Turkish Coup

[1eyedjack]

I am not sure what to make of this Turkish Coup attempt. My first reaction was that it was such an inept and doomed attempt at seizing power that it speaks volumes of the strategic competence of the Turkish military command.

[hrothgar]

From my perspective, the most interesting question is whether this was a Kemalist group that attempted the coup or whether it was actually part of the Galen movement.

 

Its pretty clear that the coup attempt has failed. The key decisions points seem to have been

 

1. The failure to assassinate Erdogan

2. Erdogan escaping the country

3. The coup members firing on crowds of civilians

4. Western leaders deciding to back the democratically elected government

[mgoetze]

I am not sure what to make of this Turkish Coup attempt. My first reaction was that it was such an inept and doomed attempt at seizing power that it speaks volumes of the strategic competence of the Turkish military command.

It would, if the Turkish military command had been behind it. However, it seems like only a minority of the military was involved in the coup. Perhaps they overestimated how much support they would garner once they started.

 

From my perspective, the most interesting question is whether this was a Kemalist group that attempted the coup or whether it was actually part of the Galen movement.

 

Its pretty clear that the coup attempt has failed. The key decisions points seem to have been

 

1. The failure to assassinate Erdogan

2. Erdogan escaping the country

3. The coup members firing on crowds of civilians

4. Western leaders deciding to back the democratically elected government

I think you've got your timeline wrong, both 3. and 4., in my estimation, happened well after the coup had essentially failed. Obviously it would have been best if they had kidnapped Erdogan immediately (or assassinated, not sure about that), but failing that, they should have taken control of all the main TV stations simultaneously. Instead, they took over TRT to make a statement, and soon after, Erdogan was able to rally his followers on CNN Türk. They then made a belated attempt to take over CNN Türk, meanwhile FOX Turkiye and others were broadcasting the whole time and Erdogan called into those stations as well. All in all, pretty amateurish.

 

Also, to your point 2, I have seen no evidence that Erdogan was ever outside of Turkey during the whole thing.

[Aberlour10]

The real putsch in Turkey is beginnig only now.

[MrAce]

For those who do not know, I am a Turk.

 

This coup was not attempted by Kemalist group.

 

First I will explain what Kemalism means. It means people like me who are loyal to Mustafa Kemal. He used to be a general of the Ottoman Empire. When Germany surrendered in WW1 so did Ottomans. Our land was occupied, Istanbul by Brits, Izmir by Greeks, Antalya by Italians. Adana and south east by France and Armenians. All the Ottoman army was disarmed and surrendered. Only small piece in Anatolia, Ankara and surrounding was left unoccupied. Having no soldier, Ataturk(Mustafa Kemal) ran from Istanbul to Samsun in 1919 and started gathering rebel groups to fight. At that point the Emperor and his council was trying to decide whether we should be living the rest of our lives under British or French or American protection. After fighting over 600 years, Otoman people were poor, tired and pretty much ran out of men. Although they ruled a HUGE amount of land and people during their rise, they never tried to convert Christians to Muslim, they did not force to change their language or traditions when they concurred. They taxed them. So there was not much help coming from any other nations either. Shortly with whomever left, Ataturk and his men, after long battles, with women and kids vs well armed organised armies made a lot of sacrifice. They won! French and Italians saw what was coming and they turned back. Greeks decided to fight and they lost very badly. Brits, after Greeks lost, did not want to stay in Turkey all by themselves, having all their allies already left. Emperor of Ottoman decided to run away in a British navy ship.

 

Mustafa Kemal was expected to declare his Kingdom and be the new ruler of Ottoman Empire. Instead he said "From now on no emperors or empire, people will vote for their leader" And that was the moment why some people who have been ruled for so long by Islamic rules were upset. Because Ottoman Emperors were also the Khalife of Islam world, who protected them from Crusaders for many years. Ataturk also changed the Arabic alphabet to Latin alphabet because he knew Turks were behind the technology due to being uneducated. But the most they hated about him was, he separated the religion and government from each other. He imported what is mainly Swedish Laws and converted it into our own traditions and life style. He forbid a man to marry more than 1 wife. He gave women equal rights in the court and anywhere else as oppose to Islamic rules. He said "Our future is with the WEST"

 

He was loved by the Turkish people. He was hated by the fanatic Islam. After all he ended an empire that was controlled by Islamic influence, and called it Turkish Republic. He ended the power of people who did nothing but spread hatred towards western culture and Christianity and make money and gain power from it. He allowed Jews and Christians to have their own churches and leaders and protected them by law. He banned discrimination of ANY kind.

 

Now...Turkey is a democratic country since 1923. But some of the big world powers and their idiot leaders, after WW2 decided that fanatic Islam was a good tool to use against communism. They supported, supplied them and helped them to spread for a long time. I remember my father telling me " They have no ***** idea what kind of snake they are feeding in their pocket" In last 40 years they spread so much that now modern world finally started to see what they have done. These people have spread all over the world, in USA, in Britain, France, Germany and wherever you may think of. And they no longer need the financial support of western world to achieve their goals.

 

What happened in Turkey is, there is a guy called Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was ellected. He is representing the religious conservatives. Many people started to lose their democratic rights. I will not get into details but the world knows what he is up to. Turkish military is loyal to Ataturk (Kemal) and to his policy. But military is changed by RTE. He had huge scandals recently both in domestic and foreign policy. Shooting down the Russian plane, his relations with Israel, Syria, Isis were all in question. Recent rising terror bombings and being ignored by the other leaders in the world. His rules against journalism and many other things he started to lose popularity. Except among the fanatic Islam.

 

This so called "coup" was nothing but a joke. Not by Kemalists. We have respect to democracy. Our way of thinking brought democracy at the first place. Not being pleased by the outcome of an election does not mean it is OK to take down a government. TC is being ruled by this government for a long time now. We are not happy with it. But after this joke coup attempt, now he will have more power to limit the democratic rights of people. At the end of the day, he is the only one who profited from this joke coup. His ratings will rise again for standing still against a so called coup, and he will distract people from what is really going on. What really going on is, unfortunately, Turkey is being remodeled again and us Kemalists have no say in this. It will be the Syrians, the Arabs, the Kurds and whomever else have ambitions in getting a piece of it. This coup was made by a VERY small group in military. They were probably convinced that the entire military was behind them. Someone baited them, and they jumped on it. Doesn't it look funny to attempt a coup with only few soldiers, 20 tanks? The country you are trying to take over is officially 90 million and in real it has more than 120 million people living in (they show less to get into EU) and an area of bigger than most European countries. With neighbors such as Russia, Iran, Iraq and Syria. Come on now!

 

But let me tell you something. Turkey is the last bridge between Europe and the darkness! Once it falls, it will be ugly for everyone soon enough.

[mike777]

For those who do not know, I am a Turk.

 

This coup was not attempted by Kemalist group.

 

First I will explain what Kemalism means. It means people like me who are loyal to Mustafa Kemal. He used to be a general of the Ottoman Empire. When Germany surrendered in WW1 so did Ottomans. Our land was occupied, Istanbul by Brits, Izmir by Greeks, Antalya by Italians. Adana and south east by France and Armenians. All the Ottoman army was disarmed and surrendered. Only small piece in Anatolia, Ankara and surrounding was left unoccupied. Having no soldier, Ataturk(Mustafa Kemal) ran from Istanbul to Samsun in 1919 and started gathering rebel groups to fight. At that point the Emperor and his council was trying to decide whether we should be living the rest of our lives under British or French or American protection. After fighting over 600 years, Otoman people were poor, tired and pretty much ran out of men. Although they ruled a HUGE amount of land and people during their rise, they never tried to convert Christians to Muslim, they did not force to change their language or traditions when they concurred. They taxed them. So there was not much help coming from any other nations either. Shortly with whomever left, Ataturk and his men, after long battles, with women and kids vs well armed organised armies made a lot of sacrifice. They won! French and Italians saw what was coming and they turned back. Greeks decided to fight and they lost very badly. Brits, after Greeks lost, did not want to stay in Turkey all by themselves, having all their allies already left. Emperor of Ottoman decided to run away in a British navy ship.

 

Mustafa Kemal was expected to declare his Kingdom and be the new ruler of Ottoman Empire. Instead he said "From now on no emperors or empire, people will vote for their leader" And that was the moment why some people who have been ruled for so long by Islamic rules were upset. Because Ottoman Emperors were also the Khalife of Islam world, who protected them from Crusaders for many years. Ataturk also changed the Arabic alphabet to Latin alphabet because he knew Turks were behind the technology due to being uneducated. But the most they hated about him was, he separated the religion and government from each other. He imported what is mainly Swedish Laws and converted it into our own traditions and life style. He forbid a man to marry more than 1 wife. He gave women equal rights in the court and anywhere else as oppose to Islamic rules. He said "Our future is with the WEST"

 

He was loved by the Turkish people. He was hated by the fanatic Islam. After all he ended an empire that was controlled by Islamic influence, and called it Turkish Republic. He ended the power of people who did nothing but spread hatred towards western culture and Christianity and make money and gain power from it. He allowed Jews and Christians to have their own churches and leaders and protected them by law. He banned discrimination of ANY kind.

 

Now...Turkey is a democratic country since 1923. But some of the big world powers and their idiot leaders, after WW2 decided that fanatic Islam was a good tool to use against communism. They supported, supplied them and helped them to spread for a long time. I remember my father telling me " They have no ***** idea what kind of snake they are feeding in their pocket" In last 40 years they spread so much that now modern world finally started to see what they have done. These people have spread all over the world, in USA, in Britain, France, Germany and wherever you may think of. And they no longer need the financial support of western world to achieve their goals.

 

What happened in Turkey is, there is a guy called Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was ellected. He is representing the religious conservatives. Many people started to lose their democratic rights. I will not get into details but the world knows what he is up to. Turkish military is loyal to Ataturk (Kemal) and to his policy. But military is changed by RTE. He had huge scandals recently both in domestic and foreign policy. Shooting down the Russian plane, his relations with Israel, Syria, Isis were all in question. Recent rising terror bombings and being ignored by the other leaders in the world. His rules against journalism and many other things he started to lose popularity. Except among the fanatic Islam.

 

This so called "coup" was nothing but a joke. Not by Kemalists. We have respect to democracy. Our way of thinking brought democracy at the first place. Not being pleased by the outcome of an election does not mean it is OK to take down a government. TC is being ruled by this government for a long time now. We are not happy with it. But after this joke coup attempt, now he will have more power to limit the democratic rights of people. At the end of the day, he is the only one who profited from this joke coup. His ratings will rise again for standing still against a so called coup, and he will distract people from what is really going on. What really going on is, unfortunately, Turkey is being remodeled again and us Kemalists have no say in this. It will be the Syrians, the Arabs, the Kurds and whomever else have ambitions in getting a piece of it. This coup was made by a VERY small group in military. They were probably convinced that the entire military was behind them. Someone baited them, and they jumped on it. Doesn't it look funny to attempt a coup with only few soldiers, 20 tanks? The country you are trying to take over is officially 90 million and in real it has more than 120 million people living in (they show less to get into EU) and an area of bigger than most European countries. With neighbors such as Russia, Iran, Iraq and Syria. Come on now!

 

But let me tell you something. Turkey is the last bridge between Europe and the darkness! Once it falls, it will be ugly for everyone soon enough.

 

Thank you for taking the time and patience to make your post, thank you.

 

I note your very first sentence.

"irst I will explain what Kemalism means. It means people like me who are loyal to Mustafa Kemal."

 

you are loyal to Kemal.

 

I could expand on western thinking and ideals but prefer to hear honest posts from you.

 

Again thanks for taking the time to teach us.

 

--------------------------------------------------

 

"...But let me tell you something. Turkey is the last bridge between Europe and the darkness! Once it falls, it will be ugly for everyone soon enough."

 

 

I copy your major point

[kenberg]

For those who do not know, I am a Turk.

-----

But let me tell you something. Turkey is the last bridge between Europe and the darkness! Once it falls, it will be ugly for everyone soon enough.

 

 

I join in expressing appreciation for your post.

 

 

My first reaction on Friday was "The whole world seems to be coming apart". A sniper in Dallas, a truck driver in Nice and now this in Turkey, As I watched television commentary, it seemed most of those doing the talking had no better of an understanding than I did.

 

Your closing comment is ominous, I wish I could say that I disagreed with it.

[Winstonm]

Thank you, MrAce. I learned.

[onoway]

Today an interesting commentary which may be relevant: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/16/turkey-coup-army-erdogan

[1eyedjack]

I begin to understand why Cameron could justifiably have changed his mind in the years up to the Brexit vote regarding the desirability and prognosis of Turkey joining the EU in the next decade or so. That said, had Turkey been allowed to join when it was in favour, perhaps much of what had since come about would not have. Who can say.

[Fluffy]

Spreading hatred to divide people and seize power happens also in Spain with nationalisms. And they also end with terrorism. Not familiar with Northern Ireland, but I guess partially the same happened there.

 

What I mean, it is very likely if you got rid of islam/religion all together humans would find something else (race/income/latitude) to do exactly the same: divide the people to seize power, seems part of our nature.

 

You could argue that the Islamic way of doing things is worse though. Or spreads faster.

[mike777]

Spreading hatred to divide people and seize power happens also in Spain with nationalisms. And they also end with terrorism. Not familiar with Northern Ireland, but I guess partially the same happened there.

 

What I mean, it is very likely if you got rid of islam/religion all together humans would find something else (race/income/latitude) to do exactly the same: divide the people to seize power, seems part of our nature.

 

You could argue that the Islamic way of doing things is worse though. Or spreads faster.

 

 

Fluffy not sure what your point is.

1) what is wrong with wanting to take power

2) dividing people to take power ....common over thousands of years.

3) for some reason you think people wanting power is evil??

[Cyberyeti]

Spreading hatred to divide people and seize power happens also in Spain with nationalisms. And they also end with terrorism. Not familiar with Northern Ireland, but I guess partially the same happened there.

 

What I mean, it is very likely if you got rid of islam/religion all together humans would find something else (race/income/latitude) to do exactly the same: divide the people to seize power, seems part of our nature.

 

You could argue that the Islamic way of doing things is worse though. Or spreads faster.

 

Northern Ireland is a bit more complicated than that.

 

The reason I suspect Islam gets a bad name in this is that while most religions have their extremists, Islam exports its extremists outside its core areas. To explain, Judaism has its rabid nutters - in Israel. Hinduism has its extremists who kill muslims - in India. Christianity has its nutters, shooting doctors, the KKK etc, mainly in what I would consider its core areas in the southern US. Islam takes its terrorism into areas where they are not the dominant culture.

 

And I'll add my thanks to MrAce for his explanation, I knew some of this but he filled in some gaps.

[Fluffy]

Fluffy not sure what your point is.

1) what is wrong with wanting to take power

2) dividing people to take power ....common over thousands of years.

3) for some reason you think people wanting power is evil??

Even if Western civilizations didn't feed islam against communism, something else would had found its place sooner or later.

[mgoetze]

Today, Erdogan enacted the Reichstag Fire Decree.

[Fluffy]

This is not going to end well :(

[onoway]

this is so sad. There should be some sort of way to identify and stop megalomaniacs from being allowed into politics.

[fromageGB]

It sounds as if the Turkish Coup is a sub-category of the more generic Bath Coup.

[onoway]

Let's just hope that Erdogan doesn't decide he wants to be the one to restore the Ottoman empire.

[patroclo]

It is significative that there aren't any turkish player comment. I understand that. And this has a great mean for me........

[1eyedjack]

It is significative that there aren't any turkish player comment.

Post #5 clearly flew right past you.

For those who do not know, I am a Turk.

[fromageGB]

You are declaring 3NT, and other than having to lose a top trick in your long suit, you have all the top cards apart from holding just AJx in the unbid suit. Opponents are playing standard leads, and the lead is a top honour in that unbid suit. You believe in the Principle of Restricted Choice, so that while you know it is a top card you refuse to distinguish whether it is the K or the Q.

 

You duck, and the suit is continued, RHO playing the other top honour (which you assume is different card to the one played by LHO on the previous round). Unfortunately, RHO turns up with the ace of your long suit .

 

This is the Turkish Coup, the subset of the Bath Coup as played by believers in restricted choice. Called the "Turkish Coup" because half the time you always end up in very hot water.

[Thiros]

I carried this fantasy to its logical conclusion and I'm having a hard time seeing the trap here. You have two stoppers in the unbid suit after you duck trick one, and trick two knocked out one of them (the ace). When you have driven out the ace of your own long suit, you still have the jack to stop the third round of their suit.

[fromageGB]

I carried this fantasy to its logical conclusion and I'm having a hard time seeing the trap here. You have two stoppers in the unbid suit after you duck trick one, and trick two knocked out one of them (the ace). When you have driven out the ace of your own long suit, you still have the jack to stop the third round of their suit.

That's right. Maybe you have another loser. I never was very good at restricted choice! I am just explaining the derivation of the Coup name.

[MrAce]

As it turns out everything was planned in Pennsylvania, USA by Fethullah Gulen. Another religious preacher who is known to have a lot of politicians, businesmen, soldiers, lawyers, highest ranking judges of Turkey in his pocket.

 

All this time, the opposition of the current government in Turkey, told that this guy is putting his men in the highest places of the government. Current government and their TBMM (Turkish Parliament) representatives, denied it. After all they were partners and both coming from a religious background their goal was same, and that is to get rid of Kemalist opposition. They arrested many generals, lawyers, journalists that are not from them. All these people said for many years that the real danger is Feto (Fethullah Guven) and his community. All the ministers, including the prime minister back then and still president now RTE (Recep Tayyip Erdogan) defended this guy (you can find the videos all over the net how they defended him) and put the innocent people in prisons. They also released Feto from 9 different charges of being the leader of a group that wants the democratic regime of Turkey to be taken down.

 

All of this started just before I moved to USA, late 90s. Guven Erkaya was the chief commander of Turkish Navy, who I played bridge with and against many times. He was also one of the top guys in intelligence and managed to put spies in Feto's community. Then he got the videos in which Feto clearly tells his ambitions to his loyal community. Current government released him from all these charges.

 

Now...7-5-2016 comes. Feto and his men in military attempts a coup. There are 2 targets in this attempt.

 

1- To gain the control of TSK (Turkish Armed Forces)

2-To assasinate RTE to gain the political control.

 

Around 22.00, the top general of the coup attempt and his men get to the room of the top general of TSK. And give him papers to sign that he is with them. The guard of top commander draws his pistol and immediately shoots the top coup general right there. And he was also killed by military officers of the coup side. They need 6 chief commanders of TSK to be in that headquarters of TSK. These people are;

 

1-The one that they just took hostage, the top guy.

2-Commander of TSK Army#1 (commander of ground troops)

3-Commander of Navy

4-Commander of Airforce.

5-Commander of National Guards.

6-Commander of special forces and MIT (Milli Istihbarat Teskilati = national intelligence agency)

 

Navy commander is in Istanbul at the moment so they can't reach him. They bring all others to the headquarters because they have arranged everyone working in the headquarters that night is from them, as well as the guards of commanders.

 

At this point, the commander of Special Forces understands there is something wrong when he was called to headquarters. He makes some phone calls to his loyal men. This phone was listened by Feto people. 2 Apache helicopters attack to the car of Special Forces commander with rockets. One of his men loses both legs. He is trained very well, manages to disappear in the city. But they find him again tracking his cell. A lot of gunfight, rockets in urban area in Ankara. He is the guy that changed the outcome of this attempt they say. He gathers his men and first thing he needed to do was to recover his own base which was held by 20 coup soldiers. They kill them all and get back the special forces base, which allows them to listen every single cell phone, radio communication and send orders to wherever they need.

 

2 F-16 makes point hit of group of soldiers and police who are organizing to fight back. Many are killed by coup pilots. (I think the most of the losses were made by these F-16 s)

 

On a radio talk, MIT pays attention to a conversation that says (all of this happening at the same time) "They were about to get into our den, we are now getting in their den" MIT translates this as an assassination attempt to RTE. They call immediately the security people of RTE and he is taken out of the Hotel he was staying to somewhere safe. 15 minutes later, Apache helicopters drop many trained commandos to this Hotel but were being expected by cops.

 

RTE makes a speech on his cell phone to Turkey and tells people to get on the streets and protect their elected government! Most of the soldiers on the street has no clue or tie with these coup people. They think they are there because they took an order that says things like "Hold the bridge, there is terror alarm!" And they faced lynch by people, some of them were actually lynched! Because they denied using their tanks and rifles against people. They were beaten and tortured after they learned what was going on and surrendered.

 

What does not add up with all these stories being told are

 

1-Where was MIT, all this time and how did they have no clue such a thing was planned, especially when all the people you put in prison were telling this is what will happen if you let them sneak into very top places in government?

 

2-How did RTE dare to get into presidential plane and flied to Ankara without fear, when Feto's F-16 s were making hits in Turkish airspace?

 

3-All of this started by 22.00 pm and by 23.27 RTE was giving a speech on TV, showing the arrest warrants of people in his hand and that they will be punished severely. When did you have time to find out who did it, prepared arrest warrants if you did not know already what was going to happen and who will do it? At this moment there were still some gunfights!

 

Now, Turkish media is another comedy. They want to convince that all of this made was Feto (which is true by the way) but they want us to see RTE as the protector of democracy. Everybody seems to forget RTE and his team put Feto to this position and power! Now that he tried to bite them, does not make people innocent who helped him to for over 40 years. RTE claims that he made a mistake about Feto. Even if we believe for a second that he is telling the truth and it was just an innocent mistake, despite ignoring all the criminal evidence, warning of people, warning of opposition politicals, even all of this was because of a mistake, many people died, democracy came to the edge of termination, economy is *****ed, dude, for heavens sake, RESIGN at least! Even if you are not guilty, your mistake, your ignorance caused all of this at the first place.

 

Now Turkish media talks about trials and that RTE should make these trials fair! You are asking people to judge these traitors by people who actually gave them this power all this time despite all warnings. Despite putting people to prison who warned them!

 

Basically, imagine a SNAKE, a fish in its mouth. Turkish media is saying " BRAVE snake is rescuing the poor fish from drowning!!"