[JohnStrange]

The coup was a last chance effort. Now Turkey has become a totalitarian dictatorship, there is no doubt about that. To be more precise, it already lost its status as democracy years ago when Erdogan had hundreds of prosecutors and policemen fired who dared to investigate corruption within his family.

But with the latest purges you've got to wonder where they want to get the replacements from. Any sane person will probably try to leave the country rather than being clubbed to death by AKP fans.

Moral of the story: NEVER trust or vote for a party that has the word "justice" in its name.

[James001]

The coup was never real to begin with. There have been so many holes in this narrative that it's like swiss cheese. Why did the military not fire on Erdogan when he was in their sights? Why did Erdogan even risk flying into Istanbul when he knew there would've been a significant chance of being shot down? The answer of course is that he knew there was no risk cause it was a fake coup to begin with.

[busterarm]

He wanted to consolidate his power and it was a really smart and ruthless move.

It kind of shuts down the potential for any real coup to happen.

[mtgx]

It probably will, but at the same time I also feel that these moves are "too sudden". Too many people are left without a job and hating Erdogan. And now they can organize. Unless Erdogan intends to kill them all, too, before they do that.

Putin did all of this on a much slower timescale, and gave the society time to adapt. Erdogan is not doing that. He's taking all the power all at once, and throwing out all the opposition out all at once, too.

This might backfire badly, although the "failed coup" certainly gives him a break to do all this, while the rest of the "normal" population is left confused and not knowing what to do and who to support next.

By the way, what's happening in Turkey is also an excellent real-world example of this:

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

That's why the "failed coup" was so critical in allowing him to do all of this. Even if there would've been some of those "good people" that would've opposed him (although not that much evidence of that in the past few years, it would seem), they are now paralyzed by this event.

Still, I believe that that this purge is way too sudden and way too large to not have an "opposite and equal reaction" coming back at Erdogan. But it may take a while to happen.

[busterarm]

I'd love to think that but I am also skeptical.

I've met a lot of Turkish students in New York over the last 10 years who have absolutely no plans to go back to their country ever.

The friends I had growing up whose parents were Turkish diplomats all have no plans to go back (their parents/family included) and from what I heard most of their colleagues found ways to stay as well.

I think many who would react are finding ways to leave instead.

[lettergram]

Perhaps in the short term.

The military in Turkey has been infiltrated for decades, but I'm sure some of the military are now just biding there time. It wouldn't be hard for even a few lone actors to take out the president. AKA two jet pilots and an informant.

[James001]

It was very Machiavellian.

Unfortunate that we're just hearing crickets on the international level though. It's a damn shame that a systematic rebuke of Erdogan's official narrative isn't anywhere in the mainstream media.

[mikeash]

This seems a little too conspiracy-ish to me. My feeling (and I am clueless and so probably wrong) is that the coup was real, but compromised from the start. The government knew it was coming, infiltrated it, and ensured it wouldn't pose a danger, but at its core I think it was real.

I guess that line gets blurry, anyway. If you find someone with a legitimate grievance and then encourage them to rebel and give them support, is that real or fake?

[shkkmo]

>If you find someone with a legitimate grievance and then encourage them to rebel and give them support, is that real or fake?

According to the FBI, that would be real.

[mikeash]

That same thought passed through my mind while writing my comment.

[ihsw]

One could say that Erdogan would be satisfied with martyring himself (Islamist to the end), but I highly doubt that. He believes he is Turkey and that it cannot stand on its own two feet without him, so I don't think he would risk his life intentionally.

Now he is digging his heels in.

[Jerry2]

>or vote

In a dictatorship, it doesn't even matter who you vote for because the results can be falsified. Last Turkish election was stolen by Erdogan's AKP. And no one in western media said anything about it.

Erik Meyersson, prof at Stockholm School of Economics, did the analysis of turkish election data and he found the evidence of falsification:

https://erikmeyersson.com/2015/11/04/digit-tests-and-the-pec...

[karyon]

as i read it, not exactly evidence but rather strong hints. from the article: "evidence that would be consistent with widespread voting manipulation, not proof of it", also he makes two assumptions and adds "If any of these assumptions are violated, then the difference in last digit distributions is not informative of voting manipulation."

[hx87]

> totalitarian

Probably the most misused term/epithet in international relations. At its worst Turkey is no more repressive than Russia or China and less repressive than Iran. Once you use "totalitarian" to describe authoritarian regimes, you run out of room to describe those that actually qualify as totalitarian, such as North Korea or Eritrea.

[dragonwriter]

> At its worst Turkey is no more repressive than Russia or China

This is what is called "setting the bar so low that a mouse could trip over it."

[hx87]

This is totalitarianism we're talking about, so the bar has to be very low. Otherwise you're classifying Imperial Germany and Nazi Germany in the same state-repression category, which is ludicrous.

[morgante]

I don't think anyone claims Russia or China are democratic. Nor are we planning to add them to the EU or NATO anytime soon.

[hx87]

Democracy and levels of state repression being orthogonal notwithstanding, not being democratic (or a EU/NATO candidate) does not imply that a state is totalitarian.

[rjbwork]

> Nor are we planning to add them to the EU or NATO anytime soon.

Well, neither is on the North Atlantic or in Europe.

Okay well, Russia sort of is, but...

[morgante]

Russia has just as much claim to being European as Turkey does.

[venomsnake]

Sort of? European Russia with Ukraine and Belarus is almost as big as the rest of europe combined

[bordercases]

"Very totalitarian" vs "somewhat totalitarian".

[hx87]

> "somewhat totalitarian"

There's already a term for that. Authoritarian.

[heliumcraft]

This happened before in Iran's revolution, School Deans, and even Hospital Directors were replaced by pro-revolution islamists regardless of education or qualifications. We might see Turkey transform itself into what Iran became. After this they need a War (a la Iraq-Iran war) to keep people distracted and then the changes will be permanent.

[hx87]

The problem with that plan is that Turkey has only one equal on its borders (Iran), and cooking up a cassus belli (supporting the Rojava Kurds & the Syrian government...?) there isn't going to be easy. Everyone else is either friendly (Azerbaijan), an overmatch (Russia & NATO), or a pushover but with overmatching alliances (Armenia & Syria).

I suppose they'll have to settle for a Kurdish insurgency...

[heliumcraft]

There's Syria/ISIS next door, we'll see. Some military interventions and a lot of TV fear propaganda would do the job.

[busterarm]

They have some territorial disputes with Greece and an extant DMZ in Cyprus.

[nkrisc]

There's still Syria.

[lossolo]

> NEVER trust or vote for a party that has the word "justice" in its name.

You are so right on this. Last elections in Poland (EU member) were won by "Law and Justice" party and it is authoritarian party.

[mtgx]

> NEVER trust or vote for a party that has the word "justice" in its name.

Also see Poland's "Justice" Party. Almost the same story there, too.

Not a scientific experiment by any means, but I've also noticed that leaders who have been lawyers, also tend to presume themselves "above the law", and they usually try to interpret the law to suit them.

This might be because from their point of view the "law" is not something set in stone, and therefore being a "criminal" is all "relative". That law can be changed on a whim. And they've been dealing with legal loopholes their whole careers as well. Knowing that, they can probably excuse various crimes much more easily in their heads.

[blahi]

It wasn't any last chance. It was obviously staged.

[yeukhon]

Well, then why didn't Turkish people join the coup? The coup lost all of its momentum when people started marching on the street. Perhaps next time they should consider assassination over a military take-over when all of the top military officials have been replaced by the President several years ago.

Look at Syria. The civil war is still on-going. This is not Thailand. There is no King / Emperor to bless.

[darkhorn]

It is thought that the coup was planned for few or several weeks later. They learn that the prosecuter is close to the end. Coup members immediatly come to their work, leaving their holiday or annual leaves. They start to prepare for the coup. At 15:00 or 16:00 central inntelligence learns that something is going on due to a leaker. At 18:00 military meeting and intelligance agree to close the airspace. At 21:00 or 22:00 coup starts beacause they are known. The actual plan was for 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. And you know the rest, FaceTime, insider (pro-government) military members, starting too early due to a leak etc made it uncessfull coup.

The coup members execute the constitional military idioligy/law of the Turkish military, that is to prevent both ousider and insider enemies. Here insiders are islamic nuts. Take control, establish Ataturk's 6 (iirc) main points; united republic, secularism, Turkish state, etc. Then they leave. Thece principle are almost same as modern western priciples in ethnic countries like Spain or France, but not like Switzerland or UK.

Sadly Turkey is not only geographically between Europe and Middle East but also idiologically. Ataturk was from Europe. AKP supporters are from eastern parts of the country.

http://theataturksocietyofcanada.ca/mka/revolutions/ataturks...

[imartin2k]

Do we know that the Kemalist sections of the military participated in the coup? I have not read anything about it. These would be the only ones who would care enough to follow the "protect secularism against islamists" protocol. If the initiators were, as being reported, related to the Gülen movement, then they are religious nuts as well, and what they cared about was simply to bring Gülen in power.

Related: These tweets by Turkish journalist https://twitter.com/ikoker/status/755104366235901952

[blahi]

I suggest listening to this great talk by Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World.

https://pulsemedia.org/2009/02/02/aldous-huxley-the-ultimate...

edit:

>Perhaps next time they should consider assassination

Perhaps you should consider the possibility that this coup was staged by Erdogan himself in order to purge all critically thinking people in prominent positions.

[walru]

There are some recent parallels to your opening paragraph that feel deafening...