61–70 of 140 posts
That doesn't really bode well for Turkey. FWIW the US did the same during WW1 and WW2 albeit under different circumstances.
US did what during WW1 and WW2? Did the US revoke amateur radio licenses?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately NATO probably needs Turkey more than Turkey needs NATO. -refugees, refugees, refugees -2nd biggest military in NATO -Incirlik Airbase -Access and control to Syria -Radar and other intel gathering equipment looking over Russia's belly and Middle East -blocking Russian access to the Med -human intelligence
Turkey doesn't want to be on the wrong side of NATO if it's in a territory dispute with Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus, or even over Armenia although it isn't NATO. Refugee handling is an EU problem, not really NATO. While there's substantial overlap, the US isn't going to negotiate with that in mind. And there's nothing stopping the EU from continuing to cut a refugee-handling-for-money deal if Turkey exits NATO. Airbases…
This is now about Erdogan, Does Erdogan need NATO more than NATO needs Turkey? That's the question. Dictators tend not to care or stay rational in the "normal" sense of things.
If this coup was planned by Erdogan, then he really has good game and will play a long con on being a member of NATO while doing what he wants.
What's the point of being a dictator? I sometimes think of really cool stuff one should do and think: "Well you would have to be a dictator to do that.". Maybe I am indoctrinated in Western propaganda but off the top of my had I cannot come up with a cause that is worthwhile enough to pursue if you consider the negative consequences of a dictatorship. Maybe AI, space stuff or immortality - essentially the same thing.…
2) Educated people are dangerous as they will almost certainly doubt the legitimacy of your rule and more importantly have the ability to plot against you. Hence they must go.
I applaud your thinking, as it is empathic towards your hypothetical subjects :) However people like Erodogan do not think at such a level. Assume a primitive (but not dumb) egocentric world view in dictators. If they had empathy, they wouldn't have been able to fight to get to where they are now.
This is going to end poorly... False flag or not, the coup has given Erdogan an excuse to flush out and exterminate all who oppose him. Anyone want to take bets how long until NATO will revoke Turkey's membership?
He's another Hitler in the making, but no, NATO will not revoke Turkey's membership. The US needs Turkey for the war in Syria. And the US is not about to move all those nukes elsewhere.
I believe they're all gravity bombs, which makes them mostly symbolic, just like the nukes we store in other NATO countries.
This is going to end poorly... False flag or not, the coup has given Erdogan an excuse to flush out and exterminate all who oppose him. Anyone want to take bets how long until NATO will revoke Turkey's membership?
> Anyone want to take bets how long until NATO will revoke Turkey's membership? Well, Erdogan's regime is threatening to end its friendship with the US if Gülen isn't turned over, so any termination of the relationship may not come from the NATO side.
I think I read that Kerry had said something like "sure, we'll extradite him...if you have evidence that he committed any crimes." Since any evidence they do have is likely to be pretty weak, this seems like a classic "remember that USA is the boss of you" move. A reasonable Turkish leader wouldn't call that bluff, but Ergodan seems to be slipping deeper and deeper into paranoia and autocratic madness.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately, the people of Turkey were going to be screwed no matter how the coup went. If it had succeeded, they would have got a military dictatorship. Now they get a different kind of dictatorship instead. Erdogan was slowly evolving into a dictator before the coup, and now he's accelerating that process. I wonder if the best outcome for democracy in Turkey would have been a attempted coup which resulted in Erdo…
I'd rather live under a liberal, pro-Western, secular military junta, than an illiberal democracy ruled by Islamists who are destroying liberties, hollowing out civil society, and turning the country into a Sunni version of Iran under the Ayatollahs. Fareed Zakaria has a great book, The Future of Freedom , where he discusses, among other things, the perils of illiberal democracy. The bit that really stuck in my head…
(1) The Sunni version of Iran under the Ayatollahs is called "Saudi Arabia".
(2) Assuming the attribution of the coup to the Gülen movement is accurate, it would likely not have been a "liberal, pro-Western, secular military junta" but instead an "quasi-liberal, pro-Western, relatively-tolerant-but-still-Islamist military junta".
Even without EU membership, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of Turkish people will try to relocate to Europe and elsewhere. This would be a massive brain and capital drain for Turkey - Especially given that this is a country which was considered safe and progressive not so long ago...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately NATO probably needs Turkey more than Turkey needs NATO. -refugees, refugees, refugees -2nd biggest military in NATO -Incirlik Airbase -Access and control to Syria -Radar and other intel gathering equipment looking over Russia's belly and Middle East -blocking Russian access to the Med -human intelligence
Turkey doesn't want to be on the wrong side of NATO if it's in a territory dispute with Greece, Bulgaria, Cyprus, or even over Armenia although it isn't NATO. Refugee handling is an EU problem, not really NATO. While there's substantial overlap, the US isn't going to negotiate with that in mind. And there's nothing stopping the EU from continuing to cut a refugee-handling-for-money deal if Turkey exits NATO. Airbases…
Well, except Iraq.
That is, there is considerable tension between Iraqi Kurdistan and the central government (the fact that Kurdistan has its own army and the Iraqi army is banned from Kurdistan is one of the irritants on the Iraqi side -- the US arming the Kurds in a way that would make them able to effectively resist Turkey would not be a good thing for the internal stability of Iraq. Or for Iraqi-Kurdistan relations if it happened after Kurdistan broke away completely, like it has shown some interest in doing recently.)
(Actually, reinforcing Iraqi Kurdistan -- and even moreso an ex-Iraqi Kurdistan -- this way would also escalate tensions with Iran, Syria -- and because of the last -- probably also Russia.)