Possible military coup in Turkey

[Lenin McCarthy]

Read on Twitter that the Turkish Supreme Military Council (that decides on promotions etc.) is scheduled to meet in a few weeks. Perhaps Erdogan has been planning a major purging of Kemalist/secularist types from the army leadership and that those officers are trying to preempt it by staging a coup? Whatever way this will end (right now seems like coup is failing), it doesn't look good and won't bring any more democracy or stability.

[Junkenstein]

Short term, no. Longer term, can't see turkey improving under erdogan and he is not inclined (may be now though) to fuck off. Previous protests were not looked kindly upon.

Either way, it's moderately good that it's an internal thing by the looks of things. Anyone seen a Russian reaction yetk

[Junkenstein]

And then there's 200 odd dead. Situation still all over show. Erdogan apparently back in country, 1500~ soldiers apparently surrendering/stood down. The only consistent point of agreement is "Shit's happening"

[Junkenstein]

Just for fun, I thought "What will zerohedge make of this?"

Martial law was declared in the country, although few if any casualties were confirmed, despite constant media reports of clashes between the army and the protesters.

Followed by pictures liberally stolen and unaccredited from other media.

Rock solid reporting as always.

[Cain]

It was interesting to see that the police were combating and arresting soldiers.

That's not often the case in coup situations, and suggests there was little, if any attempt to win over civilian power structures by the plotters.

[Junkenstein]

Latest bbc headline:

coup attempt
Nearly 3,000 soldiers are arrested and 2,700 judges fired in Turkey, after a coup attempt by a faction of the armed forces which left 161 people dead.

That's a lot of judges, surely? There's no way that can't lead to interesting times and corruption.

[Cain]

Oh yeah, Erdogan is going to use this to clear house.  You saw how he used the Ergkenon trials to pursue his own personal vendettas and ensure the loyalty of the officer corps.  This is going to be that x10,000.

In all likelihood, what he does next will almost certainly help lay the seeds of the next coup against him.

[Junkenstein]

And no doubt a few lessons will be learnt from this so the chances of success are probably going to be better too.

[Junkenstein]

Reports of over 8K police dismissed, massive ongoing purge against secularists apparently.

Between that and the above judge dismissal, it's going to be fun times. I've tried to find a rough count of total judges and similar in Turkey and not had much luck. UK Stats indicate 19.5K serving magistrates in 2015. Assuming the judicial system in Turkey has similar numbers (Unlikey, 10M more people there than here) then it's still a massive percentage to lose. Replacing them with suitably qualified and experiened people will be practically impossible so it's going to be promotions all round to those favourable to the ongoing system.

I'm pretty sure that if I ever wanted an uprising against my regime that sacking this number of officials would be a very good way to set it up. To me, that then makes this either the prelude to a full coup or setting the scene for a future purge.

[Junkenstein]

Aftermath now ongoing.

Failed coup speculated to have been variously the work of Erdogan personally, others in government under and/or not under his instruction, Israel and/or JOOS, ISIS, USA, Russia and probably everyone else from Elvis to Ghandi.

France's foreign minister among those apparently pointing at Erdogan, for what that's worth.

[Cain]

Yeah...I'm going to need to see some evidence before I buy that.

I can allow for a Let It Happen style of thing...a Brookings Institute scholar and expert on Turkey has been warning of a possible coup for a few months now.  Lets say top people in the AKP were informed, by reliable sources with actionable intelligence.  And they were aware that said coup didn't have the backing of the military leadership, or much of anyone else in Turkey.  So they let it play out, confident that the coup would be crushed and that it would give them political capital to purge those of suspect loyalties not only from the military but from all ranks within government service.

That I could maybe see.  And even then, I'd want evidence on that scenario.  A Turkish intelligence memo or similar, to the effect of suspected mutineers within the ranks.  Loyal military units put on high alert in the hours before the attempt.  That sort of thing.

[Junkenstein]

I could buy that to a degree as you'd need a substantial amount of time to compile THE LIST of those who you're not fond of, assuming it's not a document that's ongoing and updated daily.

That said, there's a hell of a risk in the "let it happen" stance. A few months is plenty of time to sway others to your cause and plan. I can't see any decent autocrat moving in such a manner as the potential for it to go horribly wrong for you is not easily ignored.

[Junkenstein]

Wiki leaks apparently releasing docs and related erdogan emails today. In land of fuck all signal and struggling to check

[MMIX]

Wiki leaks apparently releasing docs and related erdogan emails today. In land of fuck all signal and struggling to check

https://www.rt.com/news/351995-wikileaks-attack-turkey-documents/

WikiLeaks reported suffering a “sustained attack” after it announced the upcoming release of hundreds of thousands of documents relating to Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the wake of a failed military coup.
Trends
Coup attempt in Turkey
“Our infrastructure is under sustained attack,” WikiLeaks said on Twitter. “We are unsure of the true origin of the attack. The timing suggests a Turkish state power faction or its allies.”

  -no not really shocked

[Cain]

Do you have a source on that other than Russia Today?

I'm not saying it's not true.  However Russia Today has paid Assange's wages before now, and given asylum to Snowden, and Russia has a longstanding conflict with Turkey, and has a long history of politically distorted reporting.  We're not exactly talking neutral parties here.