Assad's butcher, the US created this mess with its support of non-existent moderate Sunni forces.
Still, this is all on Turkey and its desire to assert itself as the regional Sunni hegemon, decimate Kurds, and, yes, reclaim influence if not direct control over what these neo-Ottomanists regards as its "historic lands."
The present carnage stems from the Turkish invasion (there's no other word) while Trump hung out to dry his only reliable ally against ISIS in the area and Putin, I suppose, hopes to see Syria become Erdogan's quagmire.
It's not even an incident. There is no incident.
I read some Republican mocking the idea that Carter Page, "a guy who hadn't had a job in years," could be someone worth watching.
He worked for the Trump campaign, as that person knew. But anyone who followed Turkey from about 2008-2014 with blinders off has seen this movie.
I suppose you know, professor, that the neo-Ottomanists consider this area and Western Iraq theirs. THey and the "Eurasianists" are more powerful in Anjara after the coup, according to Turkish analysts I read. My sense is that I don't know how much this is show and how much, with all the mosques praying today for Conquest, this is game on.
He's about as nuts as Trump, but without any of the brakes that still sort of occasionally work in the US
Perhaps the other thing that needs to be considered is Turkey's internal situation. Erdogan needs a win. He can get that by getting the US and Russia to say they will not allow the creation if a Kurdish state in Syria.
Assad won't allow it. Russia has no interest in allowing it when Assad is their client. Trump is not going to push for it.
The fact that it was never on the table doesn't matter in Turkey because even the "respectable" writers at Hurriyet are in war-cry mode against the Kurdish-State-Existential-Threat on the southern border. These guys always wind up doing Erdogan's bidding (that's why they're not in jail), and it plays with the rubes.
Landis has a different take link to joshualandis.com
and it is possible that US and Russia are keeping Erdogan pinballing like a grad student whose committee has no intention of passing him or failing him out.
As Semih Idiz notes, none of Turkey's Syrian interlocutors are tolerable to the US or Russia. link to al-monitor.com
THo sitting back and letting the Russian-supplied Syrians shoot down TC jets is strategically not a bad deal for the US.
The attempt in point five to claim courage for CNN-Turk should have been interrupted by a documentary on penguins.
Where were you and your CNN-T heroes when Gezi unfolded, Cuneyet Bey?
Where are your investigations into what really happened on that night that has become an excuse for 100,000+ firings including 4,000 academics and so many journalists of integrity?
Lots of people, particularly Turks, of my ongoing acquaintance (from having spent time in TC 1 10-12 years ago) predicted this all then. Of course, they were dismissed as racist, elitist, and even fascist by Western "left-multicultural" academics who fawned over Erdogan -- and, let's remember, Gulen. Academic neocolonialism is ugly and rarely offers a mea culpa.
Is the long depression of the late-19th century what America needs to transition to Social Democracy?
Is the Great Strike of 1877 what America needs to transition to Social Democracy?
Is the Pullman Strike what America needs to transition to Social Democracy?
Is the Great Depression what America needs to transition to Social Democracy?
Are the Great Society programs the beginning of America's to transition to Social Democracy?
Is the impending crisis of an actor-President (Reagan) the shock that will turn America to Social Democracy?
And, no, Bernie Sanders wasn't it either. He was a protest candidate onto whom all manner of fantasies of competence were projected.
Sweet revenge would be the EU and the next administration encouraging Tayyip to go have fun with Russia and let it take in the suffering Sunni masses. He's headed that way anyway now that he's made peace with Perencek and Peker (!) and the Eurasianists in TSK.
That's not the Fake News industry in Turkey making those claims. It's the national news service and the newspapers allied with the the President's circle and often distributed as gifts. Even Hurriyet has been forced to take on such clowns as Abdulkader Selvi. It is worth making distinctions between "fake news" and government-sponsored /government-generated disinformation.
I appreiate Neslihan hanim's recognition of the obvious connection between Muslimism and Evangelicism/Pentacostalism, yet I cannot but note that the latter conjunction is mocked and dismissed on sites like this one as regressive antimodernism while the former is embraced. The concern for secular liberal values in the US does not extend to concern for secular liberals in Turkey, for instance. Why is that?
So, what you're saying is that Erdogan's not getting much in return for the $9bn in new incentives he handed Trump to build the Akkuyu nuke plant? Bummer
In the spirit of Truth, how many media sites have been shut by the government for voicing anti-Israel sentiments. How many years did Cornel West get for his comments at the DNC platform meeting?
Even paranoids have enemies, Richard. Particularly if they're authoritarians attempting to subvert an admittedly imperfect secular democracy and replace it with an Islamist, nationalist party state for fun and profit.
But let's not pretend this is something new. Most of the national media have already been seized and sold to Erdogan's allies and Hurriyet is kept on a very short leash by threats of tax levies against its owner.
Turkey has a history of problematic relations with freedom of speech. Over the past five years, it has been at a very low point. The president routinely sues journalists, politicians, and HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS for saying things he dislikes. Teenagers are arrested for the crime. So, too, anyone who dares to speak poorly of Islam -- but not of Christianity, Judaism, or atheism.
Anyone paying the slightest bit of attention knows that this was a victory for authoritarianism over the coup. Anyone with friends and colleagues in Turkey, or who listens to NPR knows t hat the crowds in the street are called out by Erdogan. He is their voice, as our native version said this evening in his acceptance speech.
And the number of fired/suspended teachers is north of 40,000. The 21,000 number is teachers at private schools, not those under the MEB, who were the majority of the original 15,000 and have since been added to.
It's substantially over 80,000 counting the private school teachers.
By decree, no one suspended or sacked in the wake of the coup will ever work in a government job again.
Updated closures include:
- 35 hospitals
- 1,043 private schools and dormitories
- 15 private universities
- 1,229 associations and foundations
- 19 trade unions for links to Fethullah Gülen.
Also, the police are now authorized to detain suspects for a month before taking them to court.
Gulen went into exile in 99 after the "postmodern coup." they were allies because they both aimed at undermining the secular state and its bureaucracy. They disagreed on who was to rule afterward and once they ran out of common enemies, they had only each other left. It's been open warfare since the 17/25 December affair in 2013, Gulen's preemptive strike as AKP prepared to shut down Gulen's schools and cram schools in Turkey, through which he recruits.
I find this read more convincing than any Naksibendi/Sufi splits.
Well, the Gulenists are "an armed terrorist organization," as a Turkish (AKPli) judge said today. Armed, indeed, the ones in the army and the police anyway. This is the level of honesty one expects from AKP. Twas ever thus.
Well over 60,000 now, professor, and that's only government sector. Doesn't count the 21,000 private school teachers whose licenses were suspended and the 600 schools shut down.
Ashish Kumar Jena struggles to keep an updated list at link to twitter.com
We should also bear in mind that these purges have been ongoing since 2013, along with packing the Constitutional Court and shredding the constitution with a "de facto presidential system" that the government and its institutions haven't yet caught up with (much to His consternation.)
"Hitler" is over the top, Reichstag Fire analogies are not.
And now, the three month state of emergency as sackings and suspensions cross 60,000 and 600 private schools are slated for closure ... and reincarnation as imam hatipler?
answering my own question, via Hurriyet link to hurriyetdailynews.com
YÖK also suspended all assignments of academics abroad and asked for the academics currently assigned abroad to return to Turkey.
In a written statement sent to both state and private universities, YÖK requested the suspension of the assignments of academics to foreign countries until further notice. It also demanded examinations of the situations of academics working abroad and said they should be called back if there was no immediate necessity for them to remain in the foreign country.
Over 50,000 government employees (plus 21,000 private school teachers) suspended or sacked, and the numbers continue to rise.
Military judges and prosecutors suspended just in time for the Koup trials. Long-time Istanbul Governor Topbas promises a "Graveyard for Traitors" in the city and sets aside land for it.
Erdogan has gone full NRA: wants citizens armed to prevent an actual coup (this one, the government was informed of and began reacting against six hours before it started).
This is a win for democracy if Tayyip still has the support of 50%+1. But it also reminds us why Stathis Gourgouris writes that "democracy is a tragic regime." The will of the people -- the national will as Erdogan calls it and claims to embody it -- is lawless. Turkey has a constitution but Erdogan has systematically disregarded it since becoming president. Most of his actions violate the constitution (and, with regard to the 2015 election, the will of the people).
If this is the best coup the Turkish Army can put together it's an utterly worthless force.
Remember when Tayyip mocked the CHP for raising questions about his good friend Gulen? 103 flag officers detained; nearly 9,000 interior officials suspended including 7,899 police officers, 614 gendarmerie officers, 30 provincial governors and 47 district governors. Given the Ergenekon and post-Ergenekon purges, the Gezi purges and the 25 December purges, it would appear that AKP has no competent followers and so continues to hire its frenemy's agents.
Perhaps I should stop reading Erdag Hoca's fine translation of The Clock Setting Institute as anything but a description of ongoing fact?
Yes, they bombed the Meclis -- never been done before in a coup -- but they missed the Saray, an easier target, and they bombed the President's hotel hours after he left.
This is the secon major purge of Gulenist elements. It's entirely possible that more of them have been purged than actually exist. Prosecutors, judges, and police were all subject to massive purges in response to the graft allegations of December 2013 against government ministers.
Those allegations never came to trial. Davutoglu wanted to place AKP in favor of anti-corruption (one of the planks AKP ran on back in the day) but Erdogan rejected it saying you'd never get people into government.
Regardless of what may or may not be true about Gulen -- people suspected him for years but were alleged to be Islamophobes, even by Erdogan himself, this is an extremely corrupt government with massive benefits accruing to the Erdogans and his inside circle.
After the quashed coup, as furious crowds demanded the return of the death penalty for captured soldiers, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım assured them he “heard their message”. On Sunday Erdoğan added his own voice, saying: “We are not vengeful, but in democracies you cannot put the wishes of the people to one side.”
-- Not when they're saying what you want to hear, certainly. Otherwise, just sue them or arrest them.
We now have a situation where violent mobs are sanctioned as “protecting democracy” by the president, whose prestige and power is now cemented more firmly than ever. This coup was the equivalent of an unhappy wife being kidnapped by a misguided and incompetent lover – a botched coup-nap. She – the 50% of Turks who would like to see Erdoğan voted out of power – never asked for such a rescue. After all, a civilised divorce is one thing, but no one actually wants a return to such medieval methods as the coup of 1980.
This will never happen again, at least in Erdoğan’s time. The wife will be “safely” locked away, and the lover will be disposed of – perhaps humanely, perhaps not.
Yes, he is, but on the very small chance that this coup drives him toward democracy, this coup will have to be called a success. After all, he was not headed in that direction
as the highly respected Cengis Candar notes -- indeed, as anyone paying attention would realize -- there are lots of questions. link to al-monitor.com
Why do you bomb the hotel two hours after Erdogan has left, roughly six hours into the coup? it's a a much shorter run, even by chopper
Why bomb the Meclis, which Candar notes is a first. And if you can do that, how the hell do you miss the Saray?
Sketches of democracy-loving people power
“Most of the people who went out in the streets to oppose the coup d’état did not use democratic language,” said Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, the director of the Ankara office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a research organization.
On Sunday, Turkey’s nearly 85,000 mosques, in unison, blared from their loudspeakers a prayer traditionally recited for martyrs who have died in war and called for people to continue to rally against the plotters of the coup.
Much prefer Ece Temelkuran's piece in today's NY Times as far as a glimpse into the mood in Turkey. This essay takes great pains to make Erdogan seem like both a non-problem and a non-factor. Neither is true; perhaps it's the level at which security studies analysis works?
Well, not so fast on Turkey. The great Islamic Democrat Tayyip Erdogan has suggested a vote on a Trexit from application. That was reported by HDN in its Thursday issue.
The question, you may bet, would be, "Should I stay or should I go?"
It will not include the question, "Should I democratize so that the candidacy might progress."
The idea that Turkey will be a desirable alternative after it returned yet another progress report unopened is the sort of thing that thinking people cannot take seriously.
Unlikely. As you note, UK has a long history of concerns about influx from the east, dating back to Poland's accession. What we're seeing is a working class frustrated by the same sort of economic malaise that has affected most of the west post-2008 an heightened by a growing resentment of institutional politics. Immigration deals are part of that equation but not enough to have driven the result. (That's the sort of logic that led to "African Americans were responsible for the defeat of Proposition 8" a few years ago.)
When the masses revolt, everyone who disapproves has his own hobbyhorse; here it's Islamophobia.
Or perhaps we didn't recognize Slavophobia when we looked right at it?
Yep, and so he'll build the barracks at Gezi and fill it with a display of German, French and US atrocities because he's such a fan of justice and knows that Turkey is incapable of bad behavior. (Except for those people who listened to Radiohead during Ramadan, of course.)
It most certainly did. Perhaps not in the world of TeleSur, but on every tv and radio news show I watched/listened to last week. This is like news from an alternate planet.
Given Turkish racism and its increasingly intolerant religious majority -- see the attack on listeners to Radiohead's new album who were set upon by Islamist punks -- HDP was always going to have trouble expanding beyond a small sliver of worldly Turks that are themselves marginalized inside the country.
Meanwhile the Prime Minister has announced his own non-existence and Erdogan is dismantling and reassembling the Constitutional Court.
I certainly never heard anything about his "homosexual tendencies" except on the morning of the attack and every day thereafter.
What she did forget to say for quite a while is that she was texting with him while he was shooting the place up. my guess is that the FBI didn't suggest that.
From the 1 June Hurriyet Daily News:
U.S. officials demanded that Turkey stop the shelling for a while to allow drones to do reconnaissance flights over the region. Such demands happen during operations and a short break was taken. However, a drone reconnaissance flight which takes an hour-and-a-half on average took more than five hours that day. This situation disturbed Turkey. It was assessed that the U.S. protected the YPG during the break and provided them with the time they needed to safely withdraw without any losses.
Despite this, we did not disregard the fact that the U.S. was the top country which understood us in our fight against the PKK. But we have come to the point, as President Erdoğan has said, when we take matters into our own hands. These words are not a complaint or a threat. On the contrary, they are an expression of preparation.
There is a two-phase preparation. The first stage is to destroy YPG and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) targets inside Syria if suicide bomb attacks continue, paying no mind to what the international coalition says.
-- Abdulkadir Selvi, "New Codes in the Fight Against Terror"
He's right. The US does see the terrorist group controlling Turkey as an ally. Quite inexplicably, and support for its projects of extending Sunni hegemony and a neo-Ottoman order needs to end.
Is there really a choice between the PYD/YPG, and a fackless "ally" that supports Al-Aqeda affiliates, has at best a sketchy record with ISIS, and drifts farther everyday into authoritarianism and Islamism?
I don't think so, and I'm pleased that the WH seems to have wised up.
Nice to see the US Administration declaring at least partial independence from the worthless crew in Ankara.
Last time I checked, Turkey was backing ANF with no intent of laying off.
While I have no brief whatever for Davutoglu, I don't see why it makes sense to speak of these things as having happened on his watch. He was chosen as a lapdog PM at a party meeting called to specifically freeze out President Gul (who had done a splendid impression of a corpse for moist of his time in office). The message was clearly communicated when after ascending to the White Castle Erdogan convened the cabinet, not Davutoglu. Binali Yildirim, the puppet-in-waiting deliveded that message on TV.
As for Erdogan, Muray Yetkin's latest (19 May Hurriyet Daily News) gets it right:
"There is increasing criticism - inside and outside Turkey - that the political system is heading for one-man rule. This criticism upsets Erdoğan. Actually, he has a point here, because in fact he has never hidden his intentions about wanting to shift to a strong presidential system with centralized executive powers and fewer checks and balances. That has been an open policy, especially after the presidential elections in 2007.
But Turkey’s friends and allies in the West, the U.S. and the European Union, preferred not to see it - just like those describing themselves as “liberals” in business, academia and the media."
He goes on to suggest that Erdogan played to the west's "orientalist" habits of thought, which imagined the Army as the only obstacle to democracy, although now the army is in the barracks and democracy is dormant.
Turkey is benefiting from low oil prices. On the other hand, unemployment is rising (crossed 11% in January), as are bankruptcies. Munitions and construction continue to be strong industries (both close to the palace, both benefiting from government contracts), but for all the neo-liberalism what one has increasingly is crony capitalism -- look at who gets the big contracts, owns the media, has access to the palace -- as well as development only in the Marmara region and out to Ankara. The rest of the country is collapsing, as population figures attest.
But no doubt DiyarbakirWorld (I shudder to imagine it) will be a local boon once/if it is undertaken.)
I'd have to say, No, it's only about the penultimate, or ante-penultimate nail in the coffin of Turkish imperfect democracy. Davutoglu had hardly any power to begin with; he was at best a speed bump on the road to a Putin-style regime. More importantly, the removal of Parliamentary immunities, along with a wholly compliant (because packed) Judiciary all but ensures the removal of the HDP and a majority for constitutional change.
That said, as Erdogan himself proclaims, changes to the constitution simply legitimize a fait accompli. They will not bestow powers he does not already exercise.
Although the PKK is guilty of horrific acts of terrorism
And just as you argue with Daesh, they didn't grow from nothing, but from Turkish state policy. Erdogan's overtures were revoked once he realized that too many Kurds preferred HDP to him.
Eric Edelman nailed Erdogan's trajectory in a 2004 cable released by Wikileaks. Worth returning to against the myth that something changed and he really was the "Moderate Muslim" ideal in which so many invested so much faith.
We can add Turkey's contribution of a fourfold strategy:
Blame it on the Kurds,
Suggest that Kurds are really Armenians
Insist that an all-powerful presidency will solve all problems
Make deals with IS if anyone is taken hostage.
This story is like George W. Bush and the tax cut. Whatever had happened, it would have been a reason to suspend democracy ... as if he hadn't done so long ago.
a portionof that border, yes, but not a lot of that remains and many areas have shifted among nations. The falling apart of the Ottoman Empire often had ethnic underpinnings, as did the slaughters of Assyrians, Armenians, etc. Arabs often fared better. People in the region who invoke Sykes Picot often do so not for ethnic borders but for empire, as with our Neo-Ottoman friends..
Good old Tayyip. Years of whining about "Sykes-Picot, Sykes-Picot," and now that someone contemplates redrawing borders he has a tantrum. I suppose, tho, it's nice to see he can multitask while being so preoocupied with slaughtering large numbers of his own citizens and declaring most of the rest "terrorists."
Erdogan told the MB to play the long game, like he did; seduce everyone looking for a moderate Muslim and hollow out all opposition from inside. But they weren't patient.
Odd question to ask unless by Turkish democracy the author means something less than actual democracy. Better to ask if democracy in Turkey can survive Erdogan, who disowned the peace process, returned to the demonization of Kurds, turned the ISIS attacks on Kurds to nationalist purposes, and has now declared dissent terrorism. The answer to that question appears to be No.
"The only thing we expect from our US ally is to support Turkey with no ifs or buts," Davutoğlu told a news conference following a five-hour security meeting with members of his cabinet and other officials.
Rather a shame that they won't wake up the Turkish voters.
State Department Deputy Spokesperson Mark Toner said that the US continues to view the YPG constructively after Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu announced to the Turkish press (what's left of it) how happy he was that the US said it shares Turkey's distrust of YPG.
But defeat ISIS? Very tall order, and unless the US stops its triangulation with salafist Turkey and more plainly backs the YPG, the credit is likely to go to Russia, the blame for whatever vengeance Assad and Russian bombs wreak elsewhere to Obama.
Erdogan’s son-in-law, Energy Minister Berat Albayrak, said the war is not only a “defensive" one waged by Turkey’s Islamist power-holders against the alleged international conspiracy. This fight also has a missionary connotation on behalf of all Muslims — on behalf of the "ummah," or community.
“Today, Turkey is waging an existential war, a war for the future. And this war is not only for this country and this region; it is a war for the independence of the ummah,” Albayrak said in a recent speech in Trabzon province.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, when asked last week if Turkey would do anything to reopen the corridor, aroused curiosity by replying, “Wait for a few days; you will get your answer.” Naturally, his cryptic response fanned the debate over whether a military intervention is in the making.
Reyhanli (the point of entry into Turkey for those forces) has been open country for years. Remember the bomb that exploded in 2013? Likely compliments of al Nusra.
& whereas Ankara 1 and Suruc went through a slow process before finally (not to sat reluctantly) being put on ISIL, , this one was put on the usual suspects despite Salih Muslim's statement denying YPG responsibility.
Many groups it could be, including, certainly, PKK. But this seems all too conveniently out of the GWB Iraq playbook at a time when Ankara is explicitly invoking its 2003 vote and vowing not to make the same mistake twice -- they voted against joining the coalition; that is now seen by AKP as a mistake.
Today's bombing in Ankara, whoever eventually claims responsibility (otherwise it will be placed on the Kurds) will only increase his power. The MHP and Deniz Baykal (who should never have been permitted to run on the CHP ticket will give Tayyip any power he wants if it supports a war.
Unfortunately, as the article makes clear, Obama has zero influence in Turkey; that's been evident at least since Gezi.
The author says that the "hands off" attitude will have to change if Turkey and KSA are serious about an invasion as opposed to shelling the Kurds, as Turkey did in October as well (and exposing YPG to more deaths by refusing to let Turkish Kurds cross to support the YPG even as it leaves an open corridor for al Nusra to cross back and forth). But what will it do? Ask for more peace and be once more ignored or -- god forbid -- join the fight?
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Assad's butcher, the US created this mess with its support of non-existent moderate Sunni forces.
Still, this is all on Turkey and its desire to assert itself as the regional Sunni hegemon, decimate Kurds, and, yes, reclaim influence if not direct control over what these neo-Ottomanists regards as its "historic lands."
The present carnage stems from the Turkish invasion (there's no other word) while Trump hung out to dry his only reliable ally against ISIS in the area and Putin, I suppose, hopes to see Syria become Erdogan's quagmire.
It's not even an incident. There is no incident.
I read some Republican mocking the idea that Carter Page, "a guy who hadn't had a job in years," could be someone worth watching.
He worked for the Trump campaign, as that person knew. But anyone who followed Turkey from about 2008-2014 with blinders off has seen this movie.
Right. If a country still resenting the "theft" of Antakya cedes more land to the neoOttomans, it's game over for Assad, and a very bloody game, too.
Yes, that is correct, and the behavior and objectives are consistent with who Erdogan has always been.
I suppose you know, professor, that the neo-Ottomanists consider this area and Western Iraq theirs. THey and the "Eurasianists" are more powerful in Anjara after the coup, according to Turkish analysts I read. My sense is that I don't know how much this is show and how much, with all the mosques praying today for Conquest, this is game on.
He's about as nuts as Trump, but without any of the brakes that still sort of occasionally work in the US
Perhaps the other thing that needs to be considered is Turkey's internal situation. Erdogan needs a win. He can get that by getting the US and Russia to say they will not allow the creation if a Kurdish state in Syria.
Assad won't allow it. Russia has no interest in allowing it when Assad is their client. Trump is not going to push for it.
The fact that it was never on the table doesn't matter in Turkey because even the "respectable" writers at Hurriyet are in war-cry mode against the Kurdish-State-Existential-Threat on the southern border. These guys always wind up doing Erdogan's bidding (that's why they're not in jail), and it plays with the rubes.
Landis has a different take
link to joshualandis.com
and it is possible that US and Russia are keeping Erdogan pinballing like a grad student whose committee has no intention of passing him or failing him out.
As Semih Idiz notes, none of Turkey's Syrian interlocutors are tolerable to the US or Russia.
link to al-monitor.com
THo sitting back and letting the Russian-supplied Syrians shoot down TC jets is strategically not a bad deal for the US.
1. He's Trump. He's incapable of caring about anyone.
(drops mic)
"Turkey is 20% Kurdish and is determined to stay that way."
Not true. Turkey is determined to lose no territory; Kurds are optional.
Oh, Tayyip's light years ahead of the curve on that one
What does the hijackers' origins have to do with where the operation was commanded from?
Business is business.
Shouldn't there be a disclaimer to that statement, "Ukraine not included"?
"Any such intervention appears for the moment to be targeted and small, unlike the situation in Syria."
What could possibly go wrong with that?
The attempt in point five to claim courage for CNN-Turk should have been interrupted by a documentary on penguins.
Where were you and your CNN-T heroes when Gezi unfolded, Cuneyet Bey?
Where are your investigations into what really happened on that night that has become an excuse for 100,000+ firings including 4,000 academics and so many journalists of integrity?
Lots of people, particularly Turks, of my ongoing acquaintance (from having spent time in TC 1 10-12 years ago) predicted this all then. Of course, they were dismissed as racist, elitist, and even fascist by Western "left-multicultural" academics who fawned over Erdogan -- and, let's remember, Gulen. Academic neocolonialism is ugly and rarely offers a mea culpa.
Why? Russia proposed Kurdish autonomy at the Astana talks. and those are US nukes, not TC nukes at Incirlik.
Is the long depression of the late-19th century what America needs to transition to Social Democracy?
Is the Great Strike of 1877 what America needs to transition to Social Democracy?
Is the Pullman Strike what America needs to transition to Social Democracy?
Is the Great Depression what America needs to transition to Social Democracy?
Are the Great Society programs the beginning of America's to transition to Social Democracy?
Is the impending crisis of an actor-President (Reagan) the shock that will turn America to Social Democracy?
And, no, Bernie Sanders wasn't it either. He was a protest candidate onto whom all manner of fantasies of competence were projected.
Trump's Dilemma:
Hate the Muslim or Love the Dictator?
Sweet revenge would be the EU and the next administration encouraging Tayyip to go have fun with Russia and let it take in the suffering Sunni masses. He's headed that way anyway now that he's made peace with Perencek and Peker (!) and the Eurasianists in TSK.
That's not the Fake News industry in Turkey making those claims. It's the national news service and the newspapers allied with the the President's circle and often distributed as gifts. Even Hurriyet has been forced to take on such clowns as Abdulkader Selvi. It is worth making distinctions between "fake news" and government-sponsored /government-generated disinformation.
I appreiate Neslihan hanim's recognition of the obvious connection between Muslimism and Evangelicism/Pentacostalism, yet I cannot but note that the latter conjunction is mocked and dismissed on sites like this one as regressive antimodernism while the former is embraced. The concern for secular liberal values in the US does not extend to concern for secular liberals in Turkey, for instance. Why is that?
So, what you're saying is that Erdogan's not getting much in return for the $9bn in new incentives he handed Trump to build the Akkuyu nuke plant? Bummer
And Roger Stone announced he is in contact with Julian Assange to arrange an October surprise.
link to mediamatters.org
In the spirit of Truth, how many media sites have been shut by the government for voicing anti-Israel sentiments. How many years did Cornel West get for his comments at the DNC platform meeting?
Even paranoids have enemies, Richard. Particularly if they're authoritarians attempting to subvert an admittedly imperfect secular democracy and replace it with an Islamist, nationalist party state for fun and profit.
But let's not pretend this is something new. Most of the national media have already been seized and sold to Erdogan's allies and Hurriyet is kept on a very short leash by threats of tax levies against its owner.
Turkey has a history of problematic relations with freedom of speech. Over the past five years, it has been at a very low point. The president routinely sues journalists, politicians, and HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS for saying things he dislikes. Teenagers are arrested for the crime. So, too, anyone who dares to speak poorly of Islam -- but not of Christianity, Judaism, or atheism.
Anyone paying the slightest bit of attention knows that this was a victory for authoritarianism over the coup. Anyone with friends and colleagues in Turkey, or who listens to NPR knows t hat the crowds in the street are called out by Erdogan. He is their voice, as our native version said this evening in his acceptance speech.
And the number of fired/suspended teachers is north of 40,000. The 21,000 number is teachers at private schools, not those under the MEB, who were the majority of the original 15,000 and have since been added to.
It's substantially over 80,000 counting the private school teachers.
By decree, no one suspended or sacked in the wake of the coup will ever work in a government job again.
Updated closures include:
- 35 hospitals
- 1,043 private schools and dormitories
- 15 private universities
- 1,229 associations and foundations
- 19 trade unions for links to Fethullah Gülen.
Also, the police are now authorized to detain suspects for a month before taking them to court.
Gulen went into exile in 99 after the "postmodern coup." they were allies because they both aimed at undermining the secular state and its bureaucracy. They disagreed on who was to rule afterward and once they ran out of common enemies, they had only each other left. It's been open warfare since the 17/25 December affair in 2013, Gulen's preemptive strike as AKP prepared to shut down Gulen's schools and cram schools in Turkey, through which he recruits.
I find this read more convincing than any Naksibendi/Sufi splits.
Well, the Gulenists are "an armed terrorist organization," as a Turkish (AKPli) judge said today. Armed, indeed, the ones in the army and the police anyway. This is the level of honesty one expects from AKP. Twas ever thus.
Well over 60,000 now, professor, and that's only government sector. Doesn't count the 21,000 private school teachers whose licenses were suspended and the 600 schools shut down.
Ashish Kumar Jena struggles to keep an updated list at
link to twitter.com
We should also bear in mind that these purges have been ongoing since 2013, along with packing the Constitutional Court and shredding the constitution with a "de facto presidential system" that the government and its institutions haven't yet caught up with (much to His consternation.)
"Hitler" is over the top, Reichstag Fire analogies are not.
And now, the three month state of emergency as sackings and suspensions cross 60,000 and 600 private schools are slated for closure ... and reincarnation as imam hatipler?
answering my own question, via Hurriyet
link to hurriyetdailynews.com
YÖK also suspended all assignments of academics abroad and asked for the academics currently assigned abroad to return to Turkey.
In a written statement sent to both state and private universities, YÖK requested the suspension of the assignments of academics to foreign countries until further notice. It also demanded examinations of the situations of academics working abroad and said they should be called back if there was no immediate necessity for them to remain in the foreign country.
Over 50,000 government employees (plus 21,000 private school teachers) suspended or sacked, and the numbers continue to rise.
Military judges and prosecutors suspended just in time for the Koup trials. Long-time Istanbul Governor Topbas promises a "Graveyard for Traitors" in the city and sets aside land for it.
Erdogan has gone full NRA: wants citizens armed to prevent an actual coup (this one, the government was informed of and began reacting against six hours before it started).
This is a win for democracy if Tayyip still has the support of 50%+1. But it also reminds us why Stathis Gourgouris writes that "democracy is a tragic regime." The will of the people -- the national will as Erdogan calls it and claims to embody it -- is lawless. Turkey has a constitution but Erdogan has systematically disregarded it since becoming president. Most of his actions violate the constitution (and, with regard to the 2015 election, the will of the people).
If this is the best coup the Turkish Army can put together it's an utterly worthless force.
Remember when Tayyip mocked the CHP for raising questions about his good friend Gulen? 103 flag officers detained; nearly 9,000 interior officials suspended including 7,899 police officers, 614 gendarmerie officers, 30 provincial governors and 47 district governors. Given the Ergenekon and post-Ergenekon purges, the Gezi purges and the 25 December purges, it would appear that AKP has no competent followers and so continues to hire its frenemy's agents.
Perhaps I should stop reading Erdag Hoca's fine translation of The Clock Setting Institute as anything but a description of ongoing fact?
Yes, they bombed the Meclis -- never been done before in a coup -- but they missed the Saray, an easier target, and they bombed the President's hotel hours after he left.
This is the secon major purge of Gulenist elements. It's entirely possible that more of them have been purged than actually exist. Prosecutors, judges, and police were all subject to massive purges in response to the graft allegations of December 2013 against government ministers.
Those allegations never came to trial. Davutoglu wanted to place AKP in favor of anti-corruption (one of the planks AKP ran on back in the day) but Erdogan rejected it saying you'd never get people into government.
Regardless of what may or may not be true about Gulen -- people suspected him for years but were alleged to be Islamophobes, even by Erdogan himself, this is an extremely corrupt government with massive benefits accruing to the Erdogans and his inside circle.
After the quashed coup, as furious crowds demanded the return of the death penalty for captured soldiers, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım assured them he “heard their message”. On Sunday Erdoğan added his own voice, saying: “We are not vengeful, but in democracies you cannot put the wishes of the people to one side.”
-- Not when they're saying what you want to hear, certainly. Otherwise, just sue them or arrest them.
Smart take on the consequences from Alev Scott in the Guardian
link to theguardian.com
We now have a situation where violent mobs are sanctioned as “protecting democracy” by the president, whose prestige and power is now cemented more firmly than ever. This coup was the equivalent of an unhappy wife being kidnapped by a misguided and incompetent lover – a botched coup-nap. She – the 50% of Turks who would like to see Erdoğan voted out of power – never asked for such a rescue. After all, a civilised divorce is one thing, but no one actually wants a return to such medieval methods as the coup of 1980.
This will never happen again, at least in Erdoğan’s time. The wife will be “safely” locked away, and the lover will be disposed of – perhaps humanely, perhaps not.
Yes, he is, but on the very small chance that this coup drives him toward democracy, this coup will have to be called a success. After all, he was not headed in that direction
as the highly respected Cengis Candar notes -- indeed, as anyone paying attention would realize -- there are lots of questions.
link to al-monitor.com
Why do you bomb the hotel two hours after Erdogan has left, roughly six hours into the coup? it's a a much shorter run, even by chopper
Why bomb the Meclis, which Candar notes is a first. And if you can do that, how the hell do you miss the Saray?
Sketches of democracy-loving people power
“Most of the people who went out in the streets to oppose the coup d’état did not use democratic language,” said Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, the director of the Ankara office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, a research organization.
On Sunday, Turkey’s nearly 85,000 mosques, in unison, blared from their loudspeakers a prayer traditionally recited for martyrs who have died in war and called for people to continue to rally against the plotters of the coup.
Erdogan Emerges Strong After Coup Attempt, but Turkey Awaits Next Steps
2,745 judges have been replaced by the government (a.k.a. Tayyip) in the wake of the coup.
Democracy in action, eh?
Expect an immediate claim of more powers and a snap election to ram through a new constitution.
Then let's talk about democracy preserved, shall we?
Much prefer Ece Temelkuran's piece in today's NY Times as far as a glimpse into the mood in Turkey. This essay takes great pains to make Erdogan seem like both a non-problem and a non-factor. Neither is true; perhaps it's the level at which security studies analysis works?
Well, not so fast on Turkey. The great Islamic Democrat Tayyip Erdogan has suggested a vote on a Trexit from application. That was reported by HDN in its Thursday issue.
The question, you may bet, would be, "Should I stay or should I go?"
It will not include the question, "Should I democratize so that the candidacy might progress."
The idea that Turkey will be a desirable alternative after it returned yet another progress report unopened is the sort of thing that thinking people cannot take seriously.
Certainly helped on Rabin, incorrect on "the Kennedys," and Jo Cox ... really? That's what won the leave vote? Come on!
Unlikely. As you note, UK has a long history of concerns about influx from the east, dating back to Poland's accession. What we're seeing is a working class frustrated by the same sort of economic malaise that has affected most of the west post-2008 an heightened by a growing resentment of institutional politics. Immigration deals are part of that equation but not enough to have driven the result. (That's the sort of logic that led to "African Americans were responsible for the defeat of Proposition 8" a few years ago.)
When the masses revolt, everyone who disapproves has his own hobbyhorse; here it's Islamophobia.
Or perhaps we didn't recognize Slavophobia when we looked right at it?
Yep, and so he'll build the barracks at Gezi and fill it with a display of German, French and US atrocities because he's such a fan of justice and knows that Turkey is incapable of bad behavior. (Except for those people who listened to Radiohead during Ramadan, of course.)
It most certainly did. Perhaps not in the world of TeleSur, but on every tv and radio news show I watched/listened to last week. This is like news from an alternate planet.
Given Turkish racism and its increasingly intolerant religious majority -- see the attack on listeners to Radiohead's new album who were set upon by Islamist punks -- HDP was always going to have trouble expanding beyond a small sliver of worldly Turks that are themselves marginalized inside the country.
Meanwhile the Prime Minister has announced his own non-existence and Erdogan is dismantling and reassembling the Constitutional Court.
No, it was reported by Telesur, the Venezuela-based news service sponsored by Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and a few others. Unimpeachable, I'd say.
I certainly never heard anything about his "homosexual tendencies" except on the morning of the attack and every day thereafter.
What she did forget to say for quite a while is that she was texting with him while he was shooting the place up. my guess is that the FBI didn't suggest that.
Thank god he's a Moderate Muslim Islamic Democrat who believes in secularism. If he weren't things could be like ... well ... this.
From the 1 June Hurriyet Daily News:
U.S. officials demanded that Turkey stop the shelling for a while to allow drones to do reconnaissance flights over the region. Such demands happen during operations and a short break was taken. However, a drone reconnaissance flight which takes an hour-and-a-half on average took more than five hours that day. This situation disturbed Turkey. It was assessed that the U.S. protected the YPG during the break and provided them with the time they needed to safely withdraw without any losses.
Despite this, we did not disregard the fact that the U.S. was the top country which understood us in our fight against the PKK. But we have come to the point, as President Erdoğan has said, when we take matters into our own hands. These words are not a complaint or a threat. On the contrary, they are an expression of preparation.
There is a two-phase preparation. The first stage is to destroy YPG and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) targets inside Syria if suicide bomb attacks continue, paying no mind to what the international coalition says.
-- Abdulkadir Selvi, "New Codes in the Fight Against Terror"
He's right. The US does see the terrorist group controlling Turkey as an ally. Quite inexplicably, and support for its projects of extending Sunni hegemony and a neo-Ottoman order needs to end.
Is there really a choice between the PYD/YPG, and a fackless "ally" that supports Al-Aqeda affiliates, has at best a sketchy record with ISIS, and drifts farther everyday into authoritarianism and Islamism?
I don't think so, and I'm pleased that the WH seems to have wised up.
Nice to see the US Administration declaring at least partial independence from the worthless crew in Ankara.
Last time I checked, Turkey was backing ANF with no intent of laying off.
You forgot the quotation marks around selected unanimously by the ruling party. Those forms were already filled in.
And indeed, today Yildirim, not Bozdag, was named PM, which I suppose these days stands for Practically Meaningless.
While I have no brief whatever for Davutoglu, I don't see why it makes sense to speak of these things as having happened on his watch. He was chosen as a lapdog PM at a party meeting called to specifically freeze out President Gul (who had done a splendid impression of a corpse for moist of his time in office). The message was clearly communicated when after ascending to the White Castle Erdogan convened the cabinet, not Davutoglu. Binali Yildirim, the puppet-in-waiting deliveded that message on TV.
As for Erdogan, Muray Yetkin's latest (19 May Hurriyet Daily News) gets it right:
"There is increasing criticism - inside and outside Turkey - that the political system is heading for one-man rule. This criticism upsets Erdoğan. Actually, he has a point here, because in fact he has never hidden his intentions about wanting to shift to a strong presidential system with centralized executive powers and fewer checks and balances. That has been an open policy, especially after the presidential elections in 2007.
But Turkey’s friends and allies in the West, the U.S. and the European Union, preferred not to see it - just like those describing themselves as “liberals” in business, academia and the media."
He goes on to suggest that Erdogan played to the west's "orientalist" habits of thought, which imagined the Army as the only obstacle to democracy, although now the army is in the barracks and democracy is dormant.
Turkey is benefiting from low oil prices. On the other hand, unemployment is rising (crossed 11% in January), as are bankruptcies. Munitions and construction continue to be strong industries (both close to the palace, both benefiting from government contracts), but for all the neo-liberalism what one has increasingly is crony capitalism -- look at who gets the big contracts, owns the media, has access to the palace -- as well as development only in the Marmara region and out to Ankara. The rest of the country is collapsing, as population figures attest.
But no doubt DiyarbakirWorld (I shudder to imagine it) will be a local boon once/if it is undertaken.)
I'd have to say, No, it's only about the penultimate, or ante-penultimate nail in the coffin of Turkish imperfect democracy. Davutoglu had hardly any power to begin with; he was at best a speed bump on the road to a Putin-style regime. More importantly, the removal of Parliamentary immunities, along with a wholly compliant (because packed) Judiciary all but ensures the removal of the HDP and a majority for constitutional change.
That said, as Erdogan himself proclaims, changes to the constitution simply legitimize a fait accompli. They will not bestow powers he does not already exercise.
It's only a surprise if one really believed Erdogan was once really a democrat, even an "Islamic democrat."
Turkey Saudi and its American servants to help. Hadn't realized OIC is a Sunni club.
Although the PKK is guilty of horrific acts of terrorism
And just as you argue with Daesh, they didn't grow from nothing, but from Turkish state policy. Erdogan's overtures were revoked once he realized that too many Kurds preferred HDP to him.
Eric Edelman nailed Erdogan's trajectory in a 2004 cable released by Wikileaks. Worth returning to against the myth that something changed and he really was the "Moderate Muslim" ideal in which so many invested so much faith.
We can add Turkey's contribution of a fourfold strategy:
Blame it on the Kurds,
Suggest that Kurds are really Armenians
Insist that an all-powerful presidency will solve all problems
Make deals with IS if anyone is taken hostage.
This story is like George W. Bush and the tax cut. Whatever had happened, it would have been a reason to suspend democracy ... as if he hadn't done so long ago.
50% more Muslims support HRC than Sanders.
Very Interesting!
a portionof that border, yes, but not a lot of that remains and many areas have shifted among nations. The falling apart of the Ottoman Empire often had ethnic underpinnings, as did the slaughters of Assyrians, Armenians, etc. Arabs often fared better. People in the region who invoke Sykes Picot often do so not for ethnic borders but for empire, as with our Neo-Ottoman friends..
Do people (other than Erdogan) really think that the ME's current boundaries were drawn by Messrs Sykes and Picot?
But is it acceptable to Putin?
(Probably.)
Good old Tayyip. Years of whining about "Sykes-Picot, Sykes-Picot," and now that someone contemplates redrawing borders he has a tantrum. I suppose, tho, it's nice to see he can multitask while being so preoocupied with slaughtering large numbers of his own citizens and declaring most of the rest "terrorists."
Erdogan told the MB to play the long game, like he did; seduce everyone looking for a moderate Muslim and hollow out all opposition from inside. But they weren't patient.
Odd question to ask unless by Turkish democracy the author means something less than actual democracy. Better to ask if democracy in Turkey can survive Erdogan, who disowned the peace process, returned to the demonization of Kurds, turned the ISIS attacks on Kurds to nationalist purposes, and has now declared dissent terrorism. The answer to that question appears to be No.
Oh, good, yes, by all means get rid of Trump for the real whackjob.
Will the US cross Ankara on this?
Let's hope these pragmatists are more pragmatic than the pragmatists we rewarded in Turkey, yeah?
"The only thing we expect from our US ally is to support Turkey with no ifs or buts," Davutoğlu told a news conference following a five-hour security meeting with members of his cabinet and other officials.
-- as reported in Today's Zaman
Rather a shame that they won't wake up the Turkish voters.
State Department Deputy Spokesperson Mark Toner said that the US continues to view the YPG constructively after Turkish Foreign Minister Cavusoglu announced to the Turkish press (what's left of it) how happy he was that the US said it shares Turkey's distrust of YPG.
But defeat ISIS? Very tall order, and unless the US stops its triangulation with salafist Turkey and more plainly backs the YPG, the credit is likely to go to Russia, the blame for whatever vengeance Assad and Russian bombs wreak elsewhere to Obama.
Erdogan’s son-in-law, Energy Minister Berat Albayrak, said the war is not only a “defensive" one waged by Turkey’s Islamist power-holders against the alleged international conspiracy. This fight also has a missionary connotation on behalf of all Muslims — on behalf of the "ummah," or community.
“Today, Turkey is waging an existential war, a war for the future. And this war is not only for this country and this region; it is a war for the independence of the ummah,” Albayrak said in a recent speech in Trabzon province.
Cengiz Kandar reports here
Fehim Tastekin, 17 Feb:
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, when asked last week if Turkey would do anything to reopen the corridor, aroused curiosity by replying, “Wait for a few days; you will get your answer.” Naturally, his cryptic response fanned the debate over whether a military intervention is in the making.
Reyhanli (the point of entry into Turkey for those forces) has been open country for years. Remember the bomb that exploded in 2013? Likely compliments of al Nusra.
& whereas Ankara 1 and Suruc went through a slow process before finally (not to sat reluctantly) being put on ISIL, , this one was put on the usual suspects despite Salih Muslim's statement denying YPG responsibility.
Many groups it could be, including, certainly, PKK. But this seems all too conveniently out of the GWB Iraq playbook at a time when Ankara is explicitly invoking its 2003 vote and vowing not to make the same mistake twice -- they voted against joining the coalition; that is now seen by AKP as a mistake.
Today's bombing in Ankara, whoever eventually claims responsibility (otherwise it will be placed on the Kurds) will only increase his power. The MHP and Deniz Baykal (who should never have been permitted to run on the CHP ticket will give Tayyip any power he wants if it supports a war.
Unfortunately, as the article makes clear, Obama has zero influence in Turkey; that's been evident at least since Gezi.
The author says that the "hands off" attitude will have to change if Turkey and KSA are serious about an invasion as opposed to shelling the Kurds, as Turkey did in October as well (and exposing YPG to more deaths by refusing to let Turkish Kurds cross to support the YPG even as it leaves an open corridor for al Nusra to cross back and forth). But what will it do? Ask for more peace and be once more ignored or -- god forbid -- join the fight?
Everything after reason #1 is window dressing. When the fashion police is a significant RSA, we can stop the analysis at state oppression.
No, he did not. Biden did. But he's been out front on many things where Obama doesn't follow.
one base, which it will now share with the Saudis, whom I expect to inflame the sectarian war because that's what the Saudis do.