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The Casus Belli Of The Beast

Here we go: Turkey accused Syria on Sunday of shooting down a military plane in international airspace without warning and called a NATO meeting to discuss a response to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. In the same story: Davutoglu said the jet was unarmed and had been on a solo mission to test domestic radar systems, but acknowledged […]

Here we go:

Turkey accused Syria on Sunday of shooting down a military plane in international airspace without warning and called a NATO meeting to discuss a response to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

In the same story:

Davutoglu said the jet was unarmed and had been on a solo mission to test domestic radar systems, but acknowledged it had briefly crossed Syrian airspace 15 minutes before it was attacked. There was no “secret” element to its mission.

“Our plane was shot at a distance of 13 sea miles from Syria’s border in international airspace,” Davutoglu said.

“According to the radar images, our plane lost contact with headquarters after it was hit and because the pilot lost control, it crashed into Syrian waters after making abnormal movements,” he said. “Throughout this entire period no warning was made to our plane.”

Some analysts said the aircraft, in violating Syrian airspace at a time of great sensitivity, could in fact have been testing Syria’s Russian-made radar and air defenses, which might prove a major factor in any possible Western armed action.

Obviously Syria has attacked NATO, which should have the right to send military aircraft into Syria’s airspace in a time of civil war without being shot at. Obviously. Who does Syria think it is?

I’m being sarcastic, of course. Turkey perfectly well knew what it was doing. Get ready for war — a NATO-led war that’s going to depose the Assad tyranny in favor of an Islamist tyranny (checked in on Libya lately?), as well as put relations with Russia into the deep freeze. We never learn.

UPDATE: Daniel says there won’t be a NATO war on Syria over this. Hope he’s right.

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