Turkish Government Overthrown in Military Coup

[notyou2]

I always understood there are many moderates in the Turkish military? Didn't the same thing happen a number of years back and the military handed power back to a democratically elected government there?

[GoranZ]

Looks like Patches's crush for Saxi is down right X rated.

Erdogan is going to defeat this coup.

You sound like you're happy about it. Please tell me you're not actually happy that Erdogan won. Because if you were, that would be a huge betrayal of the values you claim to profess.

Other than theological bullshit, there's not much difference between Islamic conservatives like Erdogan and Christian conservatives like Ted Cruz. They want to see pretty much everyone in jail who doesn't think like they do. They hate academics, because academics come up with facts and figures disproving the official lines of shit. They hate science, because it encourages freethinking and atheism. They hate the arts, because they suspect anyone who has any artistic leanings is a closet homosexual. Homosexuals they would like to see the death penalty for, but they're willing to compromise and tolerate them as long as they stay invisible. Women are okay, as long as they stay in the kitchen and don't open their mouth about things like the government that don't concern them. Poor people deserve whatever happens to them; they obviously didn't work hard enough. Evidence that they've worked a sixty hour week for sixty years and got fucked out of their savings by the bankers are just propaganda churned out by the academics.

Those thugs in the street protesting in favour of Erdogan? They're soccer hooligans. They're happy that Erdogan throws intellectuals in jail, because they don't trust any of that highfalutin' book larning anyway. They're happy he's throwing judges in jail, because they think discussions about the rule of law are a bunch of smoke and mirrors. Justice in their books would be just beating the shit out of alleged crimminals and letting them bleed to death in the street, and rules of evidence be damned.

The only difference between Erdogan and Cruz is the name they assign to the imaginary ghost in the sky that tells them how everyone is bad. If this is what you support, you've completely sold out the values that you implicitly support by calling yourself "Bernie Sanders."

You believe forcibly removing a leader who was voted in by the majority of their citizens as ok?

We can't have the military upsurt an elected government.

All things being equal, I prefer democratic elections to coups. However, I don't worship at the altar of democracy. It is a value I hold, but only one value among many. The rule of law and basic respect for rights trump democracy. When a duly-elected tyrant has been destroying rights is removed, then yes, I agree with it.

when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Hats off, nicely said.

[Bernie Sanders]

Some of you just don't get it.

This military coup was not even backed by the majority of the leadership in the military, duh.

The people have spoken and the coup leaders will be punished.

We can't enforce our values on people who believe in other type of values.

Saxi, hates the present Turkish leadership and would back a far worse tyrant in Turkey. Patches is just plain ignorant and has a man crush on Saxi.

[waauw]

This military coup was not even backed by the majority of the leadership in the military, duh.

Only because Erdogan had already fired or arrested many officers in the past merely to appoint his own zealots. The same trend can be seen on every level. He's been replacing key officials in all three powers of the state, has been consistently riling up the kurds so as to gain excuses to genocide them, has been consistently been persecuting his political adversaries and has all the while also kept expressing his views of a theocratic state much to the likes of the muslim brotherhood.

But hell, Adolf Hitler was also chosen by the majority of his people, I suppose Bernie must've not wanted him ousted either.

[GoranZ]

Some of you just don't get it.

According to your logic you are the only one that understands

This military coup was not even backed by the majority of the leadership in the military, duh.

Not according to Erdogan, good part of the senior officers are already in jail.

We can't enforce our values on people who believe in other type of values.

Thats the problem... Erdogan is enforcing his views to the Turks, and those that oppose get punished.

Saxi, hates the present Turkish leadership and would back a far worse tyrant in Turkey. Patches is just plain ignorant and has a man crush on Saxi.

I doubt that the worse military general can be worse than Erdogan, we might have to wait for some time for that tho.

[Bernie Sanders]

...and of course we have GoranZ words of wisdom.

[DoomYoshi]

Here is the best article yet:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/07/16/turkey-has-had-lots-of-coups-heres-why-this-one-failed/

By the timetable of recent history, Friday’s attempted coup d’état in Turkey was roughly a decade behind schedule. For the better part of 40 years, beginning in 1960, the Turkish military overthrew governments it did not like around once a decade.

The almost-20-year interregnum between the last military intervention in 1997 and this weekend’s putsch created the impression among many in Turkey and the West that the coup era was over. During this period, the ruling Justice and Development Party, known as AKP, and its leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, used both constitutional reforms and dubious criminal prosecutions of senior officers to bring the military under control.

This was why it was startling to so many, especially Turks, when tanks appeared on the streets of Istanbul and fighter jets streaked low across the sky. For a few hours, it seemed to those nostalgic for another era, when the military’s general staff portrayed itself as the bulwark against the excesses of Turkey’s civilian leaders, that the military had finally returned to its old form and was resetting Turkish politics.

But it was not to be. Although gunfire could still be heard Saturday morning, Erdogan, who looked shaken upon returning to Istanbul from his vacation, nevertheless reestablished control. Why? Beyond the obvious incompetence of the plotters, who failed to arrest the president and the prime minister (something that’s pretty much Coup 101) or establish control over the media — Erdogan was able to rally supporters into the streets via FaceTime, broadcast over CNN Türk — there are three related reasons why Erdogan and the AKP have prevailed.

First is that Turkey has changed since coups seemed a routine feature of the country’s politics. In previous eras, the military could easily intimidate opponents into upholding the secularizing and repressive principles of modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Yet as Turkey has become a more complex society and the AKP has sought to integrate the country globally, the conformity of Kemalism no longer works. In 1997, many Turks welcomed the military’s intervention to undermine Turkey’s first experiment with Islamist-led government. A decade later when the military sought to prevent one of the AKP’s founders, Abdullah Gul, from becoming president — opposing, among other things, the fact that Gul’s wife wore a headscarf — Turks protested, declaring that they neither wanted Islamic law nor military rule.

There had been moments before when Turks defied the military, but the 2007 protests that put the military on the defensive and helped pave the way for Gul’s presidency were a rather unambiguous indication that Turks would no longer submit to the military, no matter how often they were told it was in their interests.

Second, previous coups succeeded because they had significant civilian support. When the tanks rolled up to the Grand National Assembly and prime ministry on September 12, 1980, Turks breathed a sigh of relief because the military promised to bring an end to the violence between rightist and leftist forces that had taken thousands of lives in the previous four years.

The 1997 intervention, sometimes called the “blank” coup or “post-modern” coup because the military did not actually deploy, was the culmination of the military’s efforts to cooperate with women’s organizations, academics, cosmopolitan elites, the media and big business to destabilize and delegitimize a coalition government under the leadership of an Islamist party from which the AKP descends.

In contrast, on Friday night, the faction that sought to overturn the government had little popular support. When Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and then Erdogan himself called on Turks to defy what they called an “uprising,” and when both their supporters, and some detractors, responded, it was only a matter of time before the government regained the upper hand: Military intervention in politics has become an affront to whom Turks believe themselves to be.

Finally, the coup was bound to fail because of who Erdogan is, what he represents for his constituents, and what he has done since coming to power. The Turkish president is a politician of uncanny talents who has captured the imagination of roughly half the electorate that has voted for him in such large numbers since 2007.

Around the world, only former president Bill Clinton edges Erdogan in terms of political skill and charisma. To his devoted followers, Erdogan has corrected historic wrongs and injustices by overcoming an insular and undemocratic secular elite, given life to a new political and business class, and established Turkey as a regional, even global, power.

Yet it is not just how Turks respond to Erdogan on an emotional level that has made him the most important Turkish leader since Ataturk, but also the very fact that he has delivered. Since the AKP came to power, the Turkish public has enjoyed greater access to health care, better infrastructure, more transportation options, more money in their wallets and the opportunity to explore their Muslim identities in ways that were unacceptable in the past.

It is true that over the past several years, Turkey has ramped up repression of journalists, the AKP has sought to remake the judiciary, checks and balances on the executive’s power have been greatly weakened, and corrupt government ministers are beyond the reach of the law. Yet this authoritarian approach didn’t sway the president’s voters to back his overthrow. And the coup plotters wrongly calculated that their show of force would intimidate Erdogan’s supporters. Once Turks took to the streets, they swarmed tanks and detained soldiers until police could arrest them. Indeed, as Erdogan said Saturday, “There is no power higher than the power of the people.”

Erdogan has survived and has already portrayed the failed intervention as an assault on Turkish democracy. Yet he seems to have something other than democratic politics in mind. Arriving in Istanbul, he declared the coup “a gift from God … because this will help us claim our military from these members of this gang” — referring to followers of exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, who was once a partner of the AKP, but has more recently become Erdogan’s enemy.

The implications are clear: AKP will now hunt down opponents — real or imagined — with impunity, consolidating Erdogan’s already formidable personal power and fueling his ambition to further transform Turkey. Rather than an opportunity for democracy, the failed coup will only consolidate Turkey’s elected autocracy.

[Bernie Sanders]

This military coup was not even backed by the majority of the leadership in the military, duh.

Only because Erdogan had already fired or arrested many officers in the past merely to appoint his own zealots. The same trend can be seen on every level. He's been replacing key officials in all three powers of the state, has been consistently riling up the kurds so as to gain excuses to genocide them, has been consistently been persecuting his political adversaries and has all the while also kept expressing his views of a theocratic state much to the likes of the muslim brotherhood.

But hell, Adolf Hitler was also chosen by the majority of his people, I suppose Bernie must've not wanted him ousted either.

Let's get one thing straight.

I don't believe in the present leadership of Turkey, but it's the Turks problem. With that said, we have to respect the People's choice.

[GoranZ]

Here is the best article yet:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/07/16/turkey-has-had-lots-of-coups-heres-why-this-one-failed/

By the timetable of recent history, Friday’s attempted coup d’état in Turkey was roughly a decade behind schedule. For the better part of 40 years, beginning in 1960, the Turkish military overthrew governments it did not like around once a decade.

The almost-20-year interregnum between the last military intervention in 1997 and this weekend’s putsch created the impression among many in Turkey and the West that the coup era was over. During this period, the ruling Justice and Development Party, known as AKP, and its leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, used both constitutional reforms and dubious criminal prosecutions of senior officers to bring the military under control.

This was why it was startling to so many, especially Turks, when tanks appeared on the streets of Istanbul and fighter jets streaked low across the sky. For a few hours, it seemed to those nostalgic for another era, when the military’s general staff portrayed itself as the bulwark against the excesses of Turkey’s civilian leaders, that the military had finally returned to its old form and was resetting Turkish politics.

But it was not to be. Although gunfire could still be heard Saturday morning, Erdogan, who looked shaken upon returning to Istanbul from his vacation, nevertheless reestablished control. Why? Beyond the obvious incompetence of the plotters, who failed to arrest the president and the prime minister (something that’s pretty much Coup 101) or establish control over the media — Erdogan was able to rally supporters into the streets via FaceTime, broadcast over CNN Türk — there are three related reasons why Erdogan and the AKP have prevailed.

First is that Turkey has changed since coups seemed a routine feature of the country’s politics. In previous eras, the military could easily intimidate opponents into upholding the secularizing and repressive principles of modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Yet as Turkey has become a more complex society and the AKP has sought to integrate the country globally, the conformity of Kemalism no longer works. In 1997, many Turks welcomed the military’s intervention to undermine Turkey’s first experiment with Islamist-led government. A decade later when the military sought to prevent one of the AKP’s founders, Abdullah Gul, from becoming president — opposing, among other things, the fact that Gul’s wife wore a headscarf — Turks protested, declaring that they neither wanted Islamic law nor military rule.

There had been moments before when Turks defied the military, but the 2007 protests that put the military on the defensive and helped pave the way for Gul’s presidency were a rather unambiguous indication that Turks would no longer submit to the military, no matter how often they were told it was in their interests.

Second, previous coups succeeded because they had significant civilian support. When the tanks rolled up to the Grand National Assembly and prime ministry on September 12, 1980, Turks breathed a sigh of relief because the military promised to bring an end to the violence between rightist and leftist forces that had taken thousands of lives in the previous four years.

The 1997 intervention, sometimes called the “blank” coup or “post-modern” coup because the military did not actually deploy, was the culmination of the military’s efforts to cooperate with women’s organizations, academics, cosmopolitan elites, the media and big business to destabilize and delegitimize a coalition government under the leadership of an Islamist party from which the AKP descends.

In contrast, on Friday night, the faction that sought to overturn the government had little popular support. When Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and then Erdogan himself called on Turks to defy what they called an “uprising,” and when both their supporters, and some detractors, responded, it was only a matter of time before the government regained the upper hand: Military intervention in politics has become an affront to whom Turks believe themselves to be.

Finally, the coup was bound to fail because of who Erdogan is, what he represents for his constituents, and what he has done since coming to power. The Turkish president is a politician of uncanny talents who has captured the imagination of roughly half the electorate that has voted for him in such large numbers since 2007.

Around the world, only former president Bill Clinton edges Erdogan in terms of political skill and charisma. To his devoted followers, Erdogan has corrected historic wrongs and injustices by overcoming an insular and undemocratic secular elite, given life to a new political and business class, and established Turkey as a regional, even global, power.

Yet it is not just how Turks respond to Erdogan on an emotional level that has made him the most important Turkish leader since Ataturk, but also the very fact that he has delivered. Since the AKP came to power, the Turkish public has enjoyed greater access to health care, better infrastructure, more transportation options, more money in their wallets and the opportunity to explore their Muslim identities in ways that were unacceptable in the past.

It is true that over the past several years, Turkey has ramped up repression of journalists, the AKP has sought to remake the judiciary, checks and balances on the executive’s power have been greatly weakened, and corrupt government ministers are beyond the reach of the law. Yet this authoritarian approach didn’t sway the president’s voters to back his overthrow. And the coup plotters wrongly calculated that their show of force would intimidate Erdogan’s supporters. Once Turks took to the streets, they swarmed tanks and detained soldiers until police could arrest them. Indeed, as Erdogan said Saturday, “There is no power higher than the power of the people.”

Erdogan has survived and has already portrayed the failed intervention as an assault on Turkish democracy. Yet he seems to have something other than democratic politics in mind. Arriving in Istanbul, he declared the coup “a gift from God … because this will help us claim our military from these members of this gang” — referring to followers of exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, who was once a partner of the AKP, but has more recently become Erdogan’s enemy.

The implications are clear: AKP will now hunt down opponents — real or imagined — with impunity, consolidating Erdogan’s already formidable personal power and fueling his ambition to further transform Turkey. Rather than an opportunity for democracy, the failed coup will only consolidate Turkey’s elected autocracy.

Political system in Turkey after the coup



Can you notice the weakness? One successful assassination could change all, it usually works that way in totalitarian societies.

[DoomYoshi]

That's how it is in Russia but you cheer for Putin?

[Bernie Sanders]

That's how it is in Russia but you cheer for Putin?

Yes, but he's not a dirty Muslim.

[GoranZ]

That's how it is in Russia but you cheer for Putin?

With Putin its different, his image is distorted by the western propaganda. And above all Russians never had more freedom then they have under Putin, something that can not be said about Turkey and Erdogan.
Whats the alternative? In Turkey alternative for Erdogan is secular government, but in Russia the alternative are the communists and ultra nationalist. Until there is better alternative I would put mu money on Putin.

That's how it is in Russia but you cheer for Putin?

Yes, but he's not a dirty Muslim.

I admit I do not like the Muslims that you adore. I simply can not find anything positive in Erdogan, Al-Nusra or ISIS.

[Bernie Sanders]

More facts from GoranZ.

Thank you for your contribution!

[DoomYoshi]

Are you on fucking drugs GoranZ? Do you mean to tell me that the country which gave us Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Shostakovich and Tcaichovsky has no intelligence left? Were the communist purges so effective that there are no reasonable people in the country? If that is the case, why do you cheer for them?

[GoranZ]

Are you on fucking drugs GoranZ? Do you mean to tell me that the country which gave us Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Shostakovich and Tcaichovsky has no intelligence left? Were the communist purges so effective that there are no reasonable people in the country? If that is the case, why do you cheer for them?

Intelligence is not an issue. Russia needs a capable leader, and Putin is a capable leader. He might not be the perfect one but he is doing his job, he consolidated his country and considerably expanded its global influence, despite the western sanctions and falling oil prices.
Above all Putin precisely knows what he can and can not do, something that can not be said about his western counterparts. There is no reason for me to cheer against something that already works.

[notyou2]

Are you on fucking drugs GoranZ? Do you mean to tell me that the country which gave us Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Shostakovich and Tcaichovsky has no intelligence left? Were the communist purges so effective that there are no reasonable people in the country? If that is the case, why do you cheer for them?

Intelligence is not an issue. Russia needs a capable leader, and Putin is a capable leader. He might not be the perfect one but he is doing his job, he consolidated his BANK ACCOUNT at the expense of the Russian people.

You got that right, did he ever.

[saxitoxin]

Julian Assange has announced that Wikileaks has been blocked nationwide in Turkey by the Erdogan regime after it released 300,000 of his emails earlier this afternoon -

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/755564353269538816

Meanwhile, Erdogan has announced he will begin executing the regime's critics -

http://www.arabnews.com/node/955216/middle-east

[waauw]

Julian Assange has announced that Wikileaks has been blocked nationwide in Turkey by the Erdogan regime after it released 300,000 of his emails earlier this afternoon -

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/755564353269538816

Meanwhile, Erdogan has announced he will begin executing the regime's critics -

http://www.arabnews.com/node/955216/middle-east

And meanwhile Bernie still thinks a military coup would not have been beneficial

[Bernie Sanders]

Julian Assange has announced that Wikileaks has been blocked nationwide in Turkey by the Erdogan regime after it released 300,000 of his emails earlier this afternoon -

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/755564353269538816

Meanwhile, Erdogan has announced he will begin executing the regime's critics -

http://www.arabnews.com/node/955216/middle-east

And meanwhile Bernie still thinks a military coup would not have been beneficial

Never said whether a military coup would for the better or not. Don't put words in my mouth, kiddo.

The coup was unsuccessful, due to the fact that it was not a popular uprising. The people of Turkey have spoken.

Saxi and his distorted views are laughable. Whatever the tyrant Putin does is for the good of the Russian people, his invasions of countries is justified and his self-enrichment was earned.

[Bernie Sanders]

... and we have GoranZ and his mind-blowing thoughts.

[tzor]

The Coup was "successful" ... in that it was designed to fail all along ... Erdogan’s Staged Coup Has Resulted In A Purge Of 50,000 Teachers, Judges, Soldiers And Government Officials

Among the questions being asked are why coup plotters didn’t execute the most basic steps in seizing power, like securing Erdogan and other top officials. Not a single member of his cabinet and inner-circle AKP party leadership was detained. Nor did coup plotters effectively take control of TV, radio and internet outlets. The government TRT station and CNN Turk were for a time occupied by alleged coup plotters, who quickly retreated as the putsch fell apart.

Coup plotters also failed to secure most airports and other transportation hubs, didn’t occupy or attack Erdogan’s $600 million presidential palace, and failed to intercept his plane before, during or after he flew from one of the country’s busiest and most accessible airports back to Istanbul. This despite the supposed active participation of top generals in Turkey’s Air Force, which maintains a fleet of F-16 aircraft easily capable of tracking, intercepting or – if it came to it – shooting down Erdogan’s plane.

Turkey’s President refuses to rule out the death penalty for thousands of people arrested after a failed military coup Friday, despite warnings that reintroducing capital punishment could dash Turkey’s chances of joining the European Union.

[waauw]

Julian Assange has announced that Wikileaks has been blocked nationwide in Turkey by the Erdogan regime after it released 300,000 of his emails earlier this afternoon -

https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/755564353269538816

Meanwhile, Erdogan has announced he will begin executing the regime's critics -

http://www.arabnews.com/node/955216/middle-east

And meanwhile Bernie still thinks a military coup would not have been beneficial

Never said whether a military coup would for the better or not. Don't put words in my mouth, kiddo.

The coup was unsuccessful, due to the fact that it was not a popular uprising. The people of Turkey have spoken.

Saxi and his distorted views are laughable. Whatever the tyrant Putin does is for the good of the Russian people, his invasions of countries is justified and his self-enrichment was earned.

Oh yes you did:

You believe forcibly removing a leader who was voted in by the majority of their citizens as ok?

We can't have the military upsurt an elected government.

This clearly shows you think it's better to keep Erdogan than have a military coup.

[waauw]

Erdogan lost half his fleet
14 vessels missing.