Serious Coup in Turkey

Kerry in Moscow just today and the reaction of all the european leaders and government to not say a thing and reject Erdogan from their country makes me think this might be some sort of EU-orchestrated sort of "operation" but this might it being quite late now coupled with me being pretty sick today.

I really hope this isn't going to turn into a civil war even though hat is entirely possible sadly, since it would be the worst thing to happen at the moment.

My uncle was there just today but left with his plane early this afternoon, luckily, and I am really glad he got him safely.
If there is anyone Turkish here I would really like to know more and I hope you are safe
 

cookie

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This could turn into a civil war. Erdogan is encouraging civilians to protest against the military, and for all of Erdogan's transgressions he still has a lot of popular support. At the same time, there is a sizeable population that hates AKP and Islamist government who might not mind the army stepping in to overthrow him. So you have a country that is kind of already split down the middle.
 
I'm from Istanbul, following the news from the media. I've been hearing gunfights periodically for about the last 5 hours coming from the bridge and military bases as well as helicopters sounds and sonicbooms from jets flying right overhead (very fucking scary). I've had friends caught in the crossfire, though they are safe now. The district I'm living is safe and most of our neighbors were outside until about an hour ago to converse. Pretty fucking surreal, this was the stuff I watched in documentaries.
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
Few people understand that the Turkish military serves a very different purpose from most militaries around the world. This is not some attempt to create tyranny in the streets, nor is it attempting to unseat Erdogan only to install a new dictator. When Ataturk created the modern Turkish government he created provisions specifying the limits to which democracy and secularism could be infringed upon. The military's role was to serve as a final safeguard, meant to step in and retake power from the administration if they were stepping out of line. Erdogan and his cronies have been cracking down on freedom of speech, Kurdish rights, and non-Islamic religions ever since the late 2000s. Today the military decided he had gone too far.

I support the coup. Erdogan has modeled his approach to government after Putin, and represents the greatest authoritarian threat to regional stability since the dissolution of Yugoslavia.

It sounds weird to say, but if the military fail to retake power, it will most likely mean the end of Turkish secular democracy.
 
Few people understand that the Turkish military serves a very different purpose from most militaries around the world. This is not some attempt to create tyranny in the streets, nor is it attempting to unseat Erdogan only to install a new dictator. When Ataturk created the modern Turkish government he created provisions specifying the limits to which democracy and secularism could be infringed upon. The military's role was to serve as a final safeguard, meant to step in and retake power from the administration if they were stepping out of line. Erdogan and his cronies have been cracking down on freedom of speech, Kurdish rights, and non-Islamic religions ever since the late 2000s. Today the military decided he had gone too far.

I support the coup. Erdogan has modeled his approach to government after Putin, and represents the greatest authoritarian threat to regional stability since the dissolution of Yugoslavia.

It sounds weird to say, but if the military fail to retake power, it will most likely mean the end of Turkish secular democracy.
Dude the coup failed like 3 hours ago
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
Dude the coup failed like 3 hours ago
CNN as of 28 minutes ago reports that the Vice President of Turkey has declared the coup a failure.

Meanwhile, gunfire continues in the streets of Istanbul, and no word from military leaders or other members of government.

You're blind to believe the words of the administration alone in calling this coup "over". Wait for a third-party statement.
 
What exactly are the established goals of the coup, if any? Is there any reason to believe this section of the Turkish military will treat Kurds better?
 

termi

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Lavos Spawn pretty much nailed it: the Turkish military wasn't attempting a coup d'état with the intent of installing an undemocratic junta, it was simply trying to overthrow a corrupted government that has little regard for the secular constitution of Turkey. When people claim that the military deserved to fail because Erdogan has been democratically elected, they forget that Erdogan himself is a quasi-dictator. Sure, he was elected, but a real democracy isn't just about votes, it's also about free press and tolerating opposition. Erdogan's treatment of the Kurds and opposition parties, as well as his relentless censorship of social media and non-state allied media makes Turkey far from a proper democracy at the moment, and the coup was intended to fix that. Also, do not forget that presidency in Turkey is supposed to largely be a ceremonial role. Erdogan hasn't been treating it like one: for him, it's simply an extraconstitutional extension of his rule as a prime minister.

In any case, I'm afraid Erdogan will see this coup attempt as a permit to further undermine his political opponents, ridding the military of political opponents (and therefore undermining its role in Turkish democracy as Lavos Spawn explained it) and placing the blame on Fethullah Gülen and his supporters. It is foolish to believe that democracy has been saved because the coup has failed: if anything, this failure means that the remains of human rights and secularism in Turkey will now be destroyed by the AKP.
 

Bughouse

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Because we need Turkey as an ally. They're the second largest military presence in NATO and have a large strategic location we need for going after ISIS and other threats in the middle east.
 
Because we need Turkey as an ally. They're the second largest military presence in NATO and have a large strategic location we need for going after ISIS and other threats in the middle east.
Aren't there reports that Turkey is secretly sending weapons to ISIS, or was that never proven? Either way there seems far too many ulterior motives for the US to blanket support Erdogan without considering what is actually going on. This does not seem like something the US should be involving itself in.
 

Bughouse

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It's possible Turkey armed rebels in Syria, who were trying to overthrow Assad, who later joined ISIS. But the current state of things at least is that Turkey has been very active in fighting against ISIS and in many ways has actually been more willing than the US has to do bombings, etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey–ISIL_conflict
 
Get ready for a counter coup with Erdogan seizing more power. Considering the military has done many coups before in their history, this was so disorganized. What better way to gain power than to fake a coup and get people to rebel against the military
 

Platinum God n1n1

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Lavos Spawn pretty much nailed it: the Turkish military wasn't attempting a coup d'état with the intent of installing an undemocratic junta, it was simply trying to overthrow a corrupted government that has little regard for the secular constitution of Turkey. When people claim that the military deserved to fail because Erdogan has been democratically elected, they forget that Erdogan himself is a quasi-dictator. Sure, he was elected, but a real democracy isn't just about votes, it's also about free press and tolerating opposition. Erdogan's treatment of the Kurds and opposition parties, as well as his relentless censorship of social media and non-state allied media makes Turkey far from a proper democracy at the moment, and the coup was intended to fix that. Also, do not forget that presidency in Turkey is supposed to largely be a ceremonial role. Erdogan hasn't been treating it like one: for him, it's simply an extraconstitutional extension of his rule as a prime minister.
Maybe a true democracy isnt whats most important right now. With all thats going on in the Middle East and Europe. Stable government that is working along side the US and EU is more important than freedom of press. Change of leadership in this fashion would be a major blow to Turkey. While so many emerging markets are going into a recession Turkey has done relatively well economically. This coup could mean that foreign corporations may do less business with turkey and less people will be traveling to turkey for tourism. Civil rights will come in time; not over night through a coup. In times like this whats most important is having a leader who can work with leaders of the rest of the develop world, maintain security, and grow the economy.
 
Maybe a true democracy isnt whats most important right now. With all thats going on in the Middle East and Europe. Stable government that is working along side the US and EU is more important than freedom of press. Change of leadership in this fashion would be a major blow to Turkey. While so many emerging markets are going into a recession Turkey has done relatively well economically. This coup could mean that foreign corporations may do less business with turkey and less people will be traveling to turkey for tourism. Civil rights will come in time; not over night through a coup. In times like this whats most important is having a leader who can work with leaders of the rest of the develop world, maintain security, and grow the economy.
Do you know who Erdogan is as a leader? He has been restricting rights and slowly taking away rights from Turkish minority groups since he took office as president and made a ceremonious position a position of power. The last defense against a tyrannical rule was the military and Erdogan has been wiping away the military's power. The time to overthrow him was 2-3 years ago which is why I don't think this was an actual coup but a false flag to eliminate more opponents to his rule. The amount of judges dismissed within 24 hours isn't a coincidence. He is also going after a United States military base right now in a counter coup while also demanding extradition of a man they claim is responsible for the coup without providing any evidence for it. This isn't something that happens all of a sudden, it is a calculated move and people buying his bullshit actually disgust me since turkey is the buffer between the middle east and europe and that seems to have been eliminated. This benefits Erdogan, Russia, ISIS, and whatever terrorist organization Erdogan will end up supporting
 
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Codraroll

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I'm usually not one for conspiracy theories, but this coup attempt seems so incompetent one can't help but wonder:

- First of all, the coup was kicked off at 21:30 PM, in a weekend (Friday and Saturday are weekend days in the Muslim world, not sure if Turkey follows that convention or the European one of Saturday-Sunday weekends, but it really doesn't matter - Saturday is a day off nonetheless). That means that the population was still awake, perhaps out in town or at home watching TV, while TV stations have people in the studio broadcasting news. This is the worst possible time to initiate a coup. Any competent schemer would set the ball rolling at a weekday morning, such as 04:45 on a Tuesday. Nobody is awake to realize what happened, and the population wakes up to a new status quo. By the time news have spread, it'd be too late to do anything. Friday night, news spread as fast as possible, and people are awake and ready to take to the streets at short notice.

- It seems nobody of great importance were involved in the coup. Few if any parliament members were arrested, heads of the military were neither captured nor fronting the coup, Erdogan himself was brought to safety as soon as hostilities even started (taking out the President would be the first bullet point on a couper's list), and even now it seems unclear who were really behind it all. The coupers failed spectacularly at seizing important people in an early phase, and securing control of the national assembly. Moreover, they did not have the full support of the armed forces. Or the political opposition (even Gülen condemned the coup attempt). Or foreign governments. Or even the damn PKK. When the anti-Erdoganists didn't even manage to get the Kurds on their side, you know they've failed pretty hard.

- Erdogan was able to give a speech on national TV while the coup was going on. Sure, a few TV stations were invaded, but if the President is given time on the air, things have gone spectacularly bad for the coupers. CNN Türk was raided after the fact, but with the cameras still rolling and viewers who had seen the President's interview still glued to the screen.

- Moreover, the message given by the coup-makers was "[if you support the coup,] stay at home". Erdogan said "Take to the streets if you support me". This resulted in the streets being filled by Erdogan supporters. After all, it happened in prime-time in the evening as everybody was awake to see the news (see point 1). Coup supporters, if obedient to the message, wouldn't be able to help the coup, while counter-coupers filled the streets in protest, all while cameras were rolling.


It seems strange for somebody to be able to arrange such a bold coup d'état, yet somehow manage to make all those blunders. At the very least, if the coup was a legit attempt, the coupers didn't deserve success after dropping the ball so hard. Pro-Erdogan forces restored order before sunrise, Erdogan is now riding a wave of popularity, and the attempt to end his rule was denounced by leaders all over the world.

And, as stated in posts above, three thousand judges have been removed from duty today. Dozens of them are arrested. Erdogan was handed an excuse to beat down on the opposition on a silver platter. His authoritarianism was legitimized in the eyes of many. Any attempts to oppose Erdogan can now be likened to the violent and unsucessful coup. "So, you don't like Dear Leader Erdogan? People who don't like Dear Leader Erdogan caused the death of 300 people not to long ago! Are you a murderer, Mr. Opposition?" All things considered, things couldn't possibly be better for Erdogan at the moment. A coup that failed easily, a golden excuse to purge the state apparatus of disloyalists and reform the army. Erdogan would have been worse off today if the coup hadn't taken place at all.


Again, I don't like to support conspiracy theories, but this widely broadcast spectacle of ineptitude smells a little fishy to me. If anything, I think I've highlighted some of the reasons why the coup failed, both in its execution and with regards to its strategic goals. It was a pathetic attempt, and it gave Erdogan all the cards he could possibly have wanted. Better luck next time.
 
Now that I've gotten some sleep...

Few people understand that the Turkish military serves a very different purpose from most militaries around the world. This is not some attempt to create tyranny in the streets, nor is it attempting to unseat Erdogan only to install a new dictator. When Ataturk created the modern Turkish government he created provisions specifying the limits to which democracy and secularism could be infringed upon. The military's role was to serve as a final safeguard, meant to step in and retake power from the administration if they were stepping out of line. Erdogan and his cronies have been cracking down on freedom of speech, Kurdish rights, and non-Islamic religions ever since the late 2000s. Today the military decided he had gone too far.

I support the coup. Erdogan has modeled his approach to government after Putin, and represents the greatest authoritarian threat to regional stability since the dissolution of Yugoslavia.

It sounds weird to say, but if the military fail to retake power, it will most likely mean the end of Turkish secular democracy.
Lavos Spawn pretty much nailed it: the Turkish military wasn't attempting a coup d'état with the intent of installing an undemocratic junta, it was simply trying to overthrow a corrupted government that has little regard for the secular constitution of Turkey. When people claim that the military deserved to fail because Erdogan has been democratically elected, they forget that Erdogan himself is a quasi-dictator. Sure, he was elected, but a real democracy isn't just about votes, it's also about free press and tolerating opposition. Erdogan's treatment of the Kurds and opposition parties, as well as his relentless censorship of social media and non-state allied media makes Turkey far from a proper democracy at the moment, and the coup was intended to fix that. Also, do not forget that presidency in Turkey is supposed to largely be a ceremonial role. Erdogan hasn't been treating it like one: for him, it's simply an extraconstitutional extension of his rule as a prime minister.

In any case, I'm afraid Erdogan will see this coup attempt as a permit to further undermine his political opponents, ridding the military of political opponents (and therefore undermining its role in Turkish democracy as Lavos Spawn explained it) and placing the blame on Fethullah Gülen and his supporters. It is foolish to believe that democracy has been saved because the coup has failed: if anything, this failure means that the remains of human rights and secularism in Turkey will now be destroyed by the AKP.
OK, do you guys know anything about recent Turkish history? The last coup in 1980 unleashed a brutal wave of repression against pretty much everybody but the "right kind of Kemalists" (both nationalists and the center-left also got their fair share of state terror), with Kurds and leftists getting the shortest end of the stick. Martial law was declared and stayed in effect for 4-7 years depending on the province, arbitrary arrests and house searches were the norm (ask any Turk old enough and at the very least you'll hear stories about burning or stashing away anything remotely "ideological" out of fear), torture was widespread. 50 people were executed, hundreds died under custody or simply "disappeared" after being taken by soldiers, 650 thousand were arrested and all politicians banned, with only military-approved parties allowed to participate in the next elections. Speaking Kurdish was officially banned for the first time in Turkey's history and possibly the worst repression of Kurds in Turkey's history after Atatürk's Dersim massacre began; PKK was formed in opposition to this in 1984. "Saturday mothers" still mourn their lost children. The 1982 constitution drafted by the military is the most anti-democratic in terms of free speech, "public order" and workers' rights compared to the 2 earlier ones. The introduced %10 threshold for legislative elections (highest among all democracies; to block "minority" groups like Islamists, far-left and Kurds) backfired and is one of the reasons Erdoğan could centralize his power, as in 2002 elections he gained %66 of seats with only %34 of votes; roughly %55 of votes were simply not represented.

The rise of conservatism and Erdoğan in Turkey was in part caused the backlash to, first, the 1997 coup-by-memorandum that ousted then-PM Erbakan and the ban of his Islamist Welfare Party, accompanied by a purge of suspected Islamists/conservatives among public officials. AKP is simply a Welfare Party offshoot that brought conservative/Islamist votes to a record %34 in 2002 from %21 in 1995. Another memorandum in 2007, issued because the new president Abdullah Gül would have a wife wearing the veil, simply led to then-PM Erdoğan disbanding the legislative and calling for new elections; AKP votes shot up to %46 from %34. People aren't sheep to be herded by an enlightened military.

The last time they seized power, military was uncomparably more chauvenistic and repressive than Erdoğan. I have no reason to think it'd have been any different if this succeeded. I'm assuming you are Americans, would you like your military to be the "guardian of your democracy", seizing power if Trump wins the elections, enacting curfews, banning all active politicians, dragging off anybody who they suspect are un-American in the middle of the night? It's fucking hypocritical to say this should be the norm for another country. I loathe Erdoğan, but I don't want him to be replaced by an even worse Kemalist general, or martyred and made a hero for generations.
 
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Bughouse

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Wow that 2002 election is a total clusterfuck. 10% minimum threshold is just so so so idiotic. You provided lots of useful information, gvmgvm40. Thank you for a Turkish perspective.

However, I will say to the question of "would I want my military to intervene against a democratically elected president?"
...
If that president literally purges the opposition, yes.
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
Now that I've gotten some sleep...




OK, do you guys know anything about recent Turkish history? The last coup in 1980 unleashed a brutal wave of repression against pretty much everybody but the "right kind of Kemalists" (both nationalists and the center-left also got their fair share of state terror), with Kurds and leftists getting the shortest end of the stick. Martial law was declared and stayed in effect for 4-7 years depending on the province, arbitrary arrests and house searches were the norm (ask any Turk old enough and at the very least you'll hear stories about burning or stashing away anything remotely "ideological" out of fear), torture was widespread. 50 people were executed, hundreds died under custody or simply "disappeared" after being taken by soldiers, 650 thousand were arrested and all politicians banned, with only military-approved parties allowed to participate in the next elections. Speaking Kurdish was officially banned for the first time in Turkey's history and possibly the worst repression of Kurds in Turkey's history after Atatürk's Dersim massacre began; PKK was formed in opposition to this in 1984. "Saturday mothers" still mourn their lost children. The 1982 constitution drafted by the military is the most anti-democratic in terms of free speech, "public order" and workers' rights compared to the 2 earlier ones. The introduced %10 threshold for legislative elections (highest among all democracies; to block "minority" groups like Islamists, far-left and Kurds) backfired and is one of the reasons Erdoğan could centralize his power, as in 2002 elections he gained %66 of seats with only %34 of votes; roughly %55 of votes were simply not represented.

The rise of conservatism and Erdoğan in Turkey was in part caused the backlash to, first, the 1997 coup-by-memorandum that ousted then-PM Erbakan and the ban of his Islamist Welfare Party, accompanied by a purge of suspected Islamists/conservatives among public officials. AKP is simply a Welfare Party offshoot that brought conservative/Islamist votes to a record %34 in 2002 from %21 in 1995. Another memorandum in 2007, issued because the new president Abdullah Gül would have a wife wearing the veil, simply led to then-PM Erdoğan disbanding the legislative and calling for new elections; AKP votes shot up to %46 from %34. People aren't sheep to be herded by an enlightened military.

The last time they seized power, military was uncomparably more chauvenistic and repressive than Erdoğan. I have no reason to think it'd have been any different if this succeeded. I'm assuming you are Americans, would you like your military to be the "guardian of your democracy", seizing power if Trump wins the elections, enacting curfews, banning all active politicians, dragging off anybody who they suspect are un-American in the middle of the night? It's fucking hypocritical to say this should be the norm for another country. I loathe Erdoğan, but I don't want him to be replaced by an even worse Kemalist general, or martyred and made a hero for generations.
Interesting opinion. I did know the history of military coups in Turkey, actually. But I try not to let the past define the present. Erdogan is leading Turkey into ruin. That is my opinion and you can probably guess why I believe it. Erdogan treats his Turks the way Hitler treated his Germans. The ones who suffer are not the average citizen. They are dissidents, homosexuals, Kurds, Armenians, and Jews. He turns the majority against them.

I would gladly take 5-7 years of brutal military rule over 15-20 years of Erdogan's likely reign. Everyone thought Putin was done in 2012. Then he amended the constitution to remove his own office's term limit. Erdogan will follow in his footsteps. According to Turkey's VP, "There is no need for politics in Istanbul. One only needs to follow Mr. Erdogan."

As for your perspective, I'm sure most Turks feel the exact same way. Erdogan knows that. He's playing them all. It's the classic authoritarian move: create or define a threat to "security", strip away individual rights to supposedly protect against said threat, bask in public approval when threat does not come to pass.
 

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