Military Coup ongoing in Turkey

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I watched a rally with Erdogan talking to his supporters, he talked about bringing back the death penalty.

This is very much a Stalinist style of Purge where he is going to guy his opposition and the threat of the Military.

Nato must be freaking out, Turkey's Military is going to be left completely leaderless.

Military will be replaced with inexperienced fanatics loyal to Erdogan on military bases that house US nukes. That should be a cause for concern all right.

[troutman]

I did not notice one woman out on the streets during the demonstrations.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Itse

Very true. The West made a huge mistake once again in backing another dictator.

The whole situation in Turkey also has "possibility of future civil war" written all over it. The country already has an armed resistance force (the kurds) that now have strong influence south of the border and connections to other opposition groups within Turkey.

Turkey is going from a stabilizing force to a risk area because once again when the chips are down the West went with the dictator instead of supporting democracy when it needed support.

And people still wonder why not everybody sees West is as the good guys.

Do you have any idea what you're talking about?

The West doesn't even want him in power but is calling for respect of democracy, not supporting Ergodan.

Stop going to infowars

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by nik-

Do you have any idea what you're talking about?

The West doesn't even want him in power but is calling for respect of democracy, not supporting Ergodan.

Stop going to infowars

They backed him long before the coup attempt

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

They backed him long before the coup attempt

Backed him as in tried to work with him as a key NATO ally, yes.

Hardly a controversial stance.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by nik-

Backed him as in tried to work with him as a key NATO ally, yes.

Hardly a controversial stance.

And said nothing as he deconstructed the democracy. This isn't a conspiracy, it's discussing open facts

[calculoso]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

And said nothing as he deconstructed the democracy. This isn't a conspiracy, it's discussing open facts

Said nothing publicly or privately?

[CaptainCrunch]

Looks like one of the conspirators arrested was the commander of the airfield where NATO stages its airstrikes against ISIS. I'm sure that there are going to be major questions about airfield security now.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

And said nothing as he deconstructed the democracy. This isn't a conspiracy, it's discussing open facts

What could the West do? Erdogan was popularly elected, then dismantled the institutions of democracy with the support of most Turks. Secular, pro-Western Turks are a minority. People need to understand that what we consider essential pillars of democracy are not embraced by most people in the world. A free press is seen as backbiting and toxic. Judges who don't hew to traditional religious mores are regarded as leading society into depravity. Some Turks are deeply dismayed at what Erdogan is doing. More are cheering him on.

Turkey has rejected the West and Western institution. It sucks. Turkey was once the great hope for a secular and pro-Western democracy in the Muslim world. But it's better to let the popular will play out than try to install or prop-up a pro-Western regime against the wishes of the people. That hasn't exactly worked out well in places like Iran and Egypt.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by troutman

I did not notice one woman out on the streets during the demonstrations.

That doesn't mean they don't support Erdogan. More and more Turkish women are choosing to wear hijab, a cause championed by Erdogan, who removed the ban on hijabs at schools and public institutions.

[FlameOn]

Erdogan supporters in Germany are attacking Gulen run school teachers and trashing the schools.

I really hope they the police there sort these guys out.
https://twitter.com/Conflicts/status/754687891792625664

[Fuzz]

Just another example of how Muslim nations are incompatible with democracy. When people democratically vote against their interests because of their religious beliefs it is a pretty clear indication of the incompatibility.

[nik-]

http://www.politico.eu/article/erdog...-coup-attempt/

[Thor]

Dave Rubin continues excellent interviews, this time with controversial Bill Warner, who the regressive left loathes. Fascinating stuff.

[Baron von Kriterium]

Sultan Erdogan has taken his putsch a few steps further in the past 24 hours:

- 1577 university deans fired.
- the Ministry of Education has sacked 15,000 people.
- canceled the licenses of 21,000 private school teachers.
- licenses of 24 TV/radio stations revoked.


In other developments:

- there are 14 missing Turk navy ships.
- there are two missing helicopters with Turk special forces.
- Turkish pilots who downed the Russian aircraft several months ago have been arrested.

Supposedly the Government will declare martial law and a state of emergency in the next few hours. So, has the coup really ended?

Journalists are next to be rounded up.

I

[FlameOn]

So in other words, Madrasas, Sharia courts, Islamic religious police and military incoming. I fully expect Turkey to become a fundamentalist Islamist/Jihadist hotbed in ten to fifteen years.

[Fuzz]

That's just what the world needed. Another one of those.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by FlameOn

So in other words, Madrasas, Sharia courts, Islamic religious police and military incoming. I fully expect Turkey to become a fundamentalist Islamist/Jihadist hotbed in ten to fifteen years.

I'd really like to think that's not possible. Turkey is still a fully functioning modern state. If it does go down that road it'd be the previously most secular/modern state to do so.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

What could the West do? Erdogan was popularly elected, then dismantled the institutions of democracy with the support of most Turks.

Did the Americans conduct a poll or an election in Egypt before the helped overthrow Morsi?

[Itse]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Are you really suggesting the West should have backed a military coup against the democratically government of a NATO ally?

First of all, it's becoming increasingly clear the coup was staged to give Erdogan a chance to cleanse the Turkish society of unwanted elements.

Almost 3000 lawyers and judges, 15000 teachers and professors includings heads of universities, TV- and radio-stations are being closed down etc. None of this has anything to do with the coup, and you don't have these kinds of plans with such comprehensive lists of names that you can pull out with days notice, if you don't know you're going to get a chance to use them. Not worth the effort of collecting them.

But of course this is only the latest stage of the political cleansing of Turkey. I agree that there isn't really anything left to do at this point. The problem I have here is that this is such a predictable development, and yet no attempts to halt it were done at any point.

The time for West to act was when there still was a working political opposition in Turkey. The political opposition in Turkey has suffered everything from police raids to bombings of offices to beatings to arrest campaigns to media censorship, all without even a serious comment by EU. This started years ago, and that was the point when the West should have given their support to actual democracy. Civil rights organizations have long cried foul and the opposition parties in Turkey have cried for help, but the West pretty much just let it happen.

Violence towards peaceful mass demonstrations was brushed under the carpet, and the West continued business as usual. Erdogan even essentially started a war against the Kurds in the south of Turkey without a peep from Europe or the West.

Once a leader has gotten away with crushing his political opposition with violence, the final steps of turning a country into a dictatorships are pretty much inevitable. Many have tried to make this point about Turkey for years, to deaf ears.

Not only have there been virtually no political pressure from the West towards Erdogan or support to the rights of the political opposition, Europe and USA have actually given Turkey plenty of financial aid, not to mention selling them plenty of surveillance gear and weapons to be used against their own people.

Just a few months ago EU agreed to give Erdogans government 3 billion dollars in aid and grant Turkish citizens Visa-free access to EU, which is a massive political victory for Erdogan. In exchange EU asked Erdogan to stop the flow of immigrants from Turkey essentially by any means necessary. The deal was a medium sized scandal, often called "the deal with the devil", as it was such a huge political signal on where EU stands with Erdogan.

In short, EU made it crystal clear that Erdogan is a guy they want to work with and the part where he has no respect for human rights is exactly the part that the EU likes. It's just so handy to have a violent friend who you can pay to do your dirty work.

As for popular support, let's remember that Erdogan lost the election where he tried to expand his rights. He might be popular, but not THAT popular. Like Hitler numbers.

(In January Erdogan actually mentioned that he considers Hitlers Germany to be a good model for governance.)