In that case congress can impeach, or a popular revolution can depose him, I feel that the military is justified if it dissobeys an order to fire on their own citizens, but never in doing what is effectively the reverse and taking power for itself no matter the justification.
The military took power here in Argentina a nauseating number of times “for our own good”, to “protect western civilization”, to “stop a communist dictatorship”, it didn’t end well, not even once.
Congress can always just impeach? Huh. I wonder why there are dictatorships anywhere in the world.
If someone declares themselves ruler for life it seems optimistic to think that an impeachment proceeding would mean anything, or even happen if we’re assuming a scenario where opposition members are being imprisoned and killed.
Dictatorships exist precisely because the military takes to itself to ignore things like impeachments proceedings.
A dictatorship cannot exist if the military forces refuse to support it.
Suppose Evil President for Life Frodo decides to ignore an impeachment, kills opposition leaders etc, how can he do it without the support of the military? witholding support is (if necesary by quitting in masse ) is a valid strategy in such a situation, deciding that you know better than the rest of the population and deposing the president is not.
I admit that, aside from noticing that Erdoğan is a Dick, I hadn’t paid much attention to Turkey of late. Britain has just appointed JUST as big of an asshole as foreign secretary and lets face it: ALL of them Pale in comparison to someone who might run the country here.
Pot, kettle, black… Glass Houses, Stones.
That said, what I Have noticed is ‘The Bear’ acting Abnormally Aggressively through out the Black Sea area and for almost 2 months, an there have been Multiple close-call fly-bys since this:
https://news.usni.org/2016/06/06/video-u-s-destroyer-enters-black-sea-first-time-2016
Looking at Turkey, The Black Sea and The Region, Putin has been fortifying his positions in the north while neither advancing nor retreating. He’s been trying to intimidate the Hell out of Romania & Poland, but without actually doing anything.
A military coup in Turkey could explain that. If he has strong ties with the military and they drop out of NATO, we lose all our bases, most of the friendly ports (all of the largest ones) in The Black Sea, any missile stations (defensive or not),
all listening posts to verify treaties, our satellite tracking stations in the region, and well… the vast majority of the Black Sea.
Lets not quibble about the several dozen nuclear war-heads that are not confirmed secure yet, shall we?
In all Honesty, we need to be In The Room negotiating with the new government ASAP, because if we are not, we will lose a HUGE strategic portion of NATO.
Wait, I think Putin just came in his pants.
Next, we need to be level, measured and diplomatic to the result of this situation as it solidifies.
This means people outside of government but trying to get free press for political means, ends, and offices really need to STFU, BUT GOOD, until this is settled, for the good of the USA and for the good of the NATO Alliance.
(That Means YOU, Twitter-Boy.)
It’s speculated that this is Erdogan’s jet circling over northern Turkey on Flightradar24.
Live reports (roughly 1 minute old as of this post) suggest coup force helicopters still engaging pro-Erdogan forces in Ankara. Coup is being unanimously denounced, including, interestingly, by Fethullah Gulen’s “Hizmet” movement, which Erdogan reportedly blamed the coup on earlier tonight.
I personally don’t like Erdogan, and if he were to be deposed by democratic means I would cheer. But that doesn’t mean I’ll support military coups anywhere.
I’m not following. There’s a dictator that ignores impeachments and kills opposition with his police and private security forces and the military should do nothing?
Was Operation Valkyrie unjustified?
So the police and private security forces have already taken power in a coup?.
That’s a tricky situation then, the army has been supplanted by paramilitary forces.
I such a situation the armed forces would need some kind of civilian leadership, perhaps congress could take refuge in a military base and order the president deposed from there, or the supreme court could do likewise.
What the military can’t do is decide when the president should be deposed, otherwise you don’t really have a democracy. Once a civilian with the right to do so orders them to fire on the president and his lackeys then fire away.
VICE has an excellent overview of the situation with many links to pics and other info; I thought people here might be interested.
Some videos:
Perhaps. But in this case Erdogan has as of yet taken no such radical step. Turkey is indisputable a democracy. What it is not is a liberal, transparent democracy. It is instead a rather authoritarian, reactionary and arguably repressive one. But a more or less functioning democracy all the same.
Military coups are almost never good news and this one might be a little worse than usual, no matter who wins. If the disaffected sections of the military win, you have junta rule which could turn rather more ugly than previous Turkish coups with a much more plugged in, harder to control populace than decades ago. Meanwhile if the legitimate government wins the resultant purges aren’t going to do any good for anyone anti-Erdogan/AKP. Because let us all remember that as many people have mentioned, Erdogan is an autocratically-inclined dick.
At this point by the military ( or elements thereof ) setting this chain of events in motion, Turkey has already lost something no matter who comes out on top. We’ll just have to see just how bad the fallout will be.
Yes, they should have waited until he actually tried to change the constitution before acting. They’ve probably shot themselves in the foot by moving now.
I have no idea how this is going to turn out, but at this point I’ll go on record as saying: good for the military, and I hope they succeed in saving the Turks from themselves. Islamic governments, democratic or not, deserve to be overthrown. Everywhere and always.
Man, fanatical religion has got that country by the balls it seems. Sad. Back to the middle ages with you Turkey.
Et voila the examples of why “secularism” promotion is nothing but excuse making for the authoritarians to dress up
Democracy means more than “mere majority rule.” The Bill of Rights, like all of the Constitution, is indeed subject to revision by democratic processes.
A military dictatorship wouldn’t have to bother with that.
Here’s a BBC article about Erdogan:
Recep Tayyip Erdogan: Turkey’s ruthless president
The guy is trying to grab power and “democratically” turn Turkey into a fundamentalist Islamist theocracy.
I wouldn’t assume too much…
98.3% of Turks revealed they were Muslim. Of that, 16% said they were “extremely religious”, 39% said they were “somewhat religious”, and 32% said they were “not religious.” 3% of Turks declare themselves with no religious beliefs.
Number of Americans who say they aren’t religious ( atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular” ) = 22.8% in 2015 according to Pew. That’s a steep increase from 2007 by the way.
ABC is reporting only 104 soldiers involved. That seems low for shutting down two cities. Disinformation to make it seem less significant I’d guess.
Mostly over though?