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I don't want to get all tinfoil, but have read many who have insinuated that this may have been an inside job by president of Turkey to get rid of dissenting vo

I don't want to get all tinfoil, but have read many who have insinuated that this may have been an inside job by president of Turkey to get rid of dissenting voices. This sort of thing kinda lends credence to that sort of idea.

yompers888 10y ago
It's my understanding that he's been putting his own people in high military positions for a while now. So it's not surprising that he could have short circuited the coup mechanism. Having said that, I stayed up watching the whole thing, and it never felt very real. There's no way you're going to fire on people in the streets with a helicopter but not shoot down the president's plane. Hell, they didn't even arrest the Parliament.
- Osiris 10y ago
  And the President got exactly what he wanted out it, an increase in popular support and a consolidation of power. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he had a hand in his own coup attempt as a way to solidify his grasp on power.
  - shard972 10y ago
    Well this is the same president who had his officials caught red handed a couple years ago planning a false flag on themselves to start a war in syria. Not the craziest thing to say he would setup a coup against himself.
    - tim333 10y ago
      It seems quite likely to me. Like why launch the coup at prime time, arrest zero government members, leave most TV stations running and not fire on Erdogan's plane? Also the guy who "allegedly gave the order that set the coup in motion" was one of Erdogan's AKP mates brother. Just today the guy who bombed the parliament was testifying and said he was instructed to drop a bomb in the parliament garden. I mean why bomb the garden if not for theater? What I'm wondering is where things go from here and if anyone can do anything about it. I'm guessing the likes of the NSA probably have some info on who did what if they feel like using it.
- afsina 10y ago
  Very few of the army generals were his supporters. From now on surely numbers will go up. But it is clear that for more than 20 years it was Gulen who put his followers to police force, army and all state departments (especially justice) semi-secretly. It was a network of people who collected information and kept things moving according to their agenda. Besides, there are sensible explanations why his plane was not shut down etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat_attempt#Reasons_for_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
  - Ressuder 10y ago
    I get scared when I hear how many Turkish people talk about the Gülenist movement. The similarities to communism in the US during the 50s and 60s is striking. Sure, based on a "true story" but in the same way that the movie 300 is.
    - afsina 10y ago
      Can you blame people? That is a consequence they should have been thought of before being involved with a coup.
      - yxhuvud 10y ago
        How exactly was all those teachers involved in the coup? No, that kind of group think is a consequence of not having proper freedom of press and proper freedom of association in the country. Which in turn is a consequence of voting for Erdogan (even if not everything was roses on that front before Erdogan, to be fair).
        afsina 10y ago
        Did I say they were involved? Most likely they were clueless. I meant once the the decision makers of the movement are even slightly involved with this, people will blame it all. This is a natural reaction. Besides, on the flip side, movement has more serious `group think` issues than others.
AlyssaRowan 10y ago
I haven't looked at the APK metadata, but I certainly wouldn't dismiss that out of hand - the author is apparently from the US, but has a Türkçe keyboard on display in a demo screenshot?
- erlehmann_ 10y ago
  Where did you find that screenshot? Please provide evidence.
  - helb 10y ago
    They probably meant the first screenshot on that APKpure page (https://apkpure.com/bylock-secure-chat-talk/net.client.by.lock https://apkpure.com/bylock-secure-chat-talk/net.client.by.lo... – it says "Türkçe" on the spacebar button). I don't know if it proves anything though…
    - AlyssaRowan 10y ago
      Yes, that is what I was referring to. Of course it doesn't prove anything either way. It's simply one data-point surrounding the app, and its relevance is not clear (after all, I don't know who uploaded the screenshot, although those accounts do look like "test" accounts a dev might use?). I think I might take a closer look: if Matt Green found this app entertainingly bad, even though I'd never heard of it before today, that makes me a little curious. I'll probably announce if there are any clear signs, but Matt seemed to have not found any, and that wouldn't surprise me: attribution is rarely easy and caution always needs to be borne in mind as to accuracy - especially when it comes to trying to tell apart intentional awfulness (happily, rare - but not completely unheard of) from genuine amateur hour (sadly, all-too-common). As a clever attacker who wanted a backdoored app could well just deliberately outsource it to someone cluelessly inept, for that authentic (and, incidentally, ultra-cheap) feel, there's an element of Poe's law at hand: how do you ultimately know?
afsina 10y ago
It is overwhelmingly evident that coup was at least partly planned by Gulenists. There are tens of coup confessions making a direct link to the group already. All political groups in Turkey have a consensus on this. However somewhat foreign press is trying hard to see it other way. Many foreign journalists even supported the coup instead of condemning until failure is imminent. Some reasons can be that they just dislike the current president and often their information sources are people who are affiliated with the cleric's movement. Clearly this coup attempt gave a golden opportunity to the president to purge Gulen followers from the state and nobody is denying this. But that is the expected behavior, whether or not it is justified. To me, Gulen and his upper hierarchy just blindly pushed all their low rank followers to the fire (most probably did not have a clue about the coup).
- dragandj 10y ago
  Ton of coup confessions? When the KGB-like service gets anyone in their hands, they can make him or her confess anything. That's like Dictatorship 101.
  - afsina 10y ago
    You can deny everything and anything. However claiming Turkey is governed with dictatorship will not make you right. You need to put more evidence on the opposing theories and so far they do not add up.
    - dragandj 10y ago
      Well, there are even more tons of "confessions" of the accused that "confess" NOT being part of the coup. I hope you'll give them the same weight as the opposite confessions.
      - afsina 10y ago
        Claiming being not part of a coup is something else. I have yet to see a coup official claiming it was a fake or orchestrated by the government.
toxican 10y ago
Is it even tinfoil-y at this point? Every time there's some new revelation or some new action taken by the president it all points to it being a faked coup to expand his power.
- fatihpense 10y ago
  Well at one point after coup every theory about what happened seemed reasonable to many people in Turkey. "That seems reasonable, that also seems reasonable, hmm that is also possible..." However I don't think it is (all) fake. Because many high ranked generals risked their lives and there were moments where the winner is unknown. The coup was a failure because: they had no people or political party support, they were forced to act quickly(Government would purge most of the generals in incoming days), they couldn't get the support of all military personnel. Probably, this was their last hope for power-grab and they gambled.
zukhan 10y ago
It seems highly unlikely that it was an inside job: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2016/07/24/the-turkey-coup-through-the-eyes-of-its-plotters/ https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2016/07/24/the-turkey-c...
- tim333 10y ago
  I'll give you that that Bellingcat stuff makes it look like it wasn't Erdogan arranged. It doesn't seem terribly Gulenist either. Seems quite possible it was secular / nationalist army types similar to Turkey's previous coups. Erdogan was obviously out to get Gulenists before the coup as he must have had the list of judges to fire prepared before hand so it's quite likely that he's taking the opportunity to have a go at them regardless of evidence one way or the other. Though it wouldn't surprise me if Erdogan had one or two people try to stir things a bit like the Syria false flag idea (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-27/here-youtube-false-flag-attack-syria-clip-erdogan-wanted-banned http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-27/here-youtube-false-...)

yompers888 10y ago

It's my understanding that he's been putting his own people in high military positions for a while now. So it's not surprising that he could have short circuited the coup mechanism. Having said that, I stayed up watching the whole thing, and it never felt very real. There's no way you're going to fire on people in the streets with a helicopter but not shoot down the president's plane. Hell, they didn't even arrest the Parliament.

Osiris 10y ago
And the President got exactly what he wanted out it, an increase in popular support and a consolidation of power. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he had a hand in his own coup attempt as a way to solidify his grasp on power.
- shard972 10y ago
  Well this is the same president who had his officials caught red handed a couple years ago planning a false flag on themselves to start a war in syria. Not the craziest thing to say he would setup a coup against himself.
  - tim333 10y ago
    It seems quite likely to me. Like why launch the coup at prime time, arrest zero government members, leave most TV stations running and not fire on Erdogan's plane? Also the guy who "allegedly gave the order that set the coup in motion" was one of Erdogan's AKP mates brother. Just today the guy who bombed the parliament was testifying and said he was instructed to drop a bomb in the parliament garden. I mean why bomb the garden if not for theater? What I'm wondering is where things go from here and if anyone can do anything about it. I'm guessing the likes of the NSA probably have some info on who did what if they feel like using it.
afsina 10y ago
Very few of the army generals were his supporters. From now on surely numbers will go up. But it is clear that for more than 20 years it was Gulen who put his followers to police force, army and all state departments (especially justice) semi-secretly. It was a network of people who collected information and kept things moving according to their agenda. Besides, there are sensible explanations why his plane was not shut down etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat_attempt#Reasons_for_failure https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Turkish_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
- Ressuder 10y ago
  I get scared when I hear how many Turkish people talk about the Gülenist movement. The similarities to communism in the US during the 50s and 60s is striking. Sure, based on a "true story" but in the same way that the movie 300 is.
  - afsina 10y ago
    Can you blame people? That is a consequence they should have been thought of before being involved with a coup.
    - yxhuvud 10y ago
      How exactly was all those teachers involved in the coup? No, that kind of group think is a consequence of not having proper freedom of press and proper freedom of association in the country. Which in turn is a consequence of voting for Erdogan (even if not everything was roses on that front before Erdogan, to be fair).
      - afsina 10y ago
        Did I say they were involved? Most likely they were clueless. I meant once the the decision makers of the movement are even slightly involved with this, people will blame it all. This is a natural reaction. Besides, on the flip side, movement has more serious `group think` issues than others.

AlyssaRowan 10y ago

I haven't looked at the APK metadata, but I certainly wouldn't dismiss that out of hand - the author is apparently from the US, but has a Türkçe keyboard on display in a demo screenshot?

erlehmann_ 10y ago
Where did you find that screenshot? Please provide evidence.
- helb 10y ago
  They probably meant the first screenshot on that APKpure page (https://apkpure.com/bylock-secure-chat-talk/net.client.by.lock https://apkpure.com/bylock-secure-chat-talk/net.client.by.lo... – it says "Türkçe" on the spacebar button). I don't know if it proves anything though…
  - AlyssaRowan 10y ago
    Yes, that is what I was referring to. Of course it doesn't prove anything either way. It's simply one data-point surrounding the app, and its relevance is not clear (after all, I don't know who uploaded the screenshot, although those accounts do look like "test" accounts a dev might use?). I think I might take a closer look: if Matt Green found this app entertainingly bad, even though I'd never heard of it before today, that makes me a little curious. I'll probably announce if there are any clear signs, but Matt seemed to have not found any, and that wouldn't surprise me: attribution is rarely easy and caution always needs to be borne in mind as to accuracy - especially when it comes to trying to tell apart intentional awfulness (happily, rare - but not completely unheard of) from genuine amateur hour (sadly, all-too-common). As a clever attacker who wanted a backdoored app could well just deliberately outsource it to someone cluelessly inept, for that authentic (and, incidentally, ultra-cheap) feel, there's an element of Poe's law at hand: how do you ultimately know?

afsina 10y ago

It is overwhelmingly evident that coup was at least partly planned by Gulenists. There are tens of coup confessions making a direct link to the group already. All political groups in Turkey have a consensus on this. However somewhat foreign press is trying hard to see it other way. Many foreign journalists even supported the coup instead of condemning until failure is imminent. Some reasons can be that they just dislike the current president and often their information sources are people who are affiliated with the cleric's movement. Clearly this coup attempt gave a golden opportunity to the president to purge Gulen followers from the state and nobody is denying this. But that is the expected behavior, whether or not it is justified. To me, Gulen and his upper hierarchy just blindly pushed all their low rank followers to the fire (most probably did not have a clue about the coup).

dragandj 10y ago
Ton of coup confessions? When the KGB-like service gets anyone in their hands, they can make him or her confess anything. That's like Dictatorship 101.
- afsina 10y ago
  You can deny everything and anything. However claiming Turkey is governed with dictatorship will not make you right. You need to put more evidence on the opposing theories and so far they do not add up.
  - dragandj 10y ago
    Well, there are even more tons of "confessions" of the accused that "confess" NOT being part of the coup. I hope you'll give them the same weight as the opposite confessions.
    - afsina 10y ago
      Claiming being not part of a coup is something else. I have yet to see a coup official claiming it was a fake or orchestrated by the government.

toxican 10y ago

Is it even tinfoil-y at this point? Every time there's some new revelation or some new action taken by the president it all points to it being a faked coup to expand his power.

fatihpense 10y ago
Well at one point after coup every theory about what happened seemed reasonable to many people in Turkey. "That seems reasonable, that also seems reasonable, hmm that is also possible..." However I don't think it is (all) fake. Because many high ranked generals risked their lives and there were moments where the winner is unknown. The coup was a failure because: they had no people or political party support, they were forced to act quickly(Government would purge most of the generals in incoming days), they couldn't get the support of all military personnel. Probably, this was their last hope for power-grab and they gambled.

zukhan 10y ago

It seems highly unlikely that it was an inside job: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2016/07/24/the-turkey-coup-through-the-eyes-of-its-plotters/ https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2016/07/24/the-turkey-c...

tim333 10y ago
I'll give you that that Bellingcat stuff makes it look like it wasn't Erdogan arranged. It doesn't seem terribly Gulenist either. Seems quite possible it was secular / nationalist army types similar to Turkey's previous coups. Erdogan was obviously out to get Gulenists before the coup as he must have had the list of judges to fire prepared before hand so it's quite likely that he's taking the opportunity to have a go at them regardless of evidence one way or the other. Though it wouldn't surprise me if Erdogan had one or two people try to stir things a bit like the Syria false flag idea (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-27/here-youtube-false-flag-attack-syria-clip-erdogan-wanted-banned http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-03-27/here-youtube-false-...)