Originally Posted by
Marcantilan
Well, the Turks informs the violation lasted 17 seconds, but they warned the unknown A/C to change course for 10 minutes...
Sorry, the Turks has no case here.
Sorry, yes they do have a case. In the words you used, right there. Not to mention, they were not shot down by a SAM, but by an F-16. What are the odds that the F-16 had a Visual ID and that they confirmed it was a WARPLANE before going weapons free? I'll bet that they did just that.
Would I rather then not have shot the plane down?
Yes.
A thousand times yes.
As to Turkey not being in the EU ... well, that was always the better idea.
About 20 years ago, I questioned why NATO should keep existing. NATO chose to begin "out of area" operations as a new strategic direction for the alliance. NATO did a lot of other things.
Turkey was added to NATO for the strategic reason of Russia and Geography, back in the 1950's, and in part to keep Greece and Turkey from going to war. (That latter bit was successful, give or take a bit of trouble in Cyprus).
Hard question for the North Atlantic Alliance: does Turkey still belong in NATO?
Maybe yes, maybe no, and does Turkey want to stay in NATO?
If so, why?
Difficult times ahead.