Turkey Brings NATO to the Precipice of War With Russia
[font size=3]Turkey Brings NATO to the Precipice of War With Russia[/font]
[center]By shooting down a Russian fighter jet, Ankara could sunder the growing coalition against ISIS, which it has been aiding and abetting for some time.[/center]
James Carden
The Nation Magazine
http://www.thenation.com/article/turkey-brings-nato-to-the-precipice-of-war-with-russia/
Following today’s news that Turkey has shot a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 attack aircraft out of the sky, NATO ministers, former and current US government officials, and the wondrously pliable American punditocracy immediately began circling the wagons, pointing the finger of blame for the incident at Russian President Vladimir Putin. Indeed, only hours after the event, CNN’s Carol Costello put on-air two young Russia “analysts” who charged that Russian state media was “spinning” the story to the Russian government’s advantage. Quelle surprise!
The dominant narrative seems to be this: The Russians, having allegedly violated Turkish airspace repeatedly, had been duly warned by Turkish authorities against doing so at least twice. Indeed, Turkey claims it warned the doomed Su-24 no fewer than 10 times prior to the shoot-down. Worse still, the area that was purportedly being targeted by the Russian airstrikes was not known to be an ISIS stronghold, but is known to be an area largely inhabited by Syrian Turkmen. And so, as another CNN guest noted, since Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan feels a special responsibility to protect ethnic Turks wherever they may be, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that a Russian jet would find itself in Turkey’s cross hairs.
Please note the utter hypocrisy on display here. For at least the last two years, we have been warned ad nauseam that Putin’s strikingly similar position toward ethnic Russians who reside outside Russia’s borders poses a grave threat to Western security. Yet, as with so much else—restrictions on press freedoms or the jailing of opposition figures—it’s damnable when Putin does it, but unremarked upon if Erdogan does it; after all, Turkey is a NATO ally.
And what an ally indeed!
Let us recap. Turkey has played a leading role in fomenting the unrest in Syria since the very beginning of the uprising against the rule of Bashar al-Assad in 2011. Turkey has aided, abetted, and funded ISIS by keeping its southern border open with Syria, allowing radical jihadists from Europe to cross back and forth from ISIS-controlled territory, thereby enabling them to return to Europe to plot and execute such attacks as were recently carried out in the French capital.
Continued: http://www.thenation.com/article/turkey-brings-nato-to-the-precipice-of-war-with-russia/
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