Update at 12:10 AM EDT
Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yldirim has announced that Umit Dundar is the new acting Chief of the Turkish Military. There is still no new information on the whereabouts and the status of the actual Chief of Staff, General Hulusi Akar. I saw a tweet several hours ago saying he’d been rescued and freed as he was being held hostage, but the tweet wasn’t really sourced to any real reporting.
———————————-
The Guardian is reporting that President Erdogan is addressing a sizable crowd in Istanbul.
He tells supporters that the government will succeed.
From the highest level of the army to lowest-ranking officers, he says, the armed forces must know they cannot govern the state.
The government is elected and is in control, he says. The people elected a president and that president is here.
He says the coup plotters brought out tanks, but “my people” took them back.
Erdoğan says he will stand firm and will not compromise.
He says he will address “those in Pennsylvania” – by which he means cleric Fethullah Gülen and his supporters – accusing them of betraying the nation. That’s enough, he says: if you are courageous, come back to Turkey.
There is still some fighting in Ankara though, so complete control hasn’t quite been reestablished.
redshirt
AS: Your title has a typo
Our perhaps an intentional little Turkish Coupe reference.
Pogonip
I tawt I taw a coup d’etat!
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: Already fixed it.
? Martin
Yep. Erdogan wasn’t wrong to be paranoid, but he’s probably now looking admirably at how Kim Jung Il has things set up.
Keith P.
Jeez, who was running the coup – Fielding Mellish?
Chris
I can’t say I’m terribly upset to see it fail.
Psych1
Erdogan has been purging all critical institutions, military, press, judiciary, govt, of all opposition for many years. His people are in place where it matters. Key opposition leaders including many military leaders are in prison. Hard to pull off a coup.
Merci
@Pogonip:
Burl Ives
redshirt
@Pogonip: Love it!
Someone tweet this!
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: Damn you’re fast! Kudos.
redshirt
@Chris: I’m sad to see it fail. Erdogan is setting up an Islamic State answerable to only himself.
Schlemazel Khan
@Keith P.:
Well I understand they ordered 1600 quarts of cold slaw from a local deli to feed the rebels so maybe.
guachi
Time for the EU and USA to put some pressure on Erdogan. If NATO and EU membership have any meaning to Erodgan and Turkey then use them as leverage. The US and EU can’t keep getting played with “we need them for Syria” as an excuse to turn a blind eye.
SiubhanDuinne
Well that was quick.
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: How much do you know about Turkey? I say you know fuck all. So shut the fuck up.
max
@efgoldman: He’ll probably bomb the Kurds again, because he can.
They never stopped bombing the Kurds. ‘Fun in Turkey’ has been the continuous theme since Erdogan won reelection on the basis of fighting Kurdish terrorism – which he blamed for the bombing of a peaceful Kurdish demo by Daesh.
You want paranoid?
max
[‘There will be blood.’]
Dog Dawg Damn
@Omnes Omnibus: past your bedtime?
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus:
More than you I bet. Also, you’re becoming more caustic with each passing month. You’re not the only one who gets to judge, dude.
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: So tell me about your expertise. If you know about the situation, tell us. Please.
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus: When did I mention expertise? I’m posting on an internet blog you Hardo. Lighten up.
“Francis”
Do you get that joke, friend?
Miss Bianca
@redshirt: You mean a typo as in…the chickens have flown the coup?
ETA: Or would that be “the turkeys have flown the coup”?
Omnes Omnibus
@redshirt: Then maybe you should shut the fuck up?
Gin & Tonic
@redshirt: An Internet blog where sometimes people who actually know stuff post about stuff they know about.
redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus: Wow. You’re just like agitating.
redshirt
@Gin & Tonic: Knowing more about Turkey then Omnes does not necessarily make me a freaking expert in the subject!
PhoenixRising
@Omnes Omnibus: if you boys can’t behave you’re going straight off to bed. No dessert.
Back to the issue at hand: link to a short primer on why we are disappointed to see tanks rolling in the streets and not overthrowing the elected government?
Sorry I’m behind, took a personal day for oncology and the Bosphorus was never my bag so…catch up materials are welcome.
Gin & Tonic
@redshirt: I have yet to see evidence of your expertise. Perhaps I missed it.
redshirt
@Gin & Tonic: Expertise in what?
redshirt
OK so I think Omnes has passed out by now so we’re free to talk honestly about him….
Gin & Tonic
@redshirt: Turkish politics.
redshirt
@Gin & Tonic: Have I claimed such a thing?
Gin & Tonic
@redshirt: You wagered you knew more than OO, but provided no evidence to substantiate that.
Elie
@PhoenixRising:
Hey man, whats with the oncology? Do I have to worry about you? Just tell me to butt out if you want but I have to show you that I care….
redshirt
@Gin & Tonic: JC! Does that make me an expert?!
Keep fishing brother.
max
@efgoldman: I don’t know whether it’s better or worse that he hasn’t blamed the Jews.
Oh, he’s officially back to loving the Israelis. Also he’s back to being OK with Putin. Mainly because he’s got a war with the PPK, not to mention a bombing campaign against YPG/J to conduct. And there’s that leetle problem with Daesh.
So blaming the Jews is out.
max
[‘As far as I can tell, Erdogan has Istanbul and the TV nets and the coupers have partial control of Ankara.’]
Steeplejack (phone)
@Adam L Silverman:
Just a vote for putting your updates below the main post in chronological order. Your previous post with multiple granular updates was hard to read because one had to search for the original nugget that was being updated, then read back up.
No one expects up-to-the-minute news flashes from Balloon Juice, or at least that’s not the main reason for coming here, so that format isn’t necessary. IMHO, of course.
Adam L Silverman
@Steeplejack (phone): We will refer it to committee… Okay, if it makes it hard to read, I’ll try it the other way.
magurakurin
@efgoldman: holy fuck. What’s up with this brawl? Is the dew point at some ungodly high and steamy level?
Because it was here. We had a dew point of 81.5 degrees here on Wednesday. A dew point over 80 is just stupid humid.
Adam L Silverman
@magurakurin: Its been a schvitz here for weeks!
magurakurin
@Adam L Silverman: I had an asthma attack on Wednesday night. Foolishly tried to hack it out with just a fan. Woke up from a dream choking. Took my medicine and shut up the house and blasted the AC. Looks like another dose of it tonight. Not quite as bad as Wednesday though. It’s humid here all summer but a dew point over 81 is not fit for human habitation.
Adam L Silverman
@magurakurin: I’m sorry and I hope you feel better. I can tell you trying to sleep with the respiratory infection I had a couple of weeks back was not fun at all.
redshirt
@Adam L Silverman: I have geothermal cooling and let me tell you. It’s the bomb.
magurakurin
@Adam L Silverman: thanks, I’m just fine. My asthma isn’t that bad and the humidity doesn’t usually get it going. But it was just a perfect storm of humidity the other day. I’ve lived in Western Japan for 18 years and it is always very humid, but that was just freaky. I was born and raised in Southeastern PA, so I grew up with humidity as well. Californians are spoiled. They have no idea. PNW, too. I live in Oregon a long time and the would complain about the humidity when it was around 50% in the summer. Dry up there in summer.
mike in dc
I think the 24-hour news establishment is wearing under the strain of covering multiple big stories simultaneously–Trump’s VP pick, Sterling/Castile/Dallas, Nice, Turkey.
magurakurin
@redshirt: so, you live in a cave? groovy.
Steeplejack
@Adam L Silverman:
Thanks for considering it. I noticed on this post you did put a line between the update and the original post. Previous one didn’t have that.
magurakurin
@mike in dc: Trump’s VP they probably coulda skipped. Mike “who the fuck is he?” Pence. The best part is though that it’s the TP ticket….only good for wiping your ass.
Adam L Silverman
@magurakurin: When I moved to Carlisle in July 2010 for my assignment there at USAWC, I left Florida on a Tuesday morning. It was about 92 and 60% humidity. When I got to Carlisle the next day around 4:30 PM it was about 104 and 80% plus humidity. I was so glad I had gotten a house with a pool! I got the dogs out, got them into the backyard, then watered and fed. Got the truck unloaded. Got changed and got right into the pool. Followed by my oldest dog at the time. She smelled the water and thought “I know what this is, we had one at grandma’s and grandpa’s house! I’ll just put my paws in to cool down. Unfortunately the pool was an above ground that had then had the deck built around it to make it look less tacky. So no steps, just stairs. She went right into the pool and was not pleasantly surprised! So I had to get her out and toweled off.
redshirt
@magurakurin: Essentially. It’s underground cold making me feel cool and dry all Summer.
TriassicSands
@magurakurin:
The Trump/Pence ticket is to politics what 30 grit sand paper is to toilet paper.
Adam L Silverman
@Steeplejack: I try to put the lines in. I got so busy with the earlier one I missed a few. Sorry bout that.
magurakurin
@redshirt: sounds good. And way cheaper than the AC.
magurakurin
@Adam L Silverman: brutal. PA summers are hot, especially out in those valleys.
I remember some nasty summer nights though from my childhood. But we always missed the worst of it because we went to the Jersey Shore and stayed with my grandparents all summer. Bloody hot some nights there, too. In the sixities they still sprayed for mosquitoes at night. We would hear the truck coming and my mom would rush around closing all the windows as the gas started pouring in (might have been DDT, don’t know). Then the house would begin to bake. We had no AC at all in those days. After about a half an hour the danger of the poison gas seemed nothing compared to suffocating in the still humid air. Living in the Northeast you get used to all extremes, hot and cold, snow and rain. A little bit of everything, eh?
Adam L Silverman
@magurakurin: We had those bug spray trucks in Florida growing up as well. We also had central A/C!
And with that I’m too bed.
burnspbesq
Erdogan, Orban, Kaczynski, Trump. All planning on being the last democratically elected leaders of their respective countries.
burnspbesq
@magurakurin:
The best part of Jersey summers: you take a shower, and by the time you finish drying off you need another one.
201 fa life!
Steeplejack
@Adam L Silverman:
Updates below the original post mean you don’t have to worry about that. And (IMO) it reads better.
The Ancient Randonneur
Erdogan is fascist filth.
Dog Dawg Damn
@Gin & Tonic: someone is going to be eating turkey pot pie.
Paul T
A false flag coup?
Lurking Canadian
@PhoenixRising:
I am emphatically not an expert. The previous thread about the coup contains a pretty good discussion of the background, I think. My dog just woke me up, so I’ll try to summarize.
As I undertstand it there is a tradition in Turkey (going back all the way to Ataturk) that the armed forces are the defenders of Liberty. In the century since the creation of modern Turkey, anytime the democracy starts getting out of hand, (which basically means “too Muslim”) they intervene, dissolve the government and form a new one.
It sounds very strange to Western ears to root for the military coup against a democratically elected government, but NATO is usually OK with it. A way to think of it might be that the armed forces in Turkey play a role not unlike the US Supreme Court. They believe themselves empowered to act to defend civil liberties against the tyranny of the majority.
Another way to think of it is that this is basically what Pinochet said he was doing, too (except read “too communist” instead of “too Muslim”).
The problem with the SCOTUS analogy, of course, is that this is all ad hoc. They don’t “really” have that authority in any kind of constitutional sense, they just kind of do it sometimes.
In this case, the situation seems murky. Erdogan’s treatment of the Kurdish minority is certainly not worthy of praise, but squashing the Kurds is a non-partisan issue in Turkey (i.e. Both sides do it). Obama has come out in his favour in this case, and against the coup. That might be realpolitik, it might be “better the devil we know”, it might be just a bias against further instability in an unstable region, it might be something I haven’t thought of. In this case, as in so many others, I am glad that Obama has to make the decisions and not me.
Joel
@Chris: me neither. since when has a coup improved things for citizens of a given country?
Amanda in the South Bay
Goodbye Turkish secularism, hello president for life Erdogan!
J R in WV
@Joel:
In Turkey, usually. They need a “This Government can make no laws nor express any preferences regarding race, religion, national origin, or sexual identity whatsoever.” clause in their constitution. The Army is secular, and keeps reseting the civilian government back to secular as it tends to slide towards Islamic Government every 15 or 20 years.
We have still not proven that an Islamic population can maintain a democratic and secular government.
It is actually looking like we have not proven that a secular Christian state can maintain a secular, non-religious government either, so far. Just ask Mike Pence, right?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@guachi: This is sorta where I am.
Erdogan is dangerous and it’s quite clear that he’s trying to set himself up as a quasi-dictator for life. He let/encouraged a million migrants run to Europe to try to pressure them into giving him what he wants on EU membership, etc. He agreed to join the US in fighting Daesh as cover for waging war on the Kurds in Syria and Iraq. He’s muzzling the press from reporting on the war on the Kurds in eastern Turkey, taking over papers that are critical of him, etc.
He was bad news even before yesterday.
A coup is bad news, too, even if it might appear that the military can “reset” the direction of government there. It shows that civil institutions are still weak and still too easily manipulated by a demagogue.
I’m sure that Erdogan is going to feel emboldened by the coup’s failure. He’ll purge more of the military, crack down even harder on his critics, and probably ratchet up his war on the Kurds even more. As bad as he was, the failed coup is going to make things worse.
Unless, perhaps, the EU and the US and others somehow get him to change his ways. A sensible leader might step back and think “why did this happen, and what are options that I have, other than cracking down, to prevent it from happening again?” Given his authoritarian tendencies, it’s hard to imagine him thinking that he has other options…
If the coup has indeed failed, I hope it is wrapped up with as little violence as possible. In this situation, one thing worse than a failed coup is a failing coup that drags on for weeks with escalating violence.
:-(
We’ll see.
I hope Obama and Kerry think carefully about how to handle Erdogan going forward…
Cheers,
Scott.
Uncle Cosmo
@Omnes Omnibus: Shut the fuck up yourself. I know enough about Turkey (having followed their situation since I spent 17 days there in 1996) to understand that Erdogan is one of the nastiest pieces of work out there. His entire administration has been a slow-motion Islamist coup against the Kemalist state (which whatever its failings had been faithfully* secularist, largely due to the Army’s mission as the guardians of Ataturk’s vision & its willingness to step in, restore it, & step back out ASAP).
All the West needs is a heavily armed Turkey walking out of NATO & into a full-blown hegemonic struggle with the Saudis & Iranians for supremacy in the region, probably with ISIS/ISIL as allies. And now that Erdogan has drawn out the rest of the opposition & crushed them, we are odds-on to get that within the next 10 years. Fun & games!
* Pun unintended but accepting the award on behalf of my subconscious.
Uncle Cosmo
@redshirt: I presume “geothermal cooling” = ground-source heat pumping. I’d do the same in a heartbeat, except that an interior-group row house with a 18’x50′ yard would require a deep well (at least in the current designs) & even if I could get zoning approval for same, break-even would come well into my 90s. (So I do the next best thing by spending most of the thermonuclear season in my sunken basement with a small fan.)