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Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked

reuters.com

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Re: Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked

#91

Post by yeukhon »

JohnStrange wrote: post #22

The coup was a last chance effort. Now Turkey has become a totalitarian dictatorship, there is no doubt about that. To be more precise, it already lost its status as democracy years ago when Erdogan had hundreds of prosecutors and policemen fired who dared to investigate corruption within his family. But with the latest purges you've got to wonder where they want to get the replacements from. Any sane person will pro…

Well, then why didn't Turkish people join the coup? The coup lost all of its momentum when people started marching on the street. Perhaps next time they should consider assassination over a military take-over when all of the top military officials have been replaced by the President several years ago.

Look at Syria. The civil war is still on-going. This is not Thailand. There is no King / Emperor to bless.

Re: Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked

#92

Post by shkkmo »

mikeash wrote: post #87
James001 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The coup was never real to begin with. There have been so many holes in this narrative that it's like swiss cheese. Why did the military not fire on Erdogan when he was in their sights? Why did Erdogan even risk flying into Istanbul when he knew there would've been a significant chance of being shot down? The answer of course is that he knew there was no risk cause it was a fake coup to begin with.

This seems a little too conspiracy-ish to me. My feeling (and I am clueless and so probably wrong) is that the coup was real, but compromised from the start. The government knew it was coming, infiltrated it, and ensured it wouldn't pose a danger, but at its core I think it was real. I guess that line gets blurry, anyway. If you find someone with a legitimate grievance and then encourage them to rebel and give them s…

>If you find someone with a legitimate grievance and then encourage them to rebel and give them support, is that real or fake?

According to the FBI, that would be real.

Re: Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked

#94

Post by hx87 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #53
hx87 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> totalitarian Probably the most misused term/epithet in international relations. At its worst Turkey is no more repressive than Russia or China and less repressive than Iran. Once you use "totalitarian" to describe authoritarian regimes, you run out of room to describe those that actually qualify as totalitarian, such as North Korea or Eritrea.

> At its worst Turkey is no more repressive than Russia or China This is what is called "setting the bar so low that a mouse could trip over it."

This is totalitarianism we're talking about, so the bar has to be very low. Otherwise you're classifying Imperial Germany and Nazi Germany in the same state-repression category, which is ludicrous.

Re: Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked

#95

Post by James001 »

busterarm wrote: post #63
James001 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The coup was never real to begin with. There have been so many holes in this narrative that it's like swiss cheese. Why did the military not fire on Erdogan when he was in their sights? Why did Erdogan even risk flying into Istanbul when he knew there would've been a significant chance of being shot down? The answer of course is that he knew there was no risk cause it was a fake coup to begin with.

He wanted to consolidate his power and it was a really smart and ruthless move. It kind of shuts down the potential for any real coup to happen.

It was very Machiavellian.

Unfortunate that we're just hearing crickets on the international level though. It's a damn shame that a systematic rebuke of Erdogan's official narrative isn't anywhere in the mainstream media.

Re: Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked

#96

Post by mtgx »

busterarm wrote: post #63
James001 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The coup was never real to begin with. There have been so many holes in this narrative that it's like swiss cheese. Why did the military not fire on Erdogan when he was in their sights? Why did Erdogan even risk flying into Istanbul when he knew there would've been a significant chance of being shot down? The answer of course is that he knew there was no risk cause it was a fake coup to begin with.

He wanted to consolidate his power and it was a really smart and ruthless move. It kind of shuts down the potential for any real coup to happen.

It probably will, but at the same time I also feel that these moves are "too sudden". Too many people are left without a job and hating Erdogan. And now they can organize. Unless Erdogan intends to kill them all, too, before they do that.

Putin did all of this on a much slower timescale, and gave the society time to adapt. Erdogan is not doing that. He's taking all the power all at once, and throwing out all the opposition out all at once, too.

This might backfire badly, although the "failed coup" certainly gives him a break to do all this, while the rest of the "normal" population is left confused and not knowing what to do and who to support next.

By the way, what's happening in Turkey is also an excellent real-world example of this:

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

That's why the "failed coup" was so critical in allowing him to do all of this. Even if there would've been some of those "good people" that would've opposed him (although not that much evidence of that in the past few years, it would seem), they are now paralyzed by this event.

Still, I believe that that this purge is way too sudden and way too large to not have an "opposite and equal reaction" coming back at Erdogan. But it may take a while to happen.

Re: Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked

#97

Post by AndyNemmity »

tim333 wrote: post #89
jayess wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the FlightRadar24 track of his jet: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/tk8456/#a5a3952

Erdogan gives his version to CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/18/europe/turkey-president-er...

""Starting from the moment we landed, F-16s started flying above us, very close to the ground," Erdogan said."

The F-16s had him locked in, and never fired. Which was odd.

It all doesn't really make a ton of sense, but it's possible.

Re: Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked

#98

Post by Bartweiss »

imartin2k wrote: post #52
jayess wrote: post #10

How Turkey could possibly still be in accession talks to join the EU is baffling and appalling to me.

Basically, Erdogan has given up on the EU, and to be fair, the EU has probably missed out on an opportunity to draw Turkey into its sphere while the chance existed, and while Erdogan was willing to compromise.

I question whether Erdogan was ever seriously pursuing membership. He probably would have taken it, on good enough terms, but I don't think it was a goal. Too poorly aligned with his religious, autocratic tendencies.

The narrative that makes more sense to me is that Erdogan used membership talks to maintain a moderate reputation, creating a retort to both domestic and international critics. It weakened the position of moderate Kemalists at home, and effectively silenced EU criticism (what were they going to say, "he's a dictator and we'd like him in our club?"). The EU was reluctant to back off that course because it would have alienated an approximate ally well-placed to deal with Iraq and the refugee crisis.

At this point the game is played out; Erdogan has his state control, EU membership is less appealing, and the refugee crisis is, if not fixed, at least no longer new. Everyone got their short-term gains, and the talks can go nowhere just like they were before.

Re: Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked

#99

Post by colejohnson66 »

wheaties wrote: post #67
dhruvrrp wrote: post #8

21,000 teachers and 1.5k deans. This is the kind of thing that pushes the education system and thus the country back a decade. How are they gonna find replacements? How are the students gonna cope without teachers? What is Erdogan trying to do..

Educated people ask questions. He doesn't want an educated populace.

While that is true, look at North Korea. Everyone is taught from birth that their Gloious Leader is, in a sense, God. However, people who've escaped have said that when they got old enough to actually think for themselves, they figured out it was a lie but couldn't do anything.

http://www.craveonline.com/design/869309-north-korean-defect...

> Well, it's hard to say. Yes and no. Because if you're talking about nowadays North Koreans, it's a little bit hard for me to say that a majority of North Koreans believe propaganda. But I do think that older generations definitely believe government propaganda, because in the 1970's, economically the North Koreans were better off than South Korea, but after the 1990s famine, things have proven that it is not the best country in the world as the government or state claim, because how can you accept the propaganda when your best friend dies of starvation? So I think nowadays more and more people are critical of government propaganda, but I can't say what all North Koreans do now.

Re: Licenses of 21,000 Turkish teachers have been revoked

#100

Post by venomsnake »

rjbwork wrote: post #69
morgante wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think anyone claims Russia or China are democratic. Nor are we planning to add them to the EU or NATO anytime soon.

> Nor are we planning to add them to the EU or NATO anytime soon. Well, neither is on the North Atlantic or in Europe. Okay well, Russia sort of is, but...

Sort of? European Russia with Ukraine and Belarus is almost as big as the rest of europe combined
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