The Liberal Gun Club Forum

Not exactly firearms related but Turkey seem to have declared war against Syria

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/mid ... story.html

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeas ... 69706.html

Some more info on the matter.

Yeah, I've been expecting something like this was about to happen. Even before the downed Turk F-4 Phantom.

Check this out:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19124810

Eh, but it's also complicated:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3372549.stm

Xela

Turkey Parliament escalating things a bit:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19830928

Not all Turks agree with going to war:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-19826595

Xela

P.S. We should probably move this thread to the general discussion area.

My concern is, since Turkey is a NATO member, any border skirmish gives NATO an excuse to intervene, if it is looking for one.

larrymod wrote:My concern is, since Turkey is a NATO member, any border skirmish gives NATO an excuse to intervene, if it is looking for one.

And isn't that convenient.

Could be the back door way for the US to involve itself without taking responsibility for starting it. I think Obama has been itching to do something and this is a way to do it without the "let's go to war" drum beat. I wouldn't be surprised if we pushed this behind the scenes

Xela wrote:...
P.S. We should probably move this thread to the general discussion area.

And done.

Xela

My first thought was Syrian rebels doing it and making it look like government troops did it so that Turkey would put military pressure on the Assad regime but apparently the government acknowledged that it was indeed done by real army soldiers.

ChazRI wrote:Could be the back door way for the US to involve itself without taking responsibility for starting it. I think Obama has been itching to do something and this is a way to do it without the "let's go to war" drum beat. I wouldn't be surprised if we pushed this behind the scenes

Ya know...sometimes shit happens and we don't have to go out and actively seek a fight. It's rare, but it does happen.


If Syria isn't able to make Turkey happy with "we're sorry, here is our plan from avoiding having this happen again", then the Turks might call on NATO, and we're be dragged in whether or not Obama wants it. As it is I strongly suspect that the Turks can probably smack Syria around all on it's own, it's the only military in the Middle East that is as professional and as well trained as Israel...and it is much, much bigger than Israels military. If they do call up NATO I imagine that it'll be like the Libyan Intervention; the USN will send a swarm of TLAMs that will blot out the sun and kick in the door, while the less capable powers(Turkey) do 90% of the followup.

I bet Incirlik Air Base is hopping right now.

Steve Hynd of The Agonist blog reminds us of a big fat double standard, that Turkey has interfered in neighboring Iraq (Kurdish region) much more substantially than what it is accusing Syria of.

http://agonist.org/us-double-standard-o ... s-of-iraq/

Apparently Turkey has actually occupied part of Kurdish Iraq with several thousand troops, ostensibly to combat Kurdish rebels, but also presumably to position themselves to grab Kurdish oil fields if that fragile state fragments or collapses.

it's the only military in the Middle East that is as professional and as well trained

Their beer is as badass as their military.

Sonofagun wrote:

it's the only military in the Middle East that is as professional and as well trained

Their beer is as badass as their military.

You keep the beer (Efes is the main one), I'll keep all the raki.

Xela

Turkey was correct to fire back. The attack from a disorganized Syria likely was local in origin, so the return fire is an appropriate response.

CDFingers