Reflections: the day after the failed coup in Turkey
What a sad sad day.
As commenter “Yancey Ward” writes:
I think it possible, even likely, that Erdogan staged the coup himself, or knew it was coming in advance and allowed the plotter so openly hang themselves.
Literally, Erdogan couldn’t have come up with a more successful plan to concentrate and extend indefinitely his grip on power. All of his legitimate opposition is likely to end up in front of a firing squad now.
Erdogan has been jailing his opposition for quite some time now, and this gives him a reason to do a lot more to them:
Jailing journalists has been one of the hallmarks of Turkey’s poor human rights record, a kind of shorthand for describing the country’s authoritarian tendencies and flawed justice system. But in the run up to a highly contested general election in June, that treatment has been extended to judges and prosecutors who issue decisions the government doesn’t like.
The Justice and Development Party (AKP) government, under the shadow of President Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan, has been accusing these judges of acting as members of an armed organization attempting a coup and other judges friendly to the government have been sending them off to jail while there is an investigation.
Over the past month, three judges and four prosecutors have been put in pre-trial detention, all as a result of decisions they made while discharging their professional duties rather than on evidence of criminal activity. Another four prosecutors barred from the profession during May may be next to see the inside of a cell. The shared feature of these cases is that the decisions that led to their arrests were all on issues pertaining directly or indirectly to allegations of unlawful activity implicating the ErdoÄŸan-dominated government.
That is from an article from NPR that appeared in May of 2015. Please read the whole thing; it’s long but very informative and very chilling. The Turkish election of November 2015 (which may or may not have involved fraud; see this) kept the Erdogan faction in power. Note in that NPR article the mention of accusations of coup-planning by the judges who had ruled against the Erdogan government. Whatever the origins of yesterday’s coup (bona fide attempt or not), there is absolutely no question that it will be used to kill a lot of people who are labeled by Erdogan as members of it.
President Obama either favors this or winks at it, and uses the mantle of “democracy” to defend it. But democracy means nothing without constitutional protections for liberty and rights such as freedom of speech and of the press (as I have written many times over the years in articles about what neocons believe).
Our own press has made much of the support Erdogan has received from the people taking to the streets in support of him, as he requested, during the attempted coup. But of course he has supporters—no one ever said he didn’t, as do most tyrants, and plenty of them. But the real question is who are they, what do they stand for, what percentage of the Turks are among them—and even more importantly, what do we stand for?
Read this about the coup:
http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/07/15/turkish-coup-live-blog/
Especially interesting is the point about the difference between the Istanbul elites and the Anatolian peasants. There are certainly similarities to the revolts between the coastal elites and flyover clingers in America and to the Brexiters and the Brusselers in Europe.
BTW, I’ve heard about the changes that arose in Turkey as Anatolian peasants moved to Istanbul looking for work.
No leader would start a coup as a trap. He’d have to be the most secure and insecure leader in the world: insecure enough to take the risk, and secure enough that he’d know it wouldn’t get out of hand. This is the kind of crazy conspiracy thinking that always leads to a bad end. It’s a conspiracy theory when none is needed to explain the facts, and it rests on unprovables.
Nick:
Those who think he “started it” think there was no risk because it was fake and staged. This is not my point of view. But what unites me and people who think it was staged is that we both think Erdogan will take full advantage of it to jail or kill his opponents and consolidate his tyrannical rule and institute more religious control over Turkey’s government.
I agree that he’ll use it.
But this kind of hidden-secrets thinking is madness.
Erdogan didn’t need to stage a coup because his loyal military officers who replaced the purged military high officers, were supposed to prevent a coup. Stalin and Hitler both take pains to make use of emergencies, but their inherent paranoia means that they don’t trust anyone to start up a “fake coup”.
My assessment is: Officers loyal to Erdogan infiltrated or informed Erdogan of the coup. The coup was begun and fell into a trap or was merely too late, given that much of the military’s command chain was replaced with loyalists to Erd.
Thus this mimics some of the situation with Stauffenberg vs Hitler failed assassination.
Erdogan could have delegated some of his loyal officers to stage or lead the coup, by infiltrating cells of disaffected members. However, in that case, someone could trace it back to him and Erd would have to trust in his loyal subordinates to be loyal and not double spies. It is a safer bet to allow the enemy to foment a coup, but time it so that you are ready to crush it. This allows you to use the Force of Law or precedent or might, to jail your enemies, decapitate them, or otherwise find a justification to get rid of them.
Humans have been concocting such plots since Socrates was ordered by trial to take hemlock and the heresy trial of Jean de Arc. Nothing new.
Occam’s Razor. The plotters screwed up. Not enough fire power. They didn’t anticipate all of the citizens in the street. They should have mowed them down.
And Facebook and Twitter played a big role. They needed citizen support. This was a total screw up.
However, in that case, someone could trace it back to him and Erd would have to trust in his loyal subordinates to be loyal and not double spies.
Also from a different point of view, Erd’s vassals would have to trust in their dear leader enough. Otherwise, Erd could easily “sacrifice them” in an official probe, because those officers would now be in cahoots with the rebels. Erd would now “hold” that over those officer’s heads, if in the future they needed to be purged. Not something Erd’s most loyal vassals would volunteer for, and would attempt to avoid most likely.
If, however, Erd’s most loyal military officer was found to be in cahoots with the rebels, and the rebels were executed but Erd’s loyal officer was kept safe, then I would be more likely to buy the “Erd caused the coup” theory.
They didn’t anticipate all of the citizens in the street. They should have mowed them down.
It would be pretty ridiculous for Constitutional patriots to mow down civilians in the streets. And that’s what the rebels claim to be for, a secular state to protect human rights in Turkey, which is against Allah, but they don’t know that.
Nick Says:
July 16th, 2016 at 3:42 pm
I agree that he’ll use it.
But this kind of hidden-secrets thinking is madness.
No, it’s just something you aren’t used to. MOst people who aren’t used to this, are pretty bad at it. Although some are not, they have a talent for Byzantine plotting and solving murder mysteries.
Yep, respect for rights under the constitution define the government. I did a report on the USSR’s vs the US constitution 60 years ago in high school. As a young person, I saw that the USSR’s constitution provided many more rights than our’s did, but there was no rule of law in the USSR, so the rights were imaginary. Just like in Turkey today. So sad.
Watch the developments regarding both Gulen and Incirlik; this coup attempt has the potential to turn into a major diplomatic crisis for the US, on the order of the 1979 Iran Hostage Crisis. I put nothing past either Erdogan or Obama….
Ymarsakar – No, I’m no stranger to it. But it is literally madness, a failure to distinguish between fantasy and reality. Theories are fine, but something happens when we put them down on paper and start discussing them as if they were truthful. One of the great things about this site is Neo’s commitment to facts.
The simple fact is that it is very hard to pull off a coup.
My take, for what it is worth, is that the “people in the streets” were simply an optic. Like in the U.S., most people are not going to take to the streets under any circumstance; and particularly when the stakes are high, and the issue in doubt. So Erd got enough out–probably through the Mosques– to satisfy CNN, et al. I doubt that it reflects his overall popularity.
The problem was that not enough of the Army, and especially the police, were committed. Unless some key players escaped, and are able to tell their story, we will never know why they believed that they had the fire power to pull it off, nor why the didn’t.
I got caught up in anti-American riots in Istanbul decades ago. It does not take much to light their fuses. I have no good feeling for Turkey as a loyal friend. (On that note, recall their response to sending the 4th Armored through Turkey to attack Sadaam.) We have a big problem trying to dance with those people, and the fools in Washington don’t seem to appreciate that.
One of the great things about this site is Neo’s commitment to facts.
If they were facts, everyone would have them and there would be no reason to read Neo.
No, I’m no stranger to it.
That remains to be seen whether you are capable of deducing mysteries and/or capable of putting them into action if you wished.
See my links in the comments to the previous post, especially the Berlinski one. There is a lot of stuff going on over there.
Theories are fine, but something happens when we put them down on paper and start discussing them as if they were truthful.
Theories are fine so long as they aren’t debated? What’s the point of talking about the truth then if you don’t talk about the theory.
My suspicions that the coup might be a “wag the dog” scenario were aroused when I saw video of soldiers (men in khakis) apparently arrested by police (men in black jackets) walking along as if they were on a holiday outing. When you have been arrested and are in fear of what might happen to you, you don’t have a light-hearted look about you. At least that’s my take on a bit of video I saw. Anecdotal evidence and maybe wrongly interpreted, but enough to make one wonder.
Huh. You’re trying to pick a weird argument with me.
I’m with Oldflyer and Occam on this. There’s no reason to imagine that this was all a conspiracy. There are no facts that contradict the most obvious explanation. Making up a story about it accomplishes nothing.
Whatever the truth of the coup may be, of more importance are Erdogan’s actions afterwards. Most telling is that Erdogan’s government has just ordered the dismissal of 2,745 judges across Turkey. Those positions must now be filled and there is no doubt that their loyalty will be to Erdogan, rather than to Turkey’s former Constitution. Turkey is now, for all intents and purposes, a dictatorship. The last significant M.E. democracy is no more.
Addendum; Israel aside of course.
expat Says:
July 16th, 2016 at 3:16 pm
Read this about the coup:
http://www.the-american-interest.com/2016/07/15/turkish-coup-live-blog/
* * *
I read Mead’s post earlier; this thought seems apropos to some of the comments here:
“9:30 PM Erdogan now broadcasting threats of dire punishment and retribution to all involved in the coup attempt. He’s unlikely to stop with the officers who organized it; Erdogan sounds as if he will take full advantage of the opportunity to fill the ranks with his loyalists.”
And this, from J.E. Dyer, updated from last night at http://libertyunyielding.com/2016/07/15/coup-unfolds-turkey/:
“What’s going on in the rest of the country is less certain, but it did not appear earlier that the coup had much support outside of soldiers in Istanbul and Ankara anyway. A new chief of the Turkish general staff has been named this morning (it’s after sunrise in Turkey). More than 300 military members have already been named as suspects in the coup (which is pretty darn fast to be naming names).
Erdogan is one of the most anti-democratic leaders west of Iran. His putting down a coup is the opposite of a triumph for “democracy”; he had to ban his most successful political opponents to avoid decisive losses for his AKP (Justice and Development Party) in the last election. (And AKP took big losses anyway; it merely held on to put a governing coalition together.) Things will get worse faster now in Turkey.
It’s an object lesson in the triumph of appearances over reality that so many on social media are celebrating the outcome in Turkey as if it represents “people power.” They’re children imagining that they live in a fairy tale. It’s not even clear what happened here: maybe this was a last, poorly-conceived gasp from the old independent military which was constituted early on as a keeper of secularism and constitutionality for the Ataturk republic. But if so, it was awfully poorly conceived. It’s hard to believe military planners really started something they clearly had no way to carry forward or finish. The ineptness of this doesn’t ring true to me.
But there’s still a lot we don’t know. If Erdogan is back firmly in the saddle, we will probably never know it. It’s his narrative that will prevail now. The die is cast.”
* *
Ymarsakar Says:
July 16th, 2016 at 3:44 pm
* *
An interesting comparison could certainly be made to the multitude of failed attempts on Hitler’s life, and the many counter-Nazi conspiracies which ended disastrously for the plotters. My readings have not indicated any infiltration by the Nazis, but that may have been true in some cases. Most of the time, the conspirators were undone by the depth of SS and Gestapo tentacles, and the complexity of conspiring in the pre-tech days.
However, I do find it “fortuitous” that Erdogan was out of the country when the coup began, and thus was in no danger of capture by the plotters.
Byzantine is the meme-of-choice for tangled conspiracies for a reason.
Geoffrey Britain Says:
July 16th, 2016 at 7:30 pm
Whatever the truth of the coup may be, of more importance are Erdogan’s actions afterwards. Most telling is that Erdogan’s government has just ordered the dismissal of 2,745 judges across Turkey. Those positions must now be filled and there is no doubt that their loyalty will be to Erdogan, rather than to Turkey’s former Constitution. Turkey is now, for all intents and purposes, a dictatorship. The last significant M.E. democracy is no more.
* * *
Indeed.
With the caveat about Israel acknowledged, you could perhaps change the last sentence to “the last significant Muslim M.E. pseudo-democracy” —
It will be interesting to see if the “migrant deal” between the EU (minus Britain) and Turkey will hold up, especially the provisions granting non-visa travel by Turkish citizens, in light of the fact that Turkey is obviously turning away from Westernization.
Other serious thoughts on the failed coup.
“Surprise in the News”
http://weaponsman.com/?p=33457
Interesting article at Politico: Did Obama get Erdogan wrong? Some excerpts:
Two observations:
1) The coup scenario seems a replay of the military’s coup against Peron in Argentina. Evita just got on the radio and had thousands of workers go into the streets and overwhelm the military.
2) Let Erdogan turn Turkey into a theocracy. It will be a tragic retrograde for a democracy into a new sick man of Europe, but societies are like people, if one wants to commit suicide there is not much that can be done to stop it. In a few years the Turks will no doubt be as happy about their revolution as the Venezuelans are about theirs.
In any event a society that depended on the army to maintain democracy was always on borrowed time. The wonder is that democracy in Turkey lasted as long as it did. This should end any question as to whether democracy and Islamism are compatible.
I think it possible, even likely, that Erdogan staged the coup himself,
I wounder Neo what she said if this matter comes from diffrent mouth than Yancey Ward” then will strat seen name taging, “Conspracy theories” or other things like the comment held by blog admin “Neo” for moderation and will never been freed, ……
Of course Erdogan as Neo put it is a tyrant , but for the time been, he is an ISIS backdoor gate guard using his country land as training and baypassing world jihadest from round the world from diffrent believes not just one religon as most of you missing this.
Whatever reasons why Erdogan got support and indorsmeant for “democtraticaly elected” or democracy, we had another form of democracy endorsed in Iraq well shadowed by Iranian Proxy, despite most of you knew what Iraq today after 13 years of regime change millions killed, free landtill for ISIS with all sort of media photos and pictures of those jihadests dressed as Afghani with thier ugly beard faces, most with hiddien faces, but you never seen thier dead body in the fields after “liberation” like Falujah, Ramadi or other pleaces in Iraq or Syria.
Only the “pairot” flag shown all the time, even those Toyota Truks fitted with DShK Heavy Machine Gun on them no trace in meadia outles, but only shown runing onland called Iraq & Syria from diffrent source before but not after!!
missing link
http://www.thelocal.de/20160412/german-soldiers-may-have-joined-isis-in-syria
Wll said Bob
The answer is here
The head scarf, modern Turkey, and me.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/08/cover-story-personal-history-elif-batuman
Ann:
Obama told Erdogan he “needed to change his ways”? Oh, I’m sure Erdogan was shaking in quaking in his shoes at that tongue-lashing (if in fact Obama ever said such a thing in the first place).
As it is leaking out that the victims in the Paris attack (Bataclan theater) were decapitated, castrated, and had their eyes gouged out, a PJ Media reader quoted this from, of all places, USA Today (2013):
The swine hussein obama thinks this ^^^ is an acceptable level of violence.
FAB:
There’s no “answer” in that excerpt you posted.
Beverly:
A somewhat similiar sort of mayhem occurred in the Luxor attack of 1997.
Beverly:
When you read those reports, you have to wonder if they were high on PCP or something like that. They seem like ghouls, zombies, that sort of thing, in a frenzy. The Manson gang.
Nick,
Occam’s Razor is tool in analysis, nothing more, and certainly not an arbiter of fact. Having said that, I don’t think it likely it was staged, but I think it probable that Erdogan knew it was coming.
Watch for an Iran, Turkey, Russia axis to develop. Turkey now has more in common and more at stake with those fascist dictatorships than any western democracy.
The times just got more interesting.
Clair Berlinski just shared her take on Ricochet:
https://ricochet.com/update-attack-nice-failed-turkish-coup/
No one can really figure out what’s happening. I should mention that I heard some Turkish official push the idea of joining the EU the other day. If you think Brexit was bad, bringing up this issue in Europe now would split the continent into shatters.
Bob From Virginia:
“This should end any question as to whether democracy and Islamism are compatible.”
It’s essentially the same question of whether democracy and Marxism are compatible. Qutb’s foundational work reads like Marxist tract.
Neo:
“Oh, I’m sure Erdogan was shaking in quaking in his shoes at that tongue-lashing (if in fact Obama ever said such a thing in the first place).”
… given Obama’s firm track record in the region of withholding and withdrawing the support that reformers need to compete against anti-liberal forces and, more, actively boosting anti-liberal Iran.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/syria-obamas-fault
https://kyleorton1991.wordpress.com/2016/03/11/barack-obama-comes-clean/
I had a conversation with a Turk from a military family when the coup began. He described the army as the Turkish version of the US two party system. Looks like that system is broken now. The coup was too little, too late.
Three policemen were murdered this morning by a sniper in Baton rouge. I have not found any news about the US Air Force base in Turkey with multiple nuclear weapons. What will the Obama administration do if a Turkish mob or their military approach the base to take it over?
The pace of events seems to be accelerating. Who is going to lead the United States during these chaotic times? Neither of the candidates for President is morally or temperamentally fit for the office.
I am not prone to panicking but I am tempted to get the heck out of California and move to a small town far away from main roads and stock up on guns and supplies.
Pray for the United States of America.
Here is some news on the US Air Force base from Russia Today of all places. Ominously, the electric power to the base has been cut off. They probably have backup electrical generators but these have limited fuel supplies.
https://www.rt.com/news/351606-usa-incirlik-base-turkey-blocked/
Movement in and out of the Incirlik airbase in southern Turkey was blocked on Saturday by local military authorities. The NATO base stores US tactical nuclear weapons.
Trends
Access to the base has now been restored and flights are again allowed in its airspace, Daily Sabah reports, citing the US consulate in Turkey.
FOLLOW RT’S LIVE UPDATES
“Local authorities are denying movements on to and off of Incirlik Air Base. The power there has also been cut,” the US consulate in Adana said in a message.
“Please avoid the air base until normal operations have been restored,” it added. No further details were provided.
According to CNN, power to the facility was also cut.
The closure of the airspace reportedly led to a halt in US air strikes against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL). CNN was told by sources that the Turkish authorities did make an exception for US aircraft that had already been deployed on missions before the airspace was shut and allowed them to land at the base.
The air space was closed for Turkish authorities to complete “anti-coup” operations at the base, where some of the servicemen are suspected of supporting the failed Friday night military uprising. They have now been arrested, Turkish officials say.
For a totally unexpected coup…
Erdogan has proved to be astonishingly well prepared for its aftermath.
Check this tale out — from Reuters.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-17/why-they-didnt-fire-mystery-coup-pilots-had-erdogans-plane-their-sights-and-did-noth
Erdogan was in a position to be shot out of the sky !
The stories being put out make it seem like he was dancing through bullets like the Terminator.
Watch for an Iran, Turkey, Russia axis to develop. Turkey now has more in common and more at stake with those fascist dictatorships than any western democracy.
Unlikely.
There’s a lot of historical and real politik reasons for that, for those that know the histories of Turkey, Iran, and Russia, for that matter.
There’s no reason to imagine that this was all a conspiracy.
You haven’t even talked about the theory, so you have no idea what the reasons even. Your stance, Nick, was that even talking about the theory was part of the crazy. Which is an invalid way of looking for the truth, it’s more akin to circling the wagons or Obeying the Authority of the masses, the AP, or the Majority.
Not wanting to emulate our friend Artfl on the subject of conspiracies, but the Soviets did in fact have an operation called the “Trust” in the ’20s and ’30s which was supposedly an anti-Communist organization seeking to overthrow the Soviet state. Actually, it was a device run by the secret police (I forget what name they went by at the time) for identifying the anti-Communists who joined the Trust, who were then subject to arrest or assassination. (Stalin then liquidated all the operatives who had run the Trust, presumably on the grounds that in pretending to be anti-Communist, they might have become infected with actual anti-Communist thought, and therefore were a danger to the state. But that’s another story.)
So a “staged” coup is certainly not a completely unbelievable idea.