Good fucking god at this shameless propaganda being shown in the Turkish media for the anniversary of the coup. It's just insane that the rest of the world knows what happened was pure bullshit, but the Turks are just buying in to the wholesale demonization of the Kemalists and the Gulenists.
What does the rest of the world knows happened? I hate Erdogan and his regime, but pretty clear that Gulen and his organization, which are completely terrible and horrible, did lead a coup against the regime. The response has been unbelievably overbroad and ridiculous, but the Gulenists need total demonization. Nothing more is needed to demonize that group other than the Ergenekon trials.
Don't know if it's all compiled in one place, but I don't think any legit source thinks this was some sort of a false flag operation. I perhaps could have worded it better, I don't know if there is any evidence of Gulen's personal involvement, but there's no doubt that most of the key players in the coup were connected to his organization. And Gulen's organization is a very sinister thing. Erdogan didn't mind them one bit when they were helping him to power and when they were purging the military with show trials and false evidence.
Your post made me realize I was probably talking out of my ass a little bit, so I did a lot more reading on the coup and Gulen. You are correct on the Gulenists being shitty people, I was not aware how much they are like the AKP themselves. So, reasons that I thought the coup was a false flag operation. 1. Military coups are a Turkish tradition, the July 15th coup was insanely sloppy and far from resembling previous coups. Only 1.5% of the armed forces were involved, and the military support was not geographically clustered. It was attempted during rush hour 8-9 o clock instead of in the middle of the night when they could move quickly before citizens could react. The highest ranking member was a Brigadier General (no chiefs of staff involved), and a lot of the units involved thought they were undergoing a training exercise. If the Turkish army really intended to carry out a coup they would have succeeded. 2. The expediency and scope of the purges directly afterwards were more than suspect. To date, 140,000 purged from state and private sectors, 1,500 civil groups shut down, 14 universities closed. It seemed that Erdogan had a list of suspected cemaat members and sympathizers ready to go. They didn't hesitate a moment to proclaim that the coup instigators were all FETO forces. With all these arrests, Erdogan and the AKP have pretty much consolidated power. Couple this with the referendum to enhance presidential powers passing, it looks like the coup was an ends to a mean, or just a truly serendipitous event for the AKP. After reading, I do believe the coup was real, just executed ineptly by desperate officers who knew they were going to get purged from the ranks in the immediate future. I'm still not totally convinced that Erdogan or some members of his government were not complicit in fomenting the attempt or were at least aware that it was coming, but I don't doubt the sincerity of the coupists. Also it's believed that the coup was orchestrated by a mixture of gulenist/ non-gulenist officers, which is part of the reason that it was so poorly coordinated. Many officers who were arrested deny being a member of FETO and said what they did was for the Republic of Turkey (so possibly there were kemalist officers involved as well). They did kill innocent civilians, and use lethal force against to attack government buildings. It's hard to deny the realness of that. What I did not realize, was how the Gulenists and the AKP are pretty much two sides of the same shitty coin. Probably the reason for the sloppy and desperate coup attempt was that the Gulenists knew the consequences of the impending purges, as they were on the other side of the table during the Ergenekon trials that you alluded to. It sucks that the secularists have been relegated to being a non-factor in the military and Turkish politics, Turkey will probably never be the same.
Yeah, I agree with most of what you said there. The coup was taking place because of purges which were to come, and it was initially scheduled to take place in the middle of the evening, but the plans were discovered by Turkish intelligence, which led to the operation being moved up. I think another aspect of why it was so sloppy, was one of the highest ranking officers who was supporting the coup was killed early on, which disrupted things to some extent. And yes, most of the military hierarchy wasn't invovled, but that's because Erdogan, along with his Gulen supporters, early on, neutered the Kemalist in the military and put a lot of people loyal to him in the upper ranks. They still made some really basic errors--not shutting down all television stations, etc. And I still can't believe that they didn't shoot down Erdogan's jet when rebel fighter plans had them on radar. It really was the perfect storm for Erdogan. He survived it, and it gave him so much more authority for the crackdown he was already going to do.
The current Temple Mount crisis is a good look at the Palestinian mentality. A terror attack on the Temple Mount kills two Druze Israeli police officers, with Al Aqsa used to store weapons. In response, Israel puts in metal detectors at all 11 Muslim entry gates. The 1 entry gate for non-Muslims already had metal detectors so no change there. So the rage surely should be directed at those who used a holy site to launch a terror attack? Nope, it's obviously at the Jews for the outrageous provocation of installing metal detectors. They claim this is Israel trying to take control of the Temple Mount and that Al Aqsa is in danger, a common Palestinian libel that goes back over 100 years and led to the Hebron Massacre in 1929. They also went ballistic when Jordan suggested installing security cameras (prominently there are currently 5000 of these in Mecca) on the Temple Mount, but not in Al Aqsa itself, as a way to identify anyone breaking the law on any side of the conflict. So now it's time for a "Day of Rage".
It'd be interesting to watch a nuclear capable functional anarchy and a nuclear capable disfucntional autocracy go to war. Although since India has literally (not figuratively) a BILLION MORE PEOPLE, and Pakistan can't even control its own territory, my money is on India. With Russia and China winning by selling a shit ton of surplus equipment to both sides.
Don't we have supply routes through Pakistan? Wouldn't it be really easy for the ISI to start giving intel to stuff like the Taliban in Afghanistan to screw with us?
Impotent rage lashing out at an unjust system. Doesn't mean the rage is wrong. Your post is A good look at the Jewish mentality if you think about it... It's apartheid state homerism. Not a thread for politics though.
"Apartheid state homerism" is an interesting call in reference to a site that a) is the holiest site in Judaism, yet does not allow Jewish or Christian prayer or religious paraphenalia there, while of course allowing such things for Muslims b) has 12 entry gates, 11 of which are for Muslims and previously had no security measures, while the 1 for everyone else (Jews, Christians and everyone else) has had metal detectors and property searches for decades. c) requires Jews to travel in groups, whether they are religious or not, at all times. Also interesting to note that you call a terror attack that was basically an ambush on two policemen "impotent".
In regards to Turkey. What kind of morons would lead a coup in two cities, neither of which the fucking president was in? I'm not saying it was a false flag but I'd bet that the douchebag and his staff had wind of a plot and let it happen to consolidate power after they crushed it.
What? Why would a coup not involve seizing the capital and the largest city. It's not like they didn't attack the area where the president was.
He was at some resort on the Black Sea. They sent three helicopters filled with special forces after him, but he got wind of it and left in his jet. edit: scratch that he was in Marmaris which is off the Aegean and in Turkey. His plane took up a holding pattern above the Black Sea after he escaped.
HTS = Hayat Tahrir al Sham used to be Jabhat al Nusra then Jabhat Fatah al Sham, it's Al Qaeda AAS = Ahrar al Sham, a little less extremist but still Salafist They're the biggest rebel factions in Idlib.
This is an exaggeration but it exposed Ahrar al Sham as a paper tiger meanwhile HTS gained support from any AAS forces who were on the fence between the two groups. They're literally the only faction with any sort of a chance against the inevitable regime assault on Idlib, partly because HTS fighters are diehards.
Not all the time. Intel can be bad, targeteer can fuck up, equipment can fail. Friendly fire happens.
Errant isn't the correct word then. We don't miss, we just hit things we thought were something else.
No. He wasn't in Ankara, but he was on vacation in the country. They attacked his hotel but not timely enough.