the fact that your comparing military technology and bigging up Turkey's terrorist actions and not having any sympathy for the pilot or the rescue member who lost their lifes really does sum up your Countrys stance on the whole matter, you could be an official spokesperson for them

you even know where ISIS are located now as well, if only we had you last week to tell us where they are, you could have saved so many lifes pal.

They are now saying only One Pilot was killed

http://news.sky.com/story/1593808/on...pilots-escaped

Yeah just heard that, good news that one survived

Yes thats something positive in this mess

Look forward to reading it Z.

Whatever the truth is on this, it is terrible, and the actions by Turkey were totally unnecessary and smack of predetermined intent.

Another human is dead because of this act of hatred, and the only thing anyone will achieve by using this tragedy as a 'political football' because of their own prejudices, is, perhaps, an own goal.

The fact is that Turkey did nothing out of the ordinary.Russian jets and subs are constantly pushing the boundaries of what they can get away with.They've done it here and in other European countries.Luckily they have taken the warnings and been escorted away by our air force.Britain,America or any other country would have no option but to shoot down an unauthorised jet in their airspace which ignored repeated warnings to leave.Turkey warned them last time and they've done it again.Whatever the rights and wrongs of Turkey or Russia.Entering a country's airspace without permission is seen as agression.

The UK send up the RAF if someone strays into our airspace to warn the other aircraft, we don't shoot them down from the ground. If only Turkey was so stringent in its stance on terrorists.

...with the pilot, why do the reports say 'survived', 'rescued' or 'escaped' etc in single quotation marks..?...

I'm not supporting Turkey or saying they are squeaky clean but if Russian fighter jets came into any country and ignored ten warnings to leave then i'm sure most country's policy would be to shoot it down.Even a passenger jet which veers off course could be terror threat and could possibly be taken down after ignoring the home country's airforce let alone armed war planes.

One has to use force reasonable against the threat. They know that Russians are involved in Syria and *had* no interest in Turkey, it was foolish.

Russia routinely tests borders all around the world. As Livia said, we have had aircraft stray before, they are escorted away. Similarly, are we shooting at subs or fishing boats? No. Its all part of the game and keeps everyone on their toes.

In a way I am glad Turkey took this action, this together with their selling IS oil, encouraging western terrorists to join up with IS etc builds a realistic picture of their true allegiances.

Early Reports


Russia gives the news in its Own time

I still think it's a knee-jerk on the part of Turkey. They knew they were Russians aircraft and were out to teach them a lesson. Should they have been in Turkish airspace? No, definitely not. Is Turkey as thorough at protecting its borders from terrorists? No, not at all. In fact they are evasive and untrustworthy and I am truly surprised that NATO has decided to back them on this.

..so not confirmed that he's safe yet..?.../thanks Arista

Rescued Russian airman claims there were no warnings from Turkey

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-jet-live.html

Yes this a Major Problem
it all very well sending it out
but how does the sender
know they are receiving it?

Normally a military aircraft that's received a warning will dip its wings and change course. As a last resort, flares will be fired in a final warning.

The thing is, Putin’s never-ending lies mean we shouldn't count on what's coming out of the Kremlin. It didn't take us long to realize that Putin's Viktor Yanukovych operation was a just a guise to occupy the Crimea.

I wouldn't trust Putin further than I could throw him but I don't believe the Turkish interpretation of events for one moment either.

To my mind, Russia gave Turkey an opportunity to stir up some conflict between NATO country's and Russia to further Turkey's own ends wrt Syria.

Its all a dirty game and when "allies" are point scoring like America has toward Russia when there is no need, and they should be concentrating on furthering common goals, it reduces the chances of defeating IS.

There are too many big egos amongst the big players and Turkey will end up out of NATO and on its own if it continues down its present IS sympathiser path.

Turkey has repeatedly spoken with NATO about the Russian violations of Turkish air-space and NATO, along with Turkey, were well aware that Russia were being cute with them.

NATO is only playing the middle man in the present tit for tat argument. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/...JOz8AdvL4ui.97 They will not be backing Turkey under article 5 and although that's good for us because it prevents an all out WW3, the Kremlin have to be rubbing their hands together in glee because there's nothing they would like more than to fracture NATO agreements.

Its hardly a common goal. Russia has been shooting down the very people the west are trying to protect and arm. Russia’s been intent on wiping out our allied rebels since they began flying sorties in Syria; so it’s not as if Western allies attacking Russian allies is some strange new escalation....Its a proxy war that has been raging for weeks.

IS is the common goal, clearly :shrug:

Russia is there for its own interests which include keeping Assad in power. The recent downing of a civilian holiday plane stirred Russian anger towards ISIS but for Russia, ISIS is merely a paper dragon in all of this. Their main targets are those we consider allies.

Dress it as attacking Anti Assad forces all you like, but Russia has caused ISIS to run and scramble more in the matter of weeks than the likes of US and UK have for about a year now of air strikes. Seeing it any other way is hating Russia for the sake of it. Besides...if it wasn't for the west seeing these So called moderate rebels and heroic, brave soldiers fighting Assad as allies then ISIS would never have got to this stage. The warnings were there to see, but continued funding and arms supply continued.

Maybe everyone else is like ' hey be careful we don't want to damage the oil!' And Putin is like ' screw the oil!'?

Russia has never deviated from its position that it thinks its a bad idea to remove Assad, whatever the motivations.

America, the UK etc tried to be sneaky and force a regime change, something they are not supposed to do, yet were quite happy to try and force anyway, hence their support of opposition forces ... including IS. A few years down the line and they have said ... whoopsie ... shouldn't have enabled IS ... and now they have come to the realisation that there won't be a solution to IS without Assad at the helm. So, that means they now have pretty much the exact same stance as Russia now ... they just don't want to admit it because it shows them up for the fools that they have been

Agreed, and it's farcical that people are calling Russia out for bombing anti-Assad forces when Turkey have been bombing Kurds - neither of them have been focusing on bombing ISIS!

And Putin is like 'screw their oil, we have oil!'

Agree, Russia's intervention actually looks like it could tip the balance against ISIS. Say what you like about them but at least the Russian position on Syria has been consistent, the West's has been a mess and Turkey's even worse than that.

Da!

yes, Russia has been consistent in their support for a brutal dictator, i don't see how you can see that as a good thing...The west actually deals with things as they change and evolve and then change their approach accordingly... you know, like all rational people would do.

Well it's the Russian line that the West have been gradually moving towards, your government included. It was always fanciful to think that tiny bands of 'moderate' rebels would be capable of defeating both IS and the Syrian government and establishing some new democratic state in its place.

but there are actually lots of syrians that are fighting for real democracy, they are not ISIS, they are people that truly want democracy. Russia just says "**** them, we like having Assad as a friend".

Sorry, but it doesn't matter if it's even just 20 people who want democracy, it is the US and Nato's job to support them, and i'm proud that we do. When there are people who genuinely want to fight against a brutal dictator, we should support them. Even if it means sometimes we are taken advantage of, and our weapons get into the wrong hands. It;'s not okay to give up on the idea of democracy in the middle east.

Well the US didn't do a great job when Obama drew his 'red line' over using chemical weapons and then did nothing when Assad crossed that red line. And if the West really cared that much about every government being a democracy then they would have to be fomenting uprisings against half the governments in the world but they don't. Some of our closest allies are counties with brutal governments. And maybe that's just international relations for you. It's almost impossible to have an 'ethical foreign policy' in practice, you've got to deal with the world as it is and not how you want it to be.

The first priority is to defeat ISIS and the Syrian army is the main force capable of doing that in the country. After that can come discussions of a political settlement and whether Assad should have any role in it.

This link gives yet another indication that Assad's 'war' on ISIS is a sham and that he supports them financially.
http://www.businessinsider.com/revea...is-2015-3?IR=T

The dangers of having so many countries operating in the same area with different agendas and allegiances. The Syrian situation is a mess.

Good overview of the situation here, will just post an excerpt

Even if one goes back to Saddam's time the Iraq army was awful. His "elite" troops surrendered or ran away on mass then. Its just not a good army.

What has gone on in Syria so far would be considered laughable if it wasn't so tragic.

'Yet the Defence Secretary Michael Fallon was this week claiming that our allies on the ground are going to be “moderate opposition forces in Syria who have been fighting the regime in Syria and resisting Isil'

What does this mean, that like the US we have been or will be funding moderate groups too?

do you have a problem with moderates?

it means he expects those moderates to wipe out ISIS. Good luck with that thought is all I will say on it as it will never happen and everyone but the completely stupid knows it. The US and UK have both changed their stance on Assad but to admit that now means admitting they made mistakes, but that's the reality. At some point in the future expect Assad to have miraculously grown a halo where he gains their public support.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned Russia's President Vladimir Putin not to "play with fire" over his country's downing of a Russian jet.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34941093

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Does he have a death wish? He is quite clearly wanting conflict with Russia