From Justin Raimondo at antiwar.org:
The downing of a Russian warplane by the Turks raises several questions, which can all be rolled into one big one: In the war against ISIS, which side is Turkey – and NATO – on, anyway?
Now let’s list the subordinate issues that cause us to question what’s really going on in Syria:
• How can the Turks claim they didn’t know it was a Russian plane they were shooting down?
• If the incident was an error on Turkey’s part, why are they refusing to apologize?
• Even if we accept the Turkish version of events – that the Russian plane drifted into Turkish airspace for a grand total of nineteen seconds – how does this justify their action?
• Did the Turks act alone, or did they get the green light from NATO?
• Are the Turks buying oil from ISIS?
To begin with, the very idea that the whole thing was a big mistake, and that the Turks didn’t know it was a Russian pilot flying that plane, is too ridiculous to take seriously. For the Turks to make such a claim should cause us to automatically disregard whatever else they say about this incident. Putin claims the plane was clearly marked, but even if that’s not quite the truth – and it may not be – the Russians agreed to coordinate the flight paths of their war planes with the Americans, so as not to create just such as incident as this one. As Putin put it:
“The American side, which leads the coalition that Turkey belongs to, knew about the location and time of our planes’ flights, and we were hit exactly there and at that time. Why did we pass this information to the Americans? Either they were not controlling what their allies were doing, or they are leaking this information all over the place.”
And it just so happens that the former Vice Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, Admiral James Winnefeld, was paying a visit to Ankara when the Russian plane went down. A coincidence, of course….
In short: the Americans had the exact flight path of the Russian plane. They knew where and when it would be flying: are we supposed to believe they didn’t communicate this to the Turks, their NATO allies? That this was an orchestrated event – orchestrated by Washington – seems almost beyond dispute.
This is why the Turks refuse to apologize, and instead warn the Russians that they are “playing with fire.” They were simply following orders – and that those orders were coming from Washington is implied by President Obama’s defense of the Turkish actions. “Turkey,” he declared, “like every country, has a right to defend its territory and airspace.” While this is certainly true, the question of how it may do so and under what circumstances it’s okay to shoot down a plane that may have intruded on its airspace is not quite as cut-and-dried as he would have us believe.
Article 51 of the United Nations charter says military action against an intruder is justified only in case of an “armed attack.” Yet the Turks are claiming no such thing: therefore, the act of shooting down the Russian plane was clearly a violation of international law. Period.
While NATO’s commander is standing “in solidarity” with Ankara, the Turks violated NATO’s own rules of engagement. Article 5 of the NATO treaty limns the UN Charter, triggering military action as a consequence of an “armed attack.”
Furthermore, there is the question of the machine-gunning of the ejected Russian pilots by the US-supported “Free Syrian Army,” which resulted in the death of one of them. As retired Maj. Gen. Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., puts it:
“It is extraordinarily well-settled that the law of war prohibits making anyone parachuting from a distressed aircraft the object of attack, and that doing so is a war crime. There is no real dispute among experts as to this reading of the law.”
Not that this would be the first war crime the Turks have committed.
Finally, there is the question at the base of all this: in the war against ISIS, which side are the Turks on, anyway?
To continue reading: The Phony War on ISIS
