Someone should look into the maintenance records for that phantom. It may have just fallen apart? Ya know, like our F15s?
Given that it also reports that the SYrians “expressed regret” and had recovered the pilots (in a context suggesting they were gonna return them, if the report was accurate), I wouldn’t be too nervous.
The Syrians sure don’t want a war with Turkey (or NATO, but the probability of NATO joining in on such a war over one F-4 rounds to zero) – if they shot it down I suspect both sides will chalk it up to either a nervous hand on a fire control switch or simple error (like that airliner the USN shot down out of Libya an age ago).
Since Erdogan has spent the last couple years putting in prison the men best capable of planning and leading any Turkish military conflict with Syria, offensive *or* defensive, he definitely doesn’t want war. I cannot believe the Iranian and Syrian governments have not factored that into their planning.
My greatest worry is what was expressed about the current Turkish polity by one correspondent who lives in Istanbul. Her opinion of Turkey’s policy is that it is detached from reality on several levels. Not only are they not anticipating fighting, but they have a belief in their own historical experience as being centuries old. In fact, their institutional memory stops in the 1920s, because the Ottoman records were all kept in the Ottoman script that was ditched by Attaturk in the 1920s, as part of the break with Turkey’s past. No, their Foreign Ministry has few people who could read that script, and has done no translation of those records to speak of.
We are looking at a tinderbox where people are playing with flames they do not know the temperature of.
Turkey has been threatening Syria with military action for some time now, hasn’t happened yet despite red lines being crossed probably wont happen if they don’t respond to this event.
I’m no fan of Turkey [the country I mean…turkey the bird, I love…especially fried] but if Turkey ‘annexes’ Syria, doesn’t that take Syria out of the loop for being a pain in Israel’s @$$ for any time to come?
Maybe we should allow Turkey to at least partially restore the Ottoman Empire. The Middle East was a bit more peaceful when they were in control before England and France divided it between themselves after World War I.
Someone should look into the maintenance records for that phantom. It may have just fallen apart? Ya know, like our F15s?
Given that it also reports that the SYrians “expressed regret” and had recovered the pilots (in a context suggesting they were gonna return them, if the report was accurate), I wouldn’t be too nervous.
The Syrians sure don’t want a war with Turkey (or NATO, but the probability of NATO joining in on such a war over one F-4 rounds to zero) – if they shot it down I suspect both sides will chalk it up to either a nervous hand on a fire control switch or simple error (like that airliner the USN shot down out of Libya an age ago).
Since Erdogan has spent the last couple years putting in prison the men best capable of planning and leading any Turkish military conflict with Syria, offensive *or* defensive, he definitely doesn’t want war. I cannot believe the Iranian and Syrian governments have not factored that into their planning.
My greatest worry is what was expressed about the current Turkish polity by one correspondent who lives in Istanbul. Her opinion of Turkey’s policy is that it is detached from reality on several levels. Not only are they not anticipating fighting, but they have a belief in their own historical experience as being centuries old. In fact, their institutional memory stops in the 1920s, because the Ottoman records were all kept in the Ottoman script that was ditched by Attaturk in the 1920s, as part of the break with Turkey’s past. No, their Foreign Ministry has few people who could read that script, and has done no translation of those records to speak of.
We are looking at a tinderbox where people are playing with flames they do not know the temperature of.
Turkey has been threatening Syria with military action for some time now, hasn’t happened yet despite red lines being crossed probably wont happen if they don’t respond to this event.
I’m no fan of Turkey [the country I mean…turkey the bird, I love…especially fried] but if Turkey ‘annexes’ Syria, doesn’t that take Syria out of the loop for being a pain in Israel’s @$$ for any time to come?
Maybe we should allow Turkey to at least partially restore the Ottoman Empire. The Middle East was a bit more peaceful when they were in control before England and France divided it between themselves after World War I.