More triumphs for Erdogan’s “democracy” in Turkey
Now they’ve come for the teachers.
It’s purge time. Yes, that coup certainly was fortuitous for (or staged by) our Turkish democracy champ, Erdogan:
Turkey’s post-coup crackdown took a more sinister turn on Tuesday after tens of thousands of teachers were fired and all the country’s university deans were told they faced suspension.
The licenses of 21,000 staff working in private schools were revoked, more than 15,000 employees at the education ministry were sacked, and the state-run higher education council demanded the resignation of 1,577 university deans…
The suspensions followed Monday’s purge targeting other ministries and state institutions.
The employees include 9,000 police, 2,745 judges, 8,777 from the interior ministry 1,500 from the finance ministry, 257 staff working at the prime minister’s office, at least 100 from the National Intelligence Agency MIT, 399 from the family and social affairs ministry and 492 from the religious affairs ministry.
Officials signalled that the country was to undergo further major changes in the coming days…
There was speculation that Mr Erdogan might try to put in place a state of emergency so as to take full control of all state institutions.
This was all exactly as foreseen by anyone who’s been studying Erdogan, especially after his subverting of term limits in 2014 (see this and this). I don’t know how to convey the requisite bitterness and horror I feel, but in this post I’ve used the rather inadequate tool of sarcasm.
There’s more, if you can stomach it:
It also emerged on Tuesday that the military received intelligence rogue elements of the army were embarking on a coup more than six hours before before hijacked tanks took to the streets and rebel-piloted F-16s bombed key buildings in the capital. The delay raises questions about why quicker action was not taken to interrupt the plot.
The army forces said in a statement that it was given information on the coup plot by the National Intelligence Organisation at 4pm local time and informed relevant authorities. That was several hours before bridges in Istanbul were cut in one of the first public signs that a power grab was underway.
The did not appear to have shared the information with the government, which yesterday claimed it did not know about the plot until tanks were out on the streets and jets in the air.
From the start, many people have been saying that the Erdogan forces either planned this coup or knew about it in advance and winked at it for the exact purpose of instituting a crackdown. The extreme weakness of the plot itself argues for the former, and everything else argues for the latter.
Turkey began as an evil Empire, they’ll end as one. Fitting.
Good thing Russia got that port in Crimea, called Sevastopol now. They have a good bid to retake Anatolia and Constantinople, once TUrkey is out of NATO and the EU.
And of course our Beloved Leader stands with Erdogan. I’m sure he would try the same thing here if he thought he could get away with it. All those millions of rounds of ammo for the Dept. of Agriculture (and others) ought to be put to some good use.
It’s increasingly clear that the coup was an auto-coup.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1992_Peruvian_constitutional_crisis
This is an auto-coup, Turkish style, naturally.
It’s purpose is to take down the Kemalist faction of the nation.
I’d say that Erdogan has reached ‘his station’ and is getting off the Democracy train of thought.
Of course he goes after the teachers! Aren’t teachers the gray eminences behind most coups? 🙂
If Trump wins, I hope he funds the Kurds. Make Turkey a rump state.
I was stationed in Incirlik in 1995. Turkey is at least different than other countries, some of which went from only knowing oppression to a new oppression. (referring to Arab spring).
Hopefully more Turks will soon know what they losing.
Gringo,
I agree about the Kurds. That would be a real game changer. A militarily strong Kurdistan would vex Turkey and Iran. Plus, they seem more friendly towards the West than any group in the ME with the exception of Israel. And, the Kurds do not foster the misogyny common to their neighbors. They need weapons and require no other assistance beyond initial air power until they can train enough pilots to rival both the Turk and Persian airforces, as they are more than willing to fight for themselves.
I don’t think Erdogan quite gets the import of Casablanca.
“And of course our Beloved Leader stands with
Erdogan…”
Best buds. (It’s that MB thang.)
But soon, Obama will have to decide whether holding on to Guhlen is worth saying good-bye to Incirlik.
Erdogan plays for keeps.
So what’ll it be?
When will Obama or Kerry condemn this?
The contemporary term false flag describes covert operations that are designed to deceive in such a way that the operations appear as though they are being carried out by entities, groups, or nations other than those who actually planned and executed them
Operations carried out during peace-time by civilian organizations, as well as covert government agencies, can (by extension) also be called false flag operations if they seek to hide the real organization behind an operation.
[what happened to the people who instigated it? in russia, the people that instigated that coup, are still in power, and positions of power.. when usually what happens to the losers in a coup? death? prison? expulsion?]
Germany: Gleiwitz incident
Russia: Winter War
USA: Gulf of Tonkin Incident
As a tactic to undermine political opponents
Germany: Reichstag fire
USA: Project TP-Ajax
the left, especially russia LOVE this kind of thing:
Pseudo-operations are those in which forces of one power disguise themselves as enemy forces. For example, a state power may disguise teams of operatives as insurgents and, with the aid of defectors, infiltrate insurgent areas
The State Political Directorate (OGPU) of the Soviet Union set up such an operation from 1921 to 1926. During Operation Trust, they used loose networks of White Army supporters and extended them, creating the pseudo-“Monarchist Union of Central Russia” (MUCR) in order to help the OGPU identify real monarchists and anti-Bolsheviks
[they did the same in afghanistan which is how they created the islamic groups that the west is blamed for]
In espionage the term “false flag” describes the recruiting of agents by operatives posing as representatives of a cause the prospective agents are sympathetic to, or even the agents’ own government. For example, during the Cold War, several female West German civil servants were tricked into stealing classified documents by agents of the East German Stasi intelligence service, pretending to be members of West German peace advocacy groups (the Stasi agents were also described as “Romeos,” indicating that they also used their sex appeal to manipulate their targets, making this operation a combination of the false flag and “honey trap” techniques)
Political campaigning has a long history of this tactic in various forms, including in person, print media and electronically in recent years. This can involve when supporters of one candidate pose as supporters of another, or act as “straw men” for their preferred candidate to debate against. This can happen with or without the candidate’s knowledge. The Canuck letter is an example of one candidate creating a false document and attributing it as coming from another candidate in order to discredit that candidate
In the final days of Florida’s 1994 gubernatorial campaign, Democratic Governor Lawton Chiles ran a false flag operation that paid for tens of thousands of calls to elderly voters using false organization names. The calls purported to be from Republican groups and told voters that Jeb Bush was against Social Security and seniors. Chiles denied his campaign was behind the calls. After winning re-election and facing an investigation, Chiles admitted the truth in November 1995
remember this when you read a trumpster and they are so negative it turns you off to the candidate… or when cosby has how many stepping forwards? or as i see in nyc, protestors paid in cash two blocks away from where they will yell, not caring about the actual issue.
Concepts
Agent provocateur
Black propaganda
Casus belli
Covert operation
Denial and deception
Front organization
Joe job, a similar online concept
Mimicry
State terrorism
example: Marxist-Leninist Party of the Netherlands (fake party set up by the Dutch security service)
When the Wall came down, there were great cheers for the advent of democracy within the old Soviet empire.
Remember well arguing with friends / acquaintances / coworkers that democracy alone was not that important, but rule of law, ownership rights, and a “fair” judicial system (as in equality before the law, objectively ruled and enforced) were more important. Absent that, democracy is a house of cards.
Sad outcome for so many, on such a promising opportunity.