Conflict in Turkey

[Majiffy]

Apparently a "group within the military" has seized control of bridges and airports? What the hell is going on in Turkey, anyone got a clue?

[Psyche]

npr tweeting about turkey as a "model of stable democracy" just minutes after the capital descended into a chaotic coup

[McMenno]

npr tweeting about turkey as a "model of stable democracy" just minutes after the capital descended into a chaotic coup

is it wrong that I am laughing about this

it's pretty funny ad mit it

[Davsto]

I always thought it was the dove that cooed, not turkeys

[GreyICE]

So another military coup ousts another religious extremist who was losing control? Shocking. Just shocking. I mean everyone was betting this was going to happen years ago, they waited a long time.

So they'll hold power for a year, then have some elections and business will proceed as normal.

Also the Turkish military doesn't do chaotic coups, that's base slander. They do very organized and orderly coups.

[GreyICE]

Like the question you should be asking yourself is "how often does this happen that there's a general procedure for it"

And about once every 15-20 years.

[GreyICE]

Oh look, Erdogan was even on holiday so they don't have to imprison him or execute him or anything, he can just "go into exile". And he's out of communication with anyone he has strings in so he can't pull any of them until this is all over.

Yeah, they remain as scarily competent as ever. Only way anyone dies is if Erdogan really does inspire a riot and they shut down Twitter and shit so that can really only happen after the fact. Fucking brilliant. This is nearly as smooth as 1997.

[GreyICE]

I mean more work. 1997 they basically sent a memo that said "look, no one likes you, there could be a coup or we could just say fuck it and you resign, and a coup is really annoying, lets just save time".

Erdogan would try the "rally the Islamic extremists to my side" so they caught him out of the country so he doesn't even have a local base of power.

[mykonian]

what Greyice said was about as far as me and my dad got.

[GreyICE]

Well some people are unfamiliar with Turkish history, so they don't know how clockwork this is. Erdogan was getting increasingly unstable, police were turning protests into riots and Erdogan was making it happen, you don't

do

that in Turkey. Every male in Turkey has served in the army. When you turn the police against the people, you turn them against the army itself. The army isn't a bunch of hippy liberals, they're not down with women and if a man wants to kiss another man that can happen off base where they can't see it, but when there's a picture of a man with blood streaming down his face and Police raising a baton to him that isn't just a citizen of Turkey, that's an ex-soldier. Man, I'm not saying

Starship Troopers

is the way to run a society, but there's some fucking benefits. You don't get to run Turkey like you're the head of the LAPD

[Vi]

The Atlantic live-blogging things

As news broke about the coup attempt in Turkey, Secretary of State John Kerry said he was following updates.

“I don’t have any details at this time,” he said. “I hope there will be stability and peace and continuity within Turkey. But I have nothing to add with respect to what has transpired at this moment."

This is about as close as a diplomat can get to a speech consisting solely of "ok".
Even though what GreyICE is saying is all true, I can't help but feel some schadenfreude given that Erdogan is a (literal) world-class tool. It seems like most of the West agrees.

Erdogan would try the "rally the Islamic extremists to my side" so

[etc.]

He's trying anyway.

[Majiffy]

Thanks Grey very good to know what's going on.

npr tweeting about turkey as a "model of stable democracy" just minutes after the capital descended into a chaotic coup

Lol what very unfortunate timing.

[Zulfy]

I'm just worried about the Islamist opportunism.

[GreyICE]

Ugh, looks like they might be running into some trouble.

Erdogan had the military purged a few years back by arresting a lot of people on trumped up charges and replacing them with his key people. I figured they'd be tossed too, but it looks like this is starting to splinter into something nasty. That or social media is full of bullshit, I mean who the fuck knows? The problem with social media is there's so much fake information it's hard to wade through.

The police might fight this, but guys with guns versus tanks is an equation even they can work out. If the military consolidates behind this it's over and everyone knows this. I think Erdogan petitioning Germany for Asylum was the white flag of the entire thing, but you never know. I really, really hope he's tossed.

[GreyICE]

As for the protest marches, at least one picture was fake. Social media supremely unreliable here since basically is untrustworthy. Media supremely unreliable because half of them don't have Turkish translators and are going of Google translate because 24/7 news cycle demands blood sacrifice.

[Majiffy]

Ahahaahaha it just struck me Grey just how exactingly calculated all this was

Things kicked off *right after* the US markets closed. So the global markets are pretty much off while all this goes on, minimizing negative impact.

That's great.

[GreyICE]

The US is saying that it supports democracy in Turkey. Which is a pleasant way of saying "welp, whatever happens happens, just have elections soon". I guess technically it's not support for the coup, but it's flat out not support for Erdogan which might as well be "go fuck yourself" here.

[zoraster]

Turkish Intelligence reporting that the coup is repelled, but who knows how true that is.

[GreyICE]

Meh, that's slightly more reliable than Bagdad Bob.

[zoraster]

Yeah. That was actually the first thing that occurred to me as well.

[mykonian]

While it's still confusing, both sides want to claim to be ahead, or a victory even. Erdogan+party need the people behind them. They however, won't support a losing cause. Momentum is everything, and the initial response matters. Literally every news like that you'd have to take with a grain of salt.

[Drench]

stunning to witness the quality of greyice's posting here

[Zulfy]

I think it failed.

[Randomnamechange]

I'm just worried about the Islamist opportunism.

It failed

[wgeurts]

So now the question is whether all these men are going to get the death sentence for treason or not. Don't know if that's a thing in Turkey