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After the coup, Turkey turns against America

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Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#171

Post by spriggan3 »

mtgx wrote: post #13

The question is, will America turn against Turkey, too, or are the threats to exclude them out of NATO just empty ones? It will also be interesting to see if the EU will condemn this "democratic regime" they were so quick to defend after the coup.

> The question is, will America turn against Turkey, too, or are the threats to exclude them out of NATO just empty ones?

Mostly empty, USA (and the EU) needs Turkey for various reasons. Turkey could unleash floods of refugees into the EU if pissed off and USA needs its bases in Turkey. That's effective power. Erdogan can basically do whatever he wants right now.

Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#172

Post by Eupolemos »

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…

"Erdogan dreams of bringing Turkey back to its Ottoman glory and is willing to exploit religion (and abolish Laicism) to do so."

I don't know if this is true, it may as well be that he caters to the majority in current Turkey.

Things are a mess in Turkey, but I'm not sure that is Erdogans fault. He's got ISIS, Russia and an aggressive West to deal with, along with a divided nation.

I'm all for an open democracy, but I don't think that would work in Turkey in this horrible situation. A measure of safety does come before democracy, a reality we are quick to forget in the more peaceful parts of the world.

IIRC, his political opponents had their chance and blew it in a spectacular manner, so that even more people voted for Erdogan. What good is a military coup, if the current government is the least of the possible evils?

I don't know much about Turkey, but I feel we may be guilty of judging Erdogan out of true context.

Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#173

Post by pythia__ »

vintermann wrote: post #46
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…

Karl Popper considered a government democratic if it could be replaced without violence, and while that's not exactly my definition, I think it's a good start - a bare minimum. A provision in the constitution for military coups doesn't excuse it. That just means the Turkish constitution is a bad one, that doesn't offer its citizens democracy. Handing over control to the people "once the situation is stable again" is…

Never mind Turkey. Could you name three Western governments that satisfy Popper's criterion?

Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#174

Post by pluma »

ghostDancer wrote: post #62

Erdogan will push anti-american and anti-european feelings cause it's always a good thing for dictators to look like the victims. They look like being attacked from outside so they can purge and get the nationalist feeling up, they are the saviors and defenders of the state and the pride. Basic dictatorship 101

Well, so far he can point at:

* the US because of Gulen

* Europe because ... whatever

* Germany because of satire

* Russia because of border violations

* Syria because of Assad

That's quite a list. No wonder he has so much public support -- the entire world seems out to ruin Turkey.

Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#175

Post by wavefunction »

ivansavz wrote: post #101
fit2rule wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've been in the middle of something really, really terrible, for rather a few decades, and are not really coherently dealing with it - in the 'royal we', as I personally can state my bit of it - very well. There is a big rush to try to get the world to peacefully co-exist, and technology is doing that. Seriously. At the head of all of the chaos of military action, is a technological breakthrough that cannot be weap…

What about free education for kids all over the world? (a standardized curriculum that avoids nationalism, that focusses on group work so students get to know ppl from other countries/cultures at a very early age)

How do we all agree on the subject matter when we're willing to kill over those exact beliefs?

Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#176

Post by pluma »

random123456 wrote: post #110

Why Turkey is against US? Simple: US started or participated in every war in last 50 years, so maybe they started coup in Turkey also? US shows himself as a good guy, lawyer, builder, developer, savior and etc, etc. But in reality government of US (not people!) is war machine, as a bonus Hillary is a WARMACHINE (with big, bold letters) So what do you expect from Turkey? What US government loves: - torturing - oil - m…

You vastly overestimate the importance of Turkey to the US.

Also, there are easier targets to invade than a NATO member that is an ally against Russia.

Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#177

Post by grandalf »

tptacek wrote: post #155
grandalf wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a superb point. Americans are so quick to rally against any foreign leader that is sympathetic to Islam. In the US we've had decades of anti-Islamic propaganda, since it has helped sell various war efforts. All countries have some internal forces of pluralism and some internal voices of absolutism, for a variety of contemporary and historical reasons, and all citizens have the ability to consent and to dissen…

You don't even have to support an Islamist Turkey to have problems with military coups. I think Erdogan is highly problematic and that the direction Turkey is taking will materially harm a generation of its people. But even that is a better outcome than a military coup! I don't like Islamist governments (any more than I'd like a Christian Fundamentalist government here --- "Christian", by the way, being a word that c…

Exactly.

In the US, the word "Islamism" comes with a payload that is a gift-wrapped propaganda message:

- Islamism will trend toward and harbor fundamentalist "strains".

- Islamism cannot be pluralistic or largely secular due to structural reasons or ideological invariants.

- An Islamist political system is permanently at odds with the sort of Enlightenment values that guide the West.

I've read a lot of very serious arguments that claim that Western pluralism and democracy were largely germinated by doctrinal aspects of Christianity.

Quotes like the "Render unto Caesar" passage are hailed as the cornerstone of the separation of church and state, and Islam, lacking the equivalent, is deemed to devalue such separation... Even things like the Schism of 1054 are hailed as helping to usher in the values of representative democracy.

Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#178

Post by rasz_pl »

venomsnake wrote: post #36

In the last 24 hours - decapitation of the educational system (thank god, so far figuratively), cases of book burning - video is going viral as we speak, limitation of free travel of scientists, crackdown (even more) on media. We are getting a dictatorship evolving in real time. If you are in the Balkans and hope that NATO will protect you - France and UK betrayed Czechoslovakia and Poland pre WWII and it has never b…

then there is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...

Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#179

Post by jessriedel »

vintermann wrote: post #156
jessriedel wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No existing democracies are pure democracies, in the sense that the have non-democratic elements, often enshrined in a constitution, that constrain the government. In the US, unelected judges with lifetime appointments strike down laws passed democratically, in accordance with a constitution that none of us alive had any input in writing. We've all gotten used to that idea, but it was extremely controversial when it…

I am very much against the thing you describe, whether they call themselves supreme courts or guardian councils or defenders of the constitution. Yes, I am a radical democrat. I think the safeguards supposedly provided by such institutions are largely illusionary. All sorts of minorities, for instance, may be protected in flowery words, but it isn't worth the paper it's written on unless the majority (of power, sadly…

> That said, at least supreme court judges in the US (and other countries) don't have the power to topple the government, execute ministers, outlaw political parties etc. That's one way the military providing "a check on democracy" is even worse.

Right, so I doubt anyone in this thread would claim the Turkish coup system is better than the US system, except perhaps by making a strained appeal to a very different culture necessitating more drastic checks on democracy (or something). So you don't really need to argue this.

And the rest of your argument for radical democracy doesn't have much to do with Turkey per se, the topic of this thread.

Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#180

Post by dopamean »

denzil_correa wrote: post #104

Here are the actions taken by Erdogan lead AKP government after the coup [0]. Day by day, I find it difficult to believe this coup was not staged. 300 Energy Ministry employees dismissed 184 Customs Ministry employees dismissed 8 top-level parliamentary executives removed All Turks require extra documentation to travel outside country 86 Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) employees dismissed 51 Borsa Is…

It's stuff like this that I think of when people, often speaking out of emotion, liken the United States government to an authoritarian regime.
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