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Video Analysis of Erdogan's security detail brawl in Washington

nytimes.com

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Re: Video Analysis of Erdogan's security detail brawl in Washington

#91

Post by elihu »

arca_vorago wrote: post #89

I immediately called for two things. The NRA to organize an armed protest, and to persona-non-grata all attackers not American citizens, and to arrest those that are and don't have DI (diplomatic immunity). What happened is the Turks are thugs, and when they heard/saw pro PKK "protestors" they consider "terrorists" they wanted to make an example of them. I'm guessing it was also a distraction technique for Erdogan to…

There's not much the police could have done. Erdogan's bodyguards had guns and there were more of them -- possibly soldiers in the embassy with rifles, as well. There would have been a shootout, and most likely all of the police and perhaps some/all of the protesters as well would have been dead.

I think we should be treating this as an attack by the government of Turkey against United States civilians. They are no longer an ally. I suspect that we unfortunately have more to lose than Turkey by ending our friendly relationship, but so be it. Staying in a dysfunctional relationship isn't good for either country.

I would like to see the bodyguards prosecuted, but at the same time I expect they are operating under some kind of threat worse than what the United States legal system could potentially do to them. Maybe their wives and daughters will be arrested if they don't attack certain protesters? They may be in a no-win situation. The best thing may be to just get them to leave and not return, even if that offends our sense of justice.

Re: Video Analysis of Erdogan's security detail brawl in Washington

#92

Post by zo1 »

elihu wrote: post #91
arca_vorago wrote: post #89

I immediately called for two things. The NRA to organize an armed protest, and to persona-non-grata all attackers not American citizens, and to arrest those that are and don't have DI (diplomatic immunity). What happened is the Turks are thugs, and when they heard/saw pro PKK "protestors" they consider "terrorists" they wanted to make an example of them. I'm guessing it was also a distraction technique for Erdogan to…

There's not much the police could have done. Erdogan's bodyguards had guns and there were more of them -- possibly soldiers in the embassy with rifles, as well. There would have been a shootout, and most likely all of the police and perhaps some/all of the protesters as well would have been dead. I think we should be treating this as an attack by the government of Turkey against United States civilians. They are no l…

You know, as a libertarian, I constantly get told about the virtues of government and how we need it to protect us (you know, from wandering War Lords or some such). The police being an extension of that protection.

And look what happened here. Helpless citizens, being beaten and attacked in plain site, in front of police, and even recorded doing it. And not a damn thing is done. Screw geo-politics, the police should by all means have escalated immediately, called for backup and arrested/shot the assailants. That is their job, we are told. You need only hypothesize what would have happened if this was a gathering of some sort of gang, and it was assaulting individuals the same way.

This is a "war lord" from another land, attacking your citizens in front of you. The blatant double-standard should be enough to throw up red-flags for every single citizen seeing it.

Re: Video Analysis of Erdogan's security detail brawl in Washington

#93

Post by pjc50 »

gech wrote: post #62
logicallee wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not a free license to commit any crimes they want. That's exactly what it is. The hosting country can ONLY just tell them they are "persona non grata". (Expel them.) Of course, they may face charges in their home country or be extradited. Their home country can waive their diplomatic immunity - and do so for their diplomats acting criminally in other countries. But 100% of all of these actions are on the home c…

Wars were started over less. Maybe a little more patriotism is called for nowadays

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_Jenkins%27_Ear possibly the most famous example.

The problem is that Turkey is a member of NATO and a key US ally in the Middle East, which makes going to war with them .. inconvenient.

Re: Video Analysis of Erdogan's security detail brawl in Washington

#94

Post by omginternets »

djtriptych wrote: post #54
omginternets wrote: post #27

I guess it's no longer viable to go to protests unarmed. Good to know.

lol what? viable? Because of THIS? Have you never seen examples of US police beating/gassing/hosing/shooting nonviolent protestors before?

Never involving foreign actors, no.

Re: Video Analysis of Erdogan's security detail brawl in Washington

#95

Post by omginternets »

exabrial wrote: post #36
omginternets wrote: post #27

I guess it's no longer viable to go to protests unarmed. Good to know.

A good thought, and in most states, it would be your Constitutional right to do so. However, carrying a weapon is likely to attract additional attention and there's a good chance you'd wind up dead. You're going against a foreign military trained force, and they're probably not used to seeing a normal citizen exercise their civil liberties in such a way. I think peaceful assembly is probably the best approach, and le…

I hear you. I just want to point out that being armed in no way implies the assembly is not peaceful.

Peaceful assembly is absolutely the way to go. My point is rather that foreign actors are violently squashing peaceful protests, so it seems foolish not to come prepared.

Re: Video Analysis of Erdogan's security detail brawl in Washington

#96

Post by omginternets »

tehlike wrote: post #47
exabrial wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good thought, and in most states, it would be your Constitutional right to do so. However, carrying a weapon is likely to attract additional attention and there's a good chance you'd wind up dead. You're going against a foreign military trained force, and they're probably not used to seeing a normal citizen exercise their civil liberties in such a way. I think peaceful assembly is probably the best approach, and le…

I am Turkish by origin, but have been living in USA for 7 years. I could vouch for the fact that it would make them feel threatened. They are definitely not aware of civil liberties and constitutional rights. Heck, they don't even know or understand what freedom of speech is.

>I could vouch for the fact that it would make them feel threatened. They are definitely not aware of civil liberties and constitutional rights

Yes, and that's very much the point.

Re: Video Analysis of Erdogan's security detail brawl in Washington

#97

Post by [deleted] »

ngcazz wrote: post #52
ehsankia wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was honestly surprised that NYT did such a beautiful in depth analysis of videos and didn't have this video in there. How can you do an in depth research on that incident and not have this vital video? I wonder if with modern machine learning backed algorithms, we can do a semi-decent job at reading some of the lips in that video.

What? It's near the bottom.

[deleted]

Re: Video Analysis of Erdogan's security detail brawl in Washington

#98

Post by cmurf »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #70
cmurf wrote: post #44

This same scenario happened last year outside the Brookings Institution. I suspect the reason why there's such good video coverage of this year's attack, is they were ready for it, based on what happened last year. In the short term, I agree with John McCain, the Turkish ambassador to the U.S. should be expelled over this event. What precedes all of this is the U.S. supports the YPG, which Erdogan considers a terrori…

>Long term, is whether a Turkish autocracy, which is what it is now, a viable member in NATO? I think the U.S. looks the other way as long as Turkey helps fight Daesh. But Turkey is now a stain on NATO's democratic origin and purpose. Unless Turkey loses control of the Bosphorous straits or Russia stops being what it is, Turkey will always be welcome at the table. Help with Daesh and/or pushing democratic ideas is ne…

"NATO promotes democratic values" http://www.nato.int/nato-welcome/index.html

And Erdogan, right now, is doing the opposite of that. It is completely valid to question Turkey's role in NATO, but the current U.S. president doesn't care about or even understand what democracy is, because he's an ignoramous about pretty much everything. All he cares about is "winning" and that's why he praises autocrats like Erdogan, Duerte, Salman, Kim Jong Un, and el-Sisi, while criticizing American allies. I think he's kinda jealous of autocrats who get things done and doesn't have to deal with silly legislatures and courts. So I have no doubt that this administration will be fine with Turkey staying in NATO for the foreseeable future despite the incongruity on democratic values.

Re: Video Analysis of Erdogan's security detail brawl in Washington

#99

Post by arca_vorago »

elihu wrote: post #91
arca_vorago wrote: post #89

I immediately called for two things. The NRA to organize an armed protest, and to persona-non-grata all attackers not American citizens, and to arrest those that are and don't have DI (diplomatic immunity). What happened is the Turks are thugs, and when they heard/saw pro PKK "protestors" they consider "terrorists" they wanted to make an example of them. I'm guessing it was also a distraction technique for Erdogan to…

There's not much the police could have done. Erdogan's bodyguards had guns and there were more of them -- possibly soldiers in the embassy with rifles, as well. There would have been a shootout, and most likely all of the police and perhaps some/all of the protesters as well would have been dead. I think we should be treating this as an attack by the government of Turkey against United States civilians. They are no l…

> There's not much the police could have done. Erdogan's bodyguards had guns and there were more of them...

I have heard this argument from multiple sources regarding this event but it seems to be based on a misunderstanding of how things like this work, so I strongly disagree. I've been trained on similar situations, and I know the escalation of force procedures in general (DC police are weird sometimes), and the second they saw Turkish nationals punching and kicking old men and women on the ground is the second they should have been escalating force. No, lightly tapping a dude sucker punching a woman on the ground with a baton on the back is not good enough. Sorry, but it simply isn't. I've been beaten worse in fucking training scenarios as the protestor.

Again, the real issue here to me is the lackidasical way in which the DCPD responded. IF they were afraid to enforce the law outside of the embassy there is a much bigger problem here than people are talking about. The same thing works for Americans in embassies abroud. They have a close relationship with and work with the host countries police and other forces... but they are notoriously well trained to not engage beyond embassy perimiter unless absolutely necessary. The fact that you think we should be afraid to enforce the law on Turkish nationals outside but close to their embassy says to me that if you are right, that embassy needs to be shut down, but in general I think you are wrong.

Now, I'm not a cop. I used to be a knuckle-dragging door-kicker, not a fat mall cop like most of the pd in the video look like. I don't know exactly what the pd's should have done, but I do know what they did wasn't it.

To put it another way. If American DSS (Diplomatic Security Service) showed up in England escorting Trump near the new US embassy, and the DSS rushed British protestors and just start fucking them up, I would fully support and expect the Brits to have arrested every single one, wait for diplomatic immunity to be verified (or not), and then proceed accordingly (persona-non-grata for those with, arrest and charge for those without). What I would not expect is to just let DSS walk back to their embassy as if they hadn't broken a dozen laws.

Re: Video Analysis of Erdogan's security detail brawl in Washington

#100

Post by elihu »

arca_vorago wrote: post #99
elihu wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's not much the police could have done. Erdogan's bodyguards had guns and there were more of them -- possibly soldiers in the embassy with rifles, as well. There would have been a shootout, and most likely all of the police and perhaps some/all of the protesters as well would have been dead. I think we should be treating this as an attack by the government of Turkey against United States civilians. They are no l…

> There's not much the police could have done. Erdogan's bodyguards had guns and there were more of them... I have heard this argument from multiple sources regarding this event but it seems to be based on a misunderstanding of how things like this work, so I strongly disagree. I've been trained on similar situations, and I know the escalation of force procedures in general (DC police are weird sometimes), and the se…

I think that the police should protect Americans in these sorts of situations, but in this case they were just plain outnumbered and outgunned. Our police are not all-powerful and sometimes they can be taken by surprise and find themselves at a tactical disadvantage. I expect police to do dangerous things in the course of their job, but I don't expect them put themselves into a situation of near-certain death. I don't know what their training is, but I wouldn't be surprised if one of their guidelines for escalating violence is don't do if you're probably going to be on the losing end of that exchange.

The thing that bugs me isn't the police response, it's that there seems to have been no consequences for the Turkish embassy or our relationship with Turkey. Maybe a row of tanks parked on the lawn would have been needlessly dramatic, but at least it would have sent a clear message and escalated force in such a way that Erdogan's security forces would have been at a tactical disadvantage.

So far it seems the Trump administration's response is that this was just a normal day (and we're left with the general impression that there may have been a few fist-bumps and high-fives in private).

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