Kinda tragic when the military has to step in to stop religion going nuts in a country.
Come at me blitz fanatics
Yep military will always insure that Turkey remains a secular country. As soon as there’s a hint of religion in politics, they will step in and put a stop to it.
Sounds (at this early stage) that the military might have blown it this time though.
That’s the thing about a coup - if you mount one, you’ve got to be REALLY REALLY sure you’ll win, or else you’ll only strengthen the extremists on the side you’re trying to overthrow. And worse, nobody will be afraid of you any more.
If the coup fails, which seems the most likely outcome at the moment, Erdogan will basically be the dictator of Turkey.
The military seem split. Northern.Army Group seem to be loyal to Erdogan. Which would probably make Civil war imminent. Oh yeah, thats going to do wonders for the region…
It’s all relative. How many killed in Turkey and what’s the empathy response? This is not the firs set of idealogical slaughterings in Turkey.
2.5 million desperate Syrian refugees in Turkey, the intra-Europe refugee deal may come unstuck, reports of Turks seeking refuge in Greece, thousands of Turkish judges sacked. This is far more dangerous than in France.
Erdogan talking about democracy - pls give me a break. He’s used this coup as a pretext to remove his opposition and consolidate his power. Talk in the media that this may have been a ‘false flag’ moment too ie made to look like a coup by Erdogan to go after his enemies.
Erdogan talking about democracy - pls give me a break. He's used this coup as a pretext to remove his opposition and consolidate his power. Talk in the media that this may have been a 'false flag' moment too ie made to look like a coup by Erdogan to go after his enemies.
Nothing would surprise.
Erdogan talking about democracy - pls give me a break. He's used this coup as a pretext to remove his opposition and consolidate his power. Talk in the media that this may have been a 'false flag' moment too ie made to look like a coup by Erdogan to go after his enemies.Nothing would surprise.
Yeah it would not surprise me either. This has strengthened his grip on power and made the masses supposedly support him.
It was certainly a strangely weak ‘coup’. A tiny proportion of the army only.
Can’t stand this guy.
I read this today:
“A major enabler of ISIS has been the Erdogan regime.
Erdogan has allowed ISIS to use Turkey as its logistics, recruitment and economic base. ISIS forces operate all but openly, without fear because the regime protects them.
Today ISIS is accumulating chemical weapons in Syria. This is known.
The only way to save the West from chemical terrorism is to throw Turkey out of NATO and cut it off from the EU. Otherwise, ISIS’s chemical weapons will be used in the next Nice, Paris, Orlando and San Bernadino.
I have no idea why the coup happened now when " would make so much more sense for them to wait until Obama is out of office. Maybe they were about to be exposed. But whatever happens now in Turkey will make the rest of the world less safe. So the need to cut off Turkey is the first response anyone should be taking today.
Tragically, so long as the western leftist elite prefer the Muslim Brotherhood to the political Right in the own countries, Turkey will not be expelled from NATO or cut off from the EU. So ISIS will not be contained.”
Not sure I agree with much of that.
Most of what happens in Turkey is more to do with Turkey’s internal factors rather than what we in the west see as important.
Erdogan DOES at the very least turn a blind eye to ISIS activities. That’s cos they’re fighting the Kurdish vaguely-independent state in what used to be Northern Iraq. Turkey has a very large percentage of Kurdish separatists, have been fighting an undeclared civiul war against them for years, and Erdogan (and probably most other likely Turkish leaders) will continue to back ANYONE who lessens the prospect of Turkish Kurds trying to split off to join another Kurdish state.
I think the prospect of ISIS using chemical weapons in the West is remote at best. They’re under massive pressure and losing ground in their home territories, if they actually had chemical weapons (which i doubt) then they’d use them there against their Syrian/Iraqi enemies and nobody in the west would really give a damn. ISIS have gambled with terrorism in the west so far. They know that the west is leery about direct intervention because of the Iraq disaster, and because they don’t want to violate Syrian territory and cause a confrontation with Russia. They’re happy to try to talk people in the west into shooting up public places, or even claiming credit for atrocities they had nothing to do with in order to talk themselves up, but they know that chemical/biological weapons are very traceable, and if an ISIS chemical attack happened in the west all restraint would be off the table and the western militaries would crush them like a bug.
Not sure what good it would do to ‘cut off’ Turkey anyway. They’re not in the EU and will not be any time soon. From a NATO point of view, expelling them would only hurt NATO. Basically it’d push Turkey into a closer relationship with Russia (who’re already trying to turn Assad’s Syria into a client state and who would LOVE to do the same with Turkey, who are much stronger and whose control over the Dardanelles would allow them unfettered naval access to the mediterranean), and it’d deprive NATO of the use of Turkish airbases to hit at ISIS. Sure, they can still use Cyprus or whatever at a stretch, but Turkey is much closer, and shares a land border if NATO actually DOES want to commit land forces…
Turkey’s history over the past 50 years has been a long uneasy semi-truce between factions that don’t fit well into western stereotypes. The army and Kemalists generally stand for the separation of religion and state, the independence of the judiciary, womens rights, and improved ties with the west, which is great, but they’ve been perfectly willing to overthrow democratically elected governments in the name of their version of democracy, and have a long history of sponsoring assassinations etc against political opponents. Erdogan is an islamist who was elected by popular vote, with heavy support from the more traditional and religious elements of society and the more traditional village-based population further away from the mediterranean, but now he’s been democratically elected he’s been using his position to attack independence of the media and judiciary, and imprisoning political opponents on rubbish charges, etc etc. And BOTH of these factions are likely to choose to turn a blind eye to ISIS in order to keep the Kurds under control. The Kurds in northern Iraq seem to run a pretty well-organised modern society, but are not recognised by anyone as a soverign nation, and have close ties to the PKK who’ve been committing terrorist atrocities in Turkey for decades.
There really are no clear-cut obvious good guys here, nor an obvious best path for the west to take. Do you side with the military who are overthrowing a democratically elected government? Well, the west tried that when the military overthrew the elected Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt, and it didn’t turn out well at all (not to mention if you do it, you’re shitting on your claims of being interested in democracy). Or do you side with the democratically elected government which is undercutting democratic institutions and looks to be morphing into a one-party religion-centred state? Or do you side with a tiny statelet that was born from a terrorist movement and, if you side with them, would immediately make Turkey and Iraq your enemies?
it’s a massive mess.
Erdogan’s son runs the main trucking company that has been exporting IS oil for the past few years.
Kinda tragic when the military has to step in to stop religion going nuts in a country.Come at me blitz fanatics
Die infidel
Rofl. Military stages a coup, president dismisses 2,700 judges.
What makes me think this was a massive stitch up.
From a friend-of-a-friend in the diplomatic corps…
The coup attempt was NOT the secular Kemalists in the army trying to overthrow Erdogan. These guys still exist, but they’re weaker than they used to be, and they did not support the coup (which probably explains how Erdogan was able to retake control so easily).
The coup was supposedly run by a relatively small faction in the military who follow a guy called Gulen. He ran an Islamist party for a while that was a rival of, then a partner of Erdogan’s. During that time he got a lot of his supporters into the military (one of the reasons the secularists in the army aren’t as strong these days). Anyway, he and Erdogan had a falling out a few years back, and a lot of his followers were arrested (somewhat but not entirely dubiously) for plotting to overthrow the govt. Gulen is now living in the USA.
The details are still fuzzy. Gulen’s people deny having any involvement (but of course they would, whether it was true or not). Plenty of Turks believe it was a false flag operation intended to allow Erdogan to crack down on dissent.
Unsure what happens now. Erdogan is in power still and is probably strengthened by what happened. General expectation is that there’ll be further crackdowns on media, dissent, judges etc (>2000 judges have already been sacked). Most likely there’ll be further constitutional changes designed to give Erdogan more power (this process has been proceeding steadily over the past 5-10 years but might now speed up). What happens to the army is an interesting one. Gulen had more influence in the army than Erdogan did, but if his people are purged then it’s uncertain whether they’ll be replaced by Erdogan loyalists or more traditional military Kemalists. Regardless, the failure of this coup has made it unlikely anyone will try another one any time soon. Popular opinion, even in relatively westernised areas like Istanbul, was heavily opposed to the coup, though i’m not sure at whether they thought they were opposing a Gulen-led coup or a secular military coup, and what if any difference it would have made. All major political parties, even Erdogan’s opponents, opposed the coup, even early on when it looked like it would succeed. Again, not sure if they knew at the time who was running it.
From a friend-of-a-friend in the diplomatic corps...The coup attempt was NOT the secular Kemalists in the army trying to overthrow Erdogan. These guys still exist, but they’re weaker than they used to be, and they did not support the coup (which probably explains how Erdogan was able to retake control so easily).
The coup was supposedly run by a relatively small faction in the military who follow a guy called Gulen. He ran an Islamist party for a while that was a rival of, then a partner of Erdogan’s. During that time he got a lot of his supporters into the military (one of the reasons the secularists in the army aren’t as strong these days). Anyway, he and Erdogan had a falling out a few years back, and a lot of his followers were arrested (somewhat but not entirely dubiously) for plotting to overthrow the govt. Gulen is now living in the USA.
The details are still fuzzy. Gulen’s people deny having any involvement (but of course they would, whether it was true or not). Plenty of Turks believe it was a false flag operation intended to allow Erdogan to crack down on dissent.
Unsure what happens now. Erdogan is in power still and is probably strengthened by what happened. General expectation is that there’ll be further crackdowns on media, dissent, judges etc (>2000 judges have already been sacked). Most likely there’ll be further constitutional changes designed to give Erdogan more power (this process has been proceeding steadily over the past 5-10 years but might now speed up). What happens to the army is an interesting one. Gulen had more influence in the army than Erdogan did, but if his people are purged then it’s uncertain whether they’ll be replaced by Erdogan loyalists or more traditional military Kemalists. Regardless, the failure of this coup has made it unlikely anyone will try another one any time soon. Popular opinion, even in relatively westernised areas like Istanbul, was heavily opposed to the coup, though i’m not sure at whether they thought they were opposing a Gulen-led coup or a secular military coup, and what if any difference it would have made. All major political parties, even Erdogan’s opponents, opposed the coup, even early on when it looked like it would succeed. Again, not sure if they knew at the time who was running it.
The first thing Erdogan did was blame Gulen who is in exile in the US. He has also demanded the US ectradite him without any evidence whatsoever. Seemed way too convenient. It may be true but it may also not be true, just an easy excuse for Erdogan.
Sounds (at this early stage) that the military might have blown it this time though.That’s the thing about a coup - if you mount one, you’ve got to be REALLY REALLY sure you’ll win, or else you’ll only strengthen the extremists on the side you’re trying to overthrow. And worse, nobody will be afraid of you any more.
If the coup fails, which seems the most likely outcome at the moment, Erdogan will basically be the dictator of Turkey.
Yes, whilst that is generally true, unfortunately it is not always the case.
The American Liberty League, with one Grandpappy Prescott Bush involved, tried this back in FDRs time. It was only due to one of the most decorated soldiers at the time, Maj-Gen Smedley Butler, who was approached to lead a rogue army against the government, that this failed at the time. He was not going to let a bunch of brown shirted fascists take over his country and so turned over names and details to congress. Of course it was all hushed over, don’t look here and no charges were laid… However given what the Bush’s and other power families have accomplished since then one wonders if maybe they were successful after all. Just working to a different time frame than the rest of us.
Butler also wrote a very good book, “War is a Racket” in 1935, that is well worth a read which outlines the military industrial complex as the ones who profit from all the death and destruction. Hasn’t it always been that way? https://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html