No, there is no good reason for the Turks to have shot 1st. I think we need to look at just what is going on along the Turkey-Syria border. Just why is ISIS not being economically isolated by closing the borders around it?
Turkey supports ISIS.
Attacking ISIS threatens what they see as an asset, they are protecting their asset.
Does anyone even remember the saga of Korean Airlines Flight 007?
ISIS fights Kurds?
“Just why is ISIS not being economically isolated by closing the borders around it?”
This is a clear case of one man’s freedome fighter being another man’s terrorist. Isis is fighting the Kurds. Turkey is scared of the Kurds because they constitute a majority in some areas of Turkey and a substantial population in others. The Kurds, for valid seeming reasons, are upset with Turkish rule and seek to make their own state. Turkey can’t really fight the Kurds outright on a large scale as the Kurds are allied with the US (sort of. Obama hasn’t been much of a friend.) So Turkey is using Isis to reduce the Kurds.
One reason the US should not involve itself in the area is that it brings us into other country’s conflicts and nothing we do will result in bettering the situation of the US in the area or in the larger arena.
I think this is stalemate, Syria has to be broken apart and these counties around it must declare it a failed state; start administration and security operations including setting up new borders.