French president François
Hollande is in Moscow to try and get Vladimir “Yakov Bond” Putin
into an actual (as opposed to mostly rhetorical) anti-ISIS alliance.
This comes after a whirlwind of separate meetings by Hollande with
U.S. boss Barack “DroneMan” Obama, UK prime minister David
"Big Toff" Cameron, German chancellor Angela “The Iron Mouse” Merkel, and
Italian prime minister Matteo "Who?" Renzi. All these hurried and urgent
consultations have been instigated by the brazen ISIS (or Islamic
State, IS, the crazed Islamic “caliphate” in large swaths of Iraq
and Syria proclaimed by the terrorist group) attacks in Paris earlier
this month, which slaughtered 130 people and wounded about 300, most
young people in the prime of their lives mowed down at a rock
concert.
According to NPR's Paris correspondent,
Hollande's mission is to try and persuade Putin to bomb ONLY ISIS,
and not any other groups fighting the murderous regime of
Syrian tyrant Bashar “Barrel Bomb” al-Assad. (NPR is the U.S.
government domestic radio propaganda network.)
Of course, Putin's position is that all
the anti-regime rebels in Syria are “terrorists.”
Reminds me of the saying, “one man's
terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.” But really, that
should be “one government's terrorist
is another government's freedom fighter.”
As Russia is in Syria to prop up Assad,
and so far has been dropping most of its bombs on what Western
governments and media propagandists like to call the “moderate
rebels,” (which is code for Those We Support, kind of, in a
half-assed way), it seems unlikely that Putin will get on board with
Hollande on that. But given that IS planted a bomb on a Russian
airliner that blew up over the Sinai in Egypt a couple of weeks ago,
the Russians are incentivized to increase targeting of IS in Syria,
but not to the exclusion of other anti-Assad forces.
Spoiling Hollande's mission to Moscow
may have been an ulterior motive of Turkey in shooting down
the Russian jet bomber on November 24th, as the U.S. is leery of
Russian military involvement in Syria to begin with, and Russia is on
the U.S. Enemies List since the debacle of the Western takeover of
Ukraine using fascist street thugs, which resulted in the country
splitting into two and a civil war. But even if it was a factor, it
clearly wasn't the main motive.
Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
actually told us what the reason was, in a speech he ranted
just after the shootdown. While mentioning the guff about protecting
Turkey's sovereignty, his main focus was, in his words, that “We
are trying to protect our kin, our brethren.” Namely the Turkmen of
Syria, who were the targets of Russian bombardment in the area where
the Russian jet was downed and the pilot killed by Turkmen. [1]
By “ranted” I mean Erdoğan was
exclaimed loudly and angrily.
It's been reported that Turkish media
has been beating the drums for awhile now about Russian attacks on
Turkmen rebels in Syria. So Erdoğan would have felt pressure from
that- not that he needed any. Also, given the repression of critical
media in Turkey, it is safe to assume that Turkish media now reflects
Erdoğan's attitude.
I should pause here to address the
Manicheans out there, who always see the world in black and white,
and insist that everyone is on one side or the other, and if
you're not on their side, and don't reliably parrot their
line-of-the-day, you're on the Enemy's side and are a traitor.
I am independent. This allows me to be
morally objective and intellectually honest, unlike members of a
system who are at best biased and partially blind and at worst
cynical, rank propagandists. I'm not “on Russia's side.” I'm
describing events objectively. My position is based on human
morality. The Assad regime is a loathsome, murderous dictatorship.
Therefore it is evil that Russia is propping it up, now with direct
violence. At the same time, the “defending Turkish territory”
line is patently bogus as a justification for shooting down the
Russian plane. But I'm not particularly aggrieved by it either. The
mother of the dead Russian pilot may properly be aggrieved, but I
have no particular reason to be.
By the same moral logic, I don't feel
any sorrow or loss for the deaths of U.S. pilots who bombed Vietnam.
They aren't “my” pilots. As far as them being “fellow
Americans,” my “membership” in this alleged fellowship hasn't
prevented my “fellow Americans” in the various U.S. secret police
and police agencies from persecuting me my entire adult life. So they
needn't wave their flag- their piece of colored cloth- in my face and
expect a Pavlovian response of obedience and support for their
relentless drive for power over others, all over the world.
Ditto to the fervid nationalists who
demand “loyalty.” (These same super-duper patriots however refuse
to grant even legitimacy, much less loyalty, to any U.S. president
who isn't a Republican. So maybe they should shut up, for a change,
about how “patriotic” they are. That also goes for the
lapel-flag-wearing loudmouths who work for the Australian Rupert
Murdoch.)
In sum, for me, if a Russian warplane
gets shot down by Turkey while bombing rebels against the Assad
tyranny, that's tough luck for the Russians.
But if it's tough luck for Russia,
it's even tougher luck for the Turkmen in Syria. BBC reports furious
Syrian army artillery bombardment of the hill where the Russian jet
crashed, and greatly-stepped-up Russian aerial bombardment of the
area. Rather ironic, as Erdoğan wanted to stop Russian attacks on his
“kin.” Looks like the shootdown backfired, at least in the
immediate term.
Now let's expose the sham of this
alleged egregious violation of Turkish sovereignty.
The piece of Turkish territory where
the putative incursion by the Russian jet occurred is Hayat province.
It is a spit of land that juts due south from the underbelly of
Turkey directly into Syria.
Syria claims the land as its own, and
shows it on maps as part of Syria. Thus if the Russians were working
from such maps, they may well have believed they were over Syrian
territory when (if) they overflew Turkey.
Here's a map of Turkey. The Turkish
province in question, Hayat, is that piece of territory on the south
side (the bottom) of Turkey, right in the middle. See how it juts
down into Syria, with the Mediterranean Sea to the west (left) of it?
This strip of land, as best as I can
tell from maps, is only about 25.5 kilometers (14,6 miles) wide,
between Syrian territory and the Mediterranean. A jet cruising for
ground targets to attack would be traveling perhaps 400-500 mph
(miles per hour), or 644-805 kph (kilometers per hour). Let's give it
to the Turks and say the Russian plane was traveling at half its top
speed. At 400 mph (644 kph), the Russian jet would have passed over
Turkish territory in a little over two minutes. Okay, bend over
backwards for Turkey. Maybe the Russians were flying at only 300
mph (483 kph). That would take them three minutes to pass over
Turkish land. (Although Erdoğan apparently considers all
areas inhabited by ethnic Turks as Turkish Land.) [2]
But Turkey insists, and
anonymous-as-usual U.S. “officials” “confirm,” that the
Turkish pilots radioed TEN warnings (or “at least ten” in some
tellings) to the Russian jet in just FIVE minutes.
Well, that Russian jet wasn't even
over Turkish territory for five minutes.
No matter. Western “officials” and
media propagandists have a simple way to finesse that. Just don't
explain this to anyone! Problem solved!
We were told of a radar map the Turkish
Ministry of “Defense” issued. For some reason it isn't out there
widely. Here it is as reproduced by CBS “News,” one of the big
U.S. TV networks, which figures few people would do what I do and
carefully analyze bits and pieces of disparate information from
different sources, put it all together, and see the obvious:
The solid
blue line is the Turkish border. “SURIYE” is Syria in Turkish.
The red line with dots is the flight path of the doomed Russian jet.
Giris and cikis are “entrance “ and “exit,” so
the jet was traveling from east to west across the bit of Turkish
ground. Gray on the left is the Mediterranean. I don't know what the
green box to the left of the exit point is.
But
I actually misled you. The distance I cited before is north of the
path the Turks claimed for the Russian jet. On the map of Turkey,
that tiny little southern tip of Turkey is too small to see. That is
a much shorter distance. According to the leading German publication
Der Spiegel, if the Russian plane indeed violated Turkish
airspace, it was for 3 seconds.[3]
So even my previous
calculations are far too generous to the
Turkish-U.S.-Western-stooges' version of reality.
The
surviving Russian navigator says, according to the Russians, that
their plane didn't overfly Syria. But let's assume that it did.
In any event, it is hardly
standard protocol, as Erdoğan claiims, to shoot down any warplane
the instant it “violates” your airspace. (What is that, like
being raped?) The Russian plane wasn't bombing Turkey.
Syria
has shelled Turkey,
killing Turkish citizens, and Turkey took it lying down. Syria shot
down a Turkish air force jet- Turkey did nothing. So this
aggressiveness should be put in that context. Instead the New York
Times put it in a context of repeatedly Turkish complaints about-
Russia bombing Turkmen in Syria.
Oh, and about the centuries-old power competition in the region
between the Ottoman empire and Russia. (That would be TSARIST Russia,
but Western propagandists don't like to remind people about that when
attacking Russia, because they romanticize that oppressive, feudal
monarchy.) [4]
But whatever,
right?
The plane crashed inside
Syria. It seems next to impossible that the F-16 munition (I assume
an air-to-air missile) hit the Russian jet while it was over Turkey.
If it had, that would mean the Turks almost certainly fired at it
when it wasn't over Turkey, assuming 3 seconds over Turkish
turf. Alternatively, if they fired on it during that 3 second time
frame, it means they were on a hair trigger, and the missile
presumably struck the Russian plane over Syrian territory.
Nevertheless, the U.S.,
including the Top Man, has endorsed Turkey's action. According to
DroneMan, Turkey had a "right to defend its territory and its
airspace." This said almost immediately, before the fact were
clear. (They still aren't.)
Of course, when Israel
decides to “mow the lawn” in Gaza and slaughter a few thousand
Palestinians and demolish the power plant, water system, hospitals,
schools, and thousands of homes, Obama and the rest of the U.S. power
elite all say “Israel has a right to defend itself,” And the U.S.
police state and various war crimes are “protecting the American
people from terrorism.”
So all the mendacious
rhetoric is of a piece: self-righteous self-justification (or
justification of one's “allies”)
Turkey, of course, is a
member of NATO, the U.S.-controlled military alliance of most
European nations and Canada. So Russia had to take it out on the
Turkmen. On the other hand, the U.S. didn't want to see an
escalation, so it quietly told Turkey Good Enough, Now Cool It.
Regarding Turkey; to my fellow
Americans, I offer this policy advice: go bite a turkey's leg! It's
Thanksgiving!
1] Voice
of Erdogan, excerpt of his speech, with simultaneous translation in
halting English by man with heavy Turkish accent- i.e. a native
Turkish speaker- broadcast by BBC “World Service,” early morning
November 25.
2] The Russian jet was a
supersonic (can fly faster than sound) Sukhoi SU-24, a twin-engine
light bomber with a two-man crew. It's maximum speed is listed as 815
mph (1,315 km/h) at sea level, a bit faster than the speed of sound,
or Mach 1.08. At high altitude the top speed is 1,028 mph or 1,654
km/h (Mach 1.35). But this is with afterburners on, which greatly
increases fuel consumption. Ordinarily the plane would be cruising at
significantly slower speeds. It has an internal 6-barrel cannon, good
for strafing or dogfighting, and can carry various bombs and
missiles, including nuclear bombs, and air-to-air missiles for
shooting down other jets. It is a 1970s vintage plane, as are the two
U.S.-supplied F-16s that shot it down.
The pilot and navigator ejected and
fell to earth by their parachutes. NPR described video from the
incident of Turkmen shooting at the Russians as they drifted to
earth. The pilot was killed, either in the air or on the ground by
the Turkmen. The navigator was eventually rescued, but a Russian
soldier on a rescue helicopter was also done in by the Turkmen. What
I found most interesting was that the NPR correspondent described the
Turkmen shouting the Arabic Islamic slogan “Allahu Akbar!,” “God
is Greatest,” as they fired at the Russian crewmen. That's the same
slogan used by IS, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, indeed the whole
Islamofascist terrorist movement when they're attacking. This
information has since gone unmentioned by NPR, and as far as I know
never reported by the rest of the U.S. establishment media, or the
“alternative” media either, for that matter.
So our “friends” have a similar
mentality and religious zeal as our enemies. Interesting.
3] "Fragwürdiger Luftkampf:
Nurein paar Sekunden auf der falschen Seite (Questionabledogfight: Just a few seconds on the wrong side),"
Der
Spiegel-Spiegel Online,
November 24, 2015.
4]
“Rangeof Frustrations Reached Boil as Turkey Shot Down Russian Jet,”
New
York Times,
November 25, 2015.
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