Turkey shoots down Russian jet fighter

[mistermack]

17 seconds according to the BBC. I calculated the Russian jet was travelling at about 390 km/h during the transit. But ... you're entitled to give warnings as someone approaches your borders, be it by land, sea or air, which is exactly what the Turks said they did. It happens all time.

In 2012, the Syrians shot down a Turkish jet which had entered its airspace, and Erdoğan’s furious response at the time was that “a short-term border violation can never be a pretext for an attack”.

(At the time, the then Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen called it “another example of the Syrian authorities’ disregard for international norms”. There hasn’t been a similar critique of Ankara.)

I'm surprised that the Russians only stopped 15% of the Turkish imports. I'd have stopped the lot overnight.

[JimC]

Putin is addicted to Turkish Delight.

Galaxian told me this.

[Seth]

Putin is addicted to Turkish Delight.

Galaxian told me this.

Sounds like he's a grown up Edmund Pevensie.

[mistermack]

The UK parliament is agonizing over whether to send UK planes to bomb Syria.

What's the chances of Turkey shooting down a UK jet that strays across their border?

No chance at all.

The Turks say that they gave numerous warnings, demanding that the plane leave Turkish air space.
But this is an obvious lie, because if their own version is to be believed, the plane was on a course to leave Turkish airspace within seconds when it was hit.

Moscow is now imposing quite stringent sanctions on Turkey, that it is hard-placed to afford. It's going to cost Turkey an awful lot of money, in the long-term. Turkey was a very popular holiday spot for Russians, and this is being ended with immediate effect. Also, Turks working in Russia will have to leave, and they were sending huge sums of money home to be spent in Turkey.
They will end up paying a huge amount, for the cost of one plane.

The whole episode is a stark reminder of just how stupid the people at the top can be.
You tend to think that they are something special, just by dint of where they are, but it's clearly not the case. The stupidity of both sides here is just mind-blowing.

[Sean Hayden]

"We have every reason to think that the decision to shoot down our plane was dictated by the desire to protect the oil supply lines to Turkish territory," Mr Putin said at a news conference in Paris on Monday.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34971506

[Jason]

President Erdogan also vowed to step down if the allegation that Turkey was buying oil from IS proved true, suggesting that President Putin should do the same if he was wrong.

That's some funny shit.. Erdogan certainly has a high opinion of himself - that's like trading a pawn for a queen. Who does he think he is?

[Galaxian]

Putin is addicted to Turkish Delight.
Galaxian told me this.

Of course the feeble minded murdering psycho won't keep his promise of resigning. Here's the evidence:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMA4B2ZnQ2o



Are the Turks so gutless as not to put this erDOGan out of his misery?
The old slogan (Zapata?) that goes; "Better to die on your feet than live on your knees", is now inverted by the great majority of the world to, "Better to live on your knees than to die on your feet". So, there is NO hope for this world, NONE whatsoever!
Happily, Homo sapiens will soon be replaced by mobile artificial intelligence, hopefully more rational creatures.

[Jason]

Galaxian, you're much more fun to read if I put your words in the voice of Mark Hamill's Joker. Make of that what you will.