Military Coup in Turkey

Argus · July 17, 2016

Something tells me the Turkish equivalent of plea bargaining is producing evidence right now.

The US courts won't accept testimony obtained through torture. And given the Turkish courts are a wholly controlled arm of the government they will be quite reluctant to hand any suspect over to them for a kangaroo show trial whose result is foreordained.

scribblet · July 17, 2016

My problem is Erdogan controls the press in Turkey at the moment so the wire stories coming out the last day or so are all fragmented.

...........................

If it was Russian or American shenanigans no one will know. If its Erdogan shenanigans no one will know. Not for now anyways.

This story will keep unfolding. The question to ask is, who most benefits from this story's aftermath. If its Erdogan I would say be suspicious of him.

Some people are of the opinion that Erdogan staged the coup himself in order to grab more control, may an eventual dictatorship.

SpankyMcFarland · July 17, 2016

The US courts won't accept testimony obtained through torture. And given the Turkish courts are a wholly controlled arm of the government they will be quite reluctant to hand any suspect over to them for a kangaroo show trial whose result is foreordained.

I guess we will have to wait and see who these rebels are. If they are all Hizmet followers, there's a case to be made.

Moonlight Graham · July 18, 2016

Erdogan is like a Turkish Putin. He's trying to amend the constitution to give himself more power. He's trying to control the media. Typical tyrant.

I don;t know whether it's bad or good the coup failed. But Erdogan was elected, and so was Putin. I don't know how democratically those processes were.

-1=e^ipi · July 18, 2016

I guess we will have to wait and see who these rebels are. If they are all Hizmet followers, there's a case to be made.

Given that Erdogan now has complete control of Turkey. Any information coming from Turkey is unreliable.

SpankyMcFarland · July 18, 2016

Given that Erdogan now has complete control of Turkey. Any information coming from Turkey is unreliable.

More information will emerge in time, not just from government sources either. We have very little to go on right now.

Erdogan seems to be nicer to Putin and Netanyahu these days than he is to Obama and Merkel, which says something about the guy.

Edited July 18, 2016 by SpankyMcFarland

SpankyMcFarland · July 18, 2016

Erdogan has been fortunate to run a developing economy at at a time of rapid expansion. That buys a lot of good will from voters.

Peter F · July 18, 2016

Rue post #48

The economy in Turkey almost collapsed twice n the last year and he's had riots on his streets and deadly put downs of those uprisings-so this sudden display of street popularity months after brutally putting his people down in public for demanding his resignation is just strange to the point of absurd.

A good post Rue. There are many confusing things about Turkey. I think that confusion is because Turkey is actually in a state of confusion society-wise.

A large minority fully supports Turkey becoming part of the EU and becoming more of a secular state. These carry on the legacy of Ataturk and the 'young-turks' of the Ottoman days. Another large Minority is conservative and looks upon becoming more western as accepting the west's inherent perversions along with a rejection of Turkish cultural norms. This conservative minority has had to ride along the Ataturk modernizing train for many years. Lately many modern Turks have concluded that no matter what they (Turks) do, Europeans will never accept them into the Union so stop trying.

The combination of the disillusioned and conservatives brought Erdogan to power.

The good ol' days when the Turkish army was infused throughout with the modernizing ideology of Ataturk has gone.

This confusion within Turkish society is carried into the make-up of its Army, naturally enough.

Crowds appear in the streets to support the government along with crowds appearing in the streets to condemn the government.

So the coup was 'spotty'

DogOnPorch · July 18, 2016

According to videos I've seen, large gangs of 'civilians' meted out ultraviolence to isolated groups of soldiers with predictable results. But, there are also vids of tanks flattening Islamists under their treads.

I don't trust a darn thing...

Argus · July 18, 2016

I don;t know whether it's bad or good the coup failed. But Erdogan was elected, and so was Putin. I don't know how democratically those processes were.

When you have full control of the media, which says nothing but good things about your party and nothing but bad things about everyone else, well, how legitimate is an election? Say anything bad about Erdogan and you face arrest. You certainly can't point out the corruption of him and his parties. The police and judges who tried to investigate it are all in jail, and that's the last time anyone dared bring it up.

DogOnPorch · July 18, 2016

When you have full control of the media, which says nothing but good things about your party and nothing but bad things about everyone else, well, how legitimate is an election? Say anything bad about Erdogan and you face arrest. You certainly can't point out the corruption of him and his parties. The police and judges who tried to investigate it are all in jail, and that's the last time anyone dared bring it up.

I think they just had an...errr...election.

eyeball · July 18, 2016

According to videos I've seen, large gangs of 'civilians' meted out ultraviolence to isolated groups of soldiers with predictable results. But, there are also vids of tanks flattening Islamists under their treads.

I don't trust a darn thing...

Notwithstanding all this, why would we want to stop wheeling and dealing with any of these turkeys?

DogOnPorch · July 18, 2016

Notwithstanding all this, why would we want to stop wheeling and dealing with any of these turkeys?

We? I have nothing to do with Turkey or its behaviour.

SpankyMcFarland · July 18, 2016

Notwithstanding all this, why would we want to stop wheeling and dealing with any of these turkeys?

Basically, for Europe, migrants. They have to deal with Turkey because of this issue. Assistance on ISIL has been a plus overall but is less important politically.

Argus · July 18, 2016

Basically, for Europe, migrants. They have to deal with Turkey because of this issue. Assistance on ISIL has been a plus overall but is less important politically.

There's been precious little assistance with ISIS from Turkey. I'd say they've helped ISIS more than the West.

As for migrants, Europe needs to build up its defenses or Turkey will use the flow of migrants to blackmail them for years. Europe needs to be able to protect its own borders. They need to find the spine to return people across the Med to wherever they came from.

DogOnPorch · July 18, 2016

There's been precious little assistance with ISIS from Turkey. I'd say they've helped ISIS more than the West.

As for migrants, Europe needs to build up its defenses or Turkey will use the flow of migrants to blackmail them for years. Europe needs to be able to protect its own borders. They need to find the spine to return people across the Med to wherever they came from.

I'm wondering if the Obama Admin will cave and hand over the supposed ringleader.

GostHacked · July 18, 2016

What does this all mean with Turkey being a NATO member which is used as a launch point in the war on terror (Syria) ?

We also have him battling the Kurds in Northern Iraq, while the rest of NATO is trying to help the Kurds.

We have seen Turkey buy oil from ISIS (another faction we are trying to kill) which is NOT helping this war on Syria.

I don't know really WTF is happening there, but this is a total clusterFk. This is getting more confusing as time goes on.

If Turkey falls, we will see things degrade even faster than what we have already seen .. I also expect more terror attacks within Turkey.

SpankyMcFarland · July 18, 2016

There's been precious little assistance with ISIS from Turkey. I'd say they've helped ISIS more than the West.

As for migrants, Europe needs to build up its defenses or Turkey will use the flow of migrants to blackmail them for years. Europe needs to be able to protect its own borders. They need to find the spine to return people across the Med to wherever they came from.

With ISIL overall, it's probably been a plus but not by much. Lord knows what's really going on:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/07/17/turkeys-incirlik-air-base-resumes-anti-isil-operations/87221308/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey%E2%80%93ISIL_conflict

The recent attack on Ataturk airport was attributed to ISIL which suggest they are not entirely happy with Turkish policy.

On migrants, Europe isn't yet ready to get tough enough. For decades, the barrier states of West Asia and North Africa did the dirty work. Turkey is still vital while Europe changes its policies.

Edited July 18, 2016 by SpankyMcFarland

SpankyMcFarland · July 18, 2016

What does this all mean with Turkey being a NATO member which is used as a launch point in the war on terror (Syria) ?

We also have him battling the Kurds in Northern Iraq, while the rest of NATO is trying to help the Kurds.

We have seen Turkey buy oil from ISIS (another faction we are trying to kill) which is NOT helping this war on Syria.

I don't know really WTF is happening there, but this is a total clusterFk. This is getting more confusing as time goes on.

If Turkey falls, we will see things degrade even faster than what we have already seen .. I also expect more terror attacks within Turkey.

The Kurds are also involved with ISIL oil and migrant-trafficking. There are no clean hands.

Things have not been great in Iraqi Kurdistan either:

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/analysis-war-against-journalists-kurdistan-2038679912

Edited July 18, 2016 by SpankyMcFarland

eyeball · July 18, 2016

I wouldn't worry too much about Europeans coming up with a solution for their migrant issues.

That said I doubt we'll be doing anything to prevent Europe from executing its solution this time around.

Edited July 18, 2016 by eyeball

DogOnPorch · July 18, 2016

I wouldn't worry too much about Europeans coming up with a solution for their migrant issues.

That said I doubt we'll be doing anything to prevent Europe from executing its solution this time around.

I really haven't seen pictures of dead French children plastered across the media to provide the needed guilt trip. Perhaps next attack, eh?

Rue · July 18, 2016

Erdogan is an idiot. In fact he has just established the legal grounds the individual he named could apply for refuge status in the U.S.

Well now. Obama set up a troika with himself, Morsi and Erdogan as the 3 wise Muslim Brotherhood allies who would lead the Middle

East to modern times. Take a look at the mess now:

1-a failed Muslim takeover of Tunisia

2-civil wars in Chad, Dahomey, Niger, Mali, Yemen, Bahrain

3-rampant Muslim extremist attacks in the above, Senegal, Kenya, Nigeria

4-agitated civil wars in Iraq, Afghanistan

5-massacre and crack down of pro Western progressive students in Iran

6-the violent removal of Morsi in Egypt for suspending its constitution and ordering genocide on its Coptic Christians

7-continued on-going support of Sudan, a country his half brother finances via the Muslim Brotherhood;

8-failed Muslim nations that he Morsi and Erdogan would usher in, in Algeria Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, and Jordan;

9-alienation of the US's closest allies in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel

10-the embracing of Iran as an ally while fighting Iran in Syria

11-the embracing of a Shiite Iraqi leader who massacered thousands of Sunnis causing Sunnis to break from

Al Quaeda and form ISIL and instead of invading Syria turning on Turkey and the US who financed and trained them

12-a Chinese naval port in Djibouti right down wind of the US one and adding injury to this in your face manouver,

China pays not even a third the rent the US does

13-China, Iran's no.1 ally, forming at the same time an open military alliance with Israel defusing Israel's need to

go to war with Iran after Obama openly insulted Israael's defensive fears of terrorism and Iran and sided with Hamas,

Hezbollah and Iran

14-Obama removing Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist groups and openly referring to them as legitimate

peace partners

15-John Kerry in the midst of a war between Hamas and Israel and the PA, openly insulting both Abbas and Netanyahu, siding

with Hamas and sabotaging a peace treaty Egypt created that three weeks later and 5,000 more dead or so later, Hamas

ended up agreeing to anyways

16-Putin, Merkel and China openly rejecting Obama's Middle East policies

17-Germany feeling so alarmed at pro Iranian US manouvers it sent 6 state of the arm submarines to Israel to offset Iranian

naval activities endangering European oil supplies

18-walking out of a state visit with the leaders of India to go to a state funeral of the head of Saudi Arabia who openly rejected

Obama and ridiculed him-and when he did so, with a display from his wife making it clear to everyone in Saudi Arabia she would

not cover her head (you go girl or is that guy in a dress)

19-supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan causing Britain to pull out of Iraq and tell Obama to back out of destabilizing King Abdullah in Jordan

20-an out and out battle with Cameron over how to conduct a ground war in Iraq

21-advising Putin he would unilaterally disclose British, French and Nato nuclear sites in Europe unilaterally without their

say, if Putin entered into a deal with him

22-bragging to the world how his foreign policy bringing sunnis and Shiites together was working in the utopia kingdom of Yemen-say what-yah Yemen

23-not a peep over Muslim massacres in Mali, Central African Republic, Chad, Niger, Dahomey and telling the French

its their problem

24-refusing to walk with world leaders in Paris over the Hebdo attack because hey according to Obama, it was not right to

call the terrorists Muslim extremists and wait for it, according to Obama when they picked out Jews to massacre, it wasn't because they were Jews it was random and it was coincidental they were Jews

25-a continuing lecture that when Muslim extremists engage in terror they are not to be referred to as Muslims because automatically they stop being Muslim extremists and are just extremists because Obama says so-see in his world Muslims who are terrorists

poof like magic can't be called Muslim-poof begone with their Muslim extremist beliefs we can't mention that

26-further to 25, Obama hired hundreds and placed them in Homeland Security, the FBI, the CIA to rewrite manuals to take the word Muslim out when it was next to the word terrorist

27-Obama openly embraced Muslim Brotherhood leaders in Washington as peaceful allies, shortly before describing

Hamas who they still support as a legitimate peace partner

28-openly hired over 30 individuals who are openly affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood

29-is part of a regime whereby Joe Biden and Hilary Clinton took cash from lobby groups-one a front for the

Iranian government, the other the Muslim Brotherhood

30-a strained relationship with Pakistan which protects ISIL and Taliban and Al Quaeda within its borders.31-

40- alienation of Egypt's military after the Morsi coups d'etats removed him after Morsi suspended the constitution and tried to do to Coptic Christians what all dictators

41-failed states in Somalia, Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan flooding Europe with refugees

Morsi and Erdogan are two vivid examples of the puppets Obama threw his hat in the ring with as part of his failed foreign policy.

Edited July 18, 2016 by Rue