breaking news: Army coup in Turkey ... failed, officers fled to Greece

[Todd]

Should we start a pool on the number of executions to come?  We could divide them into summary, show trial, and proper due process categories. 

[Florestan]

Should we start a pool

Pool or poll? 

I´d say not a single one. Erdogan needs NATO just as badly as NATO needs Erdogan. 

[Todd]

I´d say not a single one.

So you're leaning toward summary and secret.

(If executions limit NATO participation, how can the US stay in?)

[Florestan]

So you're leaning toward summary and secret.

(If executions limit NATO participation, how can the US stay in?)

You don´t shoot anyone, we stay in Incirlik.

Shoot somebody and we´re out, deal with Putin on your own.

[Ken B]

Turkey will never join the EU.

I hear there's an opening.

[Todd]

Shoot somebody and we´re out, deal with Putin on your own.

That would be an empty threat.  The US Navy needs access to the Black Sea for strategic reasons and the USAF relies heavily on Incirlik Air Base.  I think if Erdogan acts rashly and knocks off a few coup plotters, the US will issue stiffly worded memoranda, a few politicians may make mildly bold public statements, and there will be talk about restructuring some of the economic arrangements the two governments have in place. 

[Ken B]

You don´t shoot anyone, we stay in Incirlik.

Shoot somebody and we´re out, deal with Putin on your own.

Erdogan will not have quite carte Blanche, but a few dozen executions will cause no real repercussions from the Obama administration. As Todd says, a few pro forma expressions of disapproval.

[Florestan]

That would be an empty threat.  The US Navy needs access to the Black Sea for strategic reasons and the USAF relies heavily on Incirlik Air Base.  I think if Erdogan acts rashly and knocks off a few coup plotters, the US will issue stiffly worded memoranda, a few politicians may make mildly bold public statements, and there will be talk about restructuring some of the economic arrangements the two governments have in place.

Erdogan will not have quite carte Blanche, but a few dozen executions will cause no real repercussions from the Obama administration. As Todd says, a few pro forma expressions of disapproval.

Oh, I agree.  A few rash shootings might take place, but no more than that.

[Eli]

What a listless coup. If you're gambling with your lives you might as well make a decent effort.

[Florestan]

More than 2,700 judges deposed and arrested???

Where are you now, you effing idiot John McCain?  This could not happen in Romania in a thousand years...

[Sergeant Rock]

More than 2,700 judges deposed and arrested???

Yeah, Erdogen wins...and democracy loses.

Sarge

[Florestan]

Erdogen wins...and democracy loses.

Really? Isn´t a military coup d´etat supposed to be the very contrary of a democracy? 

(for the record: rhetoric and irony, just in case...)

[Florestan]

Rumor has it that it was actually a fake coup, orchestrated by Erdogan himself...

Just reporting... 

[Ken B]

More than 2,700 judges deposed and arrested???

Where are you now, you effing idiot John McCain?  This could not happen in Romania in a thousand years...

Ich verstehe nicht wass dies hat mit McCain zu tun.

Blame any errors on autocorrect 

[Scion7]

" Turkish Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen, pictured at his residence in Saylorsburg, Pa., is charged in Turkey with plotting to overthrow the government. (AP)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on the U.S. Saturday to extradite a Muslim cleric living in Pennsylvania following a failed military coup.

In a televised speech, Erdogan said Turkey had never refused any request by the U.S. to extradite "terrorists" and invoked Washington and Ankara's relationship as "strategic partners" in an effort to force the return of Fethullah Gulen.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday the Obama administration would entertain an extradition request but Turkey would have to prove wrongdoing by Gulen.

Gulen denied knowledge of the coup to reporters at his Pennsylvania compound Saturday. The cleric said that he knows only a "minute fraction" of his legions of sympathizers in Turkey, so he cannot speak to their "potential involvement" in the takeover attempt.

"You can think about many motivations of people who staged this coup. They could be sympathizers of the opposition party. They could be sympathizers of the nationalist party. It could be anything," Gulen, who has lived in the U.S. for more than 15 years, said through an interpreter.

The frail-looking Gulen, in his mid-70s, said he wouldn't have returned to Turkey even if the coup had succeeded, fearing he would be "persecuted and harassed." "

[vandermolen]

My Turkish friend in Ankara believes that things will get worse now. She says that it is the end of the Turkish Republic and the regime will now become increasingly repressive. Was this a fake coup?

[Todd]

The stiffly worded diplomatic admonitions have started.  EU membership might be at stake.  (How much do Turk leaders really want that?)  And it is too soon to know if Turkey's NATO membership is at risk.  That's pretty tough diplomatic talk.  I wonder if Erdogan will push back by threatening, publicly or privately, to kill the refugee deal with European powers. 

[Florestan]

The worst fears are confirmed. Erdogan lost any trace of whatever reason he might have still had and turned into a mad dog.

It is obvious that Turkey is today a full-fledged dictatorship in all but name. Thousands of army officers, judges, prosecutors and civil servants are fired and / or arrested. The media are tightly controlled by the government. The "opposition parties" are conspicuously silent and their leaders probably (and reasonably) fear for their own lives. The secular and liberal Turkish people are conspicuously silent and passive (remember the massive Taksim protests just a few years ago?). And what is most surprising, saddening and dangerous of all, the Turkish army is being decapitated and humiliated publicly without issuing even a formal protest, and their morale is probably at its historical lowest.

It is equally obvious that the real coup has been orchestrated long ago and conducted for years by none other than Erdogan himself and his acolytes --- a slow-motion, step-by-step, quiet but all the more effective coup against the modern, secular Turkish Republic, which today can be safely pronounced officially dead. Mustafa Kemal must be rolling in his grave: his work is undone beyond repair.

The biggest problem is that, militarily speaking, Turkey is de facto already out of NATO. Only a naive can think that a decapitated, humiliated, confused military, whose high ranks officers are arrested by the thousands without any resistance or formal protest can still succesfully fulfil their NATO missions and objectives. Add to this the hesitations and the (not so) latent Rusophilia of Bulgaria and it leaves Romania as the only reliable and dedicated NATO member at the Black Sea. Unfortunately, our military capacity, especially that of our Navy´s, is absolutely no match for Russia´s. In just 72 hours the Black Sea has became the most vulnerable and dangerous NATO border.

[Ken B]

The worst fears are confirmed. Erdogan lost any trace of whatever reason he might have still had and turned into a mad dog.

It is obvious that Turkey is today a full-fledged dictatorship in all but name. Thousands of army officers, judges, prosecutors and civil servants are fired and / or arrested. The media are tightly controlled by the government. The "opposition parties" are conspicuously silent and their leaders probably (and reasonably) fear for their own lives. The secular and liberal Turkish people are conspicuously silent and passive (remember the massive Taksim protests just a few years ago?). And what is most surprising, saddening and dangerous of all, the Turkish army is being decapitated and humiliated publicly without issuing even a formal protest, and their morale is probably at its historical lowest.

It is equally obvious that the real coup has been orchestrated long ago and conducted for years by none other than Erdogan himself and his acolytes --- a slow-motion, step-by-step, quiet but all the more effective coup against the modern, secular Turkish Republic, which today can be safely pronounced officially dead. Mustafa Kemal must be rolling in his grave: his work is undone beyond repair.

The biggest problem is that, militarily speaking, Turkey is de facto already out of NATO. Only a naive can think that a decapitated, humiliated, confused military, whose high ranks officers are arrested by the thousands without any resistance or formal protest can still succesfully fulfil their NATO missions and objectives. Add to this the hesitations and the (not so) latent Rusophilia of Bulgaria and it leaves Romania as the only reliable and dedicated NATO member at the Black Sea. Unfortunately, our military capacity, especially that of our Navy´s, is absolutely no match for Russia´s. In just 72 hours the Black Sea has became the most vulnerable and dangerous NATO border.

This is all convincing, except the mad dog part. He is quite sane and calculating. He wants an Islamic republic, and is building one, to the applause of Obama and most of the western leaders. I see the same fools making the same error they made during "Arab Spring".