Greek and Turkish jets engage in brief dogfight.

[roamer65]

Source: ekathimerini - Greek news

Definitely not good. Turks need to respect Greek airspace and back off.

Read more: http://www.ekathimerini.com/204669/article/ekathimerini/news/greek-and-turkish-jets-in-dogfight-over-aegean

[shenmue]

1. Uh-oh

[yeoman6987]

5. They literally hate each other to the point that

When we had joint country training, we had to ensure that our schedules didn't have any members of either country during any shift. It was amazing really.

[Nyan]

2. Well, according to Erdogan's own rules

those Turkish jets should have been shot down multiple times.

[cascadiance]

4. Erdogan's "rule" has been a nightmare for so many Turks...

... and others in that region. He really needs to go.

Back in the older days when Ataturk's party was in charge, if a leader got out of line, they would have a military coup, which would "quietly" replace that leader with another, that would likely subsequently get elected. Not exactly democratic, but it wasn't bloody, and kept these leaders then from getting dictatorial, since Turkey does have a democracy there. But with the newer party that Erdogan is in, it is a bit harder for that sort of maneuver since such a coup would by the military would be more violent today I think. I lived there through one of these coups back in the 70's. Not exactly painless I can assure you, as it gave me some experiences with terrorism then, but today Turkey faces a very challenging future with this guy in charge. Ataturk's old party even had put a candidate with Kurdish roots against him some years back in a previous election.

Erdogan seems to thrive on fostering division in this country rather than trying to put in place means to avoid both religious and political divisions that Ataturk's party's leaders had tried to diffuse in previous years.

[roamer65]

6. Erdogan is neo-Ottoman Islamist.

The moron is taking a crap all over Ataturk's secular republic ideology. Ataturk must be spinning in his tomb.

[Nyan]

7. I completely agree.

And appreciate the on-the-ground perspective on this.
Turkish people really deserve better than this guy.

[cascadiance]

9. I'm not a Turk myself, but have known many over the years...

... and could later appreciate many of the rules set up by Ataturk's government after the fall of Ottoman empire rule there.

There were rules against wearing fez's and head scarves, and it was difficult even to take a bible in and out of the country with many of those laws that one could draw an analogy to many local communities here in this country where schools forbid students wearing "colors" that were symbolic of gang divisions in order to avoid those conflicts happening in our schools.

Initially, there probably was some reasons for the newer party when it took charge to perhaps help facilitate loosening the head scarves rule, as I think in recent years, prior to Erdogan's recent "adventures", there could have been some accommodation of that without having division earlier. It probably stood in the way of them getting in to the EU too earlier though.

I think that Netanyahu has a role in this too, as it was Netanyahu's escalation of conflict with Gazans that lead the Turkish flotilla crisis between these two countries, that probably got Erdogan a lot of support then, when he was sending aid to Gazans then. Israel needs to resolve their situation with Palestinians better than Netanyahu appears to be capable of doing with his strong ideologic rule now.

Had that situation not happened, I don't think Erdogan would have a lot of the support he had. Many don't understand from the outside the magnitude of that newer rift happening, as earlier Turkey and Israel have had a great relationship since Ataturk's time and the second world war, where Turkey provided a safe haven for many Jews from the holocaust then under Ataturk's initial leadership at that time when that started. And that effort lead to help the westernization and move to democracy that Turkey enjoyed for many years afterward too, and likely earned them along with Israel as being the two principle partners for the U.S. in that region for many years.

I think we made a mistake probably during the time I was there with probably many of my friends' parents being involved in that, when it came out later through FOIA information releases that the U.S. government helped the Turkish government militarily to prepare for the 70's invasion of Cyprus, which I'm sure is reflected upon by both Greece and Turkey in this crisis too today.

In recent years though, it is comforting to see grass roots Turks support many Greeks in their recent fights with the EU, and Greeks support for the Turks in their protests against Erdogan's government at Gezi Park a couple of years ago in Istanbul too. I think there's a good potential future if the people can democratically get better leadership in both of these countries that work for them.

[tabasco]

3. Was it over Thermopylae?

[font size=6]I am a generous master.[/font]

[ChiTownDenny]

8. This has been going on since the end of WWII.

That's why, as a percentage of GDP, only the USA spends more than Greece on its Military Industrial Complex. Well, that was until the Great Recession.
BTW, after the Great Recession, Greece told France and Germany it wanted to cancel its arms purchases. France and Germany negotiated the 1st of many "bailout" packages with the arms purchases in place.

[DetlefK]

12. Please leave the Greece-bailout out of this.

- The greek governments sent the EU falsified financial documents when they applied in 2000 to join the Eurozone.
- The greek governments continued to falsify financial documents presented to the ECB to prevent from getting out that Greece doesn't meet the economic stability-criteria to be worthy of being a member of the Eurozone.
- The greek governments hired Goldman Sachs to hide the greek debt and deficit from the EU by transforming it into obscure "investments".
- Greece's long-term plan was to stealthily and eventually meet the criteria in a few decades. They were on their way, and then the recession happened.



Greece. Forged. Financial. Documents.
Greece. Knowingly. Betrayed. Its. Closest. Allies.
Greece. Intentionally. Broke. International. Treaties.

So please spare me the outrage that other countries don't believe what Greece tells them about its financial situation.

German finance-minister Schäuble got a lot of flak for prolonging the greek crisis by seeking a convoluted, all-encompassing, comprehensive deal instead of a quick-and-dirty solution of solving the problem-of-the-day. But in reality, the ECB (and the other big players) had no idea whether Greece was still lying to them and still cooking their books or whether they had suddenly started telling the truth.

[cascadiance]

13. There's hints that Dominique Strauss Kahn's scandal might have been related to this too...

... which ousted him from the IMF when arguably he was moving the IMF away from the neo-liberal philosophies which are undermining the EU in many areas. Even his successor now has recently been having some legal troubles too...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/09/dsk-greek-debt-crisis_n_7764782.html

At the time Kahn was warning about the Greek debt crisis not much more than a month before the scandal incident that ousted him from leading the IMF, there were also stories then about how the Greek government's tax collection was flawed too, in that the wealthy in that country avoided a lot of taxes that arguably should have been collected to help them out of their debt crisis that Wall Street also helped engineer them in to getting more of a crisis too with their loans, etc.

Yes, the situation is pretty complicated there, and their people are suffering a lot. Hopefully some good leadership emerges, and the EU and other surrounding European entities allow them to get a better government there too to fix their problems and have their people live decent lives again.

[ChiTownDenny]

16. That's some tirade

and quite bizarre considering you asked that the Greek bailout be left out of this conversation. What you fail to understand is that there is a correlation between the historic disputes between Greece and Turkey, Greece's arms build-up, and its financial bailout.
BTW, google is your friend. Your comment is heavy on hyperbole and light on facts.

[DetlefK]

18. I considered this tirade necessary.

You are new on DU, so I will let you in on an unpleasant fact of the DU-community:
There are conspiracy-theorists here on DU (they are rare, but they do exist) who will reflexively always side with the underdog, facts be damned. They are obsessed with the notion of being righteous rebels against a world-wide shadowy evil empire that has its tentacles everywhere. And every time somebody gets treated badly by a powerful, non-accountable organization, they see this as proof that this shadowy empire of evil has struck again and is one step closer to world-domination.

"Greece is the victim of an EU-Big Money-conspiracy concocted to destroy greek democracy!
Goldman Sachs forced Greece to hire them! (Yes. This is a talking-point that was brought forth here on DU in defence of Greece.)
Greece is the true victim here!"
To quote Stephen Colbert: Never let facts get in the way of a good story.





Your reference to Google is meaningless. If you want to say something, say it.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-05-26/greece-cheated-to-join-euro-sanctions-since-were-too-soft-issing-says

[ChiTownDenny]

21. I'm not sure what my DU membership

has to do with my understanding of facts. The facts are that France and Germany forced Greece to pay for battleships and submarines as part of its bailout. If Greece wasn't forced to pay, France and Germany would have suffered with the loss of billions. No conspiracy theory just economics and finance.

[DetlefK]

27. You forgot one tiny bit about that incident:

To repeat: Greece had just admitted that they had lied to the ECB and forged financial documents for at least 9 years.

So, on what basis were France and Germany supposed to believe Greece's financial claims whether it can or can not pay for those battleships? (Battleships, btw, that Greece had ordered, fully knowing that they can't afford them.)





Imagine, external influences forcing your husband/wife of 9 years to come clean to you that he/she has been cheating on you the whole time and that this affair started even before you two got married.

And now, your neighbours demand that you give your husband/wife (who has been cheating on you for the whole 9 years of your marriage) all the money he/she claims he/she needs to get his/her life back on track.

[ChiTownDenny]

28. You seem blissfully ignorant

of the fact that Italy, France, and Spain also "lied" in exactly the same manner as Greece. One could argue that the magnitude of lies by these countries varied, but that doesn't change what the facts are. And, once again, your comment is heavy with hyperbole and light with facts.

[DetlefK]

29. Citation needed.

[ChiTownDenny]

31. There's been a lot of analysis

on this. I'm afraid we've hijacked this posting but here's an article with some good info (not sure how to link or blockquote on this site):

http://www.voxeu.org/article/politics-maastricht-convergence-criteria

"The politics of the Maastricht convergence criteria"

[ChiTownDenny]

32. HA!

I created a link!

[atreides1]

14. It's been going on a lot longer then the end of WWII

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek%E2%80%93Turkish_relations



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Turkish_War_%281897%29



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Turkish_War_%281919%E2%80%9322%29

[ChiTownDenny]

15. Well, yeah.

I was just sticking to modern times for simplicity.

[7962]

17. Many countries spend a higher % of GDP on the military than the US,

and Greece isnt one of them. The US isnt even in the top ten; at about 3.5%. Greece is below that as of last year, at around 2.3
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS

[ChiTownDenny]

19. From your article:

This definition cannot be applied for all countries, however, since that would require much more detailed information than is available about what is included in military budgets and off-budget military expenditure items.

[7962]

22. but they rated equally with whats availabe

you really think China and Russia are up front with THEIR costs?

[ChiTownDenny]

23. Your comment is accurate

if one assumes every country lies to the same degree/percent regarding its spending on its military industrial complex.

[7962]

25. I believe the 2 of them would lie a helluva lot more than we do.

Because at least here we have all kinds of people who scour the govt looking for their own smoking gun. Over there, you would actually get a smoking gun if you went poking around where the govt spends money.
Certainly there are secret military programs out there, but usually their money is under a non-classified part of the budget. Otherwise there would be a big hole that someone would notice.

[DetlefK]

10. Erdogan is trying to establish Turkey as a regional super-power:

- Supporting ISIS to overthrow Assad. (I count "not taking actions against ISIS-recruiters on turkish soil" and "buying crude oil from ISIS" as "supporting ISIS".)
- A fresh war against the Kurds.
- Invading iraqi territory, supposedly to help against ISIS.
- Shooting down a russian fighter over a merely disrespectful airspace-violation.
- Violating airspace of Greece.


And then there's this tiny thing how he barely won the turkish national elections in spring, instead of winning them overwhelmingly, so he sabotaged the formation of a new government and called for a redo of the elections in fall and right before those elections ISIS manages to pull off a terror-attack right in Ankara.

[cascadiance]

11. I wonder how "Rock the Casbah" Turkish born Joe Strummer and the Clash would feel today...

about Erdogan if he were still alive now.

He was born in Ankara where his parents worked at the British embassy, which was about a block away from where I lived then. Though he moved back to the UK to finish high school in boarding school there, I often wonder if I might have bumped in to him on the street there amongst the Brits I did then.

...The king called up his jet fighters
He said you better earn your pay
Drop your bombs between the minarets
Down the Casbah way
...

[Xolodno]

20. So....if....

Either country opened fire on each other and invoked the NATO clause?

[leveymg]

26. Turkey is making enemies all over the place. Erdogon needs to be grounded.

[Sunlei]

30. "violated Greek air space nine times", not a "dog fight". Thought only Russia had Sloppy Pilots.

[Octafish]

33. Call in NATO! An attack against one...

...is an attack against...

Wait a minute. Who remembers Cyprus?