think not, unless something like this happens again quickly. I am guessing there will be diplomatic complaints but nothing more than that. The United States has to have a gentle hand with Turkey due to the fact that they are a critical NATO ally. Should a war between NATO and Russia happen, which is a real possibility, the Turks will likely make up a good portion of the cannon fodder. 

Of course, I think that is too high of a price to pay. Turkey is not a good ideological match for NATO and their attacks on the Kurds, who have been very good allies to the United States, make a case for them being kicked out of NATO. Of course, I'd rather see NATO disbanded myself but if it has to exist does Turkey have to be a part of it?