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After the coup, Turkey turns against America

• onlyjaness 10y ago
  Hiii can you share this video please !! #blacklivesmatter https://www.facebook.com/jenny.tate2/posts/1136727999718260 https://www.facebook.com/jenny.tate2/posts/1136727999718260 ️️ please help me spread the word!!
• Synaesthesia 10y ago
  The Turkish government needs to do this because the population generally has quite anti-US sentiments, and they are already vulnerable as the coup showed. Continuing to publically stand with the US would be politically very dangerous for them.
  • Asooka 10y ago
    I wonder what the other NATO members would think of their anti-US stance.
  • steve19 10y ago
    There publicly holding hands, and then there is accusing the US of plotting a coup. Between these two extremes is a vast middle ground they could occupy. If anything the government are fanning the flames, not the other way around. Shoot down a Russian plane and then months later accuse the USA of a plot while arresting thousands of judges ... I worry that this is all the start of something really, really terrible.
    • fit2rule 10y ago
      We've been in the middle of something really, really terrible, for rather a few decades, and are not really coherently dealing with it - in the 'royal we', as I personally can state my bit of it - very well. There is a big rush to try to get the world to peacefully co-exist, and technology is doing that. Seriously. At the head of all of the chaos of military action, is a technological breakthrough that cannot be weaponized. We're all still looking for it, because its in the mix, somewhere, but in the meantime: technology of death and warfare is way, way ahead of us. Quick, invent something socially amazing, that cannot be weaponized, and will get everyone - of any nation state and language and cultural background - working and playing and co-existing, together. Its really the only thing we can do while this crazy stuff goes down. Perhaps there is a new rule to be tested, which goes thus: "no two nations which had a functional Pokemon Go community ever went to war with each other" ...
      • TeMPOraL 10y ago
        > Quick, invent something socially amazing, that cannot be weaponized I'm not sure something like this exists even in theory. Except maybe a benevolent, friendly, superhuman AI that doesn't listen to us. Other than that it seems that absolutely everything can be weaponized. It seems to be a fundamental property of technology as a force multiplier. We call "technology" the things that we create that help people exert their will on the physical world - and violence is, in general, exerting your will against another person.
      • drjesusphd 10y ago
        > Quick, invent something socially amazing, that cannot be weaponized, and will get everyone - of any nation state and language and cultural background - working and playing and co-existing, together. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER
      • ivan_ah 10y ago
        What about free education for kids all over the world? (a standardized curriculum that avoids nationalism, that focusses on group work so students get to know ppl from other countries/cultures at a very early age)
        • wavefunction 10y ago
          How do we all agree on the subject matter when we're willing to kill over those exact beliefs?
  • pluma 10y ago
    It's posturing. The US is an easy target because there's no chance in hell the US and Turkey will go to war and Turkey is irrelevant enough to the US (and important enough as an ally to NATO and Europe) that Erdogan can be sure there will be no consequences. Meanwhile the US's apathy can be exploited for publicity by Erdogan and he can put Europe in a tough spot. The coup wasn't a big threat. Only a fraction of the military was mobilised, all important government officials were able to flee and he was able to turn the entire population against the military because both mosques and TV channels spread his propaganda. The military couldn't have followed through without creating a bloodbath that would have turned the populace even more against them. The coup had already failed the second Erdogan was able to escape.
    • ZanyProgrammer 10y ago
      "and important enough as an ally to NATO and Europe" I have to imagine at some point Europe will have had enough of Erdogan.
      • tremon 10y ago
        Europe will have to tolerate Erdogan until it starts reinvesting in its own military. Especially with the UK out of the picture, mainland Europe has very little military capability.
        • nwah1 10y ago
          The UK may be out of the EU, but that hardly means they'll look on collective European security matters with disinterest.
        • usrusr 10y ago
          Europe has been running a pretty sizable shared military investment programme, it's called Greece. One has to wonder how much of their crisis would be left without that NATO-internal arms race vs Turkey (and the cheering exporters in Germany and France who happily supplied both).
  • guard-of-terra 10y ago
    > because the population generally has quite anti-US sentiments Are you assuming that population spontaneously acquires "anti-US sentiments"? I would attribute it to some kind of propaganda campaign, therefore cause and effect will be switched.
    • tonyedgecombe 10y ago
      Or just maybe they have seen the outcome of two American wars on Islamic nations and reached their own conclusions?
      • knowaveragejoe 10y ago
        I imagine that plays a small role if any. Instead, it's a common trope in these countries to blame some external power for their problems - in other words, it's not always the US(though it certainly often is, considering how influential the country is).
• grp 10y ago
  I just finished reading last Chomsky book and that kind of post tastes so differently now. For example, that sentence is really strange: From the American perspective, Turkey has never been fully committed to the war against Islamist groups in Syria.
  • tomp 10y ago
    That is a strange statement. From my perspective, America hasn't been either (if anything, the opposite)!
    • grp 10y ago
      So I'm not the only to hallucinate? A few years ago, the goal was to make fall Bachar by any way, no? It's so sad that a Nobel Peace Prize has the worst foreign policy ever.
      • pluma 10y ago
        The US government stuck to the position of "Assad must go" way longer than reasonable. Russia had warned early on that displacing Assad would mean supporting the extremists even before ISIS/ISIL showed up in the media. Russia had obvious strategic reasons to support Assad but even to a neutral observer it should have been obvious supporting the rebels would be a bad idea as soon as the Islamists showed up and the dangerous consequences of the Arab Spring (i.e. destabilizing entire countries that were now democratically electing radical groups) became apparent.
      • ghostDancer 10y ago
        The Nobel Peace prizes have a long story of that, beginning with Kissinger. And the EU and USA have been always supporters of any dictator that could help them till they think it's more interesting to throw away and usually it ends with everything in the area being worse for the people that live there.
  • tim333 10y ago
    That's diplomatic speak for Turkey having been the biggest sponsor of ISIS.
• pluma 10y ago
  Although from an outside perspective a military coup seems completely undemocratic the Turkish military has historically had the role of maintaining the principles Atatürk founded the Turkish Republic on. You can think of them as a built-in correction mechanism in case the government veers too far off course -- they remove the government, reset everything to start and then hand over control back to the people once the situation is stable again. I strongly suggest reading the Wikipedia article on Kemalism (the principles of Atatürk for the Turkish Republic): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemalism Erdogan dreams of bringing Turkey back to its Ottoman glory and is willing to exploit religion (and abolish Laicism) to do so. I don't think he staged the failed coup himself but it is clear that he's benefited the most from it: He told the Turkish people to go out and stop the coup, risking their lives and knowing full well that the soldiers wouldn't massacre the civilians but creating an opportunity to make his supporters seem like a peaceful opposition to the "violent" military. He spread the narrative that the coup was staged not to defend Atatürk's principles but by a religious sect his ruling party fell out with. He used that narrative and the failed coup to get rid of thousands of educators, judges, officials and military officers (calling it a "purge" even). He's basically doing what he did before: eliminating all opposition to ensure his rise to permanent and unlimited power. Except because of the clever PR move of risking his citizens' lives he now has public support for his autocratic ambitions. Atatürk created a nation that should have been an inspiration to the entire Islamic world with a degree of secularism far outmatching that of many Christian nations. Instead Erdogan is heading full speed back into the dark ages of theocratic dictatorships. This is a political tragedy of disturbing proportions and a huge loss for Europe and the Middle East.
  • emilsedgh 10y ago
    Its not just Erdogan. People of Turkey seem to be supporters of this path. Although its very sad.
    • cdash 10y ago
      The people have always been supporters of this path. That is why the reset button had to keep on being pushed by the military.
• olympus 10y ago
  For the most part, America had nothing to do with the coup attempt and had no idea that it was about to happen. Honestly, the majority of Americans couldn't find Turkey on a map even if you centered the map on Turkey. However, I certainly wouldn't be surprised if a few CIA types provided assistance like they've been known (or suspected) to do in South America and other parts of the world. The US government clearly benefits from Turkey having a more secular government and Erdogan is moving the government towards more Islamic rule. So I'm just guessing that in a few weeks a classified document will be leaked that some portion of the US government was involved in the coup attempt and American citizens will all be embarrassed that we can't let other sovereign nations deal with their own business. I hope that it doesn't hurt our relations so much that it hurts any innocent civilians or that we restrict travel. I hear Turkey has some cool castles and is a very interesting place to visit. It's relatively inexpensive and I'd like to go there one day.
  • steve19 10y ago
    You need to make some incredible leaps to assume the USA would be backing a poorly organized coup against a very valuable, even vital, NATO ally. Knowing the CIA's recent performance, most likely they heard about it from watching Fox News.
    • olympus 10y ago
      Just like it would be silly to spy on ALL of our important NATO allies? Just because they are an ally doesn't mean that parts of the government wouldn't go through great lengths to get them to do more. They would risk a lot because as mentioned elsewhere in the comments it's not like we're going to go to war.
  • tim333 10y ago
    The coup attempt seemed shockingly incompetent for anything staged by the CIA. Also what would be the motivation?
    • pjc50 10y ago
      The history of CIA coup attempts is full of surprising incompetence. How many times did they attempt to assassinate Castro, for example?
• jkot 10y ago
  UK has two military bases at Cyprus.
  • pjc50 10y ago
    One of which borders the Turkish zone, although there is no chance of Turkey deciding that a war with the UK is a great idea.
• mtgx 10y ago
  The question is, will America turn against Turkey, too, or are the threats to exclude them out of NATO just empty ones? It will also be interesting to see if the EU will condemn this "democratic regime" they were so quick to defend after the coup.
  • pluma 10y ago
    The president of the European Parliament followed up his "we support the democratically elected government" tweet with another tweet condemning that same government's actions following the failed coup, so that already happened. I'm also not sure how realistic losing Turkey as a NATO member is. They are in a strategic position that makes it worth to put up with most of their nonsense.
    • karpodiem 10y ago
      They are well on their well to caliphate that will be a hotbed for anti-western sentiment/anti-secular sentiment, so I fail to see how they are a strategic partner.
      • caf 10y ago
        As long as they control the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus Strait their strategic position remains very valuable.
        • karpodiem 10y ago
          It's 2016 - Russia is not the enemy in a world of extremism. Granted you can legitimately harp on Russia for free speech/human rights abuses, but America is no shining example here either. America is fraying, because it's largely ruled by its own set of oligarchs and the marginalized populations are lashing out.
        • drjesusphd 10y ago
          This feels like Old World thinking.
• vaadu 10y ago
  What coup? This is looking more like the entire event was staged as a pretext for a complete takeover, similar to the Reichstag fire of 1930s Germany.
  • pluma 10y ago
    This is getting downvoted because it sounds like hyperbole, but the comparison is quite apt. The Reichstag fire was blamed on the communists by the nazi party to brand them as traitors much like the coup is being blamed on the Gulen movement (which had a fall out with the AKP, Erdogan's ruling party). All signs point to the coup not being related to the Gulen movement at all and a lot of Erdogan's actions post-coup have been publicly justified with allegations about the Gulen movement that are obviously blatant lies. Whether the coup itself was staged by Erdogan like the Reichstag fire was staged by the nazis is debatable. I personally think it was inevitable given the history of Turkey but it was carried out so incompetently and with little to no support from the military leadership that it's at least possible that it was intentionally made to happen the way it did (e.g. using agents provocateur to trigger the coup at a time when it was doomed to fail). I don't think the actual soldiers who carried out the coup were knowingly working for Erdogan, them simply being "useful idiots" is far more likely. Either way, if you ask "cui bono?" all answers point to Erdogan and the AKP.
    • finid 10y ago
      > I personally think it was inevitable given the history of Turkey but it was carried out so incompetently and with little to no support from the military leadership that it's at least possible that it was intentionally made to happen the way it did It's been reported that Turkish intelligence knew about it and did nothing.
      • afsina 10y ago
        Nope. According to news, they learned it several hours ago (around 4 pm) but information was quite limited. They did try taking preventive measures but failed to stop the coup (You can read one coup army officials statements on that). However, probably because of it coup started earlier than planned and it was one of the reasons of the failure.
• shabaan 10y ago
  Turkey has turned over hundreds of American citizens who were caught trying to cross over to Syria. This is due to the criminal exchange agreement. America like always, behaves as if no rules, no agreements, no pacts, no UN decisions matter to them. They are the big guys above everything. They denied handing the person accused of treason to Turkey. The title should be.. "This time its Turkey: America deceives... again"
  • somenomadicguy 10y ago
    Our agreement with Türkiye does not cover seekers of political asylum, especially when they are naturalized citizens. Don't get me wrong, Gülen is a very dangerous Islamist and I would love to see him in prison for his crimes in the US and his part in this coup, but he also has all of the same rights and protections of any other US citizen. We will be demonized for giving him the same due process that Turkish citizens will not receive in this witch hunt.
• dkural 10y ago
  You may find it informative to read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat#American_involvement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta... for some context.
• karpodiem 10y ago
  The Americans/Russians/Iranians should send him a cruise missle present. This is like Afghanistan in the 80s, all over again. We should have let the Russians keep them in check, and here we are, arming the wrong side the entire time. Good times.
• smegel 10y ago
  Turkey is a very dangerous country. It has a large and powerful military, it could probably take over half the middle East if it wanted, and big parts of Eastern Europe. It would also like to take a bite out of Russia if Putin didn't have thousands of nukes. Let's hope they sway back to a secular, moderate nation.
  • karpodiem 10y ago
    'It would also like to take a bite out of Russia if Putin didn't have thousands of nukes. Let's hope they sway back to a secular, moderate nation.' Yeah, no. Russian weapon systems are far more advanced than the stuff Turkey has, and they outnumber Turkey. Their best equipment is some F-16 stuff that would be vastly overwhelmed by the number of MiG-29/31BM's that Russia has.
    • codeduck 10y ago
      Russia has some of the best SAMs in the business. They don't need to use jets; Turkish F-16's wouldn't last long if Russia fired up their anti-aircraft systems and engaged.
      • VLM 10y ago
        The details that can be found on wikipedia are astounding. Across the board Turkey has a lot of 80s era gear that's been lightly upgraded over the years and generally the Russians have about 10x the quantity of 2000s to 2010s era gear. For example Turkey has 240 very theoretically active 80s era F-16 planes (how many are not deadlined / mission capable at this instant is a mystery, half maybe?) vs the Russian military theoretically has 1531 active 2000s and newer era SAM launchers. I mean obviously the Russians can not send every anti-aircraft unit they have to a skirmish with the Turks but its instructive that if they did, they'd have roughly 10 missile launchers fighting over the chance to fire on each target... Its a similar situation WRT armor. Turkey has about 400 1980s era Leopard tanks. Russia only has 2500 2000s+ era main battle tanks. Nobody is going to be rolling into the other side's capital any time soon. Also worth keeping in mind the Russians have some recent-ish real combat experience but the Turks only have experience trying to genocide Kurdish civilians.
• bovermyer 10y ago
  Turkey is strategically valuable enough that I doubt much is going to change on a macro scale. Both sides will be cranky at each other for awhile, deals will be made, and everything will more or less go back to "normal." It's like how no one is willing to take care of the North Korea problem because leaving it alone is less of a headache than the alternative.
  • ryanackley 10y ago
    I don't agree. When Turkey (unapologetically) shot down the Russian jet it put a serious strain on relations with the USA because they are a NATO member. It's like when the biggest kid on the playground has your back but you go around getting yourself in trouble constantly. I think this is the latest in a successive displays of megolomania by Erdogan. The public perception of Turkey has shifted.
  • acjohnson55 10y ago
    What would taking care of the North Korea problem look like? Land invasion? We did that; it ended in a stalemate, and the circumstances of that result haven't really changed. Turkey should be concerned about whether its strategic value still exists as such. We could probably live without them in the post-Soviet world. They are certainly extremely useful to have in the fold, but Erdoğan should take care not to assume they're indispensable.
    • argonaut 10y ago
      Errr... The US was fighting China in the Korean War. And the US military was not yet the undisputed global military superpower it is today. A land invasion of North Korea would almost certainly be successful, the casualties and cost is the unacceptable part.
      • pluma 10y ago
        Depends on how you define success. Officially Afghanistan and Iraq were successes, but the messy "post-war" situation in Iraq was a major factor to the strength of ISIS. Modern warfare really seems to be less about the actual war and more about post-war occupation.
• venomsnake 10y ago
  In the last 24 hours - decapitation of the educational system (thank god, so far figuratively), cases of book burning - video is going viral as we speak, limitation of free travel of scientists, crackdown (even more) on media. We are getting a dictatorship evolving in real time. If you are in the Balkans and hope that NATO will protect you - France and UK betrayed Czechoslovakia and Poland pre WWII and it has never been tested if US will go to war for its NATO obligations over the smaller countries.
  • tremon 10y ago
    NATO didn't exist pre-WWII.
    • venomsnake 10y ago
      NATO has also never been really tested. We don't know if the US won't chicken out.
  • rasz_pl 10y ago
    then there is this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
• tim333 10y ago
  Turkey seems to be turning against american values too with the recent "Turkey bans all academics from travel" announcement. It's like something out of Stalinist Russia.
  • secfirstmd 10y ago
    I'm very pro-American in general but dislike the "American values" statement. Which values are they? Freedom, Rule of Law and Democracy? or torture in Guantanamo, invasion of Iraq based on complete BS reasons resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians, support of the Saudi Regime, thousands of citizens dieing from stupid gun laws, probable genocide of the original Native American population, Agent Orange, support for apartheid during most of it's time, lack of healthcare for the poor, support for rightwing Israeli policy, de facto not giving a crap about climate change, mass surveillance etc etc.
    • joesmo 10y ago
      If the world was an action movie, America would definitely be one of the big bad guys in it. It's time for Americans to realize they are not the good guys in this story, that they haven't been the good guys since the 1940's, and that the only idiots that think Americans are the good guys in this hypothetical movie are stupid, ignorant Americans. The rest of us Americans are disgusted at what is and has happened in our names and by the many vile actions of our country.
      • hx87 10y ago
        If the world was an action movie, there would be no heroes, period.
    • tim333 10y ago
      Fair enough, you have some points there.
• dzmien 10y ago
  Could someone paste the article to a paste bin, or instruct me on how to read the article for free? Evidently I've read too many articles on economist.com without a subscription, and they won't let me view this one without paying for it.
  • theGREENsuit 10y ago
    http://pastebin.com/VwepJ966 http://pastebin.com/VwepJ966
• shimonamit 10y ago
  The U.S. stores nukes in Turkey as part of the NATO deterrence strategy. During the coup the Turkish authorities were quick to siege the military base supposedly hosting the nukes. From CNN: > Turkish authorities encircled the base, cut off the power > supply and temporary closed the airspace around Incirlik > as they fought off the coup launched on Friday. http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/19/politics/us-nuclear-weapons-turkey-attempted-coup/index.html http://edition.cnn.com/2016/07/19/politics/us-nuclear-weapon...
• puppetmaster3 10y ago
  To add color, here Turks boo moment of silence for French victims: - http://tinyurl.com/zdht2aq http://tinyurl.com/zdht2aq
  • exodust 10y ago
    One theory goes that the recent bombings in Turkey were not honored by the UEFA with the same silence. Crowd felt it unjustly? And so what if they shout allu-akbah? Isn't it allowed at football to inspire winning the great match? Terrorists surely don't own the usage rights of allahu akbar. It's not audible anyway on videos.
• imglorp 10y ago
  If it's true this time, it wouldn't be too surprising. http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/20/mapped-the-7-governments-the-u-s-has-overthrown/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/08/20/mapped-the-7-governments...
• ghostDancer 10y ago
  Erdogan will push anti-american and anti-european feelings cause it's always a good thing for dictators to look like the victims. They look like being attacked from outside so they can purge and get the nationalist feeling up, they are the saviors and defenders of the state and the pride. Basic dictatorship 101
  • pluma 10y ago
    Well, so far he can point at: * the US because of Gulen * Europe because ... whatever * Germany because of satire * Russia because of border violations * Syria because of Assad That's quite a list. No wonder he has so much public support -- the entire world seems out to ruin Turkey.
• woodpanel 10y ago
  Honestly, I wonder whats been taking so long for US leadership to understand that Erdogan has never been fond of Turkey being part "the west". According to Erdogan, "crimes against humanity" are things like "Zionism" (or Israel) or "Turkish emmigrants integrating into [German] society" while the Sudanese president (acutally convicted for crimes against humanity) is not, because he's a muslim. Also the Armenian Genocide isn't one, nor the one against the Kurds. The EU is a "christian club" which is why "Turkey should stay out of it". The two predecessors of his Party AKP were both outlawed and deemed unconstitutional because of such traits like sympathizing with jihadism. Quite an impressive CV for an "ally".
• jbmorgado 10y ago
  Oh nice. The white European blaming is already starting. Let's forget that the majority of Turks elected a half-mad men that bases his discourse in the superiority of Islam and in the ethnical cleansing of Kurdistan. Let's forget that Erdogan supported the Islamic state. Let's forget that the Turks re-elected him after all this. Let's forget all these pro-Erdogan demonstrations going on in the streets of Ankara and Istambul right now, just as the guy wants to re-implement capital punishment and is sacking judges, deans, policeman and military as he pleases. Let's forget that Erdogan is bombing the only guys that are opposing the Islamic State in the field right this moment. No, let's instead do what all the cool kids do and blame the West. Cause you know... in the end, it's always the West that must get to be blamed for all evils of the world.
  • vixen99 10y ago
    As declaimed by Royce Mann http://www.vox.com/2016/7/16/12184772/white-boy-privilege-royce-mann http://www.vox.com/2016/7/16/12184772/white-boy-privilege-ro...
    • jbmorgado 10y ago
      Yes, it's my white male privilege that the majority of voters in Turkey elected a nutjob for his religious extremism and promises of violence against the kurdish part of the population. You are right... blame my privilege for what's happening in Turkey.
  • shabaan 10y ago
    Nice too.. Let's go into each of the past instances of history and make it excuse to blame TURKEY today Lets forget how many turkish lives did kurdish terrorist attacks claimed before we claim "ethnic cleansing" for fighting men in uniform Lets forget Erdogan returned US citizens trying to cross to syria and the airbase from where 95% airstrikes happen Lets rant on capital punishment for treason-ers but claim to the torch of democracy and support dictators (sisi) giving dealth penalty to protectors Lets try to say.. I am the different one. Because I have a better conspiracy theory than you
• drjesusphd 10y ago
  I'm so tired of Turkey's shit. It's thanks to them that the only workable way to reconstruct Iraq (a three-state solution) was impossible because they would throw a tantrum about an independent Kurdistan.
  • grp 10y ago
    Yeah, if they don't destroy Iraq why do they set conditions for the reconstruction!
  • afsina 10y ago
    Turkey is actually quite friendly with Iraqi Kurdistan.
    • VLM 10y ago
      This confuses the average American pretty badly. The analogy I like to use is the UK-Ireland situation. So the Iraqi-Kurds-wanna-be-Kurdistan are like Southern Ireland. In fact they broke away from the main empire around the same time "about a century ago". Turkey is like England or maybe "all UK except Ireland". The PKK is like the IRA during the troubles. So Turkey and Kurdistan are pretty chill and they're swinging some profitable oil deals and generally get along surprisingly well given the demographics. Meanwhile the PKK thinks if they bomb and shoot Britain, err, I mean Turkey, enough, then a magic wand will be waved and the ethnic minority Kurds in Turkey will secede and join Kurdistan. Which is about as likely to be successful as the American Southern Confederacy experiment a bit over a century ago, or better comparison, the actual IRA. Its almost like an uncanny valley thing. Turks want to genocide Kurds that are like 5 miles away and blowing up their buildings, they'd rather shoot them than let them leave which seems like a pretty dysfunctional relationship, but whatever. But move that same Kurd 500 miles away and the hate evaporates and they're businessmen bros lovin that sweet sweet oil money ahh remember the good old days when we were all an ottoman empire together ahh the good ole days. Just stay where you are and don't move next door, that's all.
• denzil_correa 10y ago
  Here are the actions taken by Erdogan lead AKP government after the coup [0]. Day by day, I find it difficult to believe this coup was not staged. 300 Energy Ministry employees dismissed 184 Customs Ministry employees dismissed 8 top-level parliamentary executives removed All Turks require extra documentation to travel outside country 86 Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK) employees dismissed 51 Borsa Istanbul (national stock exchange) employees dismissed 245 Sports Ministry personnel suspended All Turkish academics banned from traveling abroad 140 members of the Supreme Court and 48 members of the Council of State (the highest court) got arrest warrants 4 days ago, no info on releases etc. 15,200 Ministry of Education personnel fired 24 news/media outlets broadcast licenses withdrawn 492 state religious personnel (Diyanet) removed 21,000 private teachers licenses revoked 393 personnel in Ministry of Family and Social Policy dismissed 257 personnel at PM's office dismissed & ID's seized Demand for all 1,577 University Deans resignation 30 governors of 99 fired 9000 in Interior Ministry fired 180 intelligence officials (MIT, Turkey's national intelligence agency) suspended 2,745 judges dismissed 3,000,000 civil servants banned from going on holiday Talks of reinstating the death penalty 1,500 Finance Ministry officials suspended 103 generals/admirals detained for questioning [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/4tq4sd/all_turkish_academics_banned_from_traveling/d5jbyy6 https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/4tq4sd/all_turki...
  • jbmorgado 10y ago
    Why is a totally quantitative comment that is relevant to the discussion being downvoted? Can't see any HN posting rules that this violates. On the contrary I can very well see its major interest to the discussion at hand.
    • jdimov10 10y ago
      On HN you never know why you're downvoted. 9 times out of 10 it's because some wanker woke up cranky due to lack of sex ;) Don't look for deeper reason.
  • somenomadicguy 10y ago
• random123456 10y ago
  Why Turkey is against US? Simple: US started or participated in every war in last 50 years, so maybe they started coup in Turkey also? US shows himself as a good guy, lawyer, builder, developer, savior and etc, etc. But in reality government of US (not people!) is war machine, as a bonus Hillary is a WARMACHINE (with big, bold letters) So what do you expect from Turkey? What US government loves: - torturing - oil - mass surveillance - killing innocent for the sake of their dual-faced democracy (even US government doesn't practice real democracy) - and many more So what do you expect from other countries? Love? hell, no, what kind of love could be towards such shit guys. I am only talking about US government not about people, I have lots of friends from there.
  • finid 10y ago
    > I am only talking about US government not about people, I have lots of friends from there. What I always like to remind people is this: A government is not made up of people from Pluto or Jupiter. They are us
  • pluma 10y ago
    You vastly overestimate the importance of Turkey to the US. Also, there are easier targets to invade than a NATO member that is an ally against Russia.
• dforrestwilson 10y ago
  And now this is happening: https://www.rt.com/news/352148-wikileaks-turkey-government-emails/ https://www.rt.com/news/352148-wikileaks-turkey-government-e...
• tptacek 10y ago
  If you skipped the article and went right to the comments, the point of the piece is that Turkey blaming America for coups is nothing new, and that Erdogan remains a problematic leader for the country.
• googletazer 10y ago
  Turkey is a sovereign country, and its policies should be determined by majority of its people. If, for example it decides to become another Saudi Arabia, so be it - no amount of international meddling is going to help. I'm sure Turks know how they want to live without the whole world whispering into their ears.
• tremon 10y ago
  "half-mad" does not imply "mentally ill". I understand it's popular in the US, but please stop redefining terms to suit your narrative.
  • grandalf 10y ago
    What does it mean? I hadn't realized it was a technical term with a specific meaning. To me it suggests that a person is suffering from some degree of mental illness.
    • tremon 10y ago
      I hadn't realized it was a technical term with a specific meaning Well, it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_disorder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_disorder
      • grandalf 10y ago
        The term "half mad" isn't included in that article at all. I think you might be trolling.
        • tremon 10y ago
          I'm not. It's the term "mentally ill" that has a specific, technical meaning. "Mad" is simply a descriptive qualification of perceived irrational behaviour, it's not a diagnostic assessment of mental ability.
          • grandalf 10y ago
            > perceived irrational behaviour If someone is irrational, how should we react? Sympathetic? Fearful? Most things we consider mental illnesses are irrational behaviors. When used as a propaganda terms, calling a political opponent "mad" or "half mad" is intended to call into question his/her beliefs and statements, and to create fear that his/her actions will be unpredictable (counter to his/her stated objectives, etc.)