News Turkey Coup Attempt: Latest Updates

[phinds]

That guy quickly said he had nothing to do with the coup when it first hit the news. He could be lying but I think it's WAY more likely that Erdogan is just flailing out for external scapegoats as was completely expected.

 

[jim hardy]

That guy quickly said he had nothing to do with the coup when it first hit the news. He could be lying but I think it's WAY more likely that Erdogan is just flailing out for external scapegoats as was completely expected.

more of a family feud, then..
"Round up the usual suspects..." ?

 

[fresh_42]

That guy quickly said he had nothing to do with the coup when it first hit the news. He could be lying but I think it's WAY more likely that Erdogan is just flailing out for external scapegoats as was completely expected.

His plan B if he cannot blame the Kurds to justify bombing them. In all minor cases its Russia or EU.

 

[OCR]

Does anybody know much about this Pennsylvania fellow Fethullah Gulen...?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fethullah_Gülen

 

[jim hardy]

http://www.theatlantic.com/educatio...ools-and-one-secretive-turkish-cleric/375923/

In Western countries such as the United States, Germany, and France, there isn’t any evidence whatsoever that the nearly 120 Gülen charter schools in America include Islamic indoctrination in their curriculum. The schools are so secular that singling out the Gülen schools as particularly nefarious, simply for being run predominantly by Muslims, smacks of xenophobia.

he seems well intentioned
to the point i wonder why anybody would be out to get him

yet
http://www.dailysabah.com/politics/2014/09/24/red-notice-likely-to-be-issued-against-fethullah-gulen

The Gülen Movement, led by Fethullah Gülen, has over 140 private schools and charity organizations around the world including the U.S., Europe, Asia and Africa. It has been accused of infiltrating state institutions to gain control of state mechanisms, illegal wiretapping, forgery of official documents and spying. During the NATO summit earlier this month, Erdoğan requested that Obama deport Gülen or send him back to Turkey.

Erdoğan reportedly also complained about the issue to Obama and said he had not yet received a response as he expected.

"Turkey makes things easier for America over the matter of extraditing criminals. The U.S. does not make it as easy for Turkey though," Erdoğan said.

i remember being curious a while back "just who is this guy, "
so was surprised to find him in the news again .

that's all.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/16/middleeast/fethullah-gulen-profile/index.html

(CNN)Was a plan to overthrow Turkey's government really hatched behind a gated compound in a small, leafy Pennsylvania town, or is that merely a smoke screen?

In the throes of a military coup attempt, Turkey's embattled president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, pointed the finger of blame squarely at his bitter rival: Fethullah Gulen.
At the center of this rivalry, a fundamental division in Turkish society between secularists -- some within the country's top military brass -- and Islamists, including Erdogan's AKP party.
It's this division that's destabilizing one of America's most important allies in the Middle East.
And at the center of all this is Gulen, a reclusive cleric who leads a popular movement called Hizmet.

old jim

 

[EnumaElish]

Those arrested for the coup so far include Turkish Gen. Adem Huduti, previously celebrated for saving the town of Cizre from the Kurdish-separatist PKK, while at the same time accused for alleged war crimes in Cizre. By indicting him and other liabilities for treason (attempted coup), the civilian authority may be hoping to save themselves (the entire chain of command up to the president) from future accusations of war crimes, without ever having to pronounce the words "war crimes."

 

[fresh_42]

he seems well intentioned
to the point i wonder why anybody would be out to get him

His views on how a state has to be organized heavily contradict all of our western free democratic orders, starting at the point where the sovereign is defined! You don't want a person like him influence the constitution. (My source (German version of the NSA) isn't available in English, however, trustworthy.)

 

[OmCheeto]

Being without TV, I've been monitoring Twitter for my news.
I just ran across an interesting article.
It seems military coups are allowed under the Turkish constitution.

Under the Turkish Constitution, the army is obliged to step in when the democratically-elected government behaves undemocratically
...
So why did Erdogan not step down and cede to the military last night as required under the Turkish constitution? The problem was within the military itself. The proper protocol under the Constitution is for the military’s high command to formally communicate with the president, requesting his resignation. Then, if he does not comply, the army steps in forcibly.

The military must act as a whole via the highest command. But yesterday’s coup was preceded by internal coup within the military itself, with commanding officers not in favour of the coup taken hostage by those who were, who then moved on with their plans. Far from being in the wrong, the military officers who planned the coup were in the right under the Constitution, except for the fact that they could not secure the support of the highest command.
...

At first I thought it might be some quack site, as this whole thing is too hard to believe.
But it appears to be legitimate.

The author of the article, Daphne Caruana Galizia, is an independent journalist in Malta.

Trying to find out if the story was legitimate, I followed the last link in wiki's article on the Turkish Constitution.

Interesting history.

Turkey Between the Ottoman Empire and the European Union: Shifting Political Authority Through the Constitutional Reform
2016
Fordham International Law Journal

... the
military, in accordance with its constitutional powers, has
intervened in Turkish politics three times in the past five
decades to restore the founding principles of Kemalism.
...

As far as I can tell, the military and judiciary are tasked with keeping the nation secular.
Which may explain why nearly 3000 of the judiciary were fired today.

 

[Garlic]

Till 1980, there had been a military coup (a true military coup, not like this half baked coup) every decade (totally three times, or something like that). When the government became corrupted and they started to mix the religion with the state, he military had to intervene with the government and stop them.
A few years ago, Akp (Erdoğan's party) changed the laws about this, so that military diddn't have the right to do a coup.

@OmCheeto like you said, the judicary and the military used to be the defenders of secularity, but they aren't anymore, as Akp fired the original judicary personnel and replaced them with their own followers. Now they are firing the military personnel, who oppose their party.

Note: Please excuse me, that my politics vocabulary aren't so good, and my politics knowledge isn't comprehensive (as I am not interested in history and politics like I am in science).

 

[jim hardy]

As far as I can tell, the military and judiciary are tasked with keeping the nation secular.

Thanks OM,
Today I Learned

Kemalism (Turkish: Kemalizm), also known as Atatürkism (Turkish: Atatürkçülük, Atatürkçü düşünce), or the Six Arrows (Turkish: Altı ok), is the founding ideology of the Republic of Turkey.[1] Kemalism, as it was implemented by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, was defined by sweeping political, social, cultural and religious reforms designed to separate the new Turkish state from its Ottoman predecessor and embrace a Westernized way of living,[2] including the establishment of democracy, secularism, state support of the sciences and free education, many of which were first introduced to Turkey during Atatürk's presidency in his reforms.[3]

You don't want a person like him influence the constitution.

carnegieendowment.org/2013/10/20/between-secular-education-and-islamic-philosophy-approach-and-achievements-of-fethullah-g%C3%BClen-s-followers-in-azerbaijan/
One of these communities, established by Sait Nursi and structured progressively into a larger movement, whose disciples are named after their master, the so-called nurcu, later fragmented into various factions. One of the most important of these factions is the group of Fethullah Gülen, also called Gülenists or fethullahci after their charismatic leader. Indeed, by the end of the 1980s, some of Nursi’s disciples began to follow the advice and encouragements of Fethullah Gülen and were soon ready to cross borders to export their brand of philosophy to the Muslim states of the former Soviet Union. They counted on their own special triptych of strong points: education, media and trade. Their pioneering approach and proven successes paved the way for an alignment with official policy during this tumultuous period. The fethullahci, or disciples of Fethullah Gülen as they prefer to be designated, were so fast and reactive that they were the first to arrive in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Supported by a large grassroots movement in Turkey, they played a major role in promoting Turkish influence in these former Soviet states, thereby gaining strength and international visibility.

Hmmmmm... sounds like somebody our State department might find useful

 

[EnumaElish]

The CIA must have studied it whole when they kicked off the "jihadi resistance" against the soviets - the fruits of which include the Taliban, al-Qaida, and ISIS.

 

[EnumaElish]

Turkish stock market was down 7% on Monday; CB measures to support the currency seem to have paid off.

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/tu...oup-.aspx?pageID=238&nID=101738&NewsCatID=346

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/tu...mpt-.aspx?pageID=238&nID=101718&NewsCatID=344

 

[mheslep]

I lived under both Morsi and Sisi. Oppression in both cases isn't even comparable.

Neither is the context comparable. Morsi was only there for only 13 months, slowly moving toward tyranny with the like of the November '12 declaration, immunizing himself to legal challenge, and granting himself any authority he deemed necessary. His purge of the army was also slow. By contrast, Sisi represents control by the Egyptian military, which has been the case for generations.

 

[OmCheeto]

I'm not sure if this is weird or not.

WikiLeaks suffers ‘sustained attack’ after announcing megaleak of Turkey govt docs
Published time: 19 Jul, 2016 02:21

WikiLeaks reported suffering a “sustained attack” after it announced the upcoming release of hundreds of thousands of documents relating to Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the wake of a failed military coup.

Despite the attack, the famous whistleblowing site promised to “prevail & publish” the first batch of documents on Tuesday. Earlier WikiLeaks announced that the release of documents, which could expose the Turkish “political power structure”, will contain 300,000 emails and 500,000 documents.

By "attack", I'm guessing it was a "DDoS" attack, which coincidentally:

RT targeted by massive DDoS attack during attempted Turkey coup
Published time: 16 Jul, 2016 19:00

A massive DDoS attack was staged on the servers of the Internet service provider that provides web streaming for the RT TV channel during the coverage of Friday's attempted coup in Turkey, briefly taking the stream offline.
The channel was able to resume streaming, but the servers were attacked again after some time.

More news via Twitter:

Al Jazeera News Verified account ‏@AJENews 18 July, 2016
#Turkey:

Almost 8,000 police suspended
30 governors, 50+ civil servants fired
EU official "highly concerned"​

Michael Horowitz ‏@michaelh992 18 July, 2016
#Breaking

8,777 employees of the Interior Ministry sacked following the coup, including 30 governors​

#Turkey​

 

[jim hardy]

Do we still have nukes in Turkey ?

 

[OmCheeto]

Do we still have nukes in Turkey ?

The last I heard, yes.

(google google google)

Oh, my, god.

Did you really have to ask that question?

THE H-BOMBS IN TURKEY
By Eric Schlosser
, JULY 17, 2016
...
The Incirlik Airbase, in southeast Turkey, houses nato’s largest nuclear-weapons storage facility. On Saturday morning, the American Embassy in Ankara issued an “Emergency Message for U.S. Citizens,” warning that power had been cut to Incirlik and that “local authorities are denying movements on to and off of” the base. Incirlik was forced to rely on backup generators; U.S. Air Force planes stationed there were prohibited from taking off or landing; and the security-threat level was raised to fpcon Delta, the highest state of alert, declared when a terrorist attack has occurred or may be imminent.
...

 

[1oldman2]

Do we still have nukes in Turkey ?

Good question, it appears to depend on who and when you ask.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/europe-s-five-undeclared-nuclear-weapons-states/17550
http://www.nti.org/learn/countries/turkey/
http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2010_06/Kibaroglu
http://thebulletin.org/status-us-nuclear-weapons-turkey?platform=hootsuite

 

[OmCheeto]

Well, it seems the Pentagon seems calm about the situation:

Pentagon press secretary comments on situations in Turkey
By Peter Cook, Pentagon Press Secretary / Published July 17, 2016

"After close coordination with our Turkish allies, they have reopened their airspace to military aircraft. As a result, counter-ISIL coalition air operations at all air bases in Turkey have resumed. U.S. facilities at Incirlik are still operating on internal power sources, but we hope to restore commercial power soon. Base operations have not been affected."

 

[Garlic]

Do we still have nukes in Turkey ?

The exact number of nuclear weapons
seems classified, but very likely more than 25 of them in the İncirlik American Air Base.

Other than that, we diddn't have any nuclear weapon projects or uranium enrichment projects, otherwise you would have heard it, too. Turkey probably posesses none.

The turkish government thinks that, during the coup
attempt, some jets took off from the base to
aid help to the coup attempters. Thats why they took the electricity off and blocked the entrances.

 

[jim hardy]

i hope we've already quietly flown them out

http://uatoday.tv/politics/turkey-t...ties-over-alleged-coup-mastermind-699011.html
Yıldırım has previously stated US's "standing behind this man [Gülen]" would be a "hostile act against Turkey."

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has earlier accused US-based Fethullah Gülen in orchestrating the coup. In his statement he claimed the instruction for the mutiny had been sent from Pennsylvania. Kerry denied the allegations over US's involvement in the coup, saying they were "utterly false and harmful to bilateral relations."

In a July 16 statement, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on his US counterpart Barack Obama to hand over US-based Gülen. "If we are strategic and model partners, please meet this demand of your partner," he said.

 

[fresh_42]

i hope we've already quietly flown them out

I have my doubts that this could be done quietly. And how would you return them? Turkey is nowadays the last bastion between NATO and big trouble. From a military perspective it doesn't make much of a difference whether you have a military regime there or a dictatorship, which Turkey seemingly is to become.

 

[EnumaElish]

Now this: Turkey's Justice Minister says pilots who shot down Russian jet have been arrested for role in coup attempt.

http://www.scoopnest.com/user/intlspectator/755327316029431808

 

[HossamCFD]

Neither is the context comparable. Morsi was only there for only 13 months, slowly moving toward tyranny with the like of the November '12 declaration, immunizing himself to legal challenge, and granting himself any authority he deemed necessary. His purge of the army was also slow. By contrast, Sisi represents control by the Egyptian military, which has been the case for generations.

Yes. I stated that he wasn't in control, so there's only so much oppression his gang was capable of. I have no doubt he wanted to become tyrannical, and his supporters weren't even subtle about it. Though it was clear they weren't going to achieve any of that.

The other gang, however, can do as they please, as they've been in control since the 50's.

 

[jim hardy]

IMO this is a widely spread view in the US due to the lack of knowledge of any historical and cultural facts in the rest of the world.

Well, Afghanistan was Charlie Wilson's War( a good movie)
Iraq loooks like it was Bush's, republicans blame Obama for not following up on it
Lybia was Hillary's
Will Turkey be one of ours too ?What about Syria? Did anybody see Frontline last week? ISIS was started by a thuggish upstart OBL wannabe whom Saddam would have probably killed. He moved into Syria from North Iraq.
I've seen Assad interviewed twice now, once a couple years ago by Charlie Rose again a couple weeks ago on MSNBC i think it was.
Both times he said it's foreigners coming into his country to raise a ruckus
last week he said Russian airstrikes are way more effective than US and we're not really welcome anymore
we're throwing out the baby with the bathwater there IMHO

If Gulen is CIA backed it wouldn't surprise me but i only suspect it , have nothing concrete

JFK ? I wrote a short story on that one... Obviously it was the Nazis.
Titanic ? naahhhh,, but Lusitania maybe. Zimmerman telegram was two years later.
Conspiracy theories are great fun.

old jim

 

[mheslep]

@mheslep do you have any backup for your outlandish claims? Did cia even exist back when titanic sank? Surely you are jestful? Or perhaps rather coyly argumentative?

EE, outlandish, wildly off topic (and wrong) claims with no reference is your game. Mocking them in this case is mine.

I'm not interested in a response. Delete the post I inititially responded to as off topic or at least provide references before making any demands of others.

 

[micromass]

Wow, I can't believe there is still somebody out there who doesn't know that the CIA financed Bin Laden!

 

[mheslep]

Yes. I stated that he wasn't in control, so there's only so much oppression his gang was capable of. I have no doubt he wanted to become tyrannical, and his supporters weren't even subtle about it. Though it was clear they weren't going to achieve any of that.

The other gang, however, can do as they please, as they've been in control since the 50's.

Agreed. My point then is that it is not so clear that military undermining a democracy (so called) is always and everywhere the worst outcome, though in my opinion a miltary coup is always a tragic outcome. My default instinct is to champion free elections, the rights of the individual, and democracy every time, anywhere. But the evidence has me checking my instincts.

 

[russ_watters]

Wow, I can't believe there is still somebody out there who doesn't know that the CIA financed Bin Laden!

I'm not, since it is at this point still just a myth/conspiracy theory (popular or not):

http://www.factcheck.org/2013/02/rand-pauls-bin-laden-claim-is-urban-myth/

 

[HossamCFD]

Agreed. My point then is that it is not so clear that military undermining a democracy (so called) is always and everywhere the worst outcome, though in my opinion a miltary coup is always a tragic outcome. My default instinct is to champion free elections, the rights of the individual, and democracy every time, anywhere. But the evidence has me checking my instincts.

Okay this is something I feel very strongly about and it's probably the thing that frustrates me the most about all politics. So I'm going to rant. Apologies beforehand!

Also this is mainly from an Arabic perspective, I'm not sure if any of that applies to Turkey.

The thing is that military dictatorship has been the ruling paradigm for so long and it never led to anything good. Political Islam feeds on its oppression. I know very few people who have actually read "Milestones" or are aware of it, but many people revere Sayyid Qutb for standing against Nasser and losing his life in the process. If you take this victimhood from them they're left with nothing. I was actually happy when Morsi ended up in power (though of course I couldn't bare to actually vote for him). I thought finally after 80 years of spreading their venom they'll be allowed to destroy their legacy. And this is exactly what happened. He won with 51% of the vote (only because he was running against Mubarak's mate and last PM, Morsi only got about 26% in the first round) and in 1 year he all but lost the public support, he was only left with the most loyal Muslim Brotherhood supporters. I just hoped this democratic experiment would survive to the next election for this to materialise.

Democracy corrects itself. You vote for a terrible group (which at that point was the only only alternative people really knew) and then learn from your choice. I mean let people get a taste of theocracy. Let him actually try to enforce a dress code on women, or ban music. There were huge protests at even hints/rumours of more benign rulings.

IMO cheering for military dictatorship to keep away this beast only perpetuates the status-quo. And the beast would still grow in the undergrounds. There is a role for the military, and that is to make sure that when the time comes for the Islamists to lose the elections, they'll actually p#ss off peacefully. Instead what the army did was to grab the power for themselves and imprison/exile/kill anyone who objects (including the liberal secularists, they were not spared).

 

[EnumaElish]

EE, outlandish, wildly off topic (and wrong) claims with no reference is your game. Mocking them in this case is mine.

I'm not interested in a response. Delete the post I inititially responded to as off topic or at least provide references before making any demands of others.

You're not interested doesn't mean I don't get to respond. Heh.

Not deleting it either. Feel free to report it.

I don't know if CIA funded bin Laden. As for my initial claim, which was:

The CIA ... kicked off the "jihadi resistance" against the soviets - the fruits of which include the Taliban, al-Qaida, and ISIS.

first of all would you please notice it was worded carefully. I did not claim CIA had any direct dealings with the T, the a-Q or the IS. My claim is:
1. The CIA kicked off the jihadi resistance against the soviets. Not "Arab resistance." Not "salafi terrorists." Not "wahabi whatnots."
2. There exists a causal link from the jihadist resistance against the soviets to any of the above. Not because the CIA planned it, or could pull it off even if they did. I am not even claiming that the CIA created any of the above unintentionally. AFAIK they arose by and large independently of any US covert involvement.

Point 1 is beyond dispute. Charlie Wilson's War the movie does not really do justice to the book. So I highly recommend the book. It is wildly entertaining, far more than the movie. (Despite strong performances all around.)

As a second source I'll refer to the US's "preeminent think tank with a regional focus" as wikipedia puts it unsparingly - The Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), or The Washington Institute among friends, or just The Institute for the insider (which I definitely am not):

Who Is Responsible for the Taliban?
ARMING THE AFGHAN RESISTANCE
The decision to arm the Afghan resistance came within two weeks of the Soviet invasion, and quickly gained momentum.(21) In 1980, the Carter administration allocated only $30 million for the Afghan resistance, though under the Reagan administration this amount grew steadily. In 1985, Congress earmarked $250 million for Afghanistan, while Saudi Arabia contributed an equal amount. Two years later, with Saudi Arabia still reportedly matching contributions, annual American aid to the mujahidin reportedly reached $630 million.(22) This does not include contributions made by other Islamic countries, Israel, the People's Republic of China, and Europe. Many commentators cite the huge flow of American aid to Afghanistan as if it occurred in a vacuum; it did not. According to Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, the Soviet Union contributed approximately $5 billion per year into Afghanistan in an effort to support their counterinsurgency efforts and prop up the puppet government in Kabul.(23) Milton Bearden, Central Intelligence Agency station chief in Pakistan between 1986 and 1989, commented that by 1985, the occupying Soviet 40th army had swollen to almost 120,000 troops and with some other elements crossing into the Afghan theater on a temporary duty basis.(24)

Initially, the CIA refused to provide American arms to the resistance, seeking to maintain plausible deniability.(25) (The State Department, too, also opposed providing American-made weapons for fear of antagonizing the Soviet Union.(26) The 1983 suggestion of American Ambassador to Pakistan Ronald Spiers, that the U.S. provide Stingers to the mujahidin accordingly went nowhere for several years.(27) Much of the resistance to the supply of Stinger missiles was generated internally from the CIA station chief's desire (prior to the accession of Bearden to the post) to keep the covert assistance program small and inconspicuous. Instead, the millions appropriated went to purchase Chinese, Warsaw Pact, and Israeli weaponry. Only in March 1985, did Reagan's national security team formally decide to switch their strategy from mere harassment of Soviet forces in Afghanistan to driving the Red Army completely out of the country.(28) After vigorous internal debate, Reagan's military and national security advisors agreed to provide the mujahidin with the Stinger anti-aircraft missile. At the time, the United States possessed only limited numbers of the weapon. Some of the Joint Chiefs of Staff also feared accountability problems and proliferation of the technology to Third World countries.(29) It was not until September 1986, that the Reagan administration decided to supply Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to the mujahidin, thereby breaking the embargo on "Made-in-America" arms.

For the interested researcher here's the link to the full report: http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/who-is-responsible-for-the-taliban

P.S. mujahidin simply means "jihadists."