Dark times ahead for Turkey, but it seems that's what many Turks want, so...all we can do is leave them to it and express our sorrow for those who are going to die in the coming days.

The real coup has begun. Almost three thousand judges got sacked.

I expect the cleansing of academics and intellectuals at universities will intensify (if that is even possible...). Even more journalists and media workers will need to fear for their freedom, and canalready pack their suitcases for when they will be deported into prison cells.

Reintroduction of death penalty is being considered.

Over three thousand troops got arrested as well.

Merkel'S comment illustrates support for the demoicratically elected government, means: Erdoghan. The EU and the US voiced similiar comments. NATO calls Turkey a precious ally.

6 or 8 years ago we have had a Turkish member in the forum here, who reassured us and me that the Turkish military will stand up to its duty and protect the secular order of Turkey. Back then I told him that the military alreeady had made a lethal mistake - to allow Erdoghan to bcome president, and that the military will fail with any future attempt to stop him. He was angry and nevr was seen again. Unfortunately, I was right. The AKP has systematically eroded the basis of the military both on troop level and in the officer corps. Who could expect that this could go without consequences? The military no longer is the guardioan of the Kemlaist constituion. A first blow has been delivered to officers already years ago, with hundreds ending in prison, then AKP followers were accelerated to pass through troops lower ranks and into low officer ranks, while officers with aKP background too were accelerated in their careers and rises aand replaced many Kemalist older officer who got sacked before they had reached pension age. The military now is no possible solution anymore, but part of the problem. A reliable NATO ally? Not even in your wildest dreams. Its a wolf in sheeps clothing.

Oh dear, it was to be expected, still it is frustrating when you get it all to read black on white. Erdoghan gets quoted with saying that it all is a gift of God.

And the plebs? Is celebrating in the streets.

May well be the case, I'm meeting a couple of Turkish friends tonight so it could well be interesting to learn of their views on the matter.

Politics, western nations cannot condone a military coup even if it's in their best interests to do so, it's against the rules of global politics. Generally speaking they'll put out calls for calm if it looks like the coup might succeed and then back the 'democratically elected' leader if it looks like it'll fail.
If they throw their cards behind the coup and it fails then it makes things very diplomatically difficult, especially for a NATO member which points at the soft underbelly of Russia and has control over the Bosporus, not to mention has weaponised 2 million refugees which it could happily unleash on Western Europe at any point (heck, I wouldn't be surprised if a fair few of them are already planning to leg it given the instability of things in Turkey at the moment), aaaaaand Turkey has a key land border with Syria which is the current active global hotspot. As if to demonstrate this, the airfield at Incirlik from which US forces attack Daesh has had its airspace shut down, so that's going to hamper US operations against Daesh until it is reopened.

I hate Erdogan as much as the next guy, but I don't see what the EU leaders and the US could feasibly do, especially with Erdogan commanding a lot of popular support it seems, if either side tried to put sanctions on him he would just shrug it off by making life difficult for NATO forces in Turkey conducting operations against Daesh, and if any military action was taken to overthrow him it would be another Iraq. :dead:

It's in the hands of the Turks, poor sods.

This coup is over

For some hours in the night between Friday and Saturday there where a little civil war in Turkey

As some here in my thread and on some friends FB-wall mentioned Lets get rid of Erdogan. I understand there are many European and Turkish people that hate that man more or less, but using the military against a democratic elected President or Prime Minister is not the solution

Democracy is the solution-Convinced the Turkish voters that Erdogan is not good for Turkey.

Markus

Good luck with that mapuc, for many Turks he's the best thing since sliced bread, and soon he'll get rid of the democracy he used to get into power, probably through enacting a permanent state of emergency or something like that. No, he's here to stay, the only chance is that the military sees the purges coming and decides to turn against him en masse, but given the feel of the word on the street, I don't think that'll happen.
I imagine that the refugees from Syria are going to start having Turks in them now as well. Now would be a great time for anyone who likes democracy to get the hell out of dodge.

Oh, and if things weren't bizarre enough, the Turkish Secretary of Labour is blaming the US for the coup, because of course he is.

I can see why you wrote "Good luck with that mapuc" I missed to write "the Turkish people" has to Convinced the Turkish voters that Erdogan is not good for Turkey.

As someone wrote

In my lifelong military career I have never seen such a badly planned and amateurish executed coup-that makes one wonder if

They hoped other military units would join as the progress proceeded
or
the Rumour that Erdogan is behind this are not so conspiracy as one may think.

Markus

This coup was so poorly organised that it almost makes no sense. One has to exercise extreme caution when planning to overthrow Erdogan, shouldn't he? I mean, the time the so called conspirators begun their attempt was around 22.15 in a Friday evening (???). Why not in the early hours of Saturday so as to achieve complete surprise and catch your 'enemies' off guard? How did they exactly plan to mobilize their troops in heavy traffic? Are we supposed to believe that not even one of the high-ranking officers arrested didn't have any second thoughts about the time? Didn't anyone of them have the obvious idea to seize control of all TV stations? And how come almost half an hour after Erdogan's speech on CNN Turk, members of AKP attacked the soldiers who were at the Ataturk airport and on that bridge that fast and that hard? These people are fanatics, they decapitated their soldiers-fellow citizens - for crying out loud!!! - they are not ordinary people protesting against the army or the coup as Erdogan says they are. How can it be? They looked (and i believe they are) more serious and determined than their fellow citizens-soldiers. They acted as a mob not as a crowd protesting in a spontaneous way. And how come we haven't heard any of the conspirators saying a single word on the TV? Finally, this story about a 75 year old mastermind, a former cleric, living thousands of kilometers away in Pennsylvania, having organised the whole thing, while trying to make him look like the Osama Bin Laden of the West who planned this attack against a democratically elected government is pathetic. Am I supposed to believe that the Americans were stupid enough to organise the whole thing leaving trails to this cleric leading back to them? Jesus...

The US airbase at Incirlik has had it's airspace closed, and Erdogan is now calling out Obama to arrest and turn over the cleric Fettulah Gulen. I hope this doesn't become something similar to the Ayatollah Khomeini demanding turning over the Shah of Iran.

One can only speculate about what is going to follow. In my humble opinion, everything was a good show for the country's public opinion. I'm sorry to say this since many people died during that night. But it was just what Erdogan needed to show them who is running things. Among the numerous reports there was a Turk saying the very same thing.

And now the news have said that the Mayor of Ankara stated that the pilot who shot down the Russian Sukhoi is one of the conspirators... Hmmmm..... He probably has an American passport and an uncle living in Minnesota. Most likely.

The question is

Will Obama/USA do so, for keeping the airbase at Incirlik intact and other things-

Turkey may if refusal from USA close the base for American and other allied fighter jets.

Markus

There's nothing Obama can do, he doesn't have the power to just turn over Gulen and Erdogan knows that, he's a power hungry megalomanic but he's not stupid. His followers on the other hand...so it makes the US be the convienient bad guy in this situation.
Chances are that a deal will be struck to keep Incirlik open, some new missiles for the F16s or something, and things will go back to normal. I don't think Erdogan particularly wants to go alone without the US, but since the US is the big bad in the Muslim world they make an easy scapegoat.
The one I'd keep an eye on is Iran, how they react to this will be interesting.

Something may be happening at Incirlik, either low flying sonic-booming aircraft or explosions are being reported across twitter, although the sources are sketchy.

And is democracy the right tool to establish autocracy and tyrannical dictatorship? Think of what misery the world would have been saved form if the military would have simply killed Hitler - a democratically elected leader, btw.

Erdoghan himself once said that to him democracy is just a train you use to get from your starting point to your destination. Once you have reached your destination, you leave it and leave the train behind.

Official statistics say there are more than 3 million Turks living in Germany. It is more in reality, but okay. More than half of these still have voting rights for Turkish elections. And almost all of them went voting, and amongst the German Turks a greater share voted for Erdoghan, than of the Turkish population in Turkey. - This radicalisation means problems for us in germany, you can imagine.

And when Western politicians like Merkel say that tanks in the street to kick a democratically elected govenrment are "unacceptable", then this is the same kind of nonsense that the West talked when the Egypt military kicked out the democratically elected MB. And in the end, for Merkel and others it is about this: if they do accept coups against failing governments in other states, they in principle have no defence anymore against the people violently rising or the military staging a coup against their own government, too - because our governments' policies are as much failures, as Erdoghans are. Our leaders betray us and lead us into darkness as well. They should have all reason to fear us, the people. But thanks to the life-long indoctrination that "violence is never an option", they must not fear us. Birds of same feather flock together. Mind you, in Brussel there are politicians at work who want to put criticising the EU in a way not authorized by the EU, under penalty. Opposing the EU's self-perception should become a criminal offence. Opposition becomes criminalised that way. But the same people criticise Erdoghan, Hirsi, or autocratic leaders in Eastern european states...? LOL

No, I do not rule out violence always, and under all circumstances. If I would, I would be dead since many years already, gotten killed on two, maybe three incidents. I defend Hirsi's coup in Egypt, and I have no illusion about the level of corruption and cleptocracy his camp is abusing the state for. Erdoghan, democratically elected or not, is as cleptocratic, and his wife is said to be as bad, if not worse.

Violence can be justified, and is a tool like others. Its just that it should not be used easily, and carelessly. And it is like with owning a weapon: its better to be able to project and direct violence against others, but not needing to do so, than needing to do so but finding oneself too unable and too impotent to do so. Better have a weapon and not needing to use it, than to need one but finding you have none. Weakness is no virtue. It just is weakness. It is strength that can be a power for good, it is never weakness. And it is strength that opens chances and generates opportuntiies and increases the degrees of freedom in your decision-making. If you are weak, you reduce these degrees of freedom. Saying you mean it well but being impotent to do something, means nothing. Save your breath.

Maybe the rebels "meant it well". Maybe they saw it as their duty to try to remove Erdoghan from power, like the many who tried to assassinate Hitler. Maybe they knew they would fail, but thought it nevertheless is a demand of soldier's honor to try it anyway. Maybe they were just naive and underestimated the amount of support Erdoghan has. If the latter, they were naive idiots then.

Personally I still think it is more than just conspiracy theory that Erdoghan has created the opportunity for this coup- to smack it down and create himself a card blanche for the aftermath. The blakclists came out too fast, preparations mjust have been done before. At least he was hoping for and waiting for such an opportunity. He called the coup a gift of God, that tells something.

Turkey is no longer a trustworthy ally, and is no friend. Its an enemy in our middle. And it will give us big troubles that sooner or later we can no longer contain. I'm preaching this since over ten years, and since then there has not been a single year that has not proven me right: things became worse and worse and worse. And like with any pressure cooker, it just is a question of time until it explodes into our faces. Hopes for the better, and meaning it well, will not make a smallest difference.