Russia says jet shot down near Turkey-Syria border

[Igel]

152. You're confusing the Russian word "terrorist" with the English word.

They don't necessarily mean the same thing in practice. There's denotation, there's connotation, there's usus (how a word is actually used).

So "knife" has a denotation and a set of connotations. But while we say "to go under the knife" (= surgery), we don't call the knife in the surgeon's hand a knife. We use "scalpel." And we don't refer to the thing used to carve the turkey as a scalpel. The denotations largely overlap, but the range of use doesn't. And you can't explain the difference entirely by "connotation." It's just where the two terms are used, and we do that with all sorts of near synonyms.

A Russian's "terrorist" is not just somebody who engages in political violence against civilians. Terrorists can be regularly formed military divisions using military equipment against a Russian military unit. We'd call those "soldiers" and not "terrorists." Just being opposed to Russia or its allies is enough to be a "terrorist." Which cowardly, stressed translators dutifully translate into English as "terrorist" because it's safe and uncomplicated. (Translating English "terrorist" into Russian is far less problematic.)

We'd probably not call the Turkmen rebels "terrorists." But since they are fighting Russia and Russia's allies, they are "terroristy", even if the English word turns out to be a bad fit. (Not up enough on the activities of this group; perhaps the tribesmen are terrorists and bomb school children and markets. Dunno.)

As for Turkey's supplying ISIS, a lot of that is basically innuendo. Obama's administration supplied Mexican cartel members with guns, and the US continues to supply them. That doesn't mean it's official US policy, or even something that's met with a wink and a nudge. A lot of Turkish areas are boondocks and while under nominal Turkish control not always under close control. Esp. when some smuggling is okay--you just can't tell where, exactly, the weapons wind up. The US had the same problem with money in 2010 and early 2011--a fair amount of $ were going to jihadist organizations, not because the US government promoted this or even tolerated it but because of different priorities.