Discussion: Turkey Quashes Coup, Erdogan Vows 'Heavy Price' For Plotters

Wow what a mess. I guess they will be shot or their heads cut off

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Well, yeah. It’s something all those Second Amendment types don’t get: EVERYONE has a right to overthrow a government. You just have to succeed. If you don’t, It’s long drop or short drop, if you’re lucky.

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I agree, 2800+ “plotters” has to be BS, you can only keep a secret between 2 people if you don’t tell the other, 2800+ keeping a secret yea right… The attempt will be used as a means to purge and since Erdogan has been moving slowly toward a very conservative religious direction you can been sure more drift in that direct will be planned and executed.

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Could be the “Reichstag Fire” moment for Erdogan.

I am not saying, he arranged the coup attempt, but he may use it as an excuse for making Turkey even more totalitarian than it is presently.

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My thinking as well…

It’s really unlikely that this event is going to have a positive outcome for the Turkish people.
Countries like Turkey really test the Chuchill (?) maxim that democracy is the worst form of government—except for every other kind.
If the majority wants to restrict the freedoms of the minority, you have a kind of tyranny.

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Considering he is in the process of purging the Judiciary of those who represent democracy and secular government, what do you think is really going on.

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Of course with hindsight it’s easy to see that this coup attempt was doomed – the coup participants just didn’t have the military or public support they must have thought would rally behind them once they made their move.

For a couple hours, though, it wasn’t so clear…it had many of the appearances of a coup that might be in the process of succeeding – tanks in the streets, seizure by the coup forces of a major airport, major bridges, TV stations, the President’s plane unable to land, declaration of martial law and imposition of a curfew.

But all that only works if enough people back the coup, including a clear majority of the security forces. Given the enmity between the secular Kemalists within the army, and the increasingly authoritarian Erdogan and his Islamist party, it’s understandable that the coup participants might have thought that once they made their move most of the army would join them. But it looks like they miscalculated very badly. With horrible results for themselves, and for their country.

As I commented last night on a previous article, it’s a classic case of “you come at the king, you better not miss.” And they missed.

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Yet one more “religious” type whose only goal is authoritarianism. Anyone who spouts religion while in government is the same sort of animal.

the Turkish army has traditionally been the defenders of Attatürk’s secular ideology.

I expect to see some purge of the army, Turkey might go ‘Iranian’, to some degree.

Turkey has a pretty checkered past (as the former Big Power in the region), the surrounding nations will not like it…

Precisely. The executions should be starting very soon. (And please, no one mistake the apparent glibness of that statement with the dreadful seriousness of it.)

Message from the Turkish government to the coup plotters:

A number of folks in- and outside of Turkey have already made that comparison, and given how literally nothing about this went in favor of the ‘plotters’… many of those voices are going farther than just ‘he may use this to his advantage’.

Because he’s already said he’s gonna do that much.

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The coup plotters and the soldiers should be arrested immediately and court martialed expeditiously. They are traitors to their country and should receive the full punishment under their law.

The leaders of the democratic movement that overthrew Hosni Mubarak did not act quickly enough against the military and were themselves overthrown by a wahabbi sunni Saudi coup.

If there are not adequate consequences, the cycle of military coups in Turkey will continue unabated. The Turkish military should learn that they serve the civilian leadership.

I think that the Turkish army being the “defender of Ataturk’s secular ideology” is a myth. They are doing it for power and money and control to show the Turkish people they are in charge.

There has been a coup in Turkey every 10-20 years. 1960, 1971, 1980, “1997” and 2016.

The military should stay out of politics. It is not good for Turkey or for Ataturk’s secular ideology.

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According to the Turks I know, it’s very much not. Each of the prior coups was a response to a distinctly authoritiarian turn by the government (1960, for example, was in response to the goverment being seen as preparing to basically become a Soviet client-state in order to secure badly-needed revenue.) or actual violent conflict between the government and insurgent groups that were spiraling out of control (as in 1980).

As for Atatürk’s secular ideology… that was established by an Army officer who’d just fought a war to kick out the European powers of the Triple Entente. So it’s kind of hard to say ‘the military getting involved in politics is bad for the values established by the military getting involved in politics’ with any serious credibility.

If each of the Turkish army is that astute, well-informed and benevolent, the Turks should give up the pretense of democracy. Might as well have a coup every 5 years instead of elections.

Not each and every one of them, no - but the upper levels of the General Staff has historically been men of principal who’ve worked very closely with western military, and were often educated in the West, as well. It’s only been in the last few decades that that’s begun to break down a bit as politicians have stuck their finger into the promotion process within the Turkish military.

#Trump: “Make Turkey Great Again!”

https://uproxx.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/thanks-obama-12.gif?w=650

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