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After the coup, Turkey turns against America

economist.com

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Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#51

Post by pluma »

emilsedgh wrote: post #33
pluma wrote: post #6

Although from an outside perspective a military coup seems completely undemocratic the Turkish military has historically had the role of maintaining the principles Atatürk founded the Turkish Republic on. You can think of them as a built-in correction mechanism in case the government veers too far off course -- they remove the government, reset everything to start and then hand over control back to the people once th…

Its not just Erdogan. People of Turkey seem to be supporters of this path. Although its very sad.

Erdogan always had strong support from Turkish expatriates. I had always heard this explained as fundamentalists leaving Turkey because its secular laws were more restrictive (e.g. headscarfs are banned in universities[0] because of the strong separation of church and state) and Erdogan catering towards those fundamentalists.

I don't know what changed in Turkey but it now seems that his support has grown not only outside the country but also within and he seems to be hellbent on exploiting religion to gain political support. I don't know whether he actually holds fundamentalist views himself but he certainly knows how to use them to his advantage.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headscarf_controversy_in_Turke...

Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#52

Post by kabouseng »

tim333 wrote: post #23
olympus wrote: post #7

For the most part, America had nothing to do with the coup attempt and had no idea that it was about to happen. Honestly, the majority of Americans couldn't find Turkey on a map even if you centered the map on Turkey. However, I certainly wouldn't be surprised if a few CIA types provided assistance like they've been known (or suspected) to do in South America and other parts of the world. The US government clearly be…

The coup attempt seemed shockingly incompetent for anything staged by the CIA. Also what would be the motivation?

Not at all like the success the Bay of Pigs was...

Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#53

Post by matt4077 »

pluma wrote: post #6

Although from an outside perspective a military coup seems completely undemocratic the Turkish military has historically had the role of maintaining the principles Atatürk founded the Turkish Republic on. You can think of them as a built-in correction mechanism in case the government veers too far off course -- they remove the government, reset everything to start and then hand over control back to the people once th…

It will probably go done in history as the EU's worst mistake – far worse than Greece or Brexit – not to have provided Turkey with a realistic path to membership. Around 1995-2005, Turkey was growing economically, a civil society was taking root and the people had an optimistic outlook friendly to the west. Erdogan was a mildly-religious fan of the EU and keen on economic progress in his first years.

I'm not saying that Turkey was ready for membership back then, but it became pretty clear that it wasn't a lack of democracy or poverty that was the main hinderance of turkish membership: there were just too many EU countries (and you only need one) that Turkey just had an inacceptable ratio of churches to mosques.

Around election-time EU leaders would conveniently drop most pretenses and admit to this more or less in the open.

For Erdogan, who was achieving ever more success at home, every EU visit became a humiliation. Pretty soon, he turned his back on Europe.

Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#55

Post by emilsedgh »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #49
emilsedgh wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not just Erdogan. People of Turkey seem to be supporters of this path. Although its very sad.

> People of Turkey seem to be supporters of this path. A doubt all of them are. Just as with Brexit, popular opinion might be divided.

Of course not all. But he seems to have the democratic support. As most people prefer it.

Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#56

Post by codeduck »

karpodiem wrote: post #32
smegel wrote: post #22

Turkey is a very dangerous country. It has a large and powerful military, it could probably take over half the middle East if it wanted, and big parts of Eastern Europe. It would also like to take a bite out of Russia if Putin didn't have thousands of nukes. Let's hope they sway back to a secular, moderate nation.

'It would also like to take a bite out of Russia if Putin didn't have thousands of nukes. Let's hope they sway back to a secular, moderate nation.' Yeah, no. Russian weapon systems are far more advanced than the stuff Turkey has, and they outnumber Turkey. Their best equipment is some F-16 stuff that would be vastly overwhelmed by the number of MiG-29/31BM's that Russia has.

Russia has some of the best SAMs in the business. They don't need to use jets; Turkish F-16's wouldn't last long if Russia fired up their anti-aircraft systems and engaged.

Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#57

Post by shimonamit »

The U.S. stores nukes in Turkey as part of the NATO deterrence strategy. During the coup the Turkish authorities were quick to siege the military base supposedly hosting the nukes. From CNN:

  > Turkish authorities encircled the base, cut off the power
  > supply and temporary closed the airspace around Incirlik 
  > as they fought off the coup launched on Friday.
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/19/politics/us-nuclear-weapon...

Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#58

Post by pjc50 »

smegel wrote: post #22

Turkey is a very dangerous country. It has a large and powerful military, it could probably take over half the middle East if it wanted, and big parts of Eastern Europe. It would also like to take a bite out of Russia if Putin didn't have thousands of nukes. Let's hope they sway back to a secular, moderate nation.

It's more of an internal danger. See also today about Bangladesh: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12122136

Turkey has a slow-burning civil war involving Kurds in the east of Turkey. It also has suffered attacks from ISIS. The risk is that the government resorts to increasing violence to maintain order, which is how the Syrian civil war started.

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