My question is why is Western policy so lenient towards Turkey? I understand during the Cold War that Turkey was a major player in containing the USSR, but the USSR is no more. Furthermore the 2003 invasion of Iraq made Turkey totally redundant in US foreign policy in the Middle East.

Iraq gives the US a very central operating base for operations against any Middle Eastern country. Furthermore the Turks refused to allow the US to utilise US bases in Turkey for the invasion (a fair enough call) but this does mean that Turkey’s status as a reliable US ally has been put in doubt. Iraq on the other hand is a US puppet state…

if you read any neoconservative articles from their think tanks.. long term goals include a permanent presence in 3 areas. East Asia, the Middle east and “South West Europe”. Turkey pretty much being a prime candidate for the last two. Another is that despite some disagreements and changes in stances.. Turkey is overall on good terms with both the US and Israel. And more importantly is the Turkic world.. most of them.. i.e Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan hold vast amounts of energy. Turkey has been keen in using its Turkic roots in wooing them over. The US has been quite active as well. Strategically these countries are also at the backdoor of Russia and China.. two challengers to the current unipolar hegemonic world order. Many of these Turkic countries have had long historical distrust of both these countries, as well as having a number of Turkic minorities in both countries that have had a history of separatist struggles..some thing the outside could exploit (and have done so). Economically, being the most populated country in the region, they also have large potential for consumer goods.

Greece on the other hand, doesn’t really offer the same things and are on good terms with Russia.

I would say that Bhutan needs a transport ac AF since IAF cant meet all their needs

Bhutan also has an unresolved border issue with China, to which the former is accusing the latter of sending in troops to build roads in the disputed area. perhaps something light may be needed to monitor activities

How about Zell Miller? He is a Democrat, but he has a certain following in the Republican camp, after his endorsement of Bush for the election in ’04. He has left congress now, but if you needed to find a Democrat that Republicans could cope with, he would probably be at the top of a short list!

I personally support the Republican party in general, though I tend to be a fiscal conservative more than a social conservative (i.e. I support the lean government part, but not the whole ‘change the constitution to outlaw {insert pet hate here}’ part that seems popular at the moment).

yeah, it seems most of the Americans here are just fiscally conservative. The few I talked to here aren’t into the issue about gay marriage, stem cells, and abortion.. just economics and foreign policy.

Did they ever try selling her? given that she was America’s last mid size carrier.. you’d figure it’d be popular with the likes of Europe, S.American or maybe Asian nations who want smaller carrier.

Does that mean we’ll see carriers named after Clinton? what about Ford?

I have to say Mongolia. Unlikely they by themselves could stop an invasion from Russia or China should they chose to. They don’t have any ocean. They don’t border a major shipping route or have alot of illegal drug activities that warrant a patrol aircraft like Mexico. They aren’t as heavily involved in peace keeping as New Zealand either.

It’s a Japanese government agency for defence-related research.

ah so im guessing this is actually something “legit” then.. thought it was another fan model/art

hmmm I thought they are NATO allies nation!.serriously by playing mock dogfight god know why?. a life was lost and 2 50 million planes wasted for nothing. very shameful for both country.

if both were F-16s. If it was an RF-4, then it’d be a bigger loss for Greece than Turkey.

okay Question. Was the accident where it occured, within the area considered to be disputed airspace?