All hail the Sultan almighty!

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Oh the irony...

If it hasn't become patently obvious by now what Erdogan has been after in the wake of the purported "coup" (which most people, both within Turkey itself and abroad now seem to be convinced was a false flag, intended to untie Erdogan's hands for a mega-crackdown), then I don't know when it would.

Oh, and it has all started unraveling pretty fast, eh?...

Pro-government mobs attack religious minorities in Turkey

Seems like there are no limits to Erdogan's atrocities after the coup. Now he feels strong, great, awesome, almighty. And he's not afraid of anything. How would he? He has the support of his people. They were seen in the streets chanting his name, after all.

The suspicion that something's not right here is increasing. The unpleasant impression that the public has been fooled yet again, too. The amateurish coup attempt in Turkey (thousands of people have simultaneously conspired, and no leak has happened from any of them? come on!) was squashed like a bug by the valiant Turkish people. Well, at least those who support Dear Leader. And now it's time for the Sultan's wrath that will befall all his enemies, and those who disagree with him. Nobody is safe. Anyone he doesn't like could be targeted.

He's removing everything from his way to ultimate power and glory. It's now becoming more evident by the hour that he was very prepared for all this. As he himself said, "This coup was a blessing from Allah - now we have an opportunity to cleanse our state, and purge our military". How nice. He's not even trying to conceal his true intentions. Nobody seems to be speaking about the people's interests, or about democracy any more. Although the word "democracy" used to be part of the pro-Erdogan rhetoric initially. Now it's all about vendetta, revenge.

What's happening in Turkey right now very much resembles the Night of the Long Knives. Nearly 30 thousand people have either been detained or fired: mostly judges (who were the biggest thorn in Erdogan's ass, because the judicial system was independent enough to try to prosecute him, his cronies and his relatives, for their corruption), and also military commanders, teachers, university deans (i.e. what was left of the intellectual secular elite). Now the road will be paved for an absolute autocracy with a strong theocratic scent. There's no one left to stop Erdogan.

He doesn't even need a parliament if "the people" are with him. At least that's what he believes. He's got the imams on his side. And he can finally start the transformation of Turkey: Ataturk's secular republic (he still has the audacity to keep Ataturk's portrait in his office) will be turned into Erdogan's autocracy. His personal domain. And Turkey will dismantle the political system it had established with so much blood, sweat and tears, and defended from infringements so fiercely. It'll also say goodbye to its EU aspirations, and its place in NATO would become problematic as well.

Now in hindsight, granted, the whole coup attempt looks rather farcical: the Turkish air force shelled the parliament, but somehow failed to find the place where Erdogan was spending time off; the wannabe conspirators took the national television, but not the private media; they couldn't cut the communication channels and staged their coup operetta at the wrong time: not in the early morning hours, when the city was sleeping, but late at night, when most people were at Istanbul's streets, starting their weekend. WTF.

Furthermore, the wannabe conspirators somehow let the president take off from his resort and reach Istanbul, although most air-force commanders were supposed to be part of the conspiracy. In Istanbul, Erdogan was met by his supporters, and the ordinary-rank soldiers were taken out of their barracks, believing all the time this was a drill. Is that how a military coup is done? Is that how all previous military coups in Turkey had been done? Hell no!

But let's not get too tinfoil-y. Let's just ask ourselves, is it normal that not a single Erdogan supporter could show up from among the top-rank conspirators - and this, after 12 years of continuous Erdogan purges of the military? ALL generals and officers were in on the conspiracy? Really!?

Furthermore, how reasonable is it to assume that the Turkish intelligence services had completely missed to detect the threat? How come just on the next morning after the coup attempt, the president already had a list of 3000+ names of judges at his disposal? Isn't that a bit strange?

All these questions having been asked, the big question now is, where to, now. Where is Turkey going from here? Of course, all of the above still doesn't mean Erdogan personally organized all this circus. But even if he didn't, he's now definitely using the situation to make his purge. To eliminate the judges and journalists who were still critical of him, and those who were still trying to defend the secular foundations of the Turkish republic, which he had been trying to undermine with every action of his for the last few years.

And while he's cleaning up his realm of the "virus", which very much reminds of the Stalinist purges from the 30s, Erdogan is demonstrating that he can no longer speak of democracy of any sort. He can no longer pretend he upholds Ataturk's idea of Turkey, and he no longer respects the constitution. Hey, he even wants to bring back the death penalty. And that's a huge problem for any EU aspirations.

So... Where to? Right now it seems extremely likely that Turkey is going fast towards an Erdogan Islamist autocracy. He'll be Sultan for life. The bad thing is, his dreams of limitless power are not just confined to Turkey - they have an international dimension. He's challenging his former allies, even the US, blackmailing his supposed partners to make concessions, threatening them with refugee floods, demanding the extradition of Fethullah Gulen without any viable proof of his guilt, just based on an assumption. He's blackmailing America with the Incirlik air base for that. He's overreaching, feeling strong, much stronger than he really is. He doesn't fear anything or anybody right now (maybe only Putin, but that's another topic). And this will backfire on him very badly in the end. It's what could even bring him down eventually. But in the meantime, all his neighbors, partners, allies, and all the groups he's targeting, should brace themselves for some unpleasant times.

Comments

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Bravo, Ma'am. Pretty much all of this.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

The lynch mobs came surprisingly fast, too. And in ways as cruel as probably only Middle Eastern mobs could invent.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

Oh, but Europe still has the moral obligation to accept Turkey within its ranks...




...Or maybe it doesn't.

[dreamville-bg.livejournal.com]

There's no one left to stop Erdogan

But Turkey can still have its popular democracy. RIGHT?

Looking forward to reports of those 99% approval ratings for dear leader.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

Mr. Erdogan seems willing to arrest as many of his political opponents as necessary to prove his democratic credentials.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Could we just nuke everything between the Maritsa and Indus rivers already?

I'm sure the glass industry would be ecstatic.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Only the lower Maritsa, I hope. I still care about my super-ancient city, and my life by extension.

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Gülen wouldn't venture with a military coup. His way of undermining Erdogan was more subtle, through the media and through various Islamic schools around the world and in Turkey (before the latter were shut down). It's kind of ironic that an Islamic cleric would want to defend secularism in Turkey, but there it is. It's just that Gülen is the last major obstacle to a full Erdogan dominance, and it's the hardest obstacle to be removed, since he's abroad, protected by his money and his huge financial empire, sitting comfortably in Pennsylvania. So that'll be Erdogan's last hurdle, and he'll stop at nothing to remove it.

As for the repressions inside Turkey, we haven't seen anything yet. It'll get much, much worse.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

Being next to Syria, and also on Putins bad side - probably gives him a little more wiggle room with most of the rest of the world. He can probably do a lot worse before having to worry about any backfire.

(The name doesn't hurt either - everyone loves turkey - baked, wild... - if his country ended in -stan, he'd be fucked)

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Yup.

Maybe, just maybe, for once in Boris's life, he may have been embarrassing for a cause or case later proven by Erdogan's behaviour. Even a stopped clock, etc.

I think satire, which seems to inflame Erdogan rather, may prove to be his opponent's strongest weapon until we decide something must be done. I fear there has to be a lot of hand wringing first, however.

And it's not as if it's a particularly difficult judgement call. (A bit like the IOC's.) So expect a lot of dithering and fudging and avoidance of the issues.

I suppose we all need get-out clauses. C'est la vie, c'est la guerre, c'est la pomme de terre...

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

This just in: Turkey to suspend European rights convention (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/the-latest-turkey-detains-more-judges-and-military-officers/2016/07/21/1602e72a-4f17-11e6-bf27-405106836f96_story.html).

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

These amateur plotters should've taken a lesson from my country's coup school book. We have 6 coups in our history, all of them flawlessly executed.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's better than a lot of countries do with elections. On the downside, this means y'all are a threat to democracy, and you know what that means.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Yep. We've been bombed by you before, and yet still here we are.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Saying it was a false flag tends to give this wannabe Mussolini too much credit. The attack may not have been but he had the purge planned for weeks and everything that spiraled out of it.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

In order to be a Mussolini, he needs a funny hat. Otherwise it won't work.