Coup attempt in Turkey

[mongers]

So if the day after 9/11, Bush had sacked every other federal judge*, that would have been part of a proportionate response?

OK, not the best of analogises, Martyesque perhaps, but you get my drift.


* I've no idea if there are a handful, several hundreds or many thousands of federal judges in the USA, but Erdogan announced the sacking of over 2,700 judges the day after the coup in a country of 70 odd million, so for the US say 15,000 judges/officials. 

[dps]

So if the day after 9/11, Bush had sacked every other federal judge*, that would have been part of a proportionate response?

OK, not the best of analogises, Martyesque perhaps, but you get my drift.


* I've no idea if there are a handful, several hundreds or many thousands of federal judges in the USA, but Erdogan announced the sacking of over 2,700 judges the day after the coup in a country of 70 odd million, so for the US say 15,000 judges/officials. 

A better analogy would be Lincoln sacking Federal judges after Fort Sumter.  Even that might not be a good analogy, though, because the President of the US doesn't have the legal authority to remove any judge from office, but I have no idea whether or not the President of Turkey has the legal authority to sack judges.

[Razgovory]

I love that Raz, and the useful idiots like him, are willing to go to the lengths of trying to argue that Islamist parties in Turkey are pretty much just like the Christian Democrats in Germany.

The shark has truly been jumped.

If only you could find someway to be useful.

[LaCroix]

wait, was mongers's post in response to my post? 

[mongers]

wait, was mongers's post in response to my post? 

No.

Merely an observation that Erdogan is making the most of the opportunity and tightening his grip on power.

[Razgovory]

The problem Turkey has always had, since the days of Ataturk, is that the public at large never accepted secularism. It was always seen as something the educated upper class elites supported, and any time the popular movement for Islamism grew too powerful the unelected military would step in and impose temporary periods of autocracy. Considering this has gone on for almost 100 years and a majority of the Turkish population still is Islamist, I'm not really sure that a true democratic Turkey and secularism is ever possible long term.

That was my thought process after the whole thing went out with a whimper.  If the only way liberal secularism survives is by regular coups, then sorry, it ain't going to work indefinitely.  The first time the coup fails, the coup isn't launched in time and the army gets co-opted, or the coup succeeds but the army decides to stay in power, the system collapses.  That's pretty much the opposite of how stable liberal secular democracies should function.

The problem is that it's never been liberal.  Turkey has long been secular, but it has always been authoritarian and at the same time deeply divided.  While the Turkish coups have often been in the name of secularism and Kemalism, the targets of the coup are often secular parties.  Typically this seems to happen when the violence between fascists, minorities and leftists threatens to boil over.

[alfred russel]

I don't know if the US issue with Erdogan should be a concern of creeping islamism in Turkey--Turkey is still rather secular, and whatever Erdogan does he isn't likely to radically change that. He has also been rather pro business, which is good for us (though not really all that relevant because Turkey is very far away and the economy not that large--and on the negative side it seems likely the tendency toward corruption will be increasing).

Turkey is mostly relevant to us as the NATO outpost bordering the middle east and the former USSR. I think the main issue with Erdogan is that he is almost full islamic nutjob in his foreign policy. Worse relations with Israel, not exactly an anti ISIS strategy, jacked up tensions with Russia, and backing up Azerbaijan against Armenia to a degree that is unhelpful.

[Razgovory]

Raz just has issues he "takes a stand" on. I don't understand why you even indulge him.

He doesn't.  He's been on and off ignoring me for years.  I remember when he started.  A minor scandal when a group of marines were photographed displaying a SS flag.  Berkut went berserk.

[Hamilcar]

What sound does a turkey make?









*coup coup*

[grumbler]

I love that Raz, and the useful idiots like him, are willing to go to the lengths of trying to argue that Islamist parties in Turkey are pretty much just like the Christian Democrats in Germany.

The shark has truly been jumped.

It is pure, unadulterated contrarianism.  If he thought "Languish" supported Erdogan, he'd be arguing the exact opposite.

IOW, you are feeding the troll.

[grumbler]

While I do agree that Raz is going overboard here, I do think that he has a point about your definition of "Islamist" being a bit too broad.  It's not that your definition is wrong, exactly;  it's more that it's going to apply to the government of any nation where the majority of the population is Muslim, unless it's is under the control of an outside non-Muslim country.

I disagree with that.  Malaysia is majority-Muslim and yet isn't Islamist in any real degree.  Indonesia is even more Islamic, and Islamists have only a small degree of influence there.

In the Middle east, yeah, there is mostly only a degree of Islamism.  But the degrees are important.

[grumbler]

I think the problem with turkey is that its constitution and general government framework already offered the tools for a non-secularist like erdogan to chip away at the country's secular institutions. before, it was to maintain secularism at all costs. but once a non-secularist finally got into power who had enough ambition to mold the country in his own vision, he could. he had the same tools that the secularists had at their disposal.

secularism was promoted as ataturk's legacy, and these principles were held by the upper echelons of turk society rather than across the whole society, so is it any wonder that it couldn't survive for all time? the "oppressed" majority never agreed to it. seems like the secularists in turkey shot themselves in the foot.

I think that this is largely correct.  One of the reasons why Turkey has traditionally had a rather belligerent foreign policy (including policy towards the Kurds) was that the promotion of outside threats suppressed internal dissatisfaction.  There are two Turkeys, the educated, affluent urban Turkey, and the ill-educated, poorer rural Turkey.  Corruption in the urban elites has always crippled Attaturk's vision of educating the masses, and the only real cure for Islamism is secular (especially female secular) education.

[Razgovory]

I love that Raz, and the useful idiots like him, are willing to go to the lengths of trying to argue that Islamist parties in Turkey are pretty much just like the Christian Democrats in Germany.

The shark has truly been jumped.

It is pure, unadulterated contrarianism.  If he thought "Languish" supported Erdogan, he'd be arguing the exact opposite.

IOW, you are feeding the troll.

I can hardly support the people who shot the Pope.

[Solmyr]

So I wonder, with Erdogan now getting all chummy with Putin again, how much of a NATO security leak could he become?

[Berkut]

SO how soon will it be for someone to claim that the US backed/sponsored/setup/masterminded/invented this coup?