Turkey strikes back at Syria after mortar kills five
 

Article: (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012...E88J0X720121003)


I think this is obviously the largest international event involving the 18-month long civil war in Syria. Obviously it'd be premature to suggest NATO getting involved on the basis of Article 5 being invoked, but if Syria keeps firing into Turkish territory and at Turkish targets things could get even uglier pretty fast. What do you guys make of it?

oh shit

Wait, so I haven't been following the news but I have heard of the unrest over in that part of the world.
So what I'm asking is, what is going on in Syria to make it such a lengthy ordeal.

Ok then.

Basically they had their own little peaceful attempt at revolution, and then it turned into a civil war when the military began firing on protesters, funerals, churches, etc. Now a lot of military personnel have joined the rebels, and basically the Syrian army has been executing civilians as well as firing artillery/RPGs into residential neighbourhoods regularly. Over 28,000 people have died by some counts, with less than 3,000 of those being actual Army members/rebel militants and the rest civilians.

Didn't even realize this was happening.

Actually, read this and you'll get an idea of just how awful this whole thing has been.
http://lightbox.time.com/2012/08/06...-nicole-tung/#1

i eat cereal for dinner and turkey for breakfast, is that weird?

Syriasly, it would save so many problems.

and totally not cause a million others.

Yeah, like how arabs hate Israel and want to kill us, that'll really help them to like us more -_- .....

Go fuck yourself.

We should totally help the rebels overthrow Assad. Not because it's the right thing to do, but just think how Russia and China will react when we steal one of their last middle eastern allies from them.

they just gotta bomb america kill em all and let the other countries go in peace.

america=problems for every other country, intentional or unintentional

Assad needs to get ****ed with a knife tbh, props to turkey for not going super saiyan.

F'real Turkey is becoming the next "don't **** with me" country. I'd say Brazil too, but things aren't as cray as they used to be in South America.

:haha:

Will be interesting to see, in the event of proper Turkish retaliation, if NATO are willing to fulfil their commitments. They've been very reluctant to intervene so far, I wonder if Turkey matters enough to them.

The US (and by extension NATO) won't get involved because Syria and Iran have mutual defence agreements. As soon as one of them is attacked, the other will jump in to help. The US doesn't want a war with Iran, especially given what's happening in Afghanistan.

are you serious

Most likely this. Most likely the whole thing will blow over, and Syria will get their shit together with time (obviously more time that we would've hoped).

But as I've argued Turkey is having an increasingly pivotal world role being the semi-major power that connects the EU and NATO to the Middle East.