Turkey

[zoogs]

Taking a break from our scheduled entertainment programming, ...

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/22/biggest-witch-hunt-turkish-history-coup-erdogan-europe-help

 

 

 

Lists of all sorts of “dissenters”, not just journalists, circulated immediately. Nearly 60,000 people – including 10,000 police officers, 3,000 judges and prosecutors, more than 15,000 educationists, and all the university deans in the country – have either been detained or fired, and the numbers are growing daily. Torture, banned since the military coup of 1980, has resurfaced. A campaign has been launched to revive the death penalty, which was abolished in 2002. It is the biggest witch-hunt in the history of the republic.

 

[huKSer]

Sadly, do or do not there is no try

[Creighton Duke]

It is a very unfortunate situation. Erdogan orchestrated these events in order to get ride of all dissenters as he attempts to revive traditional, non-secular principles into the Turkish governing and cultural landscapes. Interestingly, the U.S. is "friends" with regimes who undertake such measures and "supports" the existing regime/leaders, even though the U.S. did the exact opposite during the Arab Spring (supporting fundamentalist heavy coups, protests, etc.)

[ZRod]

Duke I'm sure you know that Turkey is of very important strategic/political value to us and NATO. That makes this situation a little different and more delicate than the Arab Spring.

[Creighton Duke]

^^^

That's a very good point that opens up a couple of new questions:

 

1. Should NATO allow non-secular member nations?

2. Should the U.S. reassess its involvement with NATO (we are seeing a lot of conversations related to this topic with Trump)?

[ZRod]

1. A very good question. This seems to be a very rare, but important case for why we shouldn't exclude non-secular countries. I don't agree with those policies, but Turkey is a region we need on our side for multiple reason. They hold a key passage to the black sea if we were ever engaged with Russia. They house some of our nukes. They have our advanced radar for detecting ICBM launches. They allow us to have airbases to conduct our missions in the war on terror.

 

2. I'm not going to pretend like I know enough right now to speak to this. I think we still need NATO, especially with Putin's Russia, but that doesn't mean things don't need revamping from time to time.

[84HuskerLaw]

I wonder if the failed coup (perhaps it has not failed yet ?) was a reaction to impending draconian crack down by the existing government/leader? If they saw this radical action arresting and or killing many thousands, this was no small band of a handful of dissenters obviously. Turkey is in deep trouble and so is NATO frankly. I am sorry but once again it all comes back around to Obama, Hillary and Company. All this unrest, instability and civil uprising across the entire Muslim world is the result of a failure of leadership and proactive involvement in the right ways by the US and our major allies. These countries require maximum hands on assistance and steering to help keep peace and order amongst an otherwise historically violent and turbulent people. Stable governance has ONLY existed for sporadic periods in the past 1000 plus years. For hundreds of years, these people have known only violent oppressive regimes (ala Machiavelli's The Prince). It will take generations of people living under struggling forms of quasi democratic rule to develop the kind of public support and respect for law and order and the rule of reasonable laws before these countries will become self sustaining. American leadership (very active, public and non-stop) is absolutely required. We cannot simply stand back and watch from the other side of the planet. Sadly, I believe Obama and Hillary have orchestrated some of this 'unrest' and the overthrow of these regimes - clearly ignorant of the consequences and without a plan for what follows. Democracy and (liberalism in the sense that Democrats tend to use the term) cannot happen without strong government controls as many of the prescriptions are contrary to freedom and independence. Currently, we are seeing the unrest and instability on a much lesser scale of course in America. Disrespect for the rule of law and the obvious application of two standards of 'justice' (one for the political class and one for the average folk) is growing across the country. I am very concerned as to how we put this genie back in the bottle once it has been loosed.

[ZRod]

Turkey has had 6 coups/attempted coups in the last 66 years, and 4 or so more since the early 19th century. I would hardly say you could lay any of the blame at the feet of the sitting US President at the time. It's just an aspect of the region and culture.

 

*edited for clarity*

[zoogs]

Turkey has had 6 coups/attempted coups in the last 66 years, and 4 or so more since the early 19th century. I would hardly say you could lay any of the blame at the feet of the sitting president at the time. It's just an aspect of the region and culture.

 

It took me a while, but then I realized you were talking about the sitting U.S. president.

 

Because there is actually an argument that it's his fault there was a coup against Turkey's president.

[ZRod]

 

Turkey has had 6 coups/attempted coups in the last 66 years, and 4 or so more since the early 19th century. I would hardly say you could lay any of the blame at the feet of the sitting president at the time. It's just an aspect of the region and culture.

 

It took me a while, but then I realized you were talking about the sitting U.S. president.

 

Because there is actually an argument that it's his fault there was a coup against Turkey's president.

Yeah. Sorry hahaha! Trying to make it short and sweet on my phone.

[huKSer]

I wonder if the failed coup (perhaps it has not failed yet ?) was a reaction to impending draconian crack down by the existing government/leader? If they saw this radical action arresting and or killing many thousands, this was no small band of a handful of dissenters obviously. Turkey is in deep trouble and so is NATO frankly. I am sorry but once again it all comes back around to Obama, Hillary and Company. All this unrest, instability and civil uprising across the entire Muslim world is the result of a failure of leadership and proactive involvement in the right ways by the US and our major allies. These countries require maximum hands on assistance and steering to help keep peace and order amongst an otherwise historically violent and turbulent people. Stable governance has ONLY existed for sporadic periods in the past 1000 plus years. For hundreds of years, these people have known only violent oppressive regimes (ala Machiavelli's The Prince). It will take generations of people living under struggling forms of quasi democratic rule to develop the kind of public support and respect for law and order and the rule of reasonable laws before these countries will become self sustaining. American leadership (very active, public and non-stop) is absolutely required. We cannot simply stand back and watch from the other side of the planet. Sadly, I believe Obama and Hillary have orchestrated some of this 'unrest' and the overthrow of these regimes - clearly ignorant of the consequences and without a plan for what follows. Democracy and (liberalism in the sense that Democrats tend to use the term) cannot happen without strong government controls as many of the prescriptions are contrary to freedom and independence. Currently, we are seeing the unrest and instability on a much lesser scale of course in America. Disrespect for the rule of law and the obvious application of two standards of 'justice' (one for the political class and one for the average folk) is growing across the country. I am very concerned as to how we put this genie back in the bottle once it has been loosed.

 

I wonder if the failed coup (perhaps it has not failed yet ?) was a reaction to impending draconian crack down by the existing government/leader? If they saw this radical action arresting and or killing many thousands, this was no small band of a handful of dissenters obviously. Turkey is in deep trouble and so is NATO frankly.

 

I am sorry but once again it all comes back around to Obama, Hillary and Company. All this unrest, instability and civil uprising across the entire Muslim world is the result of a failure of leadership and proactive involvement in the right ways by the US and our major allies. These countries require maximum hands on assistance and steering to help keep peace and order amongst an otherwise historically violent and turbulent people.

 

Stable governance has ONLY existed for sporadic periods in the past 1000 plus years. For hundreds of years, these people have known only violent oppressive regimes (ala Machiavelli's The Prince). It will take generations of people living under struggling forms of quasi democratic rule to develop the kind of public support and respect for law and order and the rule of reasonable laws before these countries will become self sustaining. American leadership (very active, public and non-stop) is absolutely required. We cannot simply stand back and watch from the other side of the planet.

 

Sadly, I believe Obama and Hillary have orchestrated some of this 'unrest' and the overthrow of these regimes - clearly ignorant of the consequences and without a plan for what follows. Democracy and (liberalism in the sense that Democrats tend to use the term) cannot happen without strong government controls as many of the prescriptions are contrary to freedom and independence. Currently, we are seeing the unrest and instability on a much lesser scale of course in America. Disrespect for the rule of law and the obvious application of two standards of 'justice' (one for the political class and one for the average folk) is growing across the country. I am very concerned as to how we put this genie back in the bottle once it has been loosed.

[funhusker]

^^^I thought you were actually responding to him and read your post without reading Huskerlaw84's first (for obvious reasons). Only after reading ALL of your version, huKSer, I thought to myself, "wow, what did 84 write to get that response?". So I started to read his....

 

Huskerlaw84, please take that as anecdotal evidence that people don't necessarily disregard your posts because of the content.