The Turkish coup that failed.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

I see a lot of suggestions that it was fake because it occurred while Erdogan was on vacay because the first rule of a successful coup is to kill or imprison the leader. I suspect the coup plotters wanted as bloodless a coup as possible so they wouldn't get kicked out of NATO.


I am not a huge fan of Erdogan but I am a huge fan of democratic and not violent transfers of power.

[Thinkingabout]

1. Same old story, two wrongs does not make it right.

[ansible]

2. It certainly wasn't bloodless for the soldiers that surrendered

Lots of them got killed after surrendering.

[Motley13]

3. very poor planning

and the people were not with the coup.
It seems as though it was just a faction of the military.

Erdogan was a democratically elected SOB, they can throw him out next election

[TexasProgresive]

4. I don't know why this faction of the Turkish military rebelled at this time,

what I do know is that there is more here than meets the eye of Monday morning quarterbacks and wannabe intelligence analysts. Successful revolutions, (and I use the word successful just to mean that there was a turnover of government not that it so much the final outcome was what was intended) generally are presaged by a series of unsucessful risings, rebellions, riots and attempted coups. Usually these don't have the backing of the general populace. The Irish Easter Rising in 1916 was a failure, the Irish people thought it was a joke. But the British made a fatal mistake. They executed the leaders shooting one while tied in a chair since he couldn't stand on account of his injuries.

The Irish were horrified and became galvanized to toss the Brits out at all costs and means.

The very fact that a faction of the Turkish military took up arms against the government is a symptom of something very troubling in Turkey. There is no way to know how it will shake out. Erdogan's actions can rally the people around him or they may hang him by his heels.