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Turkey’s shoot-down of the Russian Sukhoi Su-24 makes this more than a hypothetical question.

While the Russians have indicated they are not going to make this a casus belli, Putin charges that the U.S. was given advance notice of the flight plan of the Russian plane.

Were we? Did we authorize, know about, or suspect Erdogan was planning to shoot that Russian plane down? This is no small matter. And Americans have a right to know.

Then there is the geostrategic question.

The world of 2015 is nothing like Truman’s world of 1952 or Reagan’s world of 1982. The adversary we confronted then, the Soviet Empire and Soviet Union, has not existed for a quarter century.

Why then does NATO, created to defend Western Europe against that adversary, still exist?

Why are we still committed to fight Russia not only to defend Germany, but Estonia and Erdogan’s Turkey, and if the neocons get their way, to be committed in perpetuity to fight Russia for Georgia, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Moldova, Ukraine, Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk?

If the history of the 20th century teaches anything, it is that war guarantees all too often lead to war.

But in this war against “radical Islamic terrorism,” who is the real ally: Erdogan, who has been aiding and abetting Islamic jihadists in Syria, or Putin, who has been bombing them?