The following analysis from Joshua Pundit examines the political context of the recent failed military coup in Turkey. Whether deliberately engineered by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, or merely exploited, the incident seems to be evolving into a wholesale purge of unprecedented proportions.
This essay was first posted a couple of days ago. Bear in mind that since it was written, fifteen or twenty thousand more people have been detained or dismissed, including all of the country’s university deans:
The Coup In Turkey And Why It Failed
Friday afternoon local time I began getting e-mails from acquaintances and correspondents in Turkey and elsewhere in the Middle East. They told of violence in the streets and military activity in the capitol of Ankara and in Istanbul, the city that sprawls between the Asian Turkey of Anatolia and the small piece of European Turkey on the other side of the Bosporus, the narrow strait that divides the Black Sea and the Aegean.
Was it some kind of ISIS or PKK attack?
As more time passed there were reports of an Army coup in Turkey underway. Had the Army finally tired of its neo-Ottoman Sultan Erdoğan?
As the news outlets in Turkey and the Middle East began filing reports, I noticed a few details that told me something had likely gone wrong. The first clue was that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was reported to be ‘in a secure location’ and inciting people to go into the streets and attack the soldiers attempting to pull off the coup… which they did.
This is very odd behavior for a coup. The very first rule of a military takeover is to get the leader you want to depose under your control and either dead or locked away. It’s the first thing al-Sissi did in Egypt when he deposed Erdoğan’s fellow Islamist Mohammed Morsi, and it’s pretty much job one in any military coup. Among other things, it confuses the military players whom aren’t involved as they wait to see what’s happening or to receive orders.
The next odd note was for Erdoğan to call for civilians to attack elements of the Turkish military, and for them to comply eagerly. With the downward spiral of the Turkish economy, multiple instances of political corruption involving Erdoğan and with Erdoğan’s increasingly authoritarian ways, he’s not the most popular leader, especially in more cosmopolitan Istanbul. And the normal human behavior would be to lay low and let the military factions sort it out, not attack trained, armed troops. Yet, they did, and while much has been made of some civilians who were shot, many of the soldiers involved in the coup seem to have reacted by simply retreating. One tank commander was even pulled out of his own tank by the mob and beheaded right on the spot while trying to do just that. (I’ve seen the footage. Trust me, you don’t want to.)
The coup also was unusual in that it did not involve any senior officers and was not widespread. It mainly consisted of a few junior officers and enlisted men whom were primarily from Erdoğan’s First Army. They were easily overpowered by troops loyal to Erdoğan and his AKP Party.
There are a number of stories out now claiming that Erdoğan staged his own coup. I highly doubt it. But what does seem obvious to me is that he had advance inside knowledge of it, that the men who attempted the coup believed that they were going to get more support from others in the military whom then either sat on their hands or decided to support Erdoğan, and that Erdoğan allowed the coup attempt to occur because it was beneficial to him.
As a result of the coup, a lot of elements Erdoğan considered disloyal have been flushed out, along with a number of others who simply oppose him politically or whom he finds convenient to lock up. Thus far, 2,745 judges and prosecutors whose loyalty to the Erdoğan regime has been questioned — especially those involved in the investigation and/or prosecution of the corruption surrounding Erdoğan — have been thrown in jail. Something like 2,839 soldiers have been arrested as well. Erdoğan is openly referring to the attempted coup as ‘a gift from Allah’ which pretty much gives the game away. Erdoğan will use it to quash any investigation of corruption and take out whatever remaining opposition there is to him. He’s already calling for the reinstatement of Turkey’s death penalty. Think of this as Erdoğan’s ‘Night of the Long Knives.’
Another benefit for Erdoğan is that it gives him an excuse to demand the extradition to Turkey of a major political opponent, Pennsylvania-based cleric Fethullah Gulen. Gulen is whom Erdoğan is blaming for the attempted coup.
[…]
In any event, Erdoğan is going to remain in power for now, and Turkey will become even less free and democratic and a lot more Islamist, exactly the opposite of what the Turkish Republic’s Founder, Kemal Ataturk created after World War One.
This kind of development in a country with the largest conventional army in Europe is not something to ignore.
Read the rest at Joshua Pundit. The original post also has all the embedded links.
Valuable essay.
(Minor point: please learn to use “whom” correctly.)
Skzion: Why not start your own blog since you want perfection. Maybe the writer has been out of school for decades like me, and like me, not a perfectionist in all things.
A little copy editing advice should not be sneezed at. A good essay deserves it. Correct English usage gives our real enemies one fewer target against which to take pot shots.
I agree and I’ve said that before, but no one listens to me either.
Note to the Grammar Police:
Copy-editing is drudge work…and yeah, given the many hours the B spends on that task each and every day, we certainly could use a bona-fide c.e. I’d especially like someone who’d take over the many sub-titling jobs on those videos for which he does the wording.
So, having taken the time to complain about Rob’s mis-steps in his essay, does your umbrage rise to a high-enough level that you’re willing to pay for the services of a certified copy-editor? Pray tell us; I’m all ears.
As it is now the B spends far too many hours, and far too much eye-strain, on the quotidian task of checking the things that end up being published here. He warns people ahead of time about it. But…as with all rules, there are always buts, and the biggest ‘but’ is reserved for previously-published work. If a particular work would require almost a full re-write, then the B has to decline since the original ‘flavor’ would be obliterated in such an endeavor, even if he had the time.
An important sub-group under “Exceptions & Buts” is the special category of essays originally written by old blogger friends for their own websites. If they ask us to consider mirroring, or snipping text from a post for the newsfeed, then either the whole or part is published ‘as is’. This essay on Turkey from Joshua Pundit (Rob Miller) falls within that domain.
If you are incensed by his grammar failings, then tell him, by all means:
http://joshuapundit.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-coup-in-turkey-and-why-it-failed.html
Be sure to ask him for a refund.
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BTW, I figure since there are Grammar Police on patrol everywhere, I sometimes open unpublished comments and clean them up a bit before making them public. I figure the person’s heart is in the right place so why not do him/her a favor? This is especially true if English is not their native tongue or it looks like they had one too many after dinner.
Words are fun; why make them a tedious sin?
WriteRiteRight on, Laura!There are two kinds of grammar – dry, dead affairs that try to tell native speakers how to use their own language, and descriptive ones based on how people actually use language in the real world. The latter are far and away the most useful.
I’m a native English speaker, I’ve been alive for over half a century, and I’ve never uttered the word ‘whom’ in my life.
And I’ve managed to communicate just fine.
Writing is not the same as uttering, and certainly in the context of an essay open to the sneers of our opponents it behooves us to leave as few points of attack as possible. That means standard English as close as possible to that written in the liberal whorehouses they laughingly call ‘colleges’ as possible.
To whom are you speaking, you young whipper snapper??
I love the English language for its sheer flexibility, when I pointed out to my primary school teacher that poets often started a sentence with ‘and’ she told us about poetic license, I later attracted the comment that I “knew the rules of English but think they do not apply”. Grammar is arbitrary and illogical; but great fun. It is only ‘wrong’ when lazy use of grammar renders the piece incomprehensible. I grew to fear ‘grammar’ at school where schoolboy howlers would be read out in class as a form of bullying/punishment. So much could have been written but is not or has not because of grammar nazis.
History has few accounts of life as a private soldier in the WW1 trenches, mainly because people of the time so intimidated those whose grammar was imperfect, that we lost the really valuable historical witness of life on the trench duckboards that only they could provide.
Before I wrote my first piece for GoV almost 4 years ago, the B said to me, get it down on MS Word and he would knock it into shape, which he does admirably. So if you have something to say, get it into script and don’t fear, it is a matter of consenting adults in private, some typos get through but on the whole, nobody outside the team ever gets to know of one’s literary peccadilloes.
You’re not a teacher are you?
Skzion
I struggle to comprehend the rule over the correct usage of “who” and “whom”. In all seriousness, I’d be grateful for a succinct lesson. And I own Sir Ernest Gowers’ “Modern English Usage”. And even an illustrious authority such as Gowers is of two minds on the use of split infinitives. It’s 3.30am as I write after a long hard working week, so forgive me if his name is Gower and not Gowers. And I’m not getting out of bed to consult my library!
Here goes: When “who” is the object, it’s “to whom”, “from whom”, etc.
Split infinitives are less definite, and seem to depend upon which side of the Atlantic you are. When “Star Trek” aired in the ’60s, “to boldly go” (as opposed to “to go boldly”) grated with many Brits who weren’t greatly bothered by grammatical considerations.
Now in my 60s, and working on being a “Grumpy Old Man” (do these exist in the US?), I silently (mostly) rail* against the increasing prevalence of americanisms such as “train station” (shoud be “railway station”) and “bored of” (“bored with”).
*Did you spot the pun? Shakespeare would have been proud…
Turkey’s slide from a relatively modern aspiring democracy to an oppressive Islamic dictatorship has now picked up momentum.
Erdogan has a free hand to purge his enemies, his imagined enemies, his potential enemies, and anyone whose position allows a modicum of independent thought or action and who is not already one of his vetted supporters. He has the perfect excuse, one for which he has been waiting for quite a few years, ever since the megalomaniac seed of caliphdom glory sprouted in his mind. He can now fire, deny, remove, banish, arrest, charge, threaten, or otherwise intimidate any Turks who do not absolutely bow before him, their lord.
Suspending the licenses of 21,000 private school teachers is a devastating move that will have wide repercussions. I can’t find any specific information on which teachers these might be. But some of Turkey’s private schools, such as the chain of TED (Turk Egitim Dernegi – Turkish Education Association) Colleges throughout Turkey, have long provided an alternative and secular K-12 education to the children of the wealthy. Erdogan would see this as an obstacle to his plan for an Islamic society.
He is now eagerly sacrificing those who gave hope to Turkey’s future for the sake of personal—and Islamic—ambition.
Whether staged or actual, Erdogan’s draconian response will have — in time — an equally fierce boomerang effect.
He may well end his days in an underground bunker.
I think the ones needing a bunker will be remaining Europeans when 80 million crazy islamists will start moving west to filannly build their great Pan-Turkic Empire (Erdogan’s wet dream).
And don’t forget that Erdogan has a multi-million army of Turks worshipping him ALREADY in Europe.
In time, Haram, in time.
The pendulum swings back, in time.
The journey will be costly, bloody, and most importantly effective.
I reject your auguring because it is based on despair, hopelessness, and fatalism — and no *decent* people can accept the portended atrocities associated with such auguring.
In fact, I spit it out.
Too bad you saw fatalism when realism was implied.
My point was to not wait that the enemy will magically kill himself (e.g. Turks overthrowing Erdogan) – this will never happen, but instead to educate ourselves about the enemy and start building defence (e.g. getting control of national borders and expelling islamists). In fact this will most likely allow to avoid the “costly, bloody journey” you are suggesting.
So no, I’m not in despair. I’m keeping my weapon ready and I don’t care about people who only pray for pendulum to start going back.
Simple demographics tell us that Caucasian peoples are in decline around the world.
Demographics may not be destiny, but they influence it heavily.
S&P downgrades Turkey’s credit rating to BB; Lira tumbles to new all-time low:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-20/sp-downgrades-turkey-bb-outlook-negative-lira-tumbles
Arresting academics and scientists en masse simply puts the icing on the cake of Turkey’s future – a once promising nation turned into an Ummah-controlled pit by a madman and his followers.
Spot on!
I say Turkey going blatantly bad makes us (the west) stronger.
Would it be better to have them outside the tent and urinating in? YES. Cause up until now they have been almost inside the tent but urinating in anyhow. It moves a trojan horse, a supposedly democratic and modern but in fact backward and islamic country, back into the opposing camp. Decisively removing the nigh-existential threat to Europe posed by a visa-free travel regime with Turkey is just gold.
Yes indeed. Of course the Neuro Union is ready, willing and able to do the Christian thing by the potentially millions upon millions of Turkey’s “refugees” from the upcoming Erdogan war on the Turkisk fifth column to team up with the Turkish fifth column already in place in Europe west.
Nato is now going to have to associate with a different set of Turkish officers–many of whom will be less secular, more Islamic and more anti-west (behind taqqiya of course.)
Our Nato leaders will see this and bring the news back to our next President; and with the right circumstances maybe we can foment another coup–or fire an errant Hellfire–now that we know the facts of Turkish politics and can better assess the chances of success.
What I am saying is that despite a depressing coup outcome, we know more now.
But the Turks have paid a huge price for their tyrant’s need to know.
It’s yet another example of the adage that a house divided against itself cannot stand.
Attaturk thought he could split the difference and create a secular state with a Muslim majority population. Perhaps the wonder is that it lasted as long as it did.
Ataturk was a great man.
You probably also approve the genocide of 1,5 millions of Armenians by Kemalists, right?
Ataturk was a crazy islamist with megalomaniac pan-turkic fantasies. Secular muslim state is oxymoron. Atatutk would be very proud of Erdogan, because he is very close to finishing what Ataturk started – world dominated by turks.
[Ad-hominem & vulgarity redacted]
He didn’t lift a finger to prevent the genocide of the Armenians!
Yes. The adhominem-&-vulgarity-redacted redacted.
I hope moderators appreciate my preemptive editing.. 🙂
Sure do. It’s a version of “when in Rome”…Does anyone know the origin of that saying? What were they doing in Rome that visitors felt obliged, under the rules of being courteous to one’s host, to copy or follow. Obviously it was some cultural difference that set the Romans apart from their visitors…
It’s true that the Turkish military was in control at the time of the Armenian genocide. I don’t doubt that Ataturk was a pan-Turkish nationalist supremacist. But, I would have to see some evidence that he was an Islamist, as he specifically denigrated the role of Islam in the Turkish government.
No leader of an Islam majority nation could have done more than Ataturk did to suppress Islam or, more specifically, to remove it from public life. One of Ataturk’s several adopted daughters (he was a childless homosexual) became not only a military pilot, but the head of Turkey’s military flying school. A world first for women.
The whole of Turkish history since Ataturk’s death has been to roll back his secularization of Turkey and his containment of Islam.
Erdogan will prove to be the undoer of Ataturk’s modernizing reforms, the grave-digger of the secular republic.
Time to remove Turkey from NATO.
Ataturk a crazy islamist? Not from my reading on the subject. He was an atheist.
Y’all have raised some interesting questions about Turkey under Ataturk.
Is there a historian in the house? Do we know if Ataturk was determined to modernize Turkey to the point of tolerance of other religions, i.e, Armenian Christians? Was their slaughter due to the strength of the military – was it planned & executed by the latter while Ataturk went along with it to preserve his own power? Was the military the real source of the regressive Islamists and was it they who brought down the hammer of genocide because of their envy of Armenians’ way of life – certainly more prosperous than most of Turkey? Beyond the grab for land, goods, money from the Armenians, did the genocide have any real purpose? IOW, was it Islam-generated destruction within a state Ataturk was trying to bring into modern times?
Long term, did the expulsion of the Armenians serve to impoverish Turkey?
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Oh, and our sincere thank you for cutting out the stuff we’d have had to redact. It’s a different little world here at GoV and we appreciate the fact that our visitors may not agree with the customs but are willing to abide by them…hey, I just noticed: we’re having us a multicultural experience here…
Replying to D
The Armenian genocide occurred in the interval between the first (Navy) phase of the 1915 Gallipoly campaign, and the second phase of boots on the ground.
The first phase nearly bought about the capture of the then Constantinople as the British and French navies advanced up the seaway pounding the forts, but the cost was too high and the navies retreated (meanwhile Constantinople was being evacuated as the Turks only had about 5 shells left). The Turks had had a big fright.
Politics of distraction were then cynically applied and the Armenian massacre was used as a diversion to stop a counter-revolution….
Mustafa Kemal Pasha was a Colonel commanding an infantry Regiment on the Gallipoli Peninsular while the Armenian Genocide was occurring. He had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Whilst he had been an early, almost founding member, of the Young Turks who took effective power in the Ottoman Empire in 1908, he was in Syria conducting a campaign against the Druze in the Ante Lebanon Mountains when it happened and was sidelined by Enver et al because they regarded him as a rival.
As for being an islamist, he was a public drinker, publicly and privately mocked imams, insult those with bruised foreheads, banned the fez and encouraged brimmed Western style headgear, forcefully pushed imams out of politics, and his adopted daughter was the first woman pilot in Turkey.
Hardly the behaviour of a crazy islamist.
He was a Turkish nationalist. His forces were responsible for the burning of Symrna in 1922, which killed thousands of Greeks and Armenians and drove others into exile.
Nationalists can massacre people, too.
I want our Christian lands back. Imagine the West (Christianity) still sitting on Islamic lands after forcibly occupying them and claiming them their own, say some 563 years ago, and consider how the Muslims of today might be approaching the matter?
But EUROPE DID indeed colonize MENA…particularly after Germany lost WWI, there was a parceling out of various territories. See the Sykes-Picot Agreement:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sykes%E2%80%93Picot_Agreement
It’s entertaining to read since it happened before anyone knew there was (black) gold in them there sand dunes.
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Turn the kaleidoscope a little and read this:
http://www.coldwarstudies.com/2013/01/11/history-of-colonization-in-the-middle-east-and-north-africa-mena-precursor-to-cold-war-conflict/
So, when you say, Imagine the West (Christianity) still sitting on Islamic lands after forcibly occupying them and claiming them their own…you can see Europe did a version of exactly that. For a very long time. And we haven’t even considered Indonesia or the continent of Africa. Right now, it is China who is exploiting the rich mineral rights in Africa…I don’t know what deals they’ve made with the various corrupt African countries, but you can be sure they aren’t skating off as lightly as Europe did for years.
The biggest mistake Sykes-Picot made, imo, was to fail to give the Kurds their own land. It would have saved so much bloodshed.
The failure to give the Kurds their own state, which was solemnly promised to them, was indeed bad and an independent Kurdistan (with Kirkuk oil) would be a good counterweight to a Turkey: there would have been a war between them in the early-mid 1920’s and in the upshot both Armenia and Greece would have gotten involved and have benefitted. Whilst the former would have added the Kars region (doubling the size of Armenia), probably to the Soviet Union, we would have a larger independent Armenia today. The Greek presence/sovereignty in western Anatolia would also still be there. Perhaps also northern Anatolia: see the proposed Greek-Armenian “Pontic State”.
In my opinion the worst aspect of Sykes-Picot is that the French pushed their “sphere of influence” as far south as possible: this meant that the Druze of southernmost Lebanon and southwestern Syria – Jebel Al Druze – did not end up in Palestine. In Israel today the Druze (who were historically persecuted by both Sunnis and Shia) are extremely patriotic and make a huge, voluntary, contribution to the IDF way out of proportion to their numbers. And have been doing so since 1948 onwards. They are very grateful to be citizens of a flourishing western democracy where their legal rights are fully respected and they are free to practice their religion and retain their culture. Due to the ceaseless demonization of Israel, the happy story of the Druze, who are Arabs, receives negligible attention.
We featured the Druze some years ago. Didn’t they consider Syria their home? In Israel, they’ve been successful in the niche they carved, in Lebanon they’ve fallen under the sword too often.
Their genetics are fascinating:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druze#Genetics
They consider their origins to have begun with Jethro of Midian. I remember being surprised at that: Jethro was Moses’ father-in-law – And oh how Moses did toil 😉
In my early Scripture studies they theorized that much of the cult and code of the Israelites originated in this Jethro-Moses alliance. That goes a long way to explain not only the Druze ability to get along in Israel, but their genius for accomodation wherever they are…I don’t think there is much Arab barbarian DNA in that group.
I’d argue the biggest mistake the West made was not outright colonizing the oil fields in the future Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states.
Dymphna
You may well be right about the Druze not having much Arab DNA, I don’t know. They are generally categorized as Arabs. The Jethro angle is indeed fascinating as is the secretive religious dogma, whereby, curiously the stratum which is permitted access to full knowledge of the faith’s rituals includes women so that a majority of Druze men know less about their own religion than a (small) minority of women. Unique in world terms.
As to Arab DNA, I doubt that the Maronite, Greek Orthodox and other Christian Lebanese have much Arab DNA in them either, being the descendants of the ancient Phoenicians.
Raspailwasright
When FDR was negotiating with the Saud dynasty, just a bunch of violent desert tribesmen in the 1920’s, to gain oil concessions, some adviser should have said: “I’ve got a better idea, why don’t we just turn the place into a de facto US colony and put a Hashemite into nominal power?”
What an infinitely better place the world would be without Saudi Arabia. And the US-tutored state that would have eventually arisen in its place (if my imagined adviser’s advice had been acted upon), would probably be the most democratic state in the Arab-Muslim world today.
“Algeria: French conquest began in 1830. Won war of independence from France in 1963.”
Reason why the French went to war against Algeria in 1830: To stop Muslim pirates operating out of that country with the rulers’ complicity continuing to engage in attacks on shipping and raids on coastal villages, activities for which the Muslims had already been paid to cease but continued to do nonetheless. The French conquest effectively ended a period in which Muslims enslaved around a million people from around the Mediterranean and places as far away as England, Ireland and Scandinavia, as well as the crews of many US ships. Indeed, the US government was, for a time, paying a major percentage of its GDP in protection money to the Muslims to try to prevent attacks on their merchant vessels. The Muslims took the money and continued their piracy. The French ultimately decided to cut out the heart of the piracy in Algeria, being geographically and militarily better positioned to do so.
Dymphna, I don’t think “colonization” is the correct term to describe the outcome of the Sykes-Picot Agreement. After all, the Ottoman Empire was the loser in WWI and its territories had to be managed somehow. The Ottoman Empire had lasted over 600 years; the “colonization” resulting from Sykes-Picot lasted mere decades by comparison, not really a very long time.
What does the website you quote (Cold War Studies) mean when it says that Palestine was “Lost to Israel 1948-1967”? And isn’t the characterization of Jordan as a “country” prior to Sykes-Picot inaccurate? Other errors jump out at me. I’m not familiar with that website but I’d be questioning its “facts.”
Administration would be a better term than colony as it’s more accurate.
The French did colonise North Africa, Algeria in particular but a colony implies permanent civilian occupation which is just not the case in most of the places mentioned.
India had a large European presence but was never actively colonised and after the end of the Raj there was no ethnic European community left as a result.
Wow.
No, I’m not familiar with the website either. My interest was in finding a longer list than the wiki had…if my fatigue weren’t so deep right now I’d go back and look but at this point it would add to my dysphoria…thanks for pointing that out, though.
So after a rest and some gardening I went back to that site…should have looked more closely instead of merely grabbing their handy list. One of the categories is “the Red Scare” – wording used by Leftists to describe America’s push back against Soviet Communism. We were one of the few countries to do so; many others in the West had active Communist parties in their parliaments.
That’s one reason Diana West was so threatening to some of those recovering Commies like David Horowitz. Her mentor warned her that the book would stir up a hornet’s nest but neither he nor she reckoned on how deep the disease went; all the way down to the soul
When Wm Buckley started up his magazine, National Review, he wasn’t a born again conservative like Horowitz. Buckley’s principles were formed from/by his early associations with thinkers like Russell Kirk.
Kirk remains one of *the* foundational thinkers for modern American conservatives. Back then they stood in scholarly array against the pseudo-scientific Marxist ideology that plagued (plagues) so much of modern thought.
The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot
This is the Regnery eBook. There’s a cheaper one but I couldn’t get it to come up. If you have a Kindle, or a Kindle app, I’d recommend getting the free sample so you can see why he was considered important. Even back then conservatives were being marginalized and his work had much to do with putting some spine into people.
For the moment, conservatism in the U.S. is without robust leaders with integrity. Look at the 10 principles of conservatism that Kirk outlined to see why few or none of those soi-disant “conservatives” really are what they claim; mostly they’ve morphed into opportunists who’ll sell their souls for access. Proximity to power tends to do that:
http://www.kirkcenter.org/index.php/detail/ten-conservative-principles/
We need to tease out the threads of socialism which have led us down this ugly road. We can’t begin to fight against the inroads Islam is making in the West if our language is tied in knots by the deliberate stupidities of political correctness.
This coup is the Turkish version of burning of Reichstag (1933). To this date, we are not really sure how much were the Nazis involved in it, but it surely provided an excellent cause for a massive Nazi crackdown on Communists and Socialists. Hundreds were killed and thousands were locked up. Of course, it was just the beginning for Hitler and his “New Germany” and I am afraid Erdogan is getting the same ideas now, when he is so close to absolute power.
You can bet Hilary is taking notes.
. . . and Erdogan has now declared martial law. I wonder when it will be rescinded? Recall how the Nazis conveniently “forgot” to do so.
Independently I had also concluded that this was their “Reichstag Fire” moment. So, what happens next and who are the players? And what are we called to do?
Key to the rise of the NSDAP up to this point (1933) were the SA, variously described as a bunch of thugs or street fighters who appreciated some externally applied discipline in their lives. It seems we currently have a candidate organisation to fill this role, people who appreciate that there are even rules telling them which hand to wipe their behind with when they have been to the WC. At present they are to be found in various areas described as countries by Western xenophobes, but considered part of one united world by both Islam and the Hard Left. Just as the SA made disorder so that their leader could claim to be the only one who could bring calm and order to Germany in 1933, so I am expecting more thuggery & disorder so that (?Erdogan?) can claim to be the only one to restore order.
Within two months of the Reichstag Fire a number of important “firsts” had happened: Dachau Concentration Camp was established, Jews were excluded from the civil service, from education, and Jewish businesses were subject to official boycott. A month later there were public burnings of “un-German” books. Before the year end, Courts could sentence “offenders” to indefinite imprisonment, non-Germans were prohibited from working in journalism, and the law on the enforced sterilisation of the disabled came into effect. Of course it won’t happen in the same order or in exactly the same way these days. However we are already seeing the press severely restricted in Turkey by direct law, and in much of Europe by indirect law such as the new German law stopping people from being nasty about foreign heads of state.
In the same way that 1933 had some pretty grim effects not only on Germany but also on Austria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia because of their minority populations of Germanic heritage, so what is happening now in Turkey will have its effects wherever the Turkish diaspora are currently to be found.
The Pact of Omar will influence what those initial effects may be. For those who need to educate themselves on this “treaty”, have a look at http://enjoytheconditionsofomar.blogspot.com/ . We must be alert for, and push back against, each and every attempt.
And I forgot the German “Enabling Act” of 1933. I don’t know about your country, but the equivalent legislation in Britain is already on the Statute Book, being the Civil Contingencies Act which gives unprecedented powers to government, and the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act which gives Ministers of the Crown the power to rule by decree. Both during Labour’s time in power!!
If Obama and Erdogan are not complicit in this, I’ll be extremely surprised. The next few months will tell the tale.
Given that Fethullah Gulen has been named the mastermind of the Turkish coup, I sometimes wonder if those who plotted and launched the coup were not Islamists impatient that Erdogan hadn’t gone far and fast enough.
IMO, in the larger picture of the modern tribalized man, as opposed to the pagan or earlier cave man days, when everyone probably had a crude form of weapon, modern man has apparently overspecialized in the warrior class being armed, increasingly since before the Biblical days, but not the populace being armed and ready, with the best current weapon technology available, be it in the past wherein many had swords, staffs, spears, guns, whatever they could do with, except for America, who is armed, reasonably, and a small handful of other nations, apparently including Switzerland, to a lesser degree. Reviewing all the carnage of history, mentioned here, plus the carnage of the globe through time, which approaches 2/3 billion murdered, so far, it is clear that if the globe’s populace had mostly been basically armed with more than pitchforks, and clubs, and had learned some basic tactical and strategic modalities of warfare defense, a heck of a lot would not have been murdered, raped, and plundered, by superior armed forces, military or otherwise.
America is armed well, generally, even women increasingly, and perhaps more need such and repeated training too, and practice in judgement, too. Perhaps a source for simulators as a new product category, huh? It does seem, that the time of risk draws closer, when one way or another, any of several horrible scenario possibilities may materialize, given the status of the globe. Americans will be again put to the test of are you a man of hero’s determination, or a mere boy cowering in the shadows, are you a mother grizzly, or a very little girl? Do you yield to those who rape for war, or do you slay such?
Through all history it appears that ultimate self-defense is the line to be crossed, in Europe, Africa, Asia, India, and in the South American regions, as well. Many in Mexico bear long arms and bandoleers even these days, to defend against the narco terrorists, and soon others, within their country. South America is being invaded, such as in Brazil, by islam, and soon, as in the Philippines (already long invaded), self-defense corps, beyond military, may be needed if Philippines can.
And by the way, if one can’t or doesn’t wish to have deadly weapons, don’t bet your life or body on chemicals, nor on shocking, they fail for multiple reasons, too often, but sometimes are perhaps better than just lying down, which is an option-yielding to the conqueror. Only firearms have a high rate of success upon an attacker, in any condition. But not without physical drills, and mental go-no go decision practice preparations, for safety and effectiveness.
I have witnessed arguments being settled by mere display of a gun without use, and failure of chemical weapons. Having a gun does not always require use or use against the perpetrator, but it is a tool of multiple styles of application. Some of the few issues not suited at all, to a firearm are hatred, jealousy, and racism. It can be hard to learn those absolute no go rules, for some, and impossible for some others to learn. But it is important, as there are times when iniquities happen, and need to be left to other means, or time, and God!
A firearm is a critical force multiplier, especially for the weaker, or overwhelmed, or outnumbered. It can be a last option against the evil that infects mankind.
That is its primary application, other than pure fun of shooting and practice and accomplishment, and personal pride of having a spine, too, or the task of hunting. Yes, I’ve been before the gun, and been shot at once, and missed, and a few other bits of experience. And I’ve had a knife at my throat, but he found I had a gun at his belly, and decided wiser than he had! Actually, I’ve been closer to death dozens of times, in ways having nothing to do with weapons, of any kind, at all, including multiple type vehicles (alert and experienced) and lightening, several dozen times, split seconds from, mostly other people’s doing, including others being drunk in some situations.
Am I concerned about today’s people? Some, as I am reminded too often of the mush and oatmeal that too many Americans have, for both brains, and spines! Just watch Watters World and such reality TV, adult?, or children, on the street interviews, illustrating such disgracefuls, of America.
And so, imagine how many millions of populace, through all history, could have saved themselves from murder, and worse, and loved ones, or saved more and better, had known that they had their own right, granted through the Creator, to their own Second Amendment, especially with a little fire drilling, against the Huns, the muslim beasts who have invaded India, for over a thousand years, so far, The Uighurs, the Mongols, the Nazis, Armenian genocide, Erdogan excess now, etc.?
” and that Erdoğan allowed the coup attempt to occur because it was beneficial to him”
I tend to agree with this theory. Someone tipped him off, he avoided capture and outsmart the rebels who were few in number. Now in falsely blaming the Imam in the US, he can carry out his purge with a veneer of justification. He will soon declare himself “President for life” or suspend the election cycle for a decade for “security reasons.”
Or, he seeded some provocateurs, knowing that he’d be able to crush any ‘coup’ attempt and also as a benefit, flush out otherwise unsuspected opposition in the army officer corps.
Baron, earlier in these comments you mentioned Smyrna. That made me think of your young acquaintance there, the daughter of an American friend. She defended the Turks passionately and dismissed your warnings. I wonder what she’s thinking now.
She’s very well-defended, psychologicallay speaking. I don’t think anything can get through to her except imminent bloodshed at her doorstep, and maybe not even that.
I’m with Free Speech on this. [Erdogan]’s buddy, [Obama], very probably has a hand in this, and I’m concerned that the Air Base somehow figures in the game. In other, and possibly related chicanery news, a female Air Force lieutenant has died under mysterious conditions in UAE. [?] is predictably stingy with the details.
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From admin: please use proper names. Sometimes these pet nicknames are unintelligible. Check the comment guidelines.
Belated addition: “When in Rome…” is advice offered to St Ambrose, who travelled to Milan in 387 and observed that the local Christians were less observant of the Sabbath than in Rome; he was advised, “When in Rome”, etc. Good advice for visitors in general!