This is what the US does...it makes deals with dictators...we did with South Vietnam, we did with Central and South America, we did it with Egypt, and let's not forget our favorite dictator, Saddam Hussein!

Now, the US, will once again make a deal with a dictator...in hopes of gaining something from the deal.

or is your mind irreversibly made up concerning this matter?

...massacred Kurds, apparently had a list of 2700 judges to purge all at the ready, etc.

How is any of that democratic? Oh, it's not at all.

Fuck Erdogan with a giant pine cone. And any US so-called leader supporting him deserves the same. I don't care if these 'leaders' have a 'D' after their names: supporting dictators is bullshit.

-app

I think it was a staged coup. Seriously, how does purge 2,700 judges in one day if it was not premeditated.

EU can have pos.

It would be like if the RNC had Ann Coulter ordering tanks around. They'd know in about 10 seconds who the rest of the group is.

welcome on DU when describing this xenophobia, racist, authoritarian pig.

Except with even less legitimacy.

it appears.

The most admirable leader in that area of the world may be Netanyahu.

They're only as numerous and well equipped as they are because they had free access to Turkey to bring people in through the airports, to buy vehicles, etc.

Turkey should provide eveidence that would withstand scrutiny."

Is that diplomatic speak for no?

Game of Thrones has nothing on this guy.

"Who benefits?" is the best question whenever something like this happens. Erdogan, so far, has benefited greatly from this coup.

2,700 judges have already been purged.

political foe of his. He wouldn't have been able to do that before.

of sedition. 24 hours. This does not speak well of due process.

Seems like the guy wants to take over. But what do we do? Intervene? Just watch? I don't know.

there. There is no rush.

was unsuccessful, and they've done about a half dozen of them.

They sometimes dissolve parliament, sometimes not (most recent one at the end of the last century they did not). They ALWAYS turn over the reins of power to the civilians after the Ataturk principles are re-incorporated into governance.

What's happening in Turkey IS like the rise of Saddam Hussein.

it smells to high hell that they might have staged this both to get him and to weed out any officers believed not to be loyal to the current president.

You and your Rule of Law!

All they said was that the Turkish government accused him of being involved and that Kerry said you need to provide proof.

Well then he needs to be vetted, we can't just hand over someone just because He said She said. Egypt has already sided with one group and it ain't the elected guy, so this could get ugly.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-17/egypt-blocks-un-statement-on-turkey-after-failed-coup-attempt/7635542

Here we have this Turkish president who is moving secular Turkey into a Islamist state. Not a good thing, no matter if he was elected or not. So when the secularists try a coup, who does Obama support? I know it may be not impolitic to outwardly support the coup,
but Christ, don't you think the Obama admin would be quietly happy that this happened?

Then we have that guy in Eygpt of the Muslim Brotherhood who was deposed. Yes, democratically elected bit again, driving the country into become another Islamist hellhole. Again Obama supports the Islamist. The guy who replaced has no tolerance for islamic radicals, heck he has even rebuilt Coptic churches that were destroyed by the Islamists. Isnt the kind of leader we should support? We ought to be EMBRACING him, but no, Obama has given him the middle finger.

Another example, Libya and QuaDaffi. An asshole for sure, but he kept the Islamists under control. So what do we do? Support his removal and now Libya is a terrorist hellhole.

Last example. Assad in Syria. Yes another despot wo kept the islamist under wraps. Who does Obama support? The Islamists..


Obama says he supports the elected leaders Ergodan and that Eygptian guy simply because they were democratically elected...Well don't you think what they do once in power is a bit more important? The world has an ample list of bad actors who got into power via the democratic process, doesn't mean they are entitled to our unconditional support.

That doesnt mean he approves of what the president of Turkey is doing or of his policies which I suspect he doesnt rather hes trying to keep the US relations with Turkey from breaking down and its the same with alot of the questionable countries and their leaderships that the US has been involved with in the past.

Supporting a elected president for the sake of supporting an elected President, no matter the amount of damage that President may do.

the US or any other major power gets involved in something like that it tends to lead to nothing but disaster like what happened in Iraq.

that could possibly oppose him, it's going to be very difficult, if not impossible for any meaningful reform to happen. A list of 2,700 judges and court officials to remove/arrest doesn't just happen in 24 hours. And since it's doubtful any of them so much picked up a handgun to help in coup, this is obviously a way of cementing power.

Hopefully its just a temporary issue and most of them will be back at work shortly, if not then the US government should take a look at it and see what if anything the US can do to persuade the Turkish government to change its mind.

We do need Turkey in our fight against ISIS. And that airbase houses a huge number of nukes, and we need to get them back if Turkey plans on shutting us out for a long time. So there needs to be some REALLY good diplomatic slight of hand. Glad we have Obama in the White House and not Bush or Trump.

we had to we could probably move one nearby but the airbase in Turkey does make it a hell of alot cheaper.

They are in fact our enemy in the fight against ISIS. Erdogan is pro-ISIS, whether he admits it or not.

proposals and laws. The back and forth has lasted for seven or eight years.

I too agree that the sudden arrest orders for thousands of judges is not based on the "coup", and the fact that this happened as it did makes me think that claims of a staged coup may not be utterly untrue.

But regardless, it is clear that Erdogan and his group within the AKP are using these events to purge Cemaat, until very recently Erdogan supporters. As was Gulen (associated with Cemaat). Cemaat is supposed to have wide support in the judiciary and in the police.

Given the May resignation of the PM due to disagreements with Erdogan, it looks to me like Erdogan is losing a chunk of his base for the AKP as the more ethical and moderate groups are repelled by his late excesses. I suspect he cannot afford another election and is moving to prevent one, plus stop the judges from ruling further against his regime.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BClen_movement

That led to disaster too.


I suppose we should have stayed out of South Africa's business as well during apartied?

There are times we can and should help but the people of Turkey much like the people of Iraq with Saddam are not bad off enough that they require outside assistance to solve their problems.

.

Anytime we move fast, it is probably pre-planned.

Why is he requesting the extradition of a PA man less that 24hrs after incident? You'de think it would take longer than that to pin point your Prime Suspect.

Many countries use torture routinely even though it doesn't work.

specific actions, like the media 'take over', the prepared text read over the media.

IMO, another country is behind this and wants to destabilize Turkey. The first action taken was the media takeover, that action alone took pre-planning. And actually the first destabilizing 'actions' taken were the recent large terrorist attacks. Where did those airport bombers come from?

To arrest thousands, call for Extradition and torture people will never get real evidence.

But how do we prove it?

First actions. 1)tanks grab control of two bridges 41.091741, 29.061239 (put the loc in google map and see the two bridges)

2) main medias is taken over and all CNN/others forced to read prepared statements.

It was a very small group of military with specific 'duties'. Someone told that group what to do and had control over the tanks, and a few aircraft. Those tanks didn't drive cross country to get to those bridges.

That 'Coup' was to small right from the beginning. weird, I think some other country planned this to destabilize (but not take over-yet) Turkey.

The US and its coalition certainly do not want Turkey in chaos on the border with Syria and Iraq, where they are already dealing with a very confusing set of conflicts happening simultaneously. ie ISIS vs the coalition, Russia and Syria; Al Nusra vs the coalition, Russia and Syria with the concern that many rebels who agreed to the cessation of hostility are colocated with them, the US and European supported Syrian rebels vs Assad, and Turkey fighting with against the Kurds, who are fighting ISIS with us.

There is NO WAY that the coalition wants chaos in Turkey for that reason and because they are keeping a large proportion of Syrian rebels who Europe would prefer to stay there.

Now, Erdogan has spoken of how quickly Russia spoke against the coup ... even though Obama/Kerry were out with statements at the same time. They might actually benefit is Turkey rejects NATO and the US and sides with them. Another possibility is that this has made Turkey more inward looking ... and no one was more intent on regime change in Syria. However, all of these seem far fetched, the main beneficiary has been Erdogan.

More obviously, is it possible that these people were led astray by Erdogan himself. This would explain why it was so inept and why Erdogan ended it within 24 hours and has now arrested many people he has likely long had problems with.

Just like Putin did with Assad, he has the Leader of Turkey following him around like a puppy. Starting a 'belief' POGROM on their own people.

In future will we soon see thousands, millions? of Turkish refugees fleeing another destabilized country?

This was the July 20th, 1944 plot against Hitler biggest mistake, Goebbels could get on the air and tell the German people Hitler was NOT dead and they should oppose the coup. The Coup failed from that point forward.

Before about 1850, you grabbed the churches for the same reason, for it was from the pulpit most people received their news (Most people could not read till after 1800, mostly do to the fact the most common paper was linen, Books were printed on linen, which is like books whose pages are individual T-shirts, good enough for books and permanent records but not for what we call newspapers or things you read once and throw away. Pulp paper was invented in 1801, but took to the 1830s to challenge linen, by the US Civil War, pulp paper newspapers were common and most people received their news via newspapers not the pulpit).

Side note: Linen was the most common form of material for clothing till the 1790s. Cotton was its main rival, but till the Cotton Gin was invented in 1794, only low land cotton was competitive with Linen (and low land cotton only grows in moist almost swamp like sold). With the invention of the Cotton Gin, High Land Cotton (which can grow almost any where south of the Virginia) seed could be removed quickly and cheaply permitted widespread planting of High Land Cotton and Cotton replacing linen in most areas of clothing you see Cotton in today. Thus while books made out of T-shirts is a poor comparison to actual cost of linen paper to pulp paper it is a closer comparison in price than anything else I can think of.

Thus prior to about 1850, taking over the Church (and the state having only one church) was an important factor in any coup (For example during the French Revolution, it was when the Clergy, the Second Estate, merged with the Third Estate, the Middle Class, that the revolution went on. The importance of this merger was the Clergy (not necessary the Church Hierarchy, the Church Hierarchy in many ways opposed not only the merger of the Estates but the French Revolution as a whole). Thus from 1848 to 1871 no less then four French Cardinals who were also Bishops of Paris were killed by revolutionaries. The power of whatever was the State Church is now in the popular media, but that control is now under attack by the web.

I bring up the Church, the Media and the Web to show that control of the news is the most important factor in any coup. Today you grab the Television and Radio Stations. Then the Newspapers (unless they support the coup), then the Government offices of the Police and Military, to control the instruments of force by the state (and then use them to control the population during the coup OR if viewed as unreliable kept in the barracks away from their weapons and other police and military units). Only then do you go after the actual government officials and the Government positions.

Back to the July 20th plot, the coup could have worked even with Hitler alive if the leaders of the plot had taken over the propaganda ministry and put Goebbels in Jail. Instead Goebbels was low on their lists of people to arrest and was the first person Hitler Called after the attempt on his life so Goebbels could say Hitler was alive AND even get Hitler on the Phone with the officer who was finally assigned to arrest Goebbels.

In recent years, the tendency has been to go after any potential hostile media (for example in Egypt the television and Radio stations of the Moslem Brotherhood were summary shut down during the coup and the Web was just closed down). In the Ukraine anyone who opposed the change in government was labeled a Russian Spy and either arrested or otherwise forbidden access to ways to express their views. Cuba watches who has access to the net and what people in Cuba who do have access to the net can actually access (this is also true of Red China). This is all do to the desire to control the news, just like State Churches were used for the same purpose before about 1850.

Just a comment, that yes, taking over the media required pre-planning, but so does any coup. The July 20th Plot had been discussed in planned for in the months prior to July 20th 1944, some of the participates had been working on a coup since at least 1938. One part of any Coup must be control of the Media, anyone who understands how successful coups work know that (Chavez's coup in the 1992 failed, it failed for he failed to take over the media and thus lost the information battle of the attempted coup, a lesson he learned as he worked to get elected later on).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Venezuelan_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat_attempts#February_1992_coup_attempt

Please Note, when Chavez was forced to Surrendered he had to go on the air and tell the rest of the plotters to put down they arms:

He was then allowed to appear on national television to call for all remaining rebel detachments in Venezuela to cease hostilities. When he did so, Chávez famously quipped on national television that he had only failed "por ahora" ("for now&quot

For .000001 seconds, fair enough.