Exclusive: Turkey appears to have deliberately shot down a Russian warplane as a provocation designed to escalate tensions between NATO and Russia, a ploy that seems to have sucked in President Obama as he tries to look tough against Russia to appease his neocon critics, writes Robert Parry. (Update: Russia says one airman saved.)
By Robert Parry
President Barack Obama always sensitive to neocon criticism that he’s “weak” continues to edge the world closer to a nuclear confrontation with Russia as he talks tough and tolerates more provocations against Moscow, now including Turkey’s intentional shoot-down of a Russian warplane along the Turkish-Syrian border.
Rather than rebuke Turkey, a NATO member, for its reckless behavior or express sympathy to the Russians Obama instead asserted that “Turkey, like every country, has a right to defend its territory and its airspace.”
Turkish President Recep Erdogan.
It was another one of Obama’s breathtaking moments of hypocrisy, since he has repeatedly violated the territorial integrity of various countries, including in Syria where he has authorized bombing without the government’s permission and has armed rebels fighting to overthrow Syria’s secular regime.
Obama’s comment on Turkey’s right to shoot down planes — made during a joint press conference with French President Francois Hollande on Tuesday — was jarring, too, because there was no suggestion that even if the SU-24 jetfighter had strayed briefly into Turkish territory, which the Russians deny, that it was threatening Turkish targets.
Russian President Vladimir Putin angrily called the Turkish attack a “stab in the back delivered by the accomplices of terrorists.” He warned of “serious consequences for Russian-Turkish relations.”
Further provoking the Russians, Turkish-backed Syrian rebels then killed the Russian pilot riddling his body with bullets as he and the navigator parachuted from the doomed plane and were floating toward the ground. (Update: On Wednesday, the Russian defense minister said the navigator was alive and was rescued by Syrian and Russian special forces.)
Another Russian soldier was killed when a U.S.-supplied TOW missile brought down a Russian helicopter on a search-and-rescue mission, according to reports.
But Obama, during the news conference, seemed more interested in demonstrating his disdain for Putin, referring to him at one point by his last name only, without the usual use of a courtesy title, and demeaning the size of Putin’s coalition in helping Syria battle the jihadist rebels.
“We’ve got a coalition of 65 countries who have been active in pushing back against ISIL for quite some time,” Obama said, citing the involvement of countries around the world. “Russia right now is a coalition of two, Iran and Russia, supporting [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad.”
However, there have been doubts about the seriousness of Obama’s coalition, which includes Sunni countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, which have been covertly supporting some of the jihadist elements, including Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front and its ally, Ahrar al-Sham.
Syrian rebels, including jihadists fighting with Ahrar al-Sham, have received hundreds of U.S. TOW anti-tank missiles, apparently through Sunni regional powers with what I’ve been told was Obama’s direct approval. The jihadists have celebrated their use of TOWs to kill tank crews of the Syrian army. Yet Obama talks about every country’s right to defend its territory.
Obama and the U.S. mainstream media also have pretended that the only terrorists that need to be fought in Syria are those belonging to the Islamic State (also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh), but Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front and its ally, Ahrar al-Sham, which was founded in part by Al Qaeda veterans, make up the bulk of the Turkish-and-Saudi-backed Army of Conquest which was gaining ground with the help of those American TOW missiles until Russia intervened with air power at the request of Syrian President Assad in late September.
The SU-24 Shoot-down
As for the circumstances surrounding the Turkish shoot-down of the Russian SU-24, Turkey claimed to have radioed ten warnings over five minutes to the Russian pilots but without getting a response. However, the New York Times reported that a diplomat who attended a NATO meeting in which Turkey laid out its account said “the Russian SU-24 plane was over the Hatay region of Turkey for about 17 seconds when it was struck.”
How those two contradictory time frames matched up was not explained. However, if the 17-second time frame is correct, it appears that Turkey intended to shoot down a Russian plane whether over its territory or not to send a message that it would not permit Russia to continue attacking Turkish-backed rebels in Syria.
After shooting down the plane, Turkey sought an emergency NATO meeting to support its attack. Though some NATO members reportedly consider Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan a loose cannon, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg declared that the allies “stand in solidarity with Turkey.”
Further increasing the prospect of a dangerous escalation, NATO has been conducting large-scale military exercises near the Russian border in response to the Ukraine crisis.
Erdogan’s government also appears to have dabbled in dangerous provocations before, including the alleged role of Turkish intelligence in helping jihadist rebels stage a lethal sarin gas attack outside Damascus on Aug. 21, 2013, with the goal of blaming Assad’s military and tricking Obama into launching punitive airstrikes that would have helped clear the way for a jihadist victory.
Obama only pulled back at the last minute amid doubts among U.S. intelligence analysts about who was responsible for the sarin attack. Later evidence pointed to a jihadist provocation with possible Turkish assistance, but the Obama administration has never formally retracted its allegations blaming Assad’s forces.
One motive for Erdogan to go along with the sarin “false flag” attack in 2013 would have been that his two-year campaign to overthrow the Assad government was sputtering, a situation similar to today with the Russian military intervention hammering jihadist positions and putting the Syrian army back on the offensive.
By shooting down a Russian plane and then rushing to NATO with demands for retaliation against Russia, Erdogan is arguably playing a similar game, trying to push the United States and European countries into a direct confrontation with Russia while also sabotaging Syrian peace talks in Vienna all the better to advance his goal of violently ousting Assad from power.
The Neocon Agenda
Escalating tensions with Russia also plays into the hands of America’s neoconservatives who have viewed past cooperation between Putin and Obama as a threat to the neocon agenda of “regime change,” which began in Iraq in 2003 and was supposed to continue into Syria and Iran with the goal of removing governments deemed hostile to Israel.
After the sarin gas attack in 2013, the prospect for the U.S. bombing Syria and paving the way for Assad’s military defeat looked bright, but Putin and Obama cooperated to defuse the sarin gas crisis. The two teamed up again to advance negotiations to constrain Iran’s nuclear program an impediment to neocon hopes for bombing Iran, too.
However, in late 2013 and early 2014, that promising Putin-Obama collaboration was blasted apart in Ukraine with American neocons playing key roles, including National Endowment for Democracy president Carl Gershman, Sen. John McCain and Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland.
The neocons targeted the elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych, recognizing how sensitive Ukraine was to Russia. The Feb. 22, 2014 coup, which was spearheaded by neo-Nazis and other extreme Ukrainian nationalists, established a fiercely anti-Russian regime in Kiev and provoked what quickly took on the look of a new Cold War.
When the heavily ethnic Russian population of Crimea, which had voted overwhelmingly for Yanukovych, reacted to the coup by voting 96 percent to leave Ukraine and rejoin Russia, the neocon-dominated U.S. mainstream media pronounced the referendum a “sham” and the secession a Russian “invasion.” Cold War hysteria followed.
However, in the nearly two years since the Ukraine coup, it has become increasingly clear that the new regime in Kiev is not the shining light that the neocons and the mainstream media pretended it was. It appears to be as corrupt as the old one, if not more so. Plus, living standards of average Ukrainians have plunged.
The recent flooding of Europe with Syrian refugees over the summer and this month’s Paris terror attacks by Islamic State jihadists also have forced European officials to take events in Syria more seriously, prompting a growing interest in a renewed cooperation with Russia’s Putin.
That did not sit well with ultranationalist Ukrainians angered at the reduced interest in the Ukraine crisis. These activists have forced their dispute with Russia back into the newspapers by destroying power lines supplying electricity to Crimea, throwing much of the peninsula into darkness. Their goal seems to be to ratchet up tensions again between Russia and the West.
Now, Turkey’s shoot-down of the SU-24 and the deliberate murder of the two Russian pilots have driven another wedge between NATO countries and Russia, especially if President Obama and other NATO leaders continue taking Turkey’s side in the incident.
But the larger question indeed the existential question is whether Obama will continue bowing to neocon demands for tough talk against Putin even if doing so risks pushing tensions to a level that could spill over into a nuclear confrontation.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.
Erdogan is lying about the Russian fighter jet entering Turkish air space. That darn plane would have had to reduce down to an incredibly unimaginable low speed, long enough for seventeen seconds to pass by while receiving ten Turkish air space invasion warnings, in order for it to have invaded that Turkish air space for that amount of time is inconceivable, so forget about it, Erdogan is lying. Why, not just say, the Russian plane hovered there for too long, and call it a day. Erdogan is as ridiculous of an ally to adjoin too, as to also have as our all time favorite chocolate King Petro Poroshenko of the illegal government of Ukraine, in our corner oh gee. Turkey, and Ukraine are like bad children, and yet their hegemonic parents just keep throwing more war toys at them, so as they may arm their proxy crazy armies with, oh boy. What is blowing apart the NATO mission, is there is/was no NATO mission. The focus has always been on Assad. Now, that Putin points to unharmed ISIS oil tankers roaming freely, oh now it’s time to bomb Erdogan….I meant ISIS oil tankers.
Zerohedge has a story where the Italian customs people uncovered a shipment of 800 shotguns, leaving Turkey for Belgium. Another story on that same site pointed out how statistically every time ISIS took control of an oil field Turkey’s state run oil export port had a spike in output. I think that with the bombing of the ISIS/Erdogan oil tanker trucks that this hit the Erdogan’s personal wealth, and the hell with what the country of Turkey loses in Russian revenue. Erdogan, along with a few ally generals are profiting from the actual ground war, and this needs to stop. Oh, and let’s contact Petro Poroshenko and inform him that the U.S. People want to come and inventory all those weapons we provided to Ukraine. Although these two rascals are just doing their own impersonation of General David “Sunni Awaking” Petraeus to their most deserved credit, but I think they both do poorly when it comes to duplicating DAVE’s smooth delivery of style. If we really truly do want to cut off the ISIS Rat Lines, then maybe we could call, and ask Paula for her knowledge, of such maneuvers going on. Broadwell knew more about Benghazi than Susan Rice did…which one went on all the Sunday morning talking head shows? So, when we talk about the war in Syria, should we talk about destroying ISIS, or should we be taking out Assad? If that dilemma of choices weren’t enough, think of all the black market businesses that pop up in a place like that, and there you go….everybody profits.
Putin has accused Obama for shooting down the Russian jet. Apparently, the Russians were providing all their flight-paths to the US and vice versa, based on an agreement between two countries to avoid a clash in the air over Syria.
The US simply passed on this flight path information to Turkey to organize this ambush around the point closest to the Turkish border.
BTW, the Turks did the same to Syria in March 2014, when they shot-down a Syrian jet on the Syrian side of the border and just made up exactly the same story that their territorial integrity was breached.
Finally, you may have noticed one major similarity between MH17 story and the SU-24 story. In the weeks before MH17 was shotdown, the Western MSM were reporting extensively on the Ukrainian rebels shooting down Ukrainian jets. It was prime news as something very important (why would it be?). Then the MH17 shootdown came.
With SU-24 similar. For weeks before, the MSM kept repeating Russian breaches of Turkish airspace, when small brush-offs are quite common (Turkey had 2,400 breaches against Greece in the last 12 months). Thus, the Western MSM made a big fuss about the Russian small brush-offs. Then the Turks shot-down SU-24 even if it did not brush-off the Turkish space, the MSM story became believable: “Turkey got tired of the Russian violations!”
This is called propaganda story preparation.
Here is a VERY important article regarding the recent U.N. Security Council resolution allowing all major parties to intervene in the Syrian/Iraqi region against “Daesh” by Thierry Meyssan:
http://www.voltairenet.org/article189385.html
The entire “routing our of Daesh” will be, in the final analysis, all about creating “Greater Israel”.
Erdogan is proving he is a rotten dictator by arresting top journalists in Turkey for articles detailing Turkey’s supplying weapons to terrorists:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_TURKEY_MEDIA_FREEDOMS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-11-26-16-11-24
Did anyone notice that the plane trajectory, that Turkey insists of (see maps in any BBC article) implies that SU24 crossed the appendix of Turkish territory of less than 3 km wide? Now try to calculate what should be the average speed of the plane in order to fly such distance in claimed 17 seconds = 176 m/s. The plane will have serious problem flying at such speed, plus based on the suggested trajectory plane was going in more or less straight line with likely cruise speed 2-3 times higher depending on altitude
If the jet were traveling at 600km/hr when it crossed the out-pouching of Hatay Province into Syria – very slow for an aircraft of that type, the three kilometers would have been traversed in a mere eighteen seconds: The jet’s velocity could be expressed as 600km/hr x 1000m/km x 1hr/3600sec = 166.7m/sec. It follows that since 3km = 3000m, the transit time was 3000/166.7m/sec = 17.99 seconds. Only a planned provocation could have accomplished the deed in that span of time. The jet was most likely traveling faster, making the Turkish version even more preposterous. A recent Juan Cole article suggests that, while Erdogan objects to the targeting of “moderate” head choppers, the real game afoot was the CIA sponsored smuggling of arms via Turkmen factions which contained embedded Turkish intelligence assets. Once again, the plot comes full circle, and points back to arch-neocons at the Pentagon. But if reports are true, the Russian air force has already sent Erdogan’s proxies on a one way trip to the hereafter.
The ancient saying went: “All roads lead to Rome”, the contemporary saying goes: “All roads lead to Tel Aviv”. But this saying is only a conspiracy theory, of course.
Mike Whitney lays it all out here:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43529.htm
Happy Thanksgiving everybody!! :)
If anyone ever doubted that the joint criminal enterprise called NATO was supporting and directing the terrorist groups in Syria, the same groups, they claim, that conducted the attacks in Paris and on the Russian airliner over Sinai, they now have the proof. Can there be any doubt that this attack on Russian forces in Syria is intended to disrupt the Russian-Syrian campaign against those NATO supported terrorist groups? Can there be any doubt that if they are willing to shoot down one Russian aircraft they are willing to shoot down more? Can there be any doubt that this attack is intended to push Russia to react with counter force against Turkey resulting in a claim by NATO that it is under attack, resulting in a general war?
This attack is intended to both test Russian resolve in Syria and to provoke it into a reaction that will be used to justify further military actions by the Turkish and US military forces against the Russian forces. It was preceded by hysterical claims by NATO leaders that Russia and the Syrian government are the reasons ISIS exists and calling for action against both. It was preceded by the sudden appearance of the refugee crisis in Europe and then the attacks in Sinai and Paris and the constant fear raising alerts in Belgium, Germany, Britain and the United States.
Just days before this attack, Russia was subjected to the sabotage of the electric power lines connecting Crimea with the Ukraine electricity grid that the Kiev regime has not attempted to repair, cutting off power to Crimea at the same time as shelling of the Donbass republics increased, accompanied by a build up of Kiev forces in the region. Who would be surprised if Crimea also found itself subject to further sabotage and then shelling by the Kiev forces pushing Russia on this front as well, to react to defend its territory, again testing its resolve?
The only reaction from the NATO countries on Tuesday was to call an emergency meeting and it has to be asked if they knew this attack was coming since none of the NATO leaders has so far condemned Turkey’s action and it is logical to assume that the order for the attack came from Washington, desperate to save its terrorist proxy forces in Syria from being annihilated by the joint Syrian-Russian campaign against ISIS. No doubt the order was to seek a target of opportunity, bring it down, and see what happens, what Russia will do in response.
Whatever Russia does it will be serious but necessarily measured in order to avoid a general war in the Middle East. But act it will.
NATO Attack On Russian Air Forces: Reasons and Consequences
By Christopher Black
http://journal-neo.org/2015/11/26/nato-attack-on-russian-air-forces-reasons-and-consequences/
Can’t thank you enough for this site and your articles, Mr. Parry – esp. https://consortiumnews.com/2015/11/19/tangled-threads-of-us-false-narratives/, Nat Parry’s https://consortiumnews.com/2015/11/20/the-war-on-terror-has-been-lost/ and Sam Husseini’s https://consortiumnews.com/2015/11/22/ducking-the-issue-of-perpetual-war/ should be sent to all presidential candidates, and as a helping Natylie Baldwin’s https://consortiumnews.com/2015/11/19/how-russians-see-the-west-and-russia/
Hopefully there is somebody doing this – maybe you, Mr. McGovern..?
I was writing bits and pieces for a long comment on this article, but now I lack the time to bring it into order, maybe later. But I’d like to throw in two tidbits I found, and ask what you all think about them.
I keep coming across the name McCain when it’s about US mischief in Syria, and pondering who “elements in Nato” (which I was about to mention in this way) might be, the name Breedlove comes to mind.
Upon googling them in context, I found just what I was looking for, no idea about the veracity of the source, which quotes unnamed sources in its turn, but here goes:
“Erdogan’s insane actions were done in consultation, according to sources, with Senator John McCain, unsuccessful presidential candidate and current head of the Senate Armed Forces Committee. McCain is said to have made assurances to Turkey that NATO commander, General Phillip Breedlove, would “personally†extend the protection of American strategic nuclear forces over Turkey if a direct confrontation with Russia ensued.
McCain assured Erdogan, according to sources, that the Pentagon was ready to move against Obama and that Russia, knowing this, would back down. What Erdogan fails to grasp, however, is that McCain, rumored to be increasingly mentally unstable, represents a groups of “End Times†religious extremists which include Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and all but two of the huge field of Republican presidential candidates to whom nuclear apocalypse has long been a goal.
http://theinternationalreporter.org/2015/11/24/syria-updates-24th-november-part-2/
Here’s another interesting tidbit suggesting McCain machinations, supposedly an intercept of a conversation of October 29. by something calling itself Ukrainian Wikileaks, here part of the transcript:
“Mikhail Saakashvili: “Let him come in!
Sit down, David! Everything should be done on time, as we discussed. You understand the importance of everything! Wait a second, I will turn on anti-surveillance.
McCain confirmed the plan, everything is in place so you know. We got cover from the US Senate. In Syria, Russians must be hit, or else if Russians and Americans fundamentally agree, they will really dump Ukraine. Donbass is on conservation, project Transnistria is suspended. If it goes on, we are done! We should speed things up in Syria!
Have you prepared our guys?”
David Kezerashvili [former head of financial police and minister of defense of Georgia. Wanted for embezzling state funds]: “Yes, everything is done. Today, they fly to Antalya and then go to Syria.
They received good training and will tear everything with their spirit. These are our Kistintsy (Georgian Chechens living in the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia), tough guys. Ramzan Machelikashvili was appointed a commander, all four obey him. They shoot from all weapons, they are anti-aircraft professionals. They are waiting for specific instructions…””
http://fortruss.blogspot.de/2015/10/ukrainian-wikileaks-mccain-and.html
If these specific allegations are true or not – I find it extremely disconcerting, that people, who seriously want to bring about the ‘Rapture’ by way of pulling the whole world into war around Megiddo, have anything resembling political and/or military power, let alone be the head of the US Senate Armed Forces Committee.
When I wasn’t yet overly interested in politics, but debating theists for the fun of it years ago, I kept thinking – well – you got to pray a bit harder if you want Russia fighting in your endtime-scenario in the Middle East.
Little did I know…
There are some indications that the Russian intelligence is blaming the CIA-MIT link for the shoot-down of the Russian bomber. They appear to speculate that neither Recep and Bilal Erdogan, nor Ahmet Davutoglu have given the order (no matter what their statements were).
CIA controls the Turkish “Intelligence” MIT, which organized the F16 flight and this pre-prepared provocation. Why? They appear not sure.
It could have been to sabotage the Turkish Stream.
It could have been to weaken Turkey, by getting Russia to support the Kurds instead of the US.
It could have been just to increase tensions.
And so on.
What is even more interesting is that MIT may have also organized the Paris attack, much like they organised the Oct 10 bombing of the peace rally in Ankara. Both attacks could have been executed through MIT’s excellent influence/control over ISIS.
With CIA being controlled by the neocon/ziocon, we come a full-circle US deep state “conspiracy theory”.
Makes perfect sense. Erdogan’s posturing has “patsy” written all over it. In fact, he’s such a perfect patsy that he seems happy they made him look like he’s got a “pair”. So called “conspiracy theories” wouldn’t be so tempting if it were not for the ineptitude with which “official” narratives are constructed.
Poroshenko, the perfect “patsy”, seems happy they made him look like he’s got a “pairâ€.
Hollande, the perfect “patsy”, seems happy they made him look like he’s got a “pairâ€.
It’s a well-known “conspiracy theory” that Merkel’s got a “pair”.
Since the “Iron Lady”, no one yet has found a way to make a Prime Minister of the United Kingdom look like he’s got a “pair”.
The neocons spent eight years stuffing an inflatable “pair” into Dubya’s flight suit.
Then comes crypto-neocon President “Hope”, who’s perfectly happy validating the “official†narrative that he hasn’t got a “pair”.
Don’t you think that Hitlary has already been allocated a good “pair” by the MSM? Unlike President Barry “Hope” who has even been left out of the memo loop on the shoot-down. I would not call him a crypto-neocon, maybe a non-entity past his use-by date, waiting for his comfi retirement, Nobel Peace Prize under the arm. Barry will be regularly circumvented from now on and on a few good occasions will be given some talking points with his opinions about events.
First of all, I am Russian citizen and living here. Guys, I am thanking all of you again for your clear mind. Thanks to this resource again, mr. Parry… As for S-400, I wouldn’t have been so sure saying that F-22 and F-35 “can operate safely inside a zone protected by the weapon for any length of time”. If so, please, go ahead and defame these stupid Russians, fly over it and all these stupid talks would be over. Why would not do that? Maybe because it is false like many other shit running from Western media. Don’t be afraid, we are just barbarians and all of us drink Vodka with the trained domestic bear. Especially our spacemen, they adore Vodka on space station World.
Sorry, if you somewhere got me wrong, but all hatred about Russians really annoying. Really hate West for their dividing of people, I mean Je Suis Paris, but not Donetsk, A321, Kenia, Syria, Libya, Iraq and many others people killed by reasons created by West. Reminds nazi, isn’t it? Fashington! Fucking hypocricy. I have read another one article here “How Russians See the West and Russia”, by Natylie Baldwin. Thanks to her too. If you have any question about gays or any other shit theme, I am happy to answer at least for my city. Wanted to throw up some thoughts in Natylie article, but refused. Already wear out of this shit from spreading from the West. We are sitting here, in Russia, doing absolutely nothing to anyone and all this crap and hatred keeps running and running from West side. That was, that is now and that will be.
I guess it was Russia who did identified USA as nation. Seeing what USA is doing now, how dragging the World to the disaster, it probably was the biggest mistake ever made.
With France joining the fray, a truly stunning scenario could emerge where Turkey shoots down a French plane.
If Putin could engineer that, you would have to take your hat off.
Putin says, “How you like me now, biatches?”
Russia’s deployment of the S-400 Triumf surface-to-air missile defense system in Syria will complicate both American and Turkish air operations.
Once the powerful system is deployed, only the American F-22, F-35 and B-2 stealth aircraft can operate safely inside a zone protected by the weapon for any length of time.
Russia is also moving the missile cruiser Moskva, which is armed with a naval version of the S-300 Fort(Rif-M)Â missile system, to the Syrian coast near the Turkish border.
In addition, all Russian strike aircraft will be escorted by fighters.
Get Ready: Russia’s Lethal S-400 Air Defense System Is Headed to Syria
By Dave Majumdar
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/payback-russias-lethal-s-400-air-defense-system-headed-syria-14446
Well, President Erdogan is not the smartest man.
President of Turkey Blackout Drunk When Russian Plane Downed
http://www.theniladmirari.com/2015/11/president-of-turkey-recep-tayyip-erdogan-was-blackout-drunk-when-he-ordered-russian-plane-downed.html
The Nil Admirari: America’s Most Swell News Source.
Don’t miss http://www.theniladmirari.com/2015/11/republican-presidential-candidiate-donald-trump-burns-actual-us-constitution-as-supporters-chant-u-s-a.html
Of course, if I use Obama’s rational in defending Turkey, “Turkey, like every country, has a right to defend its territory and its airspace.†and then apply that to Syria then I am sure that Mr. Obama would have no complaints if Assad in Syria shot down an American plane (or any of the coalition of 65 countries) since the US (and coalition) are breaking international law by bombing in Syria in the first place. Also, if the Russian aircraft did indeed enter Turkish airspace for “17 seconds”, as I believe WikiLeaks is reporting as well, then I don’t know how they contacted the pilot 10 times (unless it was well in advance of Turkish airspace). Anyway, I just think that if the western world keeps poking Russia then eventually it is not going to like the outcome – though Putin is very smart so maybe he will not rush to retaliate but rather wait.
As for Mike H. above, I bet he fell for all of the Iraq lies hook, line and sinker. Mike H., surely you do know that the U.S. government spreads propaganda – right? If not, we can take a look at what we know is factually true such as radiation killing many people after the dropping of the atomic bombs or maybe even the Gulf of Tonkin incident meanwhile looking at the newspapers of record such as the New York Times or the Washington Post (maybe we could add in some US backed coups and see also how the newspapers responded – Iran 1953, attempt in Venezuela 2002 etc.).
“this month’s Paris terror attacks by Islamic State jihadists also have forced European officials…”
Kind of surprising to see Parry buying the idea that ISIS organized the attacks in Paris.
There have only been un-named “intelligence” sources making these claims. And ISIS itself only provided after the fact congratulations:
Funny how Mr Parry always gives the Russians (and before them the Soviets) the benefit of the doubt on this kind of stuff.
Look back on what Parry wrote about the shoot down of KAL 007:
Which from a later interview with the Soviet pilot is a load of manure. The Soviet pilot knew it was a civilian 747 and no issues identifying it as such: “I saw two rows of windows and knew that this was a Boeing. I knew this was a civilian plane. But for me this meant nothing.”
Just how much is the Kremlin paying you Mr Parry?
So the fact that KAL 007 was way off course and had already over flown a Soviet air base, and clearly had done things to avoid radar and Soviet planes means nothing?
And there’s been some things added to that Soviet pilot quotation, he did not know it a Boeing.
In all likelihood some party in the Reagan admin wanted the Soviets to turn on new big radar, so they sent the plane off course on purpose.
The quote from the Soviet pilot is a direct quote .. you could look it up and not look like an idiot. It did not fly over an airbase, it was nearly 100 nm from Dolinsk-Sokol. Nothing could be done to a commercial aircraft to alter its radar cross signature.
Mike, I have looked at transcripts, and the pilot said nothing like he knew it a civilian aircraft.
You can’t assume no one has looked into this event from 30 years ago.
The plane crossed one air base, this is where the Soviets first failed to intercept it. And later the plane most certainly changed altitude rather drastically.
You don’t appear to know much about subject.
In some ways the lies you’re spouting are similar to the ones the Soviets told at the time. “We did not shoot down an airliner”. That Soviet lie undercut their later perfectly legitimate objections.
Yeah, you looked it up twice for us, Mikey, and you still look like an idiot.
Mike H has a record of talking trash about Consortium News.
Sorry champ, but that’s still bullsh*t.
Mikey’s so lazy, he simply recycled his previous attempt to smear Ray McGovern (see July 21, 2014 comment at https://consortiumnews.com/2014/07/18/facts-needed-on-malaysian-plane-shoot-down/ )
The four sentences written by McGovern (not Parry) were entirely accurate, including the quotation from Alvin A. Snyder’s book, Warriors of Disinformation.
Here are the facts. In a 1991 interview with Izvestia, Major Genadi Osipovich, pilot of the Su-15 interceptor aircraft that shot the 747 down, spoke about his recollections of the events leading up to the shootdown: “I saw two rows of windows and knew that this was a Boeing. I knew this was a civilian plane. But for me this meant nothing. It is easy to turn a civilian type of plane into one for military use.” The Soviet pilot clearly believed that Korean Air Lines Flight 007 was a military provocation.
Mike H is a double failure as a disinformation warrior. Ain’t they payin’ you enough, Mikey?
Cheer up, champ. I hear Bellingcat is hiring. They’re flush with cash these days, and Eliot Higgins obviously needs lots of help verifying stuff. If your geolocation skills are as good as your reading skills, Mikey, you’ll fit right in at Bellingcat.
Abe:
That’s interesting, but that’s not what he, the fighter pilot, said in 1983, and I’ve read the transcripts, in a book published in 1986. The pilot most certainly did not call it a Boeing or mention seating in the transcripts of the radio intercepts from 1983.
Clearly by 1991, the Soviets had settled on the idea that it was a provocation, likely designed to probe a new radar further inland. And that’s a perfectly good conclusion.
You are correct, Jay. The omission of the identity of KAL 007 as a Boeing by Osipovich in 1983 is evident in the communications subsequently released by the Russian Federation with the combat controller, Captain Titovnin.
In 1991, Osipovich said he did not provide a detailed description of the aircraft to his ground controllers: “I did not tell the ground that it was a Boeing-type plane; they did not ask me.”
The bottom line is that the article by Ray McGovern (not Robert Parry) contained accurate statements, and Mikey’s “Just how much is the Kremlin paying you…” slur is idiotic on its face.
Mike H.… have you ever read about the US shooting down Iranian Flight 655 which killed 290 passengers in, I believe, Iranian airspace. Did you know that U.S. Navy captain (Vinciennes), Will Rogers III, mistook the Airbus for an F-14 fighter jet? Here are links to a photo of an F14 and then the Airbus A300 that the Iranians were on:
F14:
http://www.photosjunction.com/photo/1824.aspx#.VlZZhYTvMjw
Airbus A300:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A300#/media/File:Libyan_Arab_Airbus_A300_JPTA.jpg
God knows these two airplanes look so much alike – I hope you are getting the sarcasm. So I wonder if you had or would have had the same criticism of US media or of the Captain of the Vincennes? And if not then what does that make you coming here and spewing insults?
“I saw two rows of windows and knew that this was a Boeing.”
Taken from a John Birch Society website. What crazy rubbish.
Stopping ISIS at its Source – Turkey, The Persian Gulf, and NATO Itself
All of the Paris attackers, likewise, passed through Turkey on their way to train, arm, and fight in Syria, and then through Turkey again on their way back to Europe. The tons of weapons and hundreds of fighters shipped covertly to Syria by the US in the Libyan terrorist capital of Benghazi also arrived first in Turkish ports before proceeding on, apparently with the knowledge and cooperation of the Turkish government.
This means, to cut ISIS’ lifelines, one must start in Turkey itself where tons of weapons, supplies, and thousands of fighters are staging, training, and passing through on their way to Syria. For Russia, Syria, and Iran, to attempt to interdict these supply lines within NATO territory would be considered an act of war. For NATO itself to fail in interdicting these supply lines, for years as this conflict raged, is a concerted, intentional campaign of state-sponsored terrorism.
It can likewise be argued that in addition to Turkey, and to a lesser extent Jordan to Syria’s south, the Persian Gulf dictatorships of Saudi Arabia and Qatar also constitute the “source” of ISIS and other terror groups waging war inside Syria. Instead of putting pressure on these regimes, or placing sanctions on them, let alone carrying out military operations within their borders to stem the tide of cash and weapons flowing to ISIS and other terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq, the West, including the United States and France itself, have signed lucrative weapon deals worth billions of dollars.
For Saudi Arabia, it has received munitions from the US to continue its little-talked-about war in Yemen, in which its soldiers are fighting alongside Al Qaeda and ISIS fighters who appear to be serving the role as auxiliaries – holding territory cleared by heavily mechanized Saudi and United Arab Emirate troops.
Fighting ISIS at its source, for the West, means putting the blade to its own throat. It is clearly responsible for the rise and perpetuation of this terrorist group – not through the mere consequences of its actions, but through an intentional, concerted effort to create a formidable proxy army to wage its wars in the Middle East and North Africa with.
If Westerners are wondering why, despite attacks on Western soil, and alleged military campaigns predicated on these provocations setting out to eradicate ISIS, the terrorist organization not only still survives, but is thriving, the answer is – the West has no intention of eradicating it.
ISIS is not only destined to divide and destroy Syria and Iraq. If the West has its way, the terrorist organization is destined to move into Iran, the Caucasus region of southern Russia, and Central Asia next. It is a proxy army built atop of what the United States and Saudi Arabia accomplished with Al Qaeda starting in the 1980’s, which itself was merely a continuation of the British Empire’s use of Wahabbi fanatics to overthrow its Ottoman rivals over a century ago.
When the West calls this a “long war,” they mean it. And it will be longer still until the people of the West realize their governments aren’t waging a “War on Terror,” they are waging a “War of Terror.”
Why the West Won’t Hit ISIS Where it Hurts
By Tony Cartalucci
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2015/11/why-west-wont-hit-isis-where-it-hurts.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/26/world/europe/turkey-russia-jet.html
November 25, 2015
Navigator of Downed Russian Plane Says He Was Given No Warning
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
MOSCOW — The Russian navigator who parachuted out of a warplane shot down by Turkey said on Wednesday that there had been no warning before a missile slammed into the aircraft, giving him and the pilot no time to dodge the missile.
The navigator, Capt. Konstantin V. Murakhtin, was rescued by special forces troops who followed his radio beacon and negotiated his release from the insurgents who were holding him.
“There were no warnings from either the radio channel or visually, there was no contact at all,†he told the Interfax news agency from the Russian air base outside Latakia, Syria. The pilot, Lt. Col. Oleg A. Peshkov, was killed by ground fire from insurgents as his parachute descended.
Captain Murakhtin’s account directly contradicted that of Turkish officials, who said the pilots had been warned 10 times in five minutes not to transgress into Turkish airspace, even the sliver of territory that the plane crossed in 17 seconds. The Russians have been adamant that the warplane was shot down over Syria, not Turkey. It crashed about two and a half miles from the border, Russia said, and the pilots parachuted into Syrian territory.
Captain Murakhtin said that he and Colonel Peshkov had stuck to their combat flight plan and were flying their bomber in “normal mode†when the attack occurred….
Personally, I’m wondering if this incident was actually instigated or encouraged by the U.S.
Well, it WAS a U.S. F-16 jet that did the deed.
Supposedly the sale of these jets to Turkey included an agreement of “when” they could be “legally” used. (Google it)
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/26/world/europe/turkey-russia-jet.html
November 25, 2015
Navigator of Downed Russian Plane Says He Was Given No Warning
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
MOSCOW — The Russian navigator who parachuted out of a warplane shot down by Turkey said on Wednesday that there had been no warning before a missile slammed into the aircraft, giving him and the pilot no time to dodge the missile.
The navigator, Capt. Konstantin V. Murakhtin, was rescued by special forces troops who followed his radio beacon and negotiated his release from the insurgents who were holding him.
“There were no warnings from either the radio channel or visually, there was no contact at all,†he told the Interfax news agency from the Russian air base outside Latakia, Syria. The pilot, Lt. Col. Oleg A. Peshkov, was killed by ground fire from insurgents as his parachute descended.
Captain Murakhtin’s account directly contradicted that of Turkish officials, who said the pilots had been warned 10 times in five minutes not to transgress into Turkish airspace, even the sliver of territory that the plane crossed in 17 seconds. The Russians have been adamant that the warplane was shot down over Syria, not Turkey. It crashed about two and a half miles from the border, Russia said, and the pilots parachuted into Syrian territory.
Captain Murakhtin said that he and Colonel Peshkov had stuck to their combat flight plan and were flying their bomber in “normal mode†when the attack occurred.
Given the speed at which they were traveling, he said, the F-16 should have flown a parallel course as a standard visual warning, the navigator said. “There was not even a threat of crossing into Turkey,†Captain Murakhtin said….
But Obama, during the news conference, seemed more interested in demonstrating his disdain for Putin, referring to him at one point by his last name only, without the usual use of a courtesy title, and demeaning the size of Putin’s coalition in helping Syria battle the jihadist rebels
Sour grapes?
A forgotten incident that never made it into the mainstream press took place on October 6 and 7, 2015, lasting from 2-4 minutes — Turkish military helicopters violated Armenian airspace. Turks claimed it was due to bad weather. It was not bad weather but was a tit-for-tat reaction to their claim that Russian jets strayed into Turkish airspace days earlier. I guess Armenia is as close as Turkey gets to “Russian air space.” See RFE/RL report: http://www.azatutyun.am/content/article/27299112.html.
Nobody cared last month about this violation and look at Turkish arrogance today!
Yerevan, Armenia
Mr. Parry’s article is not naive nor Obama apologia, but subtly written. The theme is clear: provocation of Russia in a context of exiitential threat to Russia leading to WW3. After Abe jumped on me yesterday for being an End Times Crazy I realized my William S Burroughs style routines are not working, so I will have to direct. The U.S. Propertied Class is absolutely serious in its goal of world hegemony. There are only two obstacles left: Russia and China. But Russia and China cannot be invaded, it would be disaster for the invader. Therefore Russia and China must be drawn out from their secure, easily defensible home territory into an area where it will be extremely difficult for them to resupply and very easy for the United States to resupply, then clobbered so the two obstacles go down and stay down. There is no other way to do it so this is how it will be done. This why the Armageddon Myth is useful as a Practical Plan. Armageddon is the right spot to crush Russia and China and ;since a big bunch of religious loonies believe the Final Battle is prophesied for this spot they can be harnessed to help the Practical Plan along.
Late last night and into this morning, even the state/corporate establishment media are now conceding that the Turkmen terrorists were 1.) of course in Syria at the time they shot down the Russian jet, 2.) shot the Russian fighter jet while the Russian jet was in Syrian airspace, and 3.) the downed pilot landed in Syrian territory. Given these facts, it appears the Turks are clearly attacking a force (Russia) that is actively fighting terrorism.
If you recall, right when the incident happened yesterday morning, the state/corporate media were essentially saying that the Russian jet was flying in Turkish airspace. To this point, one almost wants to scream, “So what? The Russians are the strongest and most effective force fighting the terrorist lunatics made up of AlQaeda, al Nusra, and ISIL. Is Turkey on board in the fight against these head chopping madmen or not?!”
Thierry Meyssan, of voltairenet.org, reported how Erdogan, was visually effected, by Putin’s demands at the G20 conference held in Antayla Turkey, that ISIS oil tankers be destroyed. These oil tankers are owned by Erdogan’s son Bilal, so by bombing these ISIS oil tankers, is as good as messing with the Erdogan family business.
Obama, who defended Turkey’s actions, by his stating, how every country has a right to defend it’s own air space, was just downright indifferent. Obama, went on to say, how the U.S. Coalition had a total of 65 countries belonging too it, while the other side Russia and Iran were only a coalition of two. While, to some this may sound like overwhelming evidence that the U.S. has much more power than Russia and Iran, it also begs to ask the question, that if you have 65 countries worth of muscle, then what in the world have you been doing in Syria/Iraq for the last five years? Maybe the truth is, this is all about taking out Assad. So, is this a coalition of 65 countries plus one, and the one being ISIS.
Gordon Duff at VeteransToday is claiming John McCain is somewhere in this mix of things. Duff is saying McCain gave Erdogan the orders to shoot down any Russian plane coming close to Turkey’s border. I’m not sure if I believe that, but it would not be beyond believable to at least consider a McCain/Erdogan relationship of this sort. I personally believe how a leader such as Erdogan appears to be, that he would not necessarily need any coaching to his issuing such a devastating order, as too shooting down a Russian plane. Remember the blown up oil tankers, by God the Erdogan family business.
America is without a doubt on the wrong side of things. Between America’s involvement in Ukraine, to all of it’s endeavors in the Middle East, there is nothing worth being proud about. If you take into consideration what all America is doing off the coast of China, then you will surely give yourself a headache. And what will good Americans get for all this war, but more corporate slanted trade agreements, that will only leave more Americans out of the loop of sharing in the American Dream.
Turkey is smart enough not to provoke Russia without having premeditated the entire thing with its friends within NATO. Mr. Stoltenberg had his speech ready and rehearsed before the incident was even investigated. It seems that Mr Erdogan could no longer take the pressure from his allies and finally decided to become the obedient schoolboy NATO wants its members to be, rather than the loose Russia-friendly cannon it was. Apparently Mrs. Merkel’s present was rather convincing. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/10/turkey-european-union-refugee-deal-no-winners-elections.html
The dark side of the Moon it seems, must sometimes face the Sun.
The Earth revolves and phases change predictably and so redeems
The strong belief that holds to notions made of dreams that fade
Beyond the memory when shadows cast and darkness has begun.
Promises ring hollow now and then, but on the journey’s trail remain
The markers which in retrospect, intentions laid the path to follow
Were mistaken in a moment fraught with pride and callow plans
Betrayed The Truth that wiser men would counsel to abstain.
The man who would assume the crown must first have been a prince.
The king would deign to sire one whose character would fail to groom
A legacy that might endure would loom among the first concerns
Availing future destinies a prideful king endeavors to evince.
But if a jester should pretend and somehow sit upon the throne,
The rule applies transparently, and ramparts made of glass depend
That royal palace etiquette must not offend, transgress or strip away
The robes that cloak and glorify the fool who must not ever throw a stone.
Fractured stands the Caliphate, internal tension fuels the babble,
Fraud and internecine deeds abound and posture to calumniate
Inciting those who otherwise might hesitate to take the chance,
It festers and that purulence inflames the sores among the rabble.
The jester king must now rely on Byzantine alliances
Whose motives Breed no Love, their strategies imply
A tortured journey paved with Ash, will lead him to ignominy
Upon a vain and specious throne appointed by contrivances.
Revenge is savored sweetly when it isn’t served in haste.
He who holds his stone and waits is wise to act discreetly.
Shadows creeping hide completely retrospective signs of war.
Four Empires fell at once and Europe’s kings have never been replaced.
Sages warn to savor redress and to chill the serving plate.
The jester king will have his turn, as shrewder plans progress,
The robes and crown that do impress have coddled his delusion.
Now is but to wait and see the nature of his fate.
Pretentious pawns, usurper kings are cautiously regarded.
Once their purpose has been served and realization dawns,
The die is cast and no one fawns when reckoning approaches.
Betrayed alliance fills the ranks that Empire has discarded.
Comes the dark of night and stench of war but not too soon.
The dish served chilled may offer some intractable delight.
That Empire’s day has been a blight is twilight asking softly,
Does daylight ever beckon to the dark side of the Moon?
It’s been awhile since I’ve spent that much time on a poem.
“HuHuh! I was in the right!”
“Yes, absolutely in the right!”
“I certainly was in the right!”
“You was definitely in the right. That geezer was cruising for a bruising!”
Pink Floyd – “Money” from The Dark Side of the Moon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0kcet4aPpQ
What have we here, laddie?
Mysterious scribblings?
A secret code?
No!
Poems, no less!
Poems, everybody!
[classroom laughs]
The laddie reckons himself a poet!
“Money, get back / I’m all right, Jack / Keep your hands off my stack / New car / Caviar / Four-star daydream / Think I’ll buy me a football team.”
[slams the book onto Pink’s desk]
Absolute rubbish, laddie.
[whacks Pink with a ruler]
Get on with your work.
Pink Floyd – The Wall (with Turkish subtitles)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2OLu8zi7cI
I agree that obama displays a real visceral hatred of president Putin and Russia.
He and his staff like josh earnest always speak in derogatory terms about Putin.
It really stands out and obama comes across as on the same low level as the no different to the Horror show that is the republican candidates and Hillary Clinton.
I don’t speak Russian but I take the time to actually listen and view speeches and interviews given by Putin. He is very smart and his thoughts and the way he expresses himself is very clear and organised. Right now he is no doubt thinking of what to do about Turkey and we will all be side swiped by the outcome. Just as Europe was by the food embargo which shock them and really hurt there most vulnerable sector.
Putin is not one to cut of his nose to spite his face, he leaves that to Ukraine
Also with regards to NATO – more analysis is needed of that statement of support which amounted to nothing.
Those Eastern european members, even Poland would not join a war for Turkey. They know Erdogan caused the refugee crisis and supports ISIL.
Putin Laughs Off Obama At G20 Summit: “He’s A Child…He’s A Child.â€
When images of Barack Obama shaking hands with President-host Erdogan flashed across one of the many monitors placed throughout the G20 summit it proved further fodder for rebuke by the Russian strongman, who then pointed to a monitor while shaking his head at the sight of the widely smiling and seemingly passive American president.
“He’s a child…he’s a child!â€
Mr. Putin’s attitude toward ISIS is no laughing matter, though. He remains intent on that group’s ultimate destruction and has set out to do just that, waging an air war that has already dwarfed anything the Obama policy has undertaken over the last eighteen months since the president declared his intent to “contain†the ISIS threat.
Just a day prior to the Paris terror attacks President Obama again said publicly that ISIS was contained. That opinion is said to have been repeated among various world leaders as they meet in Turkey, only lessening Mr. Obama’s already plummeting significance on the world stage.
And where Obama was often seen laughing and giggling while being photographed, Putin’s demeanor grew increasingly serious as he was greeted by one fellow world leader after another.
http://dcwhispers.com/putin-laughs-off-obama-at-g20-summit-hes-a-child-hes-a-child/
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/where-russian-tourists-will-and-won-t-go-in-2015/517836.html despite a huge downturn in Russian tourism this year,Turkish resorts had bucked the trend,package holidays there being somewhat cheaper.
Russians en masse will henceforth make alternative arrangements.This will really hit the Turkish economy hard. I also have a hunch,that Assad will choose to announce his retirement through a transition at a coming timely moment over the next few weeks ….this is the ace in the hole.
It would be nice if you could state your policy disagreements and leave the derogatory nicknames in junior high, where they belong. It only makes you sound petty.
Please, stop with the ridiculous defense of Obomber that you posit. Isn’t it clear by now that he is not just placating the neocons? He is one of them. He loathes Putin and Russia. He uses every opportunity to trash talk Putin and to threaten Russia or its interests. He’s acted like a warmonger ever since receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. He wipes his rear not only with the US constitution but with the UN Charter. Frankly, I am coming to the conclusion that he is an out and out racist, certainly an illogical ruthless bigot. He is certainly a hypocrite in repeatedly condemning Russia for the very things that America does with impunity, such as crossing international borders to inflict damage on other countries. The really bad news is that Hillary and all the Republican presidential candidates are even worse in their bellicosity towards Russia, as are, I might add, nearly the entire clown college that is the U.S. Congress.
i think all Nato-Members are under extern control and blackmailed. USA, Germany and Turkey too, French has been forced in line too, now.
The zionist Mob wants total Control, either with their total Annihilation with their Samsonoption (Armageddon) oder total Control under their NWO.
Putin will hopefully keep his cool.
Russia cannot retaliate against Turkey militarily because that would mean war with NATO. But it can hurt Turkeys economy.
Until now Turkey and Russia have managed to keep their political disputes away from the substantial economic relations. But Erdogan in the last weeks made references to possible sanctions against Russia. He said, that Turkey could stop its natural gas purchases from Russia, which supplies more than 56 percent of Turkey’s needs, and award the building of the 20 billion US$ Akkuyu nuclear power station to another, non-Russian contractor.
BOTASS, Turkey’s state-owned gas and oil trader, has asked the ICC (International Chamber of Commerce) to arbitrate in an emerging pricing dispute about gas. Turkish Energy Ministry officials told journalists, “We had agreed with Russia on a 10.25 percent discount, and this has not been put in effect due to various excuses. We are confident that we will get this discount through arbitration.â€
Surprisingly Russia instantly took preemptive measures and stopped issuing transit passage documents to trucks carrying Turkey’s exports to Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Mongolia. Gazprom turned down a Turkish request for an additional 3 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2016 and declared that it will cut by half the capacity of the proposed 16 billion US$ Turkish Stream natural gas pipeline project or even postpone the project.
Russia further exerts pressure by stiffening its inspections of Turkish foodstuffs and making border crossings more tedious. By rejecting tons of Turkish fruits and vegetables, Russia has been warning that it is capable of inflicting severe damage to Turkey’s exports.
The number of Russian tourists to Turkey has declined even before the downing of the SU-24 because of Western sanctions against Russia, and the decline accelerated after the IS bomb attacks in Suruc and Ankara. It is hard to imagine that any Russian citizen will now want to visit Turkey.
Erdogan’s economic threats as a reaction to Russian operations in Syria will likely become more substantial. But the natural gas agreement between Turkey and Russia is a long-term one that requires Turkey to keep paying for gas even if it stops importing gas.
The bilateral agreement on the Akkuyu nuclear power station was signed and approved by the Turkish parliament. If Turkey decides to halt the project or award the contract to another company, it has to convene the parliament to abrogate the agreement and it will have to pay heavy compensation.
After the SU-24 incident Russia’s main stock index fell more than two percent, while Turkish stocks fell more than four percent. Both the ruble and lira currencies were weaker.
Turkeys economy is vulnerable and the relentless war against the Kurdish PKK has been a disincentive to potential foreign investors. Turkey has reason to fear higher US interest rates because it has borrowed heavily in US$, and it imports much more than it exports.
The lira has already fallen about 17 percent against the Dollar this year. A move by the US Fed to raise rates could further boost the Dollar, making Turkey’s imports a lot more expensive. The cost of servicing Turkey’s short term foreign debt of nearly 125 billion US$, or roughly 8 percent of GDP, would also rise.
Despite increasing inflation and pressure on the currency, Turkeys central bank has kept interest rates unchanged for most of the year. The government is strongly opposed to higher borrowing costs because it is worried about the impact on consumers.
Russia simply has to wait till the chickens come home to roost. The volatility in the worlds financial markets reminds of 2008. The 1.4 quadrillion US$ derivative time bomb is ticking. Sovereign gold reserves in the Manhattan (NY Fed) and London vaults are “over leveraged†(meaning stolen). China stock market turmoil, global bond market insecurity, commodity glut (oil, wheat, metals), everybody is rushing to make a killing before the house of cards finally crushes with nothing left than barter, scavenging, neighbors help, subsistence.
Don’t even talk about US deteriorating infrastructure, growing poverty (food stamps, homelessness, the (un)affordable care act), mind boggling amounts of private and public debt, increasing social tension (black lives (don’t) matter, mass shootings).
Russia’s economy will decline too and Russians will have to scale back and live more modest. But if Putin continues to dismantle the oligarchs fiefdoms and if he can overcome obstruction by the liberal faction under Sberbank CEO German (Herman) Gref, Russia will be stable while the Western consumer economies will descend into chaos.
This is the big game and compared with that the reckless and illegal shooting of the SU-24 is a minor annoyance. It is a tragedy for the killed soldiers and a war crime because they were helpless and didn’t pose any threat. They will be remembered as heroes.
Russian media will have to inform the world public about Turkish support for terrorism. There is so much undeniable evidence that it should not be difficult to make this case. Russia has to publish a detailed documentation (The Terrorism Black Book) about Turkish support for terror organizations and distribute it globally.
Putin finally has to put the gloves off, otherwise Erdogan will make a fool out of him, but he has to keep the big game in the back of his mind and pursue the big strategy undeterred.
Excellent!
Putin has trained and practiced since age eleven “to keep his cool.” I can’t know that he will win, but I’m pretty sure he won’t lose his cool. He is reported to have an unusual mental ability to focus acutely and rapidly re-focus his attention, over and over in rapid succession, which explains how he is able to make such outstanding speeches and interviews under such intense circumstances of scrutiny and attack — and his inordinately accurate communications. He disallows himself the luxury of emotion when it might interfere with those necessities (requirements of his job), but he maintains his certain rules of ethics, which accounts for a consistency not often witnessed in “world leaders.” In short, I think your “hopefully” is well invested in this case.
Putin laughing at journalist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laxr5ZgPV68
Excellent summation! Thank you!
This scenario is beginning to sound like the start of WW ONE.
We need to find a Presidential candidate who has sons of military age. Better yet, require those candidates to have THEIR children enlist in our military.
That was the point of Heinlein’s “Starship Troopers.” If you haven’t served in the military, you haven’t earned the “right” to vote.
To put this latest attack on a Russian plane into perspective; according to a Business Insider article published last July “In the first month of 2014 alone, Turkish aircraft allegedly violated Greek airspace 1,017 times … ”
This is hardly a good sign when it’s taken into account they’re on the same side. NATO members and neighbours Greece and Turkey have longstanding disputes over their borders.
But to highlight the blatant hypocrisy of ErdoÄŸan further, when Syria shot down a Turkish jet that had strayed into Syrian territory, a BBC article from June 2012 reported ErdoÄŸan as sayng:
“A short-term border violation can never be a pretext for an attack,” giving the excuse that the Turkish jet had been on a training flight.
He went on to say that Turkey was adopting a “common sense” attitude, but that “shouldn’t be perceived as a weakness”.
http://www.businessinsider.com/turkish-and-greek-jets-engaged-in-dogfight-2015-7
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-18598529
Israeli Colonel Caught with IS Pants Down
By F. William Engdahl
http://journal-neo.org/2015/11/25/israeli-colonel-caught-with-is-pants-down/
Why Israel wants Assad Out
In December, 2014 the Jerusalem Post in Israel reported the findings of a largely ignored, and politically explosive report detailing UN sightings of Israeli military together with ISIS terrorist combatants. The UN peacekeeping force, UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), stationed since 1974 along the Golan Heights border between Syria and Israel, revealed that Israel had been working closely with Syrian opposition terrorists, including Al Qaeda’s Al Nusra Front and IS in the Golan Heights, and “kept close contact over the past 18 months.†The report was submitted to the UN Security Council. Mainstream media in the US and West buried the explosive findings.
The UN documents showed that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) were maintaining regular contact with members of the so-called Islamic State since May of 2013. The IDF stated that this was only for medical care for civilians, but the deception was broken when the UNDOF observers identified direct contact between IDF forces and ISIS soldiers, including giving medical care to ISIS fighters. Observations even included the transfer of two crates from the IDF to ISIS forces, the contents of which have not been confirmed. Further the UN report identified what the Syrians label a “crossing point of forces between Israel and ISIS,†a point of concern UNDOF brought before the UN Security Council.
The UNDOF was created by a May, 1974 UN Security Council Resolution No. 350 in the wake of tensions from the October 1973 Yom Kippur War between Syria and Israel. It established a buffer zone between Israel and Syria’s Golan Heights according to the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement, to be governed and policed by the Syrian authorities. No military forces other than UNDOF are permitted within it. Today it has 1,200 observers.
Since 2013 and the escalation of Israeli attacks on Syria along the Golan Heights, claiming pursuit of “Hezbollah terrorists,†the UNDOF itself has been subject to massive attacks by ISIS or Al Qaeda’s Al Nusra Front terrorists in the Golan Heights for the first time since 1974, of kidnappings, of killings, of theft of UN weapons and ammunition, vehicles and other assets, and the looting and destruction of facilities. Someone obviously does not want UNDOF to remain policing the Golan Heights.
Israel and Golan Heights Oil
In his November 9 White House meeting with US President Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu asked Washington to reconsider the fact that since the 1967 Six-Days’ War between Israel and the Arab countries, Israel has illegally occupied a significant part of the Golan Heights. In their meeting, Netanyahu, apparently without success, called on Obama to back formal Israeli annexation of the illegally-occupied Golan Heights, claiming that the absence of a functioning Syrian government “allows for different thinking†concerning the future status of the strategically important area.
Of course Netanyahu did not address in any honest way how Israeli IDF and other forces had been responsible for the absence of a functioning Syrian government by their support for ISIS and Al Nusra Front of Al Qaeda.
In 2013, when UNDOF began to document increasing contact between Israeli military and IS and Al Qaeda along the Golan Heights, a little-known Newark, New Jersey oil company, Genie Energy, with an Israeli daughter company, Afek Oil & Gas, began also moving into Golan Heights with permission of the Netanyahu government to explore for oil. That same year Israeli military engineers overhauled the forty-five mile border fence with Syria, replacing it with a steel barricade that included barbed wire, touch sensors, motion detectors, infrared cameras, and ground radar, putting it on par with the Wall Israel has constructed in the West Bank.
Interestingly enough, on October 8, Yuval Bartov, chief geologist from Genie Energy’s Israeli subsidiary, Afek Oil & Gas, told Israel’s Channel 2 TV that his company had found a major oil reservoir on the Golan Heights
President Obama conduct regarding all key issues related to Syria has deplorable. By his words and actions he has resulted in greater bloodshed in Syria, creating one of the greatest calamities in the Middle East. Instead of uniting with Russia and Iran who are indeed fighting ISIS, he supports unconditionally Saudi Arabia and other Arab Kingdom that helped create ISIS with solid assistance from Israel and neocons here. Further, instead of issuing an executive order to allow Syrian refugies immigrate to this country, he is making shallow statements showing he is apparently against Republicans in Congress. President Truman, issued an executive to allow 400,000 Jews immigrate to the United States when congress was solidly opposed to granting asylums to Jews in this country, . President Truman had courage. The man I voted for twice is failing his own aspirations.
What will happen if the evidence clearly proves that the Russian jet was in Syrian airspace and that Turkey violated Syrian airspace to shoot down the Russian jet?:
http://fortruss.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/russian-mod-turkish-plane-violated.html
@Akbar Montaser
Sir, I very much fear that voting for any official candidate in a US election would yield just as bad a result. As the writer Upton Sinclair pointed out nearly a century ago,
“[T]he two political parties are the two wings of the same bird of prey. The people are allowed to choose between their candidates, and both of them are controlled, and all their nominations are dictated by, the same money power”.
“the Russian SU-24 plane was over the Hatay region of Turkey for about 17 seconds when it was struck.â€
17 seconds and a mile or so!!! That’s worth risking World War Three?
“Turkey, like every country, has a right to defend its territory and its airspace.â€
But not Syria though… right Barry?
But not the Armenians though … right Sultan Erdogan?
What would the discussion look like right now had a Turkish jet gone into Syrian territory and been shot down by Russia?
http://sputniknews.com/military/20151124/1030695406/mod-su-24-flight-path.html
Maybe we will find out.
“the Russian SU-24 plane was over the Hatay region of Turkey for about 17 seconds when it was struck.â€
That’s not all – don’t forget the Turks claim to have issued ten warnings during those 17 seconds.
The Russian pilot who survived declares that there were NO warnings and that no Turkish jet flew by to warn him prior to shootdown:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/russian-jet-pilot-says-were-6898879
If Obama was so interested in protecting the security of the American people one would think he would make it clear to Erdogan to “take all secure warning measures including fly by’s with Russian jets prior to any hostile actions”.
Tom Welsh, No, they did not.
A coalition of 65 produces a coalescence of one and the coaxial result is zero..
So the coalition of two shows the door to the coalition of 65.
Proof that the larger the committee, the lesser the results.
Anyway, Obama, like his predecessors, must honor the jerking string.
No one seems to be discussing the vote at the U.N. Security Council after the Paris terrorist attacks where Russia won the right to attack terrorists in Syria including Daesh, Al Queda, Al Nusra “and other terrorists”.
The vote was so upsetting to Samantha Power that she refused to cast the U.S. “yes” vote and had her underling cast the vote.
The U.S. HAD to vote “yes” since France was voting “yes”. It would have been unthinkable for the U.S. to vote against France:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article43523.htm
Putin is correct when he says, “A terrorist is a terrorist”. I hope he keeps his “chess” thinking intact in light of this recent horror against the Russian military. Obviously Turkey, warnings or no warnings, should NOT have shot down this plane. They should have documented the incident and gone to the U.N. with a clear warning, especially considering the incursion was so limited.
I would bet that Erdogan was encouraged to do this by the same neocons who pressed Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to attack Russian forces in 2008. Georgian forces promptly got a humilating rebuff, and took many casualties.
Putin will continue to be under a lot of pressure from the neocons and his own General Staff to retaliate for this provocation. But Turkey is part of NATO, so it is hard to guess precisely what form this retaliation will take, other than the small steps the Russians already took today.
THAT there will be retaliation is not really in doubt. Until today, Putin has exhibited considerable ability for sang froid. On occasion, so has Obama, and he is pretty much the decider on these kinds of things.. Let’s hope this proves to be one such occasion.
One of the things that the Russian’s could do, Ray, to retaliate against this provocative act on the part of Mr ErdoÄŸan (and NATO) would be to supply the Kurds fighting in Northwestern Syria with more adequate anti-aircraft defences, which would might just give the Turks pause in their bombing of the Kurds in this region. The question, of course, is how this would wash with the Syrian government….
Henri
The Saak-a-shite governor Odessa can advise Erdogan on the finer points of tie eating and how to capture all of Russia
http://observer.com/2015/02/georgia-president-who-ate-his-tie-advises-ukrainians-how-to-capture-all-of-russia/
Yesterday it was Al-Qaeda in the Pankisi Gorge in northeast Georgia’s Tusheti region, the gateway to Chechnya.
Today it is IS, the Al-Qaeda rebrand, in Gaziantep in southern Turkey, the gateway to the Jarabulus-Afrin corridor.
Yesterday it was Kosovo.
Today it’s Ukraine.
Meet the new neocon boss, the same as the neocon old boss.
I can think of a non-NATO country that could use a bloody nose…here’s hoping it has crossed Putin’s mind as well.
According to this article, Medvedev is wise to the fact that Turkey is supporting the transport of Daesh oil out of Syria/Iraq to be sold on the black market in Turkey and it seems Erdogan’s son is on on the Daesh black market oil racket. $$$$$$:
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/11/25/russia-erdogans-son-real-isis-oil-minister-behind-s24-shoot-down/
For some reason my comment from the 25th didn’t pass moderation, but since one half of it fits so well with your “bet”, dear Mr. McGovern (and Joe Tedesky’s comment below, too), I’m going to try it again.
It is supposedly an intercept of a conversation provided by what calls itself Ukrainian Wikileaks, and such the veracity of it remains doubtful, but I’m sure there are worries about how Ukraine and Transnistria might fall off Washington’s agenda for the time being in case of a reconciliation between Obama and Putin over Syria, and that certain circles, incl. McCain and Mikhail Saakashvili, would want to avoid that at probably all cost.
A translation of it was published on the 29th of October here:
http://fortruss.blogspot.de/2015/10/ukrainian-wikileaks-mccain-and.html
Maybe you can make a call on how credible it appears to you:
“Mikhail Saakashvili: “Let him come in!
Sit down, David! Everything should be done on time, as we discussed. You understand the importance of everything! Wait a second, I will turn on anti-surveillance.
McCain confirmed the plan, everything is in place so you know. We got cover from the US Senate. In Syria, Russians must be hit, or else if Russians and Americans fundamentally agree, they will really dump Ukraine. Donbass is on conservation, project Transnistria is suspended. If it goes on, we are done! We should speed things up in Syria!
Have you prepared our guys?”
David Kezerashvili [former head of financial police and minister of defense of Georgia. Wanted for embezzling state funds]: “Yes, everything is done. Today, they fly to Antalya and then go to Syria.
They received good training and will tear everything with their spirit. These are our Kistintsy (Georgian Chechens living in the Pankisi Gorge in Georgia), tough guys. Ramzan Machelikashvili was appointed a commander, all four obey him. They shoot from all weapons, they are anti-aircraft professionals. They are waiting for specific instructions…””
Dear Mr. Parry/moderators – I would like to find out where I went wrong in the original version of my comment from the 25th, so I can avoid making these mistakes again, thank you.
Earlier today I read what Erdogan said in 2012 when a Turkish F-4 fighter was shot down in Syrian air space after a few second incursion. Can’t find the link, but basically he claimed that a brief breach did not justify a shoot-down.
Russia is sort of constrained, for Turkey is a NATO member, and that organization is now a cat’s paw of American neocons. Any sneaky or third party attacks might lead to Turkey closing Russian access to the Black sea. The Russians can’t afford to diddle with Turkish gas supplies because 1) they need the money, and 2) they don’t want any hint of not being reliable suppliers.
So payback will be something else. For example, if there are any women and children in or near those Turkmen Terrorist camps, I’d suggest they leave – and quickly. Some nasty things could happen there soon.
I’m certainly no strategist, but I’d look at setting up some major bases astride the Turkish Terror Supply Lines. Well dug in, with lots of artillery. Alternatively, Iran might be interested in a “free” S-400 installation for the use of a couple of their divisions to man such bases for some set period.
The Iraqi and Syrian Kurds are likely to get a huge boost in weaponry – both quantity and quality.
Whatever happens, it’s likely to be well thought out.
And “thinking” is what NATO better be doing too, especially if they sic the Ukrainian Nazis into another attack.
Russia is only a shadow of itself in terms of conventional weapons. What they have is very good, but they just don’t have all that much compared with potential opponents. If pushed to the wall, they’re going to use nukes. Not city busters, but small ones in important places.
Obama may think he’s the smartest man in the room and master of the universe to boot, but he’s really playing with fire on this issue. People may know how P.O.ed I’ve been for a great many years about the Israeli murder of the men on the USS Liberty. I can’t imagine people in Russia not having the same feelings about the murdered people on their airliner and the Su-24.
All this could get out of hand.
Political analyst Pepe Escobar details Turkey’s links to ISIS and other extremist organizations in Syria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvW0CvFYueA
Thank you Abe for both those comments. I was reading Pepe on RT and I thought it was very informative. I’m not sure why he left out Israels’ influence, but maybe that’s for another day.
Your first post made me almost a bit optimistic as I have sunk into an abyss reading the likes of Breedlove and his ilk. If the end game is conquest over the world, what does NATO do then? retire? One can only hope that our DoA (department of aggression) is not totally insane.
Thanks Abe,
I follow the same sources, and fully agree with the view that Obama hasn’t got any courage, like my Hollande Prez i must say.
In recent weeks with Russian air support, Syrian troops have retaken large swaths of territory from ISIS, Al Qaeda, and other terrorist fighters. The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has even begun approaching the Euphrates River east of Aleppo, which would effectively cut off ISIS from its supply lines leading out of Turkish territory.
From there, Syrian troops would move north, into the very “safe zone” the US and its Turkish partners have long-sought but have so far failed to establish within Syria’s borders. This “safe zone” includes a region of northern Syrian stretching from Jarabulus near the west bank of the Euphrates to Afrin and Ad Dana approximately 90-100 kilometers west.
Once Syrian troops retake this territory, the prospect of the West ever making an incursion into Syria, holding territory, or compromising Syria’s territorial integrity would be lost forever. Western ambitions toward regime change in Damascus would be indefinitely suspended.
The endgame is at hand, and only the most desperate measures can hope to prevent Russia and Syria from finally securing Syria’s borders. Turkey’s provocation is just such a measure.
[…]
For Turkey’s government – one that has been consistent only in its constant failure regarding its proxy war against its neighbor Syria, who has been caught planning false flag provocations to trigger wider and more direct war in Syria, and whose government is now exposed and widely known to be directly feeding, not fighting ISIS – the prospect of Russian retaliation against it, either directly or indirectly, and in whatever form will leave it increasingly isolated.
Until then, Russia’s best bet is to simply continue winning the war. Taking the Jarabulus-Afrin corridor and fortifying it against NATO incursions while cutting off ISIS and other terrorist factions deeper within Syria would be perhaps the worst of all possible retaliations. With Syria secured, an alternative arc of influence will exist within the Middle East, one that will inevitably work against Saudi and other Persian Gulf regimes’ efforts in Yemen, and in a wider sense, begin the irreversible eviction of Western hegemony from the region.
The West, already being pushed out of Asia by China, will suffer immeasurably as the world dismantles its unipolar international order, region by region.
As in the game of chess, a player often seeks to provoke their opponent into a series of moves. The more emotional their opponent becomes, the easier it is to control the game as it unfolds. Likewise in geopolitics and war, emotions can get one killed, or, be channeled by reason and superior strategic thinking into a plan that satisfies short-term requirements but serves long-term objectives. Russia has proven time and time again that it is capable of striking this balance and now, more than ever, it must prove so again.
Russian Warplane Down: NATO’s Act of War
By Tony Cartalucci
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2015/11/russian-warplane-down-natos-act-of-war.html
A special thanks to “Abe” for your comment above.
—Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
“Turkey, like every country, has a right to defend its territory and its airspace.â€
But not Syria though… right Barry?
Obama didn’t put much enthusiasm into his statements about Turkey defending it’s airspace. I had the feeling he didn’t want to be making that speech, that it would all go away like a bad dream. And it could if he would just grow a pair. But he is truly a coward.
The US policy in Syria is incoherent because the neocon hardliners play their own game, and they play it, if necessary, without President Obamas approval. One sign that Washington doesn’t go along with Erdogan’s plans all the time was the removal of Patriot missiles from the Syrian-Turkish border. Another sign were statements of US President Barack Obama at the G-20 summit in Turkish Antalya.
Erdogan used the conference to again press for a safe zone north of Aleppo. But Obama cut him short and said: “There have been some who are well-meaning, and I don’t doubt their sincerity when it comes to the issue of the dire humanitarian situation in Syria, who, for example, call for a no-fly zone or a safe zone of some sort. … After we’ve gone through a lot of planning and a lot of discussion, and really working it through, it is determined that it would be counterproductive to take those steps — in part because [IS] does not have planes, so the attacks are on the ground.â€
“A true safe zone requires us to set up ground operations. And the bulk of the deaths that have occurred in Syria, for example, have come about not because of regime bombing, but because of on-the-ground casualties.â€
I’m not an Obama apologist, but it seems that he does want to have some kind of legacy instead of being the last president of the USA and having no legacy at all in the case of WW III.
Another situation where being right is difficult and appears to be an upstream swim…
But it is a well-known feature about sewers and the shit stuff which flows through them that the course is always downstream, and into the fetid and septic depths, which is where this kind of fascist behavior usually leads, and as difficult as it is, if one wishes to reach the clean cold moral headwaters on higher ethical grounds and emerge free and cleansed of the shit fetid waste and detritus of a contaminated, corrupt and polluted world, then upstream is the only way to go.
Good on ya, Vlad, keep stroking, you will make it. And the world will be better for our efforts.
Just stop excusing Obama. It is becoming pathetic.
Exactly, it was funny to read the subtitle of this article: “sucked President Obama in”. Reads “powerless” or no-balls.
Does anyone here seriously believe that Turkey would have shot down a Russian bomber without asking Washington first? But, it would be interesting to find out who they asked in Washington, because it may have NOT been Obama. I am sure that Turks know very well who is running the show and that it is not Barry.
A Russian rescue helicopter was shot-down by a US supplied missile to the “moderate” head-choppers, the “Turkmen”, the Al Nusra Front (Al Qaeda), and its pilot killed. The two Russian pilots were also shot by the same US allies, the Al Qaeda “moderates”.
AGREE (BASICALLY) WITH “DPA” ABOVE)
“But the larger question – indeed the existential question – is whether Obama will continue bowing to neocon demands for tough talk against Putin even if doing so risks pushing tensions to a level that could spill over into a nuclear confrontation.”
Robert Parry (above)
After a stunning article on recent events. it is unfortunate that Robert
Parry should ask an “existential question” as insignificant as he does.
Of course, Obama and his advisors will continue to bow to neocon
demands.
America cannot confront its error in its defiance of a UNANIMOUS
UN Security Council last year to SUPPORT the Government of
Syria (= Bashar Assad) (S/Res/2139(2014)) Nor can it admit that
the so-called “FSA” or “moderates” (?) are a total fabrication.
A fiction. And that military assistance goes to al-Nusra, an
affiliate of al-Queda. Nor can America handle the contradiction
of supporting the Government of Syria while giving assistance
to those who aim to overthrow that very government.
It is an illegal invasion and agression against the basic core
beliefs of the UN Charter.
SPECIOUS PROPOSAL
Should the gigantic US “coalition” fighting in defiance of law
and international law in particular need a “no-fly” zone,
that zone should be ENTIRELY in Turkey which borders on
Syria. None of it –NONE— should be within the boundaries
of the sovereign government of Syria one of whose goals
according to the UNANIMOUS UN resolution cited above is
to rid Syria of ALL foreign groups.(Point # 14).
—Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii agrees and has introduced legislation to stop the CIA’s illegal war against Syria:
http://gabbard.house.gov/index.php/press-releases/520-reps-tulsi-gabbard-austin-scott-introduce-legislation-to-end-illegal-u-s-war-to-overthrow-syrian-government-of-assad
She reminds me of Paul Wellstone……
She reminds me of Paul Wellstone……
Oh no – Not another mysterious plane crash…
Of course, Obama and his advisors will continue to bow to neocon
demands.
Could it be that Robert Kagan is the 21st century’s Kissinger? Nixon/Kissing. Obama/Kagan? Hillary/Kagan?
WHY IS TURKEY A NATO MEMBER?
One major factor in Turkey-Russian-US-NATO
(inevitable) collision beyond what has been discussed
elsewhere (Robert Parry in Consortium, others,
and eg Mike Winter in Counterpunch:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/11/24/turkey-downs-
russian-jet-to-draw-nato-and-us-deeper-into-syrian-quagmire/
is that Tuukey is a member of NATO.
How did this happen?
The fact that Turkey is a member of NATO was a demand of
the Turkish Governmment in extended a weapons deal.
First, the rules of the US “Ex-Im Bank” had to be changed.
This was done—over the objections of the Director of
the Ex-Im Bank which was formerly for commercial loans only—
by the two Senators from the State of Connecticut where
weapons manufacture is a primary interest. These members
were then- Senator Joe Lieberman and then-Senator
Thomas Dodd. The result was that funds from
Ex-Im could also be used for military purposes.
There was a gigantic multi-billion dollar arms deal with
Turkey which took several years to consummate.
The “private” party from the US was (if my memory
is correct) General Electric (“GE”).
There were several demands by the Turkish government.
One was that Turkey not only be sold weapons but it be
made able to manufacture and produce its own weapons.
A demand from Turkey was that it become a member
of NATO.
The US agreed to this demand and soon Turkey became
a full-fledged NATO member with US sponsorship and
arm-twisting.
(The arms received by Turkey were immediately used
to murder Kurds.)
To investigate further the specifics you are urged
to read John Tirman’s SPOILS OF WAR: THE HUMAN
COST OF AMERICA’S ARMS TRADE (Free Press, NY, 1997).
If the immediate events (War in Syria, shoot down of
Russian planes etc.) seem vague it is probably due to
the fact that they are seen seen in the entirety of events
which have more to do with Washington and the US
arms industry than you may have thought.
If there are any errors in my retelling above, it is because
I do not OWN this book but ,on the recommendation of
other historians (such as the late Chalmers Johnson), read it
on loan from the public library.
Incidentally, it is another example of many of how NATO
functions on US orders and realities.
—Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, US
No American president has been in control of US foreign policy since the CIA took out JFK in 1963. They are merely entertainers.