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Turkish GSM networks currently play a message of the President on any phone call

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Re: Turkish GSM networks currently play a message of the President on any phone call

#151

Post by eru »

4ad wrote: post #130
eru wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on where you put your counterfactuals. It is true that once countries are in the EU, the EU has almost no leverage. That happened with Bulgaria and Rumania. If you imagine a world where Turkey was in the EU, you might as well through in some mechanisms for more leverage on existing members?

> Rumania It's spelled Romania.

Sorry, been playing too much Diplomacy. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomacy_(game)). They use the old spelling for historical flair.

Re: Turkish GSM networks currently play a message of the President on any phone call

#152

Post by zo1 »

ai_ja_nai wrote: post #114
exabrial wrote: post #34

Why are they a NATO country again

Because of EU influence: Turkey acts like a bottle cap to seal the wave of refugees coming from ISIS war. That's why they are tolerated. EU gave Turkey a lot of money to keep the refugees, fleeing from Middle East wars, away from entering en masse in Europe.

It probably would have been cheaper to erect a wall between Europe and the middle-east, and station guards on top of it. You know, how a border is supposed to be like.

Re: Turkish GSM networks currently play a message of the President on any phone call

#153

Post by zo1 »

jwilk wrote: post #132
noncoml wrote: post #45

I wonder how would things have been if Turket had been accepted to EU 10 years ago. Would it have helped?

EU isn't very effective in stopping Hungary's or Poland's authoritarian descent. I doubt it would be effective against Turkey.

If you look at it from the other perspective, you could argue that the EU's very left-leaning and sacrificial policies are being very effective in promoting such changes to Poland & Hungary. I personally wouldn't call it "authoritarian descent", though.

Re: Turkish GSM networks currently play a message of the President on any phone call

#154

Post by diminish »

sesqu wrote: post #150
diminish wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually there's no doubt that Gulenist islamists staged the coup and they are like those private label grocery brands - never do anything on their own name. Their US-based cleric has embedded thousands of Shakirts(students) well organized in police, army, juridical system. Indeed till last few years, Gulenists were the love of Erdogan, a lot of governments, politicians and public, liberals. Now only left with some s…

That sounds an awful lot like the Global Liberal Conspiracy. If they don't even have a common ideology, how can they be said to follow the teachings of any cleric?

they were barebone Islamists and I suspect in Washington it's not much in fashion.

your comparison is wrong btw.

Re: Turkish GSM networks currently play a message of the President on any phone call

#155

Post by zo1 »

coldtea wrote: post #146
petre wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They didn't because most of the UK public supports UK being a monarchy so if anyone made such a proposition it would probably be highly unpopular. But they did vote to leave the EU for not having it their way. This decision has always been more popular, since about 60% of the UK public voted to join the EC, not the EU.

> They didn't because most of the UK public supports UK being a monarchy Of course they do. After all they are indoctrinated in its favor from an early age. I don't see what rational people, starting from first principles, would agree to a bunch of do-nothings sitting in a palace, aristocrats owning huge plots of land that just got handed down to them, that aristocratic class having huge say in politics, networking t…

>"Of course they do. After all they are indoctrinated in its favor from an early age."

You could argue that for almost anything that we have in society (Religion and the State being the two most obvious ones). And yet, it intellectually doesn't phase people the slightest. "So what if we're taught that government is good and benevolent since a tender age". This is precisely because most of society does not function using first-principles. If they did, we'd be in a completely different world right now.

Re: Turkish GSM networks currently play a message of the President on any phone call

#156

Post by zo1 »

coldtea wrote: post #147
mrtksn wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of it as if the Queen speech was about the excellent job the British people did on the Brexit referendum, defeating the traitors. Currently, a little bit more of the half of the population supports Erdogan and the other half hates him. Though admittedly the anti-Erdigan half did not support the coup as it is believed to be orchestrated by another islamist, but still...

> Currently, a little bit more of the half of the population supports Erdogan and the other half hates him. So, just like most politicians?

You mean just like all other Democracies out there? Sure, it floats from 60-40, or 70-30 sometimes. But how is 51-49 any less authoritarian against the 49 vs the 30?

Re: Turkish GSM networks currently play a message of the President on any phone call

#157

Post by BjoernKW »

golergka wrote: post #144
BjoernKW wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Expect West to kick out Turkey from NATO or Turkey to leave NATO soon since the islamists see west as evil. I don't think so. Unfortunately, ethics often play a less than significant role in international affairs like this. Just look at the dealings the Western world and the US in particular have with a backwards, medieval state like Saudi-Arabia that more or less openly supports Islamic extremism. Turkey is a stra…

You do realize that without Western support current Saudi government will fall victim to internal opposition, which is much more fundamentalist and is not significantly different from ISIS, right?

I'd say that'd remain to be seen. ISIS essentially is a doomsday cult. A fundamentalist state like that isn't sustainable in the long run.

Make no mistake though, the Western world doesn't prop up the Saudi government out of moral reasons. They do this because of Saudi-Arabia's significance to the oil economy. The House of Saud in exchange complies with the economic - and to some extent - political demands of the Western world.

Re: Turkish GSM networks currently play a message of the President on any phone call

#158

Post by riffraff »

mrtksn wrote: post #106
sesqu wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gulenist group did the coup attempt Has the government provided convincing evidence of this? I know Gülen was immediately accused despite not being in the country, but I don't know of any evidence of his audience being involved beyond Erdoğan not getting along with the guy, which automatically makes any opposition sympathetic to him.

AFAIK the evidence is that well known civilian Gulen affiliates were caught in military bases and armoured vehicles on the coup night but a concrete evidence of Gulen himself giving the orders do not exist. A bit like the story of the Russian military personnel in Ukraine(like everything points to Russia but Kremlin denies any involvement and claims that the caught soldiers were on a vacation in war zone). If you wan…

As someone outside of Turkish politics: how is it even possible to be liberal and pro-erdogan?

I can see why someone might like the guy or think he's somehow good for the country, but it seems, to an outsider, that he's 100% incompatible with liberal values.

Re: Turkish GSM networks currently play a message of the President on any phone call

#159

Post by mrtksn »

coldtea wrote: post #147
mrtksn wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of it as if the Queen speech was about the excellent job the British people did on the Brexit referendum, defeating the traitors. Currently, a little bit more of the half of the population supports Erdogan and the other half hates him. Though admittedly the anti-Erdigan half did not support the coup as it is believed to be orchestrated by another islamist, but still...

> Currently, a little bit more of the half of the population supports Erdogan and the other half hates him. So, just like most politicians?

Yes, so? Do you have a point?

My point was that the British public would not be happy if the Queen used her time on TV to push the agenda of the half of the nation - like openly supporting or opposing Brexit using channels that are not available to the opposition.

Re: Turkish GSM networks currently play a message of the President on any phone call

#160

Post by mrtksn »

riffraff wrote: post #158
mrtksn wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK the evidence is that well known civilian Gulen affiliates were caught in military bases and armoured vehicles on the coup night but a concrete evidence of Gulen himself giving the orders do not exist. A bit like the story of the Russian military personnel in Ukraine(like everything points to Russia but Kremlin denies any involvement and claims that the caught soldiers were on a vacation in war zone). If you wan…

As someone outside of Turkish politics: how is it even possible to be liberal and pro-erdogan? I can see why someone might like the guy or think he's somehow good for the country, but it seems, to an outsider, that he's 100% incompatible with liberal values.

Erdogan came to power thanks to the support of the liberals. He had their support because before Erdogan Turkey wasn't a liberal democracy and Erdogan actually had very progressive agenda compared to the hard core secularist establishment. That's how he had the support of the EU and USA liberals too.

Turkey before Erdogan wasn't much different than today but with much less islamic sauce in the politics.

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