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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

#211

Post by adrianratnapala »

Kareeeeem wrote: post #205
pluma wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 out…

> 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 Wanting to practice your religion in it's most basic form makes one a fundamentalist?

Actually I always thought that is what "fundamentalist" meant. But I never thought of fundemantalism as a bad thing in itself. (Actual bad things are along the lines "militant" and beyond).

Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#212

Post by unprepare »

grandalf wrote: post #181
jbmorgado wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, ok, so that is the only part of all I said that you can pinpoint it's not accurate. Very well, I agree that Erdogan being half mad (so mentally ill from your interpretation) is not easily proved. His speeches and the construction of the new palace (and the reasons given for it: https://www.yahoo.com/news/cockroaches-made-want-palace-says... ) indicate that he shouldn't be totally sane. But I agree it's something…

I do not agree with the rest. I do not see how his support of ISIS is necessarily harmful. ISIS is a grassroots movement with a goal of Islamic solidarity. ISIS is opposed to US intervention in the region because it views such intervention as harming Islamic solidarity. I do not think that (aside from some demand for Erdogan's loyalty to the US) that being supportive of such a movement in the region is necessarily a…

>I do not see how his support of ISIS is necessarily harmful

Wow. You dont see how video taping beheadings, raping tens of thousands of women, killing millions, selling stolen oil, and suicide bombings are 'necessarily harmful'

I dont know that ive ever encountered someone with such a mispointed moral compass, absolutely amazing what people can justify in their heads.

Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#213

Post by denzil_correa »

zeveb wrote: post #188
denzil_correa wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no excuse for human rights abuses, but if the majority of Turks believe they've been chafing under Kemalism for 90 years, and want to try something different, what right do we have to presume to dictate to them? Democracy is not simply the rule of majority. There are certain fundamental aspects of democracy that are sacrilege and can not be broken down even if 99/100 citizens want it.

> Democracy is not simply the rule of majority. Yes, it is: it's the rule of the demos — the mob. > There are certain fundamental aspects of democracy that are sacrilege and can not be broken down even if 99/100 citizens want it. Those are the fundamental aspects of a republic , not of a democracy. I blame Woodrow Wilson and all his nonsense about making the world safe for democracy. I don't actually care about wheth…

> Those are the fundamental aspects of a republic, not of a democracy.

I was indeed referring to a republic where majority of modern democracies operate. I assumed given the context of the discussion this was obvious. Turns out, that it is not.

Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#214

Post by VLM »

afsina wrote: post #113
drjesusphd wrote: post #82

I'm so tired of Turkey's shit. It's thanks to them that the only workable way to reconstruct Iraq (a three-state solution) was impossible because they would throw a tantrum about an independent Kurdistan.

Turkey is actually quite friendly with Iraqi Kurdistan.

This confuses the average American pretty badly. The analogy I like to use is the UK-Ireland situation.

So the Iraqi-Kurds-wanna-be-Kurdistan are like Southern Ireland. In fact they broke away from the main empire around the same time "about a century ago". Turkey is like England or maybe "all UK except Ireland". The PKK is like the IRA during the troubles. So Turkey and Kurdistan are pretty chill and they're swinging some profitable oil deals and generally get along surprisingly well given the demographics. Meanwhile the PKK thinks if they bomb and shoot Britain, err, I mean Turkey, enough, then a magic wand will be waved and the ethnic minority Kurds in Turkey will secede and join Kurdistan. Which is about as likely to be successful as the American Southern Confederacy experiment a bit over a century ago, or better comparison, the actual IRA.

Its almost like an uncanny valley thing. Turks want to genocide Kurds that are like 5 miles away and blowing up their buildings, they'd rather shoot them than let them leave which seems like a pretty dysfunctional relationship, but whatever. But move that same Kurd 500 miles away and the hate evaporates and they're businessmen bros lovin that sweet sweet oil money ahh remember the good old days when we were all an ottoman empire together ahh the good ole days. Just stay where you are and don't move next door, that's all.

Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#215

Post by pbhjpbhj »

pluma wrote: post #123
tremon wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU did not initiate the first schism between the EU and Turkey; it was Turkey's refusal to accept Cyprus (by that time a full EU member) as a sovereign state that caused all other negotiations to come to a halt.

I don't think it's fair to put this on either the EU or Turkey alone. There were many factors prevent Turkish membership but the parent is right: religion played a huge role in the public opinion. I remember Merkel actually saying that Europe was founded on "Christian ideals" (nevermind the actual ideals having more to do with post-renaissance secularism than original Christian dogma) -- the same Merkel nationalists…

>the actual ideals having more to do with post-renaissance secularism //

Could you go in to that a little, a few examples maybe of the main non-Christian ideals that underpin the founding of Europe.

Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#216

Post by adrianratnapala »

fredThrind wrote: post #186
pabloski wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you serious? Democracy is first and foremost the government of the majority. Whoever defines himself as democratic must respect the will of the majority. Sic et simplicitur.

I'm not sure if gp is American, but if he is then I would presume he is, indeed serious. The US Constitution is almost impossible to amend in practice, and a ridiculously small percentage of the American population can block an amendment. Indeed, the late conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made this point.* This has may have led to a perception from Americans that constitutions ought to be difficult to…

While it is true that the smallest states can club together to block an Amendment, I am not sure that is a real stumbling block in practice.

There have been lots of amendments to the US constitution, and I expect if a solid majority of people wanted something changed, it would not be hard to pass another. This could easily happen if one major party strongly supported something and the other party was merely split.

But in recent decades it has been easier to change the constitution by the back door through getting judgest to give creative interpretations.

Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#217

Post by fredThrind »

titzer wrote: post #210
fredThrind wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is hardly a good comparison: the US constitution is deeply anti-democratic when compared to other liberal democracies, and even when compared to the States of the US because it is almost impossible to amend ( http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/view_from_ch... ). The fact that judges are forced to invent new rights in the U.S. because a bunch of long-dead guys couldn't predict the future is, in its…

All systems at that scale are flawed, and even the founders knew this. Thus they biased decisions toward conservatism (in the classic sense--resisting change) but actually _did_ amend the Constitution, right away, with a Bill of Rights to make it even clear the construction of the document was to protect people from their government. The process is difficult, but it's happened _27 times_ (the first 10 times in bulk).

27 times out of 11,000 proposed amendments, and as you point out, the first ten happened in bulk. I doubt that the founders planned for 2% of the population (as conservative Antonin Scalia pointed out) being able to block an amendment.

Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#218

Post by tptacek »

ivanca wrote: post #204
tptacek wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are confusing "justified" with "democratic".

For democracy to exist the "demo" part must persist. So no, I'm not.

If it's that simple, if you can just make decisions by fiat based on some set of core principles, no matter what the people say, then you don't need to take account of the popular will at all. Just have a government of philosopher-kings.

In reality, it's in no way the simple ground truth that Turkish coups have uniformly sought to achieve "greater democracy". What they are in fact is a terrible misfeature of the Turkish system; a way in which Turkey joins the ranks of Pakistan and Egypt on a faster or slower arc towards autocracy. Which is the other word for "democracy that remains democratic until the people do something that make you uncomfortable".

Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#219

Post by fredThrind »

jessriedel wrote: post #208
fredThrind wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is hardly a good comparison: the US constitution is deeply anti-democratic when compared to other liberal democracies, and even when compared to the States of the US because it is almost impossible to amend ( http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/view_from_ch... ). The fact that judges are forced to invent new rights in the U.S. because a bunch of long-dead guys couldn't predict the future is, in its…

That's really not germane to the point I'm addressing.

The idea that unelected judges or putschists are required to keep a political system sane indicates that the system is flawed (in IT terms, they are hacks rather than features), so I think it is, at least somewhat germane.

Re: After the coup, Turkey turns against America

#220

Post by nazgob »

VLM wrote: post #91
codeduck wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The details that can be found on wikipedia are astounding. Across the board Turkey has a lot of 80s era gear that's been lightly upgraded over the years and generally the Russians have about 10x the quantity of 2000s to 2010s era gear. For example Turkey has 240 very theoretically active 80s era F-16 planes (how many are not deadlined / mission capable at this instant is a mystery, half maybe?) vs the Russian militar…

Where do you got that data? Russia has 2500 2000s+ era MBTs? Where? Which ones? Armata is not in mass production yet. The only other modern tanks you 'could' consider is T-90 and maybe T-72B3 which is deep modernization. Both are old designs actually. Still, it would be hard to find 2000 of them.
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