Update 2: CLINTON: SYRIAN DOWNING OF TURKISH JET 'BRAZEN, UNACCEPTABLE. Just as we expected.
Update: All 28 NATO Allies will meet Tuesday following Turkey's request under article 4 of the Washington Treaty
And so the escalation-cum-provocation-cum false flag is complete. There was a time when shooting down a foreign jet over one's territory [4] was considered self-defense. But not when the one doing the defending is perpetual media bogeyman Syria, which "unnamed sources say" kills hundreds, nay thousands of its own people daily, usually in round, soundbitey numbers. Of course, the other side to the story is irrelevant: the Western-led media is never known to fabricate stories that suit the status quo's power and military industrial complex interests. All that is relevant is for the west, aka NATO, aka Hillary Clinton to get an angle to push for provocation. She just got it. As we suspected on Friday, there was much more than met the eye with the Syrian take down of a Turkey F-4 jet. Remember what we said on Friday [5]: "The only question remains whether Syria's act was offensive or defensive. Naturally, its version is one of self-defense. Turkey obviously will claim it was in its right to be wherever the plane may be, and will say this was an act of provocation. Then NATO, read Hillary Clinton, will promptly step in, and make this a case in which Turkey was in its right and that Syria committed an act of aggression. From there, things will just escalate, and can potentially deteriorate to a far more troubling scale, because as we reminded earlier, Syria has recently become a major symbol for NATO vs the Russia-China axis." And sure enough, just out from CNN: "Turkey declares jet shoot-down a 'hostile' act."
More [6]:
Turkey officially considers the shooting down of one of its military fighter jets by Syria to be a hostile act, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said Sunday.
Turkey delivered the message in a diplomatic note to the Syrian consulate in Istanbul, calling the incident "a hostile movement," ministry spokesman Selcuk Unal told CNN.
Turkish search-and-rescue teams found the wreckage of the fighter jet in the Mediterranean Sea on Sunday, about 1,300 meters (4,260 feet) underwater, he said.
They have not reached the wreck yet, he added. There was no word about survivors of the two-man crew.
The incident raises the temperature between the two regional powers significantly.
Syria gave no warning before shooting down the F-4 Phantom jet which strayed into its territory, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Sunday in an appearance filled with tough talk against Syria.
He accused Syria of spreading "disinformation" about the incident.
"They have created the impression that Syria felt like it was an act of aggression and they shot it down. ... from our perspective that's not the case," Davutoglu told reporters.
The plane in the Friday incident was unarmed, not sending hostile signals, and identifiable as Turkish, he said.
"You have to first send a caution, a warning," he said in the first detailed Turkish statement on the international incident. "If the warning doesn't work, you scramble your planes, you send a stronger signal, you force the plane to land. There wasn't enough time to do any of that in the time that our plane was in Syrian airspace."
"We have to question how it is that an unarmed, solo flight got this response from the Syrians," he said.
He said the fighter jet was in international airspace when it was fired upon.
It had strayed into Syrian territory in a "short, unintentional violation," but was notified by the Turkish side that it had crossed the line, and returned to international airspace, Davutoglu said.
Next steps:
1. NATO issues formal complaint, with open-ended demands.
2. Russia, then China, respond in kind.
3. Geopolitical risk goes offerless.