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Coup attempt underway in Turkey

theatlantic.com

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Re: Coup attempt underway in Turkey

#81

Post by tobias3 »

Animats wrote: post #60
scarmig wrote: post #15

Anyone have a take on how successful this is likely to be? Both sides are claiming victory and that they've beaten the other side, naturally. Propaganda is everywhere. The only thing I figure is that since Erdogan is calling for a mass uprising in the streets, the status quo has him losing. He needs to radically change the dynamics of the situation to stay in power, and mass protests and displays of martyrdom in the…

No. Erdogan called for people to take to the streets, and within an hour, the airport and bridge were filled with thousands of people waving flags. (From pictures, all male.) That's popular support. The military is not attacking the crowds. The military presence was apparently not that big, concentrating on a few key spots. A coup has to succeed within the first few hours. Control must be established before oppositio…

What should they have done (additionally)?

E.g. take out/over all civil communication infrastructure, such as ISPs, cellular networks, phone landlines? Then enforce the curfew with actual deadly force (since they are not a police force with riot gear...)?

Re: Coup attempt underway in Turkey

#83

Post by agumonkey »

Animats wrote: post #60
scarmig wrote: post #15

Anyone have a take on how successful this is likely to be? Both sides are claiming victory and that they've beaten the other side, naturally. Propaganda is everywhere. The only thing I figure is that since Erdogan is calling for a mass uprising in the streets, the status quo has him losing. He needs to radically change the dynamics of the situation to stay in power, and mass protests and displays of martyrdom in the…

No. Erdogan called for people to take to the streets, and within an hour, the airport and bridge were filled with thousands of people waving flags. (From pictures, all male.) That's popular support. The military is not attacking the crowds. The military presence was apparently not that big, concentrating on a few key spots. A coup has to succeed within the first few hours. Control must be established before oppositio…

Videos of tanks turning back away from angry mobs are spreading. Even if it failed, at least bloodshed seems avoidable.

Re: Coup attempt underway in Turkey

#84

Post by bcoates »

calibraxis wrote: post #21

For about a year, some openly suspected Erdogan frustrated the US enough for them to foment a coup. The US gov't loudly signaled its displeasure: "Early on, Obama saw Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the president of Turkey, as the sort of moderate Muslim leader who would bridge the divide between East and West—but Obama now considers him a failure and an authoritarian, one who refuses to use his enormous army to bring stabilit…

While I'm sure the US isn't losing sleep over Edrogan going away there's no reason for the US to have any role in this besides the standard assurances to the coup plotters that the US won't move against them.

Recently, even that hasn't been necessary, which has really damaged the "puppet strings" theory that was so popular a decade or more ago.

Re: Coup attempt underway in Turkey

#85

Post by golemotron »

whack wrote: post #10

"Modern Turkey was founded by Mustafa Kemal, a general in the Turkish Army who was later formally granted the surname “Ataturk,” or father of the Turks. Ataturk set about an aggressive program of modernizing and “Westernizing” the country, pushing religion to the margins, banning certain apparel like headscarves and fezes, and converting Turkish from Arabic to Latin script. But that secularism has always remained ten…

> That's actually a very interesting system of government. A democratic arm that rules the country day-to-day, and a "benevolent dictatorship" that will overthrow the democratic arm if it violates the country's "fundamental principles". Such a model would arguably have served Iraq better than the pure democracy that was attempted and failed.

Technically, the Queen can do the same thing in England. Not an uncommon check valve.

Re: Coup attempt underway in Turkey

#86

Post by profmonocle »

aerovistae wrote: post #47

Mods: Why do you delete news posts like this one? I understand you're trying to keep Hacker News tech/business/science focused, maybe, but don't you think major world events that are getting tons of interest should be allowed to float up to the front page on their own merit? If the users are interested in it, why is it being deleted? I feel like major events like yesterday's massacre in Nice or today coup d'état meri…

> don't you think major world events that are getting tons of interest should be allowed to float up to the front page on their own merit?

I don't really see why. It's unlikely any HN readers use HN as their sole news source (and if they do, it's probably because they're uninterested in other news), and there's no shortage of alternative discussion forums for regular news.

> If the users are interested in it, why is it being deleted?

I'm extremely interested in this story, but I come to HN to read about tech news. I've seen multiple forums/subreddits/etc. lose their core focus because moderators were unwilling to keep the discussion on topic, so I really appreciate that HN's mods actively work to avoid that.

Edit: For the record, I don't mind a non-tech news story popping up now and then. But I don't want to see any off-topic post be kept around simply because it gets upvoted.

Re: Coup attempt underway in Turkey

#88

Post by Steko »

ugh123 wrote: post #50
whack wrote: post #10

"Modern Turkey was founded by Mustafa Kemal, a general in the Turkish Army who was later formally granted the surname “Ataturk,” or father of the Turks. Ataturk set about an aggressive program of modernizing and “Westernizing” the country, pushing religion to the margins, banning certain apparel like headscarves and fezes, and converting Turkish from Arabic to Latin script. But that secularism has always remained ten…

>A democratic arm that rules the country day-to-day, and a "benevolent dictatorship" that will overthrow the democratic arm if it violates the country's "fundamental principles" Sounds a lot like Iran, although their "democratic arm" is very much a farce.

Curiously the description of the West cheering on the non-democratic results reminded me of Shah-era Iran, that turned out swimmingly.

Re: Coup attempt underway in Turkey

#89

Post by pi-err »

kiba wrote: post #77
whack wrote: post #10

"Modern Turkey was founded by Mustafa Kemal, a general in the Turkish Army who was later formally granted the surname “Ataturk,” or father of the Turks. Ataturk set about an aggressive program of modernizing and “Westernizing” the country, pushing religion to the margins, banning certain apparel like headscarves and fezes, and converting Turkish from Arabic to Latin script. But that secularism has always remained ten…

It's certainly a strong reminder that a democracy does not necessarily support liberalism like ours do in the West. It has to be a core tenant that the population believes in.

France would be a good western example of the frail intrinsic support for liberalism by democracy.

Re: Coup attempt underway in Turkey

#90

Post by ugh123 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #65
ugh123 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A democratic arm that rules the country day-to-day, and a "benevolent dictatorship" that will overthrow the democratic arm if it violates the country's "fundamental principles" Sounds a lot like Iran, although their "democratic arm" is very much a farce.

Sounds more like the US. Turkey's unelected group which intervenes when the elected government violates established norms consists of officers ultimately appointed by (and who can be removed by) the elected organs of government . Same as in the US, though for us it's the judicial branch rather than the military. Now, there's a pretty enormous difference, both in abstract structure and practice, between the US and Tur…

Not seeing any similarity there other than being a separate group. At least the judicial branch has to follow procedure and constitutional law, whereas a military can just rule via force.
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