[Cog]

Obama did not back the military coup. He loves Erdogan.

[Plantagenet]

It will be interesting to see how long it takes for Obama to cave in to Erdogan's demand to hand over Gulen.

[Timo]

The consequences of this "failed" coup will be very interesting. Erdogan is a hardline leader. He's not even afraid of Russia! He's made lots of enemies during his reign, both domestic and foreign. On the one hand, the US needs a stable Turkey as a platform to defend against Russian and Syrian aggressions. In this sense, Turkey will become the next Saudi Arabia. The KSA, btw, treats their women like shit, too, but they are our friends. On the other hand, though, Erdogan might push his fate a little too far, making the US less likely to ensure his longevity in power. In this sense, the US must be extremely careful, because if Erdogan falls, who is the nearest power to fill the vacuum? Russia? ISIS? Erdogan does not want a liberal, western-friendly, secular society. That's exactly what the US does want. Interesting times ahead. Stay tuned.

[Newfie]

Speaking of which.....what has Putin had to say?

[radon1]

Speaking of which.....what has Putin had to say?

Pu phoned Erdo today, for the first time since the downing of the fighter aircraft (Erdo had previously tried to phone Pu a number of times but Pu never picked up the phone), expressed condolences in connection with the victims, told that the constitutional order is above all, and requested that Erdo take care of the Russian tourists in Turkey. Erdo agreed. With that the conversation ended.

[Newfie]

From politico.eu

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the first week of August, according to a report by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency.

The report Sunday cited an anonymous “presidential source.” It did not give the exact date for the meeting nor did it say where it is expected to take place. Putin agreed to the meeting in a phone conversation with Erdoğan, in which the Russian president expressed support “for Turkey following Friday’s attempted coup,” the Anadolu report said.

I'd like to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.

Think he would come to DC of summoned?

While I don't like or admire Putin he seems to know how to deport himself as a leader.

[vox_mundi]

They skipped a few steps ...


https://publicintelligence.net/usasoc-uw-pocket-guide/

[Sixstrings]

Erdogan targets more than 50,000 in purge after failed Turkish coup

Turkey vowed to root out allies of the U.S.-based cleric it blames for an abortive coup last week, widening a purge of the army, police and judiciary on Tuesday to universities and schools, the intelligence agency and religious authorities.

Around 50,000 soldiers, police, judges, civil servants and teachers have been suspended or detained since the coup attempt, stirring tensions across the country of 80 million which borders Syria's chaos and is a Western ally against Islamic State.

"This parallel terrorist organization will no longer be an effective pawn for any country," Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said, referring to what the government has long alleged is a state within a state controlled by followers of Fethullah Gulen.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/turkey-widens-post-coup-purge-demands-u-hand-012419864--finance.html?ref=gs

[radon1]

Erdo is on a full-scale stalinist purge "at the request of the people". Classic.

[Sixstrings]

Erdogan's purge may give Nato no choice but to expel Turkey from the alliance

So the fact that Washington now talks openly about the possibility of suspending Turkey’s Nato membership shows just how badly relations between Ankara and its Western allies have deteriorated since last week’s ill-fated military coup. ...

The Americans have also had their own taste of what it is like to be on the receiving end of one of Mr Erdogan’s vengeful tantrums. First they were accused of supporting the plotters, then Washington faced a major security alert after the Turks cut the electricity supply to the Incirlik base, a potentially disastrous development given the sensitivity of the munitions that are stored there.

This prompted John Kerry, the US Secretary of State, to warn that Turkey faced suspension from Nato if it persisted with its ruthless purge. Membership of Nato requires countries to uphold certain democratic principles, and Mr Kerry said the US “will measure very carefully what is happening” in Turkey. ...

Mr Erdogan’s undoubted enthusiasm for crushing the last vestiges of dissent against his totalitarian style has even prompted suggestions that the president was already planning the purge prior to the coup, which would explain why lists of those to be detained were so readily available once the coup failed.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/19/erdogans-purge-may-give-nato-no-choice-but-to-expel-turkey-from/

The Public Trial of Fethullah Gulen
The Pennsylvania-based cleric is a leading reformer of moderate Islam — either that, or the head of a dangerous terrorist organization.

Graham Fuller, a former CIA station chief in Kabul and researcher, describes Gulen as precisely the sort of moderate Islamic voice that the United States should support. He has long defended Gulen from his critics; in 2006, he wrote a letter to the FBI defending Gulen against attempts to push for his extradition, offering his view that the cleric was a moderate, not dangerous, radical and that he represented no security threat to the United States.

Fuller told FP that he was inspired to write the letter because he had recently finished research for a book on Islamic movements across the globe and had found Gulen to be one of the most inspiring examples he had come across.

Gulen advances an idea “that Islam will prosper and grow through knowledge and education,” he said. “It’s thoroughly modernist, and it wants to bring traditionalist, pious Turks, who went to the mosque all day long, into the educated, cultivated, urbanized, globalized mainstream.”

Gulen’s defenders typically describe him as championing a version of Islam that prioritizes social engagement over attention to the minutia of religious observance and reconciles the faith with universal values.

“Gulen has expanded his focus to embrace appreciation of common values in human life,” Fuller wrote in his book Turkey and the Arab Spring. “These values need not come exclusively from Islam; he perceives similar values in other religions as well, particularly in Judaism and Christianity.”

Gulen’s supporters don’t deny that members of the movement entered Turkish institutions like the judiciary, police, and military. However, they deny that they have done so as a bloc or that they follow orders handed down by the Gulenist movement, saying they act as individuals and should be allowed to participate in public life like all other citizens.

Moreover, Fuller argues that Gulen’s supporters were in no position to be able to launch a coup attempt. Not only has Gulen denied any involvement, he says, but his movement has been targeted by a crackdown from the Turkish state since at least 2013, which has seen many of its media shuttered and its members arrested and removed from positions of authority in Turkish institutions. At a moment of huge weakness, Fuller says, it is unlikely the Gulenists had the capacity to organize such a conspiracy.

“I would be amazed if they had any power within the military to pull off anything like this,” he said.

Nor does he believe the United States will ever accede to the Turkish government’s request to extradite Gulen. The U.S. government examined the cleric closely when it decided to grant him a residency permit in 2008, he says, and determined that the accusations against him were without merit.

“They will have to jump through a lot of judicial hoops to expel Gulen,” Fuller said. “And I don’t think remotely that the Turks are going to be able to come up with any evidence to do this.”
http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/07/18/the-public-trial-of-fethullah-gulen/

Is Fethullah Gulen Turkey’s own Trotsky?

It is not the first time an authoritarian regime or dictatorship has undertaken such methods. However, Erdogan’s insistence of associating Gulen with anything and everything that is critical or opposed to him in Turkey reminds us of another tragic case in history. That of Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky! In few words, could Gulen be Turkey’s version of Trotsky?

The Russian revolutionary clashed with the winner of the Soviet regime since the beginning of 1920s. By 1925, he had lost the fight. Exiled in Turkey first and then persecuted by the soviet authorities, Trotsky found asylum in Europe and then in Mexico. In 1940, he was killed by a Soviet agent.

But, despite the fact that Trotsky’s supporters were imprisoned and executed in the Soviet Union and his followers in Europe numbered only several hundred, his name was used and he was pictured as a super powerful international leader, an ally of Hitler, Mussolini, the Emperor of Japan, and Western capitalism. The entire period of 1930s, which culminated with the execution of the leaders of the Russian Revolution in 1938, were dominated by the ‘Trotskyistthreat’.

In fact, the threat of Trotsky served as the perfect pretext, which Stalin needed, to eliminate anyone opposing him and to consolidate his power.

It seems that now Gulen is the pretext for a ‘Stalin-like’ purge of the Turkish state – from the army to the judiciary and to the education system.
https://www.neweurope.eu/article/fethullah-gulen-turkeys-trotsky/

UN Rights Chief Must Oppose Erdogan’s Purge of Judges, Defend Rule of Law

A Geneva-based human rights group today called on the UN’s top human rights official and the world body’s experts on arbitrary detention and independence of judges to speak out against Turkish President Erdogan’s “unprecendented” purge of thousands of judges and other officials.

“Never before in modern history has a democracy ordered the arbitrary removal of thousands of judges, only to be met with complete radio silence from the entire UN human rights system
http://www.unwatch.org/un-rights-chief-must-oppose-erdogans-purge-judges-defend-rule-law/

The purge of military and civilian figures involves more than 58,000 people

Who's the target of Erdogan's purge?
From judges to teachers, civil servants to soldiers, the list is enormous.
There are very real fears among Turks about what will come next. ...

The express aim of the president is to "cleanse all state institutions". And the target is what he calls "the parallel state" - a movement headed by an arch-rival in self-imposed exile in the US, accused of plotting the coup.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36835340

[Tanada]

Question for you Six. Has the UN ever successfully stopped human rights abuses by any government anywhere ever?

[Timo]

If Turkey is pushed out of NATO, then Putin will be right there with open arms to form a new and more powerful strategic alliance. One seemingly innocuous move on the part of any party, and this thing could easily spiral out of control, and grow into a much, much more complicated and larger conflict involving interests from every part of the globe.

Is a world war worth the bragging rights for the claim of being the world's only remaining superpower? Or, would it be in everyone's interests to cede that status for the sake of peaceful (non-violent) relations with China and Russia?

We are now witnessing the violent consequences of diminishing global resources, and we have choices to make. Alliances will be shifting in order to maintain regional supply chains for those diminishing resources, and the stability of that access means more to those in power than the lives those resources are intended to serve.

The world will explode within our lifetimes. Have a great day!

[Tanada]

If Turkey is pushed out of NATO, then Putin will be right there with open arms to form a new and more powerful strategic alliance. One seemingly innocuous move on the part of any party, and this thing could easily spiral out of control, and grow into a much, much more complicated and larger conflict involving interests from every part of the globe.

Is a world war worth the bragging rights for the claim of being the world's only remaining superpower? Or, would it be in everyone's interests to cede that status for the sake of peaceful (non-violent) relations with China and Russia?

We are now witnessing the violent consequences of diminishing global resources, and we have choices to make. Alliances will be shifting in order to maintain regional supply chains for those diminishing resources, and the stability of that access means more to those in power than the lives those resources are intended to serve.

The world will explode within our lifetimes. Have a great day!

I seriously doubt Putin has any love for a religio-fascist state on his border. You are aware that Turks and Russians have periodically warred with one another for the last thousand years? The kind of Sharia law state Erdogan is building is exactly the worst thing Putin or most Russians want for a peaceful future. Deal making will go on just as it does with Iran, but it won't be because they want to. It is not outside the realm of possibility that Erdogan would try and restrict traffic into and out of the Black Sea, which has been the most longstanding sore point in the region. After all the trouble Crimea has at least theoretically caused losing access to the passage between the seas would really peeve Russia.

[Timo]

Tanada, i hope you're right, but i can also easily see Putin ignoring his personal distastes of Turkey's internal religious affairs if that means #1, flipping Turkey's loyalties away from the US, and #2, gaining control of Turkey's geographic location to ensure his broader goal of controlling all of Eurasia's resources, either by outright possession, or their shipping routes. The US has the exact same goals, but to meet our ends, not Russia's. Why do we tolerate KSA's religiously justified treatment of women and other minority groups? They serve a valuable strategic purpose to fulfill our needs. Turkey can do the same for Russia.

[Newfie]

Erdogen is going to see Putin in August.

Was he summoned?m my guess is Yes.

Erdogen may have put himself in a tough spot, hated by all.

[radon1]

Pu saved Erdo, apparently.

http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13950430001452

TEHRAN (FNA)- Arab media outlets are quoting diplomats in Ankara as disclosing that Turkey's President Erdogan was warned of an imminent army coup by Russia hours before it was initiated on Friday, while a western media outlet said Erdogan asked his supporters to remain in the streets after receiving advice from Tehran.
Several Arab media outlets quoted diplomatic sources in Ankara as saying that Turkey's National Intelligence Organization, known locally as the MIT, received intel from the Russian army that warned of an impending coup in the Muslim state.

The unnamed diplomats said the Russian army in the region had intercepted highly sensitive army exchanges and encoded radio messages showing that the Turkish army was readying to stage a coup against the administration in Ankara.

[M_B_S]

This is an interesting 25 min video, re US / Turkish military bases & stored nukes.

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/ins ... 27303.html

Edited to add BBC Breaking news

Turkey's president declares state of emergency for three months following failed coup

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36852080

Gas

@Gas

TURKEY IS NO MORE A DEMOCRATIC SYSTEM => DICTATORSHIP



Yesterday was the 20 th July

We the Germans yesterday remembered the brave man who tried to kill the Tyrant Adolf Hitler

http://www.germany.info/Vertretung/usa/ ... uly20.html


Federal President Gauck pauses to touch a memorial plaque after he lays a wreath at the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the attempted assassination of Hitler.
*************

There will be WAR with Turkey?!

I hope not but it is a variant!


M_B_S

[Sixstrings]

Pu saved Erdo, apparently.

Well that's quite something, and interesting. Certainly a very smart move for Putin to do.

Post-Coup Erdogan Warms up to Russia, Iran
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Losing-His-Nerve-Post-Coup-Erdogan-Warms-up-to-Russia-Iran-20160719-0038.html

Erdogan taunts Obama over coup attempt in Turkey

This is becoming very personal, too. Erdogan mentioned Obama by name. It is an open secret that the chemistry between the two statesmen has been poor.

Erdogan will not forgive the Obama administration for leading him up the garden path on Syria, convincing him that Washington was leaving no stone unturned to overthrow the Assad regime. The then CIA Director David Petraeus visited Turkey more than once to urge Erdogan to kickstart the intervention in Syria.

Obama himself lauded Turkey as a role model for the Muslim Middle East, pandering to Erdogan’s notions of his own tryst with destiny in the erstwhile territories of the Ottoman Empire.

Thus, Erdogan’s stunning disclosure on Saturday that he had shared with Obama the intelligence on a likely coup attempt by Gulen’s followers and that the US president sat on it can only mean that the Turkish leader suspects Washington’s intentions toward him.
http://atimes.com/2016/07/erdogan-taunts-obama-over-turkeys-coup-bid/