European Politics

Forostar said:
Turkey shot down a Russian fighter. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34907983
+ http://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-34908469
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So completely unnecessary by both parts. Hard to say what will come out of it, but I doubt it's going to be good.

Russia is obviously behaving aggressively in any way they can, and Turkey defends their borders perhaps a little too aggressively in return. I totally get shooting at someone who violates airspace in the middle of a war, but come on... They'd never dared to do that without NATO. A blink of an eye, and you'd have "separatists" taking over the country. ;)

Don't give Putin any excuses for causing more conflicts, please. There's a few non-NATO countries in there, that like Crimea could somehow end up in the Russian Federation. This whole ISIS-thing is worrying in more ways than in itself.
 
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The Flash said:
Russia has been violating Turkish airspace for a while now. Turkey came very close to shooting down a Russian plane before. I think it was Kerry that came out and said "Had Turkey shot down the plane, it would have been justified." after the incident. So not surprised at all.
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Russia violating airspace? No way!

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...litary-and-nato-since-march-2014-9851309.html

Turkey is just the first country that has done something about it....But yeah not a good situation ;)
 
Meanwhile:

When P labeled Turkey “accomplices of terrorists,” he was hinting at complex relationship which includes links between senior Isis figures and Turkish officials, explains the Guardian’s Martin Chulov in this analysis.

Turkey’s international airports have also been busy. Many, if not most, of the estimated 15,000-20,000 foreign fighters to have joined the Islamic State (Isis) have first flown into Istanbul or Adana, or arrived by ferry along its Mediterranean coast.

The influx has offered fertile ground to allies of Assad who, well before a Turkish jet shot down a R fighter on Tuesday, had enabled, or even supported Isis. V P’s reference to Turkey as “accomplices of terrorists” is likely to resonate even among some of Ankara’s backers.

From midway through 2012, when jihadis started to travel to Syria, their presence was apparent at all points of the journey to the border.

At Istanbul airport, in the southern cities of Hatay and Gaziantep – both of which were staging points – and in the border villages.

Foreigners on their way to fight remained fixtures on these routes until late in 2014 when, after continued pressure from the EU states and the US, coordinated efforts were made to turn them back.


edit:
from The Guardian liveblog:

R has also now put out its own image in an attempt to counter the radar picture provided earlier by Turkey (See 10.26).

While the Turkish image appeared to show that the R jet briefly flew over southern Turkey before it as shot down, R’s suggests that there has been no airspace violation.

Warning that we’re headed for the territory surrounding the recriminations over the shooting down last year of a Malaysian airline over Ukraine, Moscow-based Alec Luhn tweets:
R counters Turkish radar pic with flight map showing no airspace violation. MH17 deniability quagmire detected.
CUmUY-FW4AIYh0u.png


 
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On a serious note: I wouldn't trust anything regarding this incident from neither Turkey nor Russia right now. They both would lose face if they admitted to be the ones in the wrong. At the same time, neither can back out of their efforts in the Syria conflict altogether, because that could be seen as admitting that they don't care about fighting Daesh.

Now, major global and regional powers not wanting to lose face did contribute to starting WW1, but this time they all have at least one common enemy, so I'm not going in the shelter just yet.
 
The outcome of the upcoming Hollande-P talk in Moscow could be important. Good talk => R will calm down and get over the incident. Not a fine talk (for R) => less settling down, more dissatisfaction.
 
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(This could have gone in an other topic, since it happened in the USA but it fits the discussion we had here perfectly)

More food for thought for people who especially keep staring at immigrants:

http://www.politicalgarbagechute.co...tians-denouncing-planned-parenthood-shooting/
Moderate Muslim: Where Are All The Moderate White Christians Denouncing Planned Parenthood Shooting?
HIGHLAND, COLORADO — Anika Kaber is a 27-year-old resident of Colorado, and her town is not far from Colorado Springs — the scene of a deadly attack on a Planned Parenthood clinic there on Friday, November 27th, 2015. Kaber said she was “sickened” by the news of the shooting not far from her town, and that she was outraged that more moderate, white Christians haven’t denounced the shooting as an act of terrorism, as so many demand of her whenever an act of terror is carried out in another part of the world under the banner of Islamic terrorism.

Though the exact motive of the alleged shooter, Robert Lewis Dear is still not clear enough for authorities to have made any comments on them as of yet, Kaber feels the shooter’s target alone gives one a pretty good clue. Citing the recent videos put out by the Center for Medical Progress — a right-wing fundamentalist anti-abortion group that has been widely accused of doctoring, splicing, removing context and completely inventing it when necessary — Kaber feels that anti-abortion passions have been inflamed among those she calls “right-wing Christian radicals with gun collections” and that “no moderate or progressive Christian would attack the Planned Parenthood building like that.”

“I just want to know why I have to get down on bended knee and ask for forgiveness from the entire western world,” Kaber told our reporter, “every time some asshole who has twisted my religion up commits an act of violence, but whenever some delusional, white, gun toting religious fundamentalist shoots up a Planned Parenthood or a black church in South Carolina, it’s immediately labeled the act of a lone wolf or someone clearly not indicative of Christianity as a whole?” Kaber said that kind of “built-in double standard” is why “this country still has a wink-wink and not approach to the Ku Klux Klan” but why she and her fellow Islamic Americans “have to be put through sixteen levels of screening” when traveling.

The rarity of Islamic terrorist attack on American soil, Kaber said, also leads to her ire over the reaction of white, Christian conservatives to things like the shooting in Colorado Springs. “I mean, I get it, 9/11 was terrible,” Kaber said, “but what kind of idiot thinks we Muslims weren’t burying our own victims that day? Do you think no Muslims died in the Twin Towers that day? We cried right along with every American that day. And the fact is that since that day far, far more Americans have been killed in domestic mass shooting events than have been killed in Islamic terrorist attacks. So why do they insist,” she asked rhetorically, “on demanding that I apologize for the Paris attacks and specifically condemn those psychopaths, but they get to just put their hands up and slide-step six paces to the right away from this Planned Parenthood shooter?”

“I just want America to be the kind of country where I don’t have to denounce assholes that have nothing to do with me,” Kaber said as she was ending the interview, “and where other people don’t have to fall on the sword for people they don’t know. That’s not American. That’s not even common sense. We need to get back to the place where it’s just presumed that good people condemn bad people, no matter what political or religious group they belong to. But until that day comes, yeah, I’m going to speak out every time a white, middle-aged, Christian fundamentalist goes on an anti-abortion killing spree and the same bastards who demand that I bow and scrape to them over the Paris attacks don’t immediately condemn people of their own ilk. Sue me.”
 
It always puzzles me why hypocrisy isn't called out more. The western media & western politicians seem utterly oblivious to the double standards they are applying or imploring us, the public, to apply. I find it one of the most frustrating elements of current world events.
 
They know where the greater public fear and suspicion is likely to lie, or at least that of their target market.
 
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Whenever such terrorist acts are committed I never actually see anybody saying that all Muslims should condemn the perpetrators or apologise for the attacks, but I always see a multitude of articles claiming this is a commonly held viewpoint. Perhaps circumstances are different elsewhere but in England at least it seems like a strawman to be honest.

Obviously when a Christian, a Muslim or even an atheist commits an atrocity the responsibility lies with them alone and not with other adherents of their religious ideologies, scapegoating an entire population because of the actions of a few is simply wrong. It is still important to identify the patterns of thought that lead to these acts which are so often religiously inspired, only by targeting the sources of radicalisation and extremism can these things be stopped in the future - that should apply equally to all religious groups.
 
UpTheIrons said:
Whenever such terrorist acts are committed I never actually see anybody saying that all Muslims should condemn the perpetrators or apologise for the attacks, but I always see a multitude of articles claiming this is a commonly held viewpoint.
Click to expand...

Then you're not looking around properly. A lot of people hold every Muslim responsible for Islamic terrorism, therefore Muslims are pressured into condemning the attacks.
 
The Flash said:
Then you're not looking around properly. A lot of people hold every Muslim responsible for Islamic terrorism, therefore Muslims are pressured into condemning the attacks.
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So you're saying the Muslims who denounce the attacks are only doing so to avoid scrutiny themselves?

What?
 
Read what the man says.

UpTheIrons said:
Whenever such terrorist acts are committed I never actually see anybody saying that all Muslims should condemn the perpetrators or apologise for the attacks, but I always see a multitude of articles claiming this is a commonly held viewpoint.
Click to expand...
In response to this Flash is saying:
The Flash said:
Then you're not looking around properly.
Click to expand...
It's patently obvious (to me anyway), if you pay attention to western media portrayal of current terrorist events, that parts of the wider non-Muslim community (these views being expressed through the mainstream media) expect moderate Muslim figures to openly condemn the actions of, for example, the terrorists who perpetrated the attacks in Paris. I do not believe this is a straw man argument. From this, if you're a Muslim, you're not unlikely to conclude that:
The Flash said:
A lot of people hold every Muslim responsible for Islamic terrorism, therefore Muslims are pressured into condemning the attacks.
Click to expand...
Even if you don't agree with Flash's "hold every Muslim responsible for Islamic terrorism" assertion, you have to concede that the opposite position (as highlighted by Foro's article) is never considered or expected --& is utter shamefaced illogical hypocrisy of the worse kind.

So to answer your question:
RTC said:
So you're saying the Muslims who denounce the attacks are only doing so to avoid scrutiny themselves?
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They are denouncing them because they are under immense pressure to do so; unfairly, illogically, & unjustifiably so. This scrutiny would never apply the other way around.
 
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The scrutiny wouldn't apply the same way, fair enough. But Flash's post seems to suggest that would be the only reason they would denounce the attacks, when in actuality, a lot of Muslims are just as horrified about the attacks, if not more so because they are fuelled by a shared religion.
 
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