Turkey retires 40 Generals & Admirals accused of plotting coup

[dead0man]

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Secular Turkey is dead.  The slow turn to....I'm afraid to use any word here....put in any word you want I guess, you know what they are turning towards.

[RogueBeaver]

The bloodless purging continues.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I suppose this brings a question as to which is preferable, if women are banned from wearing headscarves in universities (like what used to be the case in Turkey) or if women were required to wear headscarves in universities. I would definitely prefer the former for the record.

[Zioneer]

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Secular Turkey is dead.  The slow turn to....I'm afraid to use any word here....put in any word you want I guess, you know what they are turning towards.

I prefer to think of it as the Turkish military's political power being weakened. Those opportunists have been interfering in Turkish politics for a long time. Erdogan may be a religious conservative, but he's not a dolt; he's not going to un-secularize Turkey.

[opebo]

Democratization does not equal 'progress'.

[SPC]

Let me try to understand the MIC line regarding Turkey:

Sending military officials accused of trying to overthrow a democratic government to court is BAD, since the democratic government is "moderate" Islamist.

But aiding Islamist rebels as they try to overthrow an autocratic government on the southern border is GOOD, despite the autocratic government being secular?

And for that matter...

Prosecuting a war against Kurdish secessionists in the south is GOOD, since they are terrorists who undermine the national sovereignty of Turkey

But prosecuting a war on behalf of Kurdish secessionists in the north is also GOOD, since they were freedom fighters being liberated from a secular autocrat?

However, granting autonomy to Kurdish secessionists in the north is BAD, since this is merely a cynical ploy for a secular autocrat to retain power and unleash havoc on hostile nations in the region?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Secular Turkey is dead

Good. Not that the AKP is wonderful, not that it's occasional fondness for crass abuse of power isn't concerning. And so on and so forth. But it would be difficult to argue (at least while maintaining a straight face) that what came before the AKP was better. And that's just thinking of the farcical last decade or so before the AKP; the less said about frequent outright military dictatorship the better, I think.

Oh, but they were our 'friends'. I forgot.

[Zioneer]

Let me try to understand the MIC line regarding Turkey:

Retiring military officials accused of trying to overthrow a democratic government is BAD, since the democratic government is "moderate" Islamist.

But aiding Islamist rebels as they try to overthrow an autocratic government on the southern border is GOOD, despite the autocratic government being secular?

And for that matter...

Prosecuting a war against Kurdish secessionists in the south is GOOD, since they are terrorists who undermine the national sovereignty of Turkey

But prosecuting a war on behalf of Kurdish secessionists in the north is also GOOD, since they were freedom fighters being liberated from a secular autocrat?

However, granting autonomy to Kurdish secessionists in the north is BAD, since this is merely a cynical ploy for a secular autocrat to retain power and unleash havoc on hostile nations in the region?

At this point, Assad is not a secular dictator; he's been very clear in his incitement of sectarianism prejudices. The rebels have as well (and I'm worried about them pulling a Balkans on the non-Sunnis), but Assad is not secular anyone.

And what has Erdogan done that's hardline Islamist?

As for the Kurds, yeah, you do have a point with Turkey's hypocrisy regarding them.

[SPC]

And what has Erdogan done that's hardline Islamist?

I was being sarcastic with the quotation marks. If anything, the fact that Erdogan is fairly mainstream only aggravates Western cognitive dissonance; as Al-Nusra is obviously more extreme than the AKP.

At this point, Assad is not a secular dictator; he's been very clear in his incitement of sectarianism prejudices. The rebels have as well (and I'm worried about them pulling a Balkans on the non-Sunnis), but Assad is not secular anyone.

Those aren't mutually exclusive positions. As far as I know, Assad hasn't established Shia Islam as the state religion and hasn't explicitely targeted Christians, Druze, or Sunnis solely based on their religion.

[Zioneer]

And what has Erdogan done that's hardline Islamist?

I was being sarcastic with the quotation marks. If anything, the fact that Erdogan is fairly mainstream only aggravates Western cognitive dissonance; as Al-Nusra is obviously more extreme than the AKP.

At this point, Assad is not a secular dictator; he's been very clear in his incitement of sectarianism prejudices. The rebels have as well (and I'm worried about them pulling a Balkans on the non-Sunnis), but Assad is not secular anyone.

Those aren't mutually exclusive positions. As far as I know, Assad hasn't established Shia Islam as the state religion and hasn't explicitely targeted Christians, Druze, or Sunnis solely based on their religion.

Erdogan seems relatively harmless, domestically speaking (besides anti-Kurd stuff, of course); he hasn't really taken any actions to undermine the secular nature of the Turkish state that I've seen.

What about the Shabiha? Assad's certainly used those thugs as tools to provoke religious conflict. Plus, hasn't he basically leveled Sunni neighborhoods in some of Syria's cities? Again, I don't want to portray the Syrian Sunnis as innocent of religious bigotry and violence, but Assad has used religious differences from the Sunnis as a tool to keep the Christians, Druze, and his fellow Alawites under his thumb.

[Хahar 🤔]

The editorializing in this thread about the old military order being secular and therefore objectively good is ridiculous.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The editorializing in this thread about the old military order being secular and therefore objectively good is ridiculous.

But they were on our side you know. Well, not yours, because you're the enemy within. I think. It does get confusing sometimes.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Dead0, the seculars in Turkey are actually more authoritarian.

[So rightwing that I broke the Political Compass!]

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Secular Turkey is dead.  The slow turn to....I'm afraid to use any word here....put in any word you want I guess, you know what they are turning towards.

Why don't you believe it was a genuine coup attempt? Absent evidence, your assertion is a conspiracy theory.

[dead0man]

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Why do you believe it was a genuine coup attempt?

[Platypus]

The debate here seems to be whether we prefer the idea of a liberal dictatorship or an illiberal democracy.

Oh, Turkey, you so unique.

[Platypus]

(Liberal and illiberal in heavy shades of gray, of course...)

[minionofmidas]

The debate here seems to be whether we prefer the idea of a liberal dictatorship or an illiberal democracy.

Oh, Turkey, you so unique.

There is nothing in army Kemalism that could possibly be defined as more liberal than the AKP.

As an aside, the complex of anger issues, isolationism and love for conspiracy theories that modern Kemalists tend to display should appear vaguely familiar to shocked observers of what passes as mainstream in the Republican Party these days. To believe these people, all the killing in Syria is actually committed by, quote, Erdogan's NATO goons.

[The Mikado]

The debate here seems to be whether we prefer the idea of a liberal dictatorship or an illiberal democracy.

Oh, Turkey, you so unique.

Why do you think secular=liberal?  There's not a lot liberal about the AKP.

[SPC]

The debate here seems to be whether we prefer the idea of a liberal dictatorship or an illiberal democracy.

Oh, Turkey, you so unique.

There is nothing in army Kemalism that could possibly be defined as more liberal than the AKP.

As an aside, the complex of anger issues, isolationism and love for conspiracy theories that modern Kemalists tend to display should appear vaguely familiar to shocked observers of what passes as mainstream in the Republican Party these days. To believe these people, all the killing in Syria is actually committed by, quote, Erdogan's NATO goons.

Wait, the military is anti-NATO? This may alter my perspective.

[dead0man]

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You must be logged in to read this quote.

Secular Turkey is dead.  The slow turn to....I'm afraid to use any word here....put in any word you want I guess, you know what they are turning towards.

Why don't you believe it was a genuine coup attempt? Absent evidence, your assertion is a conspiracy theory.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

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Why do you believe it was a genuine coup attempt?

I didn't think I'd get a response to that....anyway

326 Turkish officers convicted of plotting coup[quote]Former air force, navy chiefs given 20-year jail term for conspiring to overthrow Erdogan government in 2003; over 300 other officers also sentenced

A Turkish court on Friday convicted 326 military officers, including the former air force and navy chiefs, of plotting to overthrow the nation’s Islamic-based government in 2003, in a case that has helped curtail the military’s hold on politics.

A panel of three judges at the court on Istanbul’s outskirts initially sentenced former air force chief Ibrahim Firtina, former navy chief Ozden Ornek and former army commander Cetin Dogan to life imprisonment but later reduced the sentence to a 20-year jail term because the plot had been unsuccessful, state-run TRT television reported. The three were accused of masterminding the plot.

The court also convicted 323 other active or retired officers, including a former general elected to Parliament a year ago— of involvement in the conspiracy, sentencing some to as much as 18 years in prison. Thirty-six were acquitted, while the case against three other defendants was postponed.

<snip>

[GMantis]

The debate here seems to be whether we prefer the idea of a liberal dictatorship or an illiberal democracy.

Oh, Turkey, you so unique.

There is nothing in army Kemalism that could possibly be defined as more liberal than the AKP.

Yet they have managed to create the most liberal Muslim society, one of which apparently the AKP abhors. Not to mention the kind of voters the two attract.

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Even paranoiacs have enemies, and this trial seems to be exactly such a case. And NATO does assist the rebels in Syria, so this accusation isn't that far-fetched.

[ag]

There is very little about Kemalism that would be recognized as "liberal" elsewhere - this must be a different meaning of "liberal", used only when talking about Turkey )

One can argue about Erdogan's paranoia and imperial pretensions: both seem to be very much in evidence - but on pretty much any criterion of "liberalism" I can think of (economy, minority rights, human freedoms, etc., etc.) Kemalists have always been worse - by far.