Military coup in Turkey?

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In actual news, the coup failed but not before causing the death of nearly 200 people, wounding over a thousand others, and letting Erdogan grow stronger for having overcome it. It's a grotesque, pointless tragedy that will have made everything worse, and is just as bad as a massive terrorist attack.

So they didn't manage to off Erdogan, most unfortunate.

I guess it wasn't really Erdogan's coup of tea, eh?

Bodum tss.

I guess it's time to scratch Turkey out of Europe, because if Erdogan does what everyone expects him to, it's pretty much goodbye democracy despite just saving it from the coup.

So rumors are partially true and it was US initiative to turn Turkey into second Lybia\Syria\Ukraine. Shame, don't work this time.

Now things get more interesting. Let's intensify the insanity's quality, shall we?

TraceOfSpades said:

I guess it wasn't really Erdogan's coup of tea, eh?

Permanent ban request

The US is not directly involved with this CWolf, seriously post a source or refrain from thinking out loud. Turkey just allowed the US start flying its war planes / refueling / cooperating logistically using Turkish airfields for the first time in over a decade.

About all I saw the US getting involved was Obama saying we should support this president, which sadly doesn't surprise me in the slightest because he has a history of being sympathetic with violent radical individuals.

There has been reports going around that Erdogan may have staged the coup so that he could stop it and appear heroic and gain more support. Not sure. Seems feasible.

It DOES seem suspicious that, during this coup, they allowed him to flee the country. Something about this screams staged. I mean, if they wanted to get rid of him, why not just assassinate him before he can even see it coming? I seriously doubt this guy is like Hitler and had dozens of lookalikes. If I was staging a coup, the top priority would be making sure this guy stops breathing.

Oh ffs, make up your truther mind already! Was it evil Obama or evil Erdogan staging it? Or both?

If you paid attention, you'd know the coup wasn't successful because only a part of the military was involved - that is why a loyalist F-16 was shooting down a rebel helicopter gunship. I also don't see how Erdogan would be behind this, because the Turkish army really does hate him, so convincing a part of them to sacrifice themselves in order to crack down on the rest of their colleagues sounds extremely far-fetched.

Who the hell said Obama was behind it? I said Obama voiced support for Erdogan, which he did.

So what? He supported a democratically elected leader of an allied country. As much as I dislike Erdogan, it's hard to imagine a different reaction.

I hate to invoke Godwin's Law but Hitler was elected, too. It doesn't matter if he was elected, he's still an extremist that's making the world worse and it's not the first time Obama has chosen to side with extremists.

Explain to me why Erdogan is an extremist.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/erdogan-threatens-send-refugees-outside-turkey-103343752.html?ref=gs

How about this to start?

I repeat, explain it to me. You explained nothing and just threw a link at me in a pathetic attempt to weasel out of it. By the way, your link shows absolutely nothing that would point towards extremism.

There are people in the Kemalist party that are a lot more to the right and more religious than Erdogan, sometimes they do not share both qualities. Erdogan might use religion to the extent that it allows him to have more personal control over the national government, but he is not interested in empowering the judicial or legislative branches in a government that already limits the executive branch quite a bit. By quite a bit, I mean in comparison to some other Middle Eastern neighbors like Syria where the presidential office has a lot of power by design

Erdogan is not an extremist but he is a strongman. Very typical leader role for the region, since the 20th century, at least. Strongman is not a dictator. He never wants to appear to be one. Erdogan stops short of "disappearing" everyone the way Saddam did, but they are not so dissimilar in terms of their domestic policies. Saddam was no extremist either.

Erdogan threatened the EU to dump Syrian Refugees on them (Knowing ISIS is among them) to use as a bartering chip to force the EU to let Turkey be part of the Union, which would allow Turkey civilians (A lot of them are Radicalized Terrorists) free travel to any other country in that union that they want. He's also shown to be funding and providing resources to ISIS, whether he's doing it against the Kurds and Assad make little difference to me, he's still making his alliance well known.

No one seriously thinks Turkey could be part of the EU. In 2010, analysts were wondering how close Turkey and EU were close to joining forces, theoretically the economic integration could have happened 100%. The thing is, they were so far behind on all categories of human rights that there was no chance then, and there has been no chance ever since then, not to mention how Turkey's political scene has deteriorated since then. Deteriorated in the sense that the process and respect for democracy is completely intact but the office of president has been claiming powers at the expense of other branches of government. The EU will never let Turkey in as long as Erdogan is in power. Erdogan will try to sideways threaten the EU but it will be for minor trade and immigration concessions, that's about the extent of his weak bargaining position. Immigrants come from land, air, and sea, not strictly from Turkey

MetroidJunkie said:

Erdogan threatened the EU to dump Syrian Refugees on them (Knowing ISIS is among them) to use as a bartering chip to force the EU to let Turkey be part of the Union, which would allow Turkey civilians (A lot of them are Radicalized Terrorists) free travel to any other country in that union that they want.

Nothing even remotely extremistic in this. There are two million Syrian refugees in Turkey and a big part of them wants to move to Europe. This is a difficult situation for Turkey as well. He's a thuggish politician and he's using political blackmail and strongarming as his tactics, that's all.

edit: Also Turkish membership in the EU was (of course) never on the table. The negotiations merely involved forwarding of the acceptance process, which is a very long procedure spanning even decades. What Erdogan wanted to accomplish was for EU to drop the visa requirement for Turkish citizens when travelling to Europe, but even that wasn't accepted in the end.

MetroidJunkie said:

He's also shown to be funding and providing resources to ISIS, whether he's doing it against the Kurds and Assad make little difference to me, he's still making his alliance well known.

Now you're twisting words. I already talked about this earlier in the thread, Turkey was cynically tolerating smuggling of oil and resources across the border. However you'd have a hard time proving that Erdogan funded or provided resources to Daesh. By your logic USA was providing resources to Daesh as well.

In order to get the EU to recognize Turkey so that he can dump people onto European countries. Do you honestly think the people he plans to dump are peace loving jolly people? No country worth their salt would dump their best people, they would dump their most criminal and extremist because it's a free opportunity to get rid of them. Why do you think, the second Cuba was told they could send people to the United States, they dumped their prisons? It's common sense.

Okay, I see I have to be blunt: Where's the fucking extremism on Erdogan's part? You're still returning to the same two talking points that have nothing to do with his own religious stances. You made claims, so prove them.

In theory, if a person is unfriendly to Erdogan and afraid of ISIS, why is that not an ideal immigrant to the EU. These are people who went from a warzone to an internment camp until they get a "yes or no" answer from the local governments.

It's sort of like when the Monarchs sent their political enemies to the US. The US was like, well if they don't have a lot of diseases bring 'em aboard. A little disease back then was pretty okay. And if they hated the Monarchs, well that wasn't the worst thing in the world. Even if they spoke 0% English.

dew said:

Okay, I see I have to be blunt: Where's the fucking extremism on Erdogan's part? You're still returning to the same two talking points that have nothing to do with his own religious stances. You made claims, so prove them.

Look at you... Dismissing each others opinions for lack of proof... Quite the mature conversation you have here, kudos...

Why don't you explain why extremism has to have something to do with religion to begin with? It's not limited to religion, at all.

Erdogan did however have the nerve the call the coup "a blessing of Allah". Don't believe me? Enter "Erdogan calls coup a blessing" in your search engine of choice and see for yourself why he said so.

If by now you did not realize that Erdogan is slowly but surely using any avaiable method to accumulate more and more power, while weakening any institution that would oppose him in any way, shape or form you must be blind.

When journalists and judges are being arrested, because they are getting uncomfortable for him, you can bet both your eyes that he is attempting to become something similar to a dictator. Don't get me started on the attempts of censorship that have been going on... Would that make him an extremist? In a political sense it sure as shit does.

So maybe, just maybe you might want to stop asking for proof. If you are so keen on questioning others people's opinions, why not question your own for a change?

Oh, and as far as Erdogan and religion goes: Do you know about the "Ditib"? Do you even know that Erdogan is in a position from which he can dictate what is being preached in mosques, which basically equals the ability to instrumentalize religion as a means of propaganda?

Sure Bowb said:

Why don't you explain why extremism has to have something to do with religion to begin with? It's not limited to religion, at all.

This is nice and manipulative, good job. But you don't seem to understand the difference between an extremist (someone who takes an extreme stance on a social, political, religious or other ideology) and someone like Erdogan who is your common-or-garden tinpot dictator. One argues and/or fights for a cause they believe in. The other simply consolidates power so they can run peasants' lives and fuck models every night. Sometimes they overlap, sometimes they don't -- and there's nothing to indicate that Erdogan is one of those cases. More likely Erdogan is using religion to further his own purposes -- that does not make him an "Islamic extremist." MJ is just banging on the Scary Muslim Horde drum for all he's worth. And YOU are telling dew stuff he likely already knows but is completely besides the point.

Did you just say that being a dictator isn't necessarily an extremist position? Good to know censoring your own people's speech, threatening to unload members of ISIS on Europe, and funding said members doesn't make you extremist at all. Geeze, you must have some screwed up positions to think that's anything close to moderate. I don't know about you but I would hope that most people in the West would think that dictating your people and censoring their speech, even looking past the aiding ISIS stuff, would be very extremist in and of itself. You don't think dictators are extremists? Why not?

"MJ is just banging on the Scary Muslim Horde drum for all he's worth" You're the only one I've seen that thinks that showing concern over actual Terrorist groups is Islamaphobic. Are you suggesting all Muslims are terrorists? Because that says a lot about you.

dethtoll said:

This is nice and manipulative, good job. But you don't seem to understand the difference between an extremist (someone who takes an extreme stance on a social, political, religious or other ideology) and someone like Erdogan who is your common-or-garden tinpot dictator.

It's neither "nice", nor is it "manipulative".

Erdogan has an extreme political stance, as has been evidenced multiple times by now. The scope of it all does not matter. If you consider for example an anarchist to have an extreme political stance, eventhough he has no noticeable influence on the rest of the world, it's still an extreme stance, so Erdogan sure as shit qualifies as well.

The fact of the matter is that dictatorships are regarded not only as politically extreme these days, but they're also extremely dangerous for anyone involved, in particular the population of said countries.

Censorship of free speech along with the repeated attempts to amass political power in one person's grasp (regardless of how influential the country is in comparison to others), makes it extreme in it's own right.

If you dismiss Erdogan as some manner of "piss-ant trying to live large", I'd like to remind you that even the smallest annoyances can turn out to be a huge pain in the ass if left unchecked for too long.

If scope had anything to do with it at all, Kim-Yong Un would not have even been worth the attention he has gotten, and the same applies to Erdogan. They both run rather non-influential countries, they both are oriented towards dictatorships, the difference is that Korea is a considerable amount of steps ahead.

I never said he was an "islamic extremist" to begin with, and I find the arguments about the Islam being a dangerous breeding ground for terrorists mostly laughable, albeit it somewhat embarassing at times, for that matter. Regardless of what people believe in, there'll always be good ones and bad ones.

It's not the religion on it's own which I consider to be a problem here, it's Erdogan's ability to abuse it to further solidify his position. That does not make him a religious extremist, but it still adds to him being "dictator in the making" at the very least.

If you think Erdogan does not qualify, regardless of your personal reason, I'd say he just does not qualify *yet*. It's the possible future outcomes that I find concerning.

Sure Bowb said:

Look at you... Dismissing each others opinions for lack of proof... Quite the mature conversation you have here, kudos...

Look at you, parachuting yourself into the thread without reading it. If you did do that, you could precisely pinpoint the post where I stop giving a fuck about explaining stuff to MetroidJunkie the ChristBot anymore and instead switch to asking HIM for explanation. I fully realize most of what you are saying, but it's pointless to present that information to the crusader on his holy mission. He actually parroted my own words at me, that's laughable. Even more laughable is that for several posts in a row he was unable to explain himself. There will be no sensible debate with this Hound of Christ and I will not extend my effort anymore.

Sure Bowb said:

Why don't you explain why extremism has to have something to do with religion to begin with? It's not limited to religion, at all.

Oh oh, so what kind of extremist is Erdogan then, if not a religious fundamentalist? Please fill in the label MetroidJunkie could've possibly meant if you feel so righteous about it that you call me out on it! Is he an extreme rightwinger? Extreme nationalist? Extreme paraglider?

Btw, I'm willing to concede he's an extreme nationalist, at least in his active political agenda - but that's what America or Russia wants from its every president and he's not half the evil nationalist cunt that Netanyahu is, so I will scratch that one from the list of extreme negatives. We obviously cherish this quality worldwide.

Sure Bowb said:

Erdogan did however have the nerve the call the coup "a blessing of Allah". Don't believe me? Enter "Erdogan calls coup a blessing" in your search engine of choice and see for yourself why he said so.

If by now you did not realize that Erdogan is slowly but surely using any avaiable method to accumulate more and more power, while weakening any institution that would oppose him in any way, shape or form you must be blind.

That seems completely par for the course in the Muslim world. It is sad to see it in the one secular country and I'm very disheartened by Erdogan's slow dismantling of Turkey's status quo. He's alienating the country from Europe with every strike against secularism for sure. Merkel may be playing with fire, but the rest of EU countries are already furious at the mention of Turkey getting any privileges in the acceptance process.

For the factual analysis of his claim - oh wow, isn't he right though. Erdogan's popularity was very, very rapidly declining in the recent months. He failed to achieve absolute majority in the last election, so he wasn't able to secure constitutional majority and his attempt to change the country's political system towards a presidential one has failed, much to his personal scorn. His "solution" seemed to be a slow push towards deposing the Kurdish MPs for treason and terrorism, which is absolutely despicable.

His biggest fuckup, however, seemed to be his own massive ego when he tried to juggle too many balls - blackmailing the EU re: Syrian refugees, a peeing contest with Russia after they unceremoniously dumped him out of the Syrian conflict, which resulted in brutal economical sanctions that hurt Turkey much more than when Russia got hit by EU for the Crimea annexation.

Just a few days prior to the coup, Erdogan actually begun a massive change of politics, softening the EU position, apologizing to Russia (!), renewing contancts with the Assad regime (!!) and who knows what else. We were this close to see Erdogan humiliated and growingly unpopular in his own country.

And what happened? The coup. Which he survived. Now he has a platform to launch an unprecedented purge of everyone opposing him. And while the coup shows that the country is increasingly discontent with him, I expect his popularity to surge. He may even get his dream of constitutional majority in the parliament, which would truly be tragic. But honestly, it is all a big geopolitical game. Erdogan is a great admirer of the Osman empire and he wants to Make Turkey Great Again and he's using any tool available to him, cynically and unapologetically. He's a proper cunt, but I would still shy away form calling him an extremist.

It must be said that while I was cheering on the coup at first, the military overthrowing the legitimate government is much more extremistic than anything Erdogan has done so far. It curbs democracy much, much quicker than Erdogan's slowburning plan that's taking a decade and a half by now.

Sure Bowb said:

When journalists and judges are being arrested, because they are getting uncomfortable for him, you can bet both your eyes that he is attempting to become something similar to a dictator. Don't get me started on the attempts of censorship that have been going on... Would that make him an extremist? In a political sense it sure as shit does.

I probably have the highest count of calling Erdogan a dictator in this thread, just for the record. For the second part, no. The ruler of Singapore is an unopposed dictator, yet I wouldn't call him an extremist. Russia censors the fuck out of journalists and Putin owns the justice system, but it would be far-fetched to call him an extremist. And take a short look at Egypt, where a democratically elected Muslim leader was deposed by an army coup. Sisi is disappearing people at a steady pace and journalists are given death penalties for treason, yet he's not called an extremist anywhere. You could get away with it in the light of Western countries' standards, but in the global picture, it's hardly surprising.

Sure Bowb said:

So maybe, just maybe you might want to stop asking for proof. If you are so keen on questioning others people's opinions, why not question your own for a change?

Get off your high horse, lol. If I don't see a wall of text addressing my every point in this post, you're my next favourite target.

Sure Bowb said:

Oh, and as far as Erdogan and religion goes: Do you know about the "Ditib"? Do you even know that Erdogan is in a position from which he can dictate what is being preached in mosques, which basically equals the ability to instrumentalize religion as a means of propaganda?

Alright, so he uses religion for his political agenda. Looks like he's quite practical instead of a religious extremist, eh?

And let me ask you this: What's the alternative? Would you call Hizmet and Gulen's views more or less radical than Erdogan's? In what regards?

dew said:

Look at you, parachuting yourself into the thread without reading it. If you did do that, you could precisely pinpoint the post where I stop giving a fuck about explaining stuff to MetroidJunkie the ChristBot anymore and instead switch to asking HIM for explanation.

I wouldn't go as far as calling MJ a ChristBot. I rather think he's a victim of a self-fulfilling-prophecy, in regards to Erdogan's threats about "dumping" refugees onto europe.

If there were like 2million people moving towards "whereever-land", there will be some "rotten eggs" among them for sure. That's why I actually think that looking at it from the "religiously motivated terrorism" point of view is the wrong thing to do in general.

If there were 2M people moving, it would be more of an economical concern, I'd assume.

dew said:

I fully realize most of what you are saying, but it's pointless to present that information to the crusader on his holy mission. He actually parroted my own words at me, that's laughable. Even more laughable is that for several posts in a row he was unable to explain himself. There will be no sensible debate with this Hound of Christ and I will not extend my effort anymore

I think I've made my point above already.

dew said:

Oh oh, so what kind of extremist is Erdogan then, if not a religious fundamentalist? Please fill in the label MetroidJunkie could've possibly meant if you feel so righteous about it that you call me out on it! Is he an extreme rightwinger? Extreme nationalist? Extreme paraglider?

If I remember correctly, there was a turkish minister who complained that the word "Allah" was not a part of turkish laws in general. Erdogan was actually one of the first to keep his distance from that minister as a result, so the title "religious fundamentalist" might be a bit too much, but it sure is a matter of the eye of the beholder.

Calling him a nationalist, judging by his agenda seems reasonable to me, but I still think that there's a difference between a nationalist, and nationalist who is gravitating towards dictatorsip. The latter being more dangerous as far as I'm concerned.

dew said:

Btw, I'm willing to concede he's an extreme nationalist, at least in his active political agenda - but that's what America or Russia wants from its every president and he's not half the evil nationalist cunt that Netanyahu is, so I will scratch that one from the list of extreme negatives. We obviously cherish this quality worldwide.

"The powers that be" seem to cherish certain, questionable "qualities", that nationalists bring to the table. It's fairly obvious why that is the case.

OK, Netanyahu is worse, but I don't think that makes Erdogan less of an extremist. I'd rather consider such a way of underlining your point of view as "whataboutismic". The mere fact that others are worse does not make Erdogan less of a problem, in fact it makes Erdogan potentially worse, because -by way of perception- he appears to be the "lesser evil", which is giving him potentially more leeway in the long run. Evil is still not good, to say the least.

dew said:

That seems completely par for the course in the Muslim world. It is sad to see it in the one secular country and I'm very disheartened by Erdogan's slow dismantling of Turkey's status quo. He's alienating the country from Europe with every strike against secularism for sure. Merkel may be playing with fire, but the rest of EU countries are already furious at the mention of Turkey getting any privileges in the acceptance process.

I guess we'll see how things turn out. As far as Merkel goes, I don't see anything spectular going on. As far as I am concerned, she's rather passive, and likes to move where the wind blows her.

As far as Turkey's privileges are considered: Those are likely going to get wiped, unless there will be massive changes in Turkey, which with Erdogan in charge, is highly unlikely to happen at this point in time, because he is now the "victim turned victor", and as such enjoys a bit of a hype revolving around him. It will be most interesting to see how long that hype lasts however.

dew said:

For the factual analysis of his claim - oh wow, isn't he right though. Erdogan's popularity was very, very rapidly declining in the recent months. He failed to achieve absolute majority in the last election, so he wasn't able to secure constitutional majority and his attempt to change the country's political system towards a presidential one has failed, much to his personal scorn. His "solution" seemed to be a slow push towards deposing the Kurdish MPs for treason and terrorism, which is absolutely despicable.

Well, it might be right for himself, but that's where the story ends. He's abusing the coup to further solidify his position as the "one and only", which for me is building the bridge back to the point of political extremism.

dew said:

His biggest fuckup, however, seemed to be his own massive ego when he tried to juggle too many balls - blackmailing the EU re: Syrian refugees, a peeing contest with Russia after they unceremoniously dumped him out of the Syrian conflict, which resulted in brutal economical sanctions that hurt Turkey much more than when Russia got hit by EU for the Crimea annexation.

Juggling too many balls is what a certain kind of ruler does, Erdogan is not the first, nor will he be the last to do so. The real question is wether or not the turkish population realizes this, and acts accordingly. As you've said already, his popularity was in decline, so I am very tempted to consider any year he remains in high office as a result of employing shady, despicable methods.

dew said:

Just a few days prior to the coup, Erdogan actually begun a massive change of politics, softening the EU position, apologizing to Russia (!), renewing contancts with the Assad regime (!!) and who knows what else. We were this close to see Erdogan humiliated and growingly unpopular in his own country.

I think this is part of the reason why so many people consider the coup staged, and I am honestly not sure what to think at this point, because it's quite likely that not all the actual information is publically available. The coup seemed to have given him some leeway, like I said already, but borrowed time usually does not last long.

dew said:

And what happened? The coup. Which he survived. Now he has a platform to launch an unprecedented purge of everyone opposing him. And while the coup shows that the country is increasingly discontent with him, I expect his popularity to surge. He may even get his dream of constitutional majority in the parliament, which would truly be tragic. But honestly, it is all a big geopolitical game. Erdogan is a great admirer of the Osman empire and he wants to Make Turkey Great Again and he's using any tool available to him, cynically and unapologetically. He's a proper cunt, but I would still shy away form calling him an extremist.

Well, I guess this is where we may have to agree that we just don't agree. Once a person in charge is not hesitant to hit all the levers in his reach anymore, while also not caring about how shady, and inhuman his actions are, it's an exremist in my book.

dew said:

It must be said that while I was cheering on the coup at first, the military overthrowing the legitimate government is much more extremistic than anything Erdogan has done so far. It curbs democracy much, much quicker than Erdogan's slowburning plan that's taking a decade and a half by now.

I think a military coup is bad news in general, on the other hand though, we have no idea what the motivation behind it was. Sure we can easily say that the military wanted its power back, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case, on the other hand however, when you think about how the turkish military gets involved in certain conflicts with Kurds, power may not have been the only reason.

dew said:

I probably have the highest count of calling Erdogan a dictator in this thread, just for the record. For the second part, no. The ruler of Singapore is an unopposed dictator, yet I wouldn't call him an extremist. Russia censors the fuck out of journalists and Putin owns the justice system, but it would be far-fetched to call him an extremist. And take a short look at Egypt, where a democratically elected Muslim leader was deposed by an army coup. Sisi is disappearing people at a steady pace and journalists are given death penalties for treason, yet he's not called an extremist anywhere. You could get away with it in the light of Western countries' standards, but in the global picture, it's hardly surprising.

As I have said already I don't have it in me to deem Erdogan less problematic, because shit stinks nastier elsewhere. On a more personal note I am not too fond of Western countries' standards, because a fair portion of these standards are candy-coated bullshit as well.

In my book "dictator" is a euphemism for "extremist", as much as "crisis" is a euphemism for "war" nowadays. Dictators are dictators for a reason, after all.

dew said:

Get off your high horse, lol. If I don't see a wall of text addressing my every point in this post, you're my next favourite target.

I'm not even remotely scared, sorry.

dew said:

Alright, so he uses religion for his political agenda. Looks like he's quite practical instead of a religious extremist, eh?

Don't pigeonhole me into the religious direction. I think I've made it clear enough that the religion in and off itself is not the actual issue. The problem is how it can be abused, and with Erdogan in charge it is likely to happen.

dew said:

And let me ask you this: What's the alternative? Would you call Hizmet and Gulen's views more or less radical than Erdogan's? In what regards?

What about Hizmet + What about Gulen = Whataboutism

My stance in a nutshell: The "least worst" is not necessarily "good". Furthermore, we don't need to talk about things that don't matter at the moment. Erdogan is in charge for having been considered the lesser evil, so to speak. The fact that he is losing popularity may open doors for more radical people in the future as a result, which makes Erdogan actually even more dangerous than he already is, because whoever is in charge after he is out of office may abuse Erdogan's "work" even more.