Dozens held in Turkish 'coup plot'

[grumbler]

And if anyone knows anything about being contemptuous and insulting, it's the old g.

Say what?

grumbler is not as much a school bully as the weird kid who smells, always wears sweat pants covered in dog hair, eats his own boogers and screams words like "penis" and "vagina" repeatedly.

[grumbler]

No, I pretty much meant to be contemptuous and insulting.

Sorry, i gave you too much credit, then.  Contempt and insults are a childish way of avoiding the fact that you have no counter-argument, though.

I had no particular issue with the rest of Psellus' post, so I didn't include it in my reply.  On his comment about the "obvious" authoritarian tendencies of the American religious right that merited a

Anyone with any knowledge of the American religious far right has seen their obvious tendencies to be authoritarian - it is one of their most dinstinguishing features.  It is clear that you have no counter-argument to this observation, but you cannot abide seeing the American religious far-right insulted (maybe you identify with them?) so you satisfy yourself with the petulant but unpersuasive

That's okay.  You don't lose much cred with me by this stance - only all that you had.

[grumbler]

Zanza did it better :p

  Zanza didn't respond to BB.

[Barrister]

Anyone with any knowledge of the American religious far right has seen their obvious tendencies to be authoritarian - it is one of their most dinstinguishing features.  It is clear that you have no counter-argument to this observation, but you cannot abide seeing the American religious far-right insulted (maybe you identify with them?) so you satisfy yourself with the petulant but unpersuasive

So your response to my questioning the ridiculous claim that the religious right is "obviously authoritarian" is to say "no, it really is obvious"?

That's okay.  You don't lose much cred with me by this stance - only all that you had.

[grumbler]

So your response to my questioning the ridiculous claim that the religious right is "obviously authoritarian" is to say "no, it really is obvious"?

No, my response to those who claim that the American religious far Right is not authoirtarian is to call them ignorant (willfully or not).  Those who drop the "far" from "far right" to try to weasel out of the fact that we are talking about the "far right" are dishonest as well as ignorant.

The American Religious Far Right wants government to try abortion doctors as murderers, it wants to make homosexual sex illegal (mostly along with all non-traditional hetero sex), it wants to ban books from libraries and schools, it wants the government to mandate the teaching of Christianity and Creationism in schools...  I could go on, but won't bother. 

[Barrister]

So your response to my questioning the ridiculous claim that the religious right is "obviously authoritarian" is to say "no, it really is obvious"?

No, my response to those who claim that the American religious far Right is not authoirtarian is to call them ignorant (willfully or not).  Those who drop the "far" from "far right" to try to weasel out of the fact that we are talking about the "far right" are dishonest as well as ignorant.

The American Religious Far Right wants government to try abortion doctors as murderers, it wants to make homosexual sex illegal (mostly along with all non-traditional hetero sex), it wants to ban books from libraries and schools, it wants the government to mandate the teaching of Christianity and Creationism in schools...  I could go on, but won't bother.

Sorry G, I'm not going to play this game with you any longer.

Better luck trolling someone else though.

[grumbler]

Sorry G, I'm not going to play this game with you any longer.

Better luck trolling someone else though.

Good luck trying to convince anyone you actually had an argument, as opposed to an insult, in this discussion.  If you actually had an argument you would, of course, have made it.

I don't blame you for withdrawing - if insults and contempt prove inadequate, and you have nothing else, your choices are between retreat and rout.

[ulmont]

So your response to my questioning the ridiculous claim that the religious right is "obviously authoritarian" is to say "no, it really is obvious"?

Grumbler's right on this one; the religious right is obviously authoritarian.

Though 91.8% say they believe in God, a higher power or a cosmic force, they had four distinct views of God's personality and engagement in human affairs. These Four Gods — dubbed by researchers Authoritarian, Benevolent, Critical or Distant — tell more about people's social, moral and political views and personal piety than the familiar categories of Protestant/Catholic/Jew or even red state/blue state...."[Believers in the Authoritarian God] want an active, Christian-values-based government with federal funding for faith-based social services and prayer in the schools."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2006-09-11-religion-survey_x.htm

[grumbler]

Grumbler's right on this one; the religious right is obviously authoritarian.

Though 91.8% say they believe in God, a higher power or a cosmic force, they had four distinct views of God's personality and engagement in human affairs. These Four Gods — dubbed by researchers Authoritarian, Benevolent, Critical or Distant — tell more about people's social, moral and political views and personal piety than the familiar categories of Protestant/Catholic/Jew or even red state/blue state...."[Believers in the Authoritarian God] want an active, Christian-values-based government with federal funding for faith-based social services and prayer in the schools."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2006-09-11-religion-survey_x.htm

And that is just the religious Right; the Religious Far Right goes even further:

Some say we want to replace the Constitution. That is utter nonsense. It is true that the Constitution-like everything else-must be subordinate to God's word, but we have never advocated replacing the Constitution. We do not believe God's law limits freedoms. In fact, we believe a denial of God's law limits freedoms: it sets up a situation in which there is no impediment to tyranny. For this reason, to the extent that America has departed from the law of God, she has suffered increased tyranny.

Of course, if by "freedom" the critics mean "freedom" to murder, rape, steal, and blaspheme, then, no, we do not believe in that form of "freedom."

http://forerunner.com/puritan/PS.Recon_Manifesto.html

[Neil]

Actually, this is probably better, but I think it is obvious that the AKP has far less authoritarian instincts than the American Christian Far-Right;

That's funny.  I don't recall George W. Bush rounding up opposition figures.

That's funny.  I don't recall George W. Bush being a member of the American Christian Far Right.

Spellus remembers differently, boy.

[ulmont]

And that is just the religious Right; the Religious Far Right goes even further:

Right, right.  I went with the general survey as the least hyperbolic and most general piece of evidence I could find to make my point.

[Ed Anger]

Actually, this is probably better, but I think it is obvious that the AKP has far less authoritarian instincts than the American Christian Far-Right;

That's funny.  I don't recall George W. Bush rounding up opposition figures.

That's funny.  I don't recall George W. Bush being a member of the American Christian Far Right.

Spellus remembers differently, boy.

George W Bush read what Spellus checked out in the Library.

[Sheilbh]

The Nixon white house actually did stuff though - like orchestrate a break-in and robbery of the opposing party's campaign.  Nothing like that seems to have happened here.  Even if one assumes the documents are entirely authentic and are what they purport to be, it looks like little more than some second tier level officers sketching out a theoretical contingency plan that wiser heads decided never to carry out.

So  if there's truth to it and it was only second tier senior military officers sketching out a plan to overthrow a government through the use of a tension strategy it's not worth prosecuting?  I'd note that right now the AKP are suggesting that they want judicial reform - based on EU recommendations.  The military are unhappy because they want total amnesty from civilian trials and in a document released by the chiefs of staff about their concerns with this prosecution was that military figures were being tried by civilians and that they were being questioned by civilians, I believe a third was that they had been arrested by the police (not the military police) and were being held in civilian prisons.  That doesn't sound like a quiescent military, at best it sounds like a Pinochet style hangover that needs to be put firmly under civilian control.

But the reality varies from the narrative: the military is in fact quiescent and it is the AKP which appears to exercise dominant control over the very powerful instruments of the state.  And the would-be "Muslim Democrats" of Turkey do not exactly bring the likes of Merkel and Balkenende to mind -- their recent policy has tended rather anti-American, and almost rabidly anti-Israel, while at the same time aggressively reaching out to befriend the likes of Syria and Iran.   

Okay.  Well I'd point out that the last decade has been one of global foreign policy tending anti-American.  Turkey's not the only ally who's been increasingly unhappy with the US government.  I think one of their particular reasons - one that they're angry about right now - is ridiculous.  The Armenian genocide happened and was a genocide.  Though you use the phrase Islamised foreign policy and I think that's true, within reason.  What we've really seen is a foreign policy that focuses far more on the region as a whole than under previous governments and  so I am aware that the Turks and Armenians are talking that relations are better than they've been for a long-time and so on, so I'm not convinced that Congress's resolution is terribly useful.  But on the facts the Turks are monstrously wrong (though I'd say far more because of the Kemalist/nationalist wing of politics than anything else) and the Turkish press is probably the only one in the Middle East where if you search for the word 'lobby' they're talking about Armenians.

On the Israel issue I think it's complicated to be honest.  I agree with Quee I think the past few years have been difficult for friends of Israel all over the world and have made giving full-throated support of Israel more difficult.  I think it's inevitable that that would have an effect in a country that Muslim and with a party that genuinely believes in Islamic solidarity (as opposed to the sham solidarity of the Arab kleptocracies).  And this is something the Turks have a history on.  They were one of the first nations to recognise the PLO and give them an Embassy, for example. 

Now I think Erdogan's display at Davos was wrong because it was rude and reflects a tendency I think he sometimes has to play to the Arab crowds.  However I think the only difference between an AKP government and, say, a CHP one has been one of strength of rhetoric.  I think this was inevitable after the cold war.  Israeli-Turkish relations, after the Cold War peaked just after Oslo and have generally had some tie to the Israel-Palestine issue - it's not just dictatorships manipulating the press that angers people in the region.  However I think the core has been and remains relatively strong.  Considering Turkey's rabidly anti-Israel they still have very strong military and intelligence ties with Israel, there've been two senior ministerial visits to Ankara this year and Gul and Peres apparently had a very productive meeting on the sidelines of the Copenhagen conference.  I believe the Israelis are expecting a senior visit from Ankara.  I think Turkey's rabidly anti-Israel in the way that, say, France is rabidly anti-American.

On the region I'd add that Turkey are also becoming aggressively friendly with Iraq (if there's one thing that can unite the region it's shitting on Kurds) and are dealing with Armenia.  So what they're actually doing is starting to talk productively to everyone with whom they share a border.

I don't know about the Darfur thing so I can't comment.  Denying genocide's an unpleasant Turkish foreign policy trait.

For what it's worth I think Erdogan has an unpleasant populist vaguely authoritarian and quite abrasive streak and I do think he's gone too far on Israel.  I far prefer Gul.

At home, AKP legislators have advocated press censorship, prohibition and prayer in the schools. 

Legislator is a baggy word.  I could point to Pete King and say that represents

The analogue seems to me less a European-style Christian Democratic party, and more like a an Islamic-Turkic version of American-style political evangelism.

I don't care about the religion, I care about whether they're democratic because the policies can be changed.

[Tamas]

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/02/25/whats_really_behind_turkeys_coup_arrests

The arrests followed a Feb. 19 incident in which an audio recording of Turkey's chief of staff was leaked to Vakit, a small jihadi Islamist newspaper that has celebrated the killing of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. In Turkey, it is illegal to wiretap individuals without a court order, and it is also illegal to publish such wiretaps. However, no one has been prosecuted for this wiretap against the chief of staff -- a sign that the balance of power in Turkey has shifted decisively

To some, it might appear that the newfound freedom to criticize the military proves that Turkey is becoming a more liberal democracy. But the truth is that Turkey has replaced one "untouchable" organization for another, more dangerous, one. Criticizing the Gülen movement, which controls the national police and its powerful domestic intelligence branch, and which exerts increasing influence in the judiciary, has become as taboo as assailing the military once was. Today, it is those who criticize the Gülen movement who get burned

Of course, coup allegations are serious matters that warrant immediate action. However, these allegations are part of the Ergenekon case -- a convoluted investigation that so far has produced nothing in the last three years but a record-setting 5,800-page indictment, hundreds of early-morning house raids, and the detention of many prominent Turks, including university presidents and prominent educators such as Kemal Guruz and Mehmet Haberal. The only quality that ties together all of those arrested is their opposition to the AKP government and the Gülen movement. Zekeriya Oz, the chief prosecutor leading the Ergenekon case, and Ramazan Akyurek, the head of the police's domestic intelligence branch, as well as other powerful people in the police, are thought by some to be Gülen sympathizers.

Although some of the people interrogated and arrested might have been involved in criminal wrongdoing, most appear to be innocent. Take, for instance, Turkan Saylan, a 73-year-old grandmother who was undergoing chemotherapy. Saylan ran an NGO providing liberal arts education scholarships to poor girls in eastern Turkey, an area where Gülen's network runs many competing organizations. She was interrogated by the Turkish police for allegedly plotting a coup from her death bed, and passed away only four weeks later.

Illegal wiretaps and arbitrary arrests serve to intimidate the public, not prosecute criminals. Because of Ergenekon, Turks who oppose the AKP and the Gülen movement fear to speak their minds freely. If you have doubts, call a friend in Turkey and ask for an opinion of the case. Your friend will respond with details of the weather.

The military, which opposes the AKP and the Gülenists because it sees itself as the virtual guardian of Turkey's secular polity à la Ataturk's vision, serving as a bulwark against religion's domination over politics and government, has become the primary target of this round of politically motivated arrests. Illegally obtained documents, including confidential and sometimes embarrassing medical records of four-star generals, were published openly in Gülenist media. Although the chief of staff said the documents were doctored, they were recently used as evidence, with the support of anonymous witnesses, to arrest serving generals and admirals

With the Gülen movement in control of large portions of the government apparatus and running a political witch hunt against its opponents through the Ergenekon case, Turkey is taking a dangerously authoritarian turn. A personal friend and politician from the former Soviet Union once said, "A police state emerges not when the police listen to all the citizens, but when all the citizens fear that they are being listened to." Welcome to the new Turkey: If you listen carefully, you can hear the political ground shifting below your feet.

[Lettow77]

 So, thanks for contributing then, QQ.

Paris, Tennessee is the grandest paris of them all. It has an annual catfish festival!