[NGTM-1R]

Private schooling, the birthplace of coups.

Gotta admit that's a new one.

[Luis Dias]

There's nothing more dangerous than education.

If you're an authoritarian asshole.

[Dragon]

Private schooling, the birthplace of coups.

Gotta admit that's a new one.

Not really, subverting the educational system was pretty much always one of the priorities of any dictator who lasted for any decent length of time. Children need to learn about how glorious the glorious leader is, after all. Private schools are harder to control, so they have to go (other dictators simply never allowed them to become a thing in first place).

In general, it looks like Erdogan has taken a few pages from Stalin's book. That looks depressingly like Stalin-era USSR. Well, if that's so, I hope he dies like Stalin as well.

[Col.Hornet]

Nihil novi

Best way to steer the society is to take control over the education. It will be faaar better to have Qur'anic schools teaching boys when they can lash their wives then a private schools where people may learn suspicious things .

Gj Sultan.

[NGTM-1R]

Not really,

No, you need private schools to train people who will actually fill important positions in your government's hierarchy that require some kind of skill, or you end up like Venezula.

Or you send those people abroad for study but that's arguably much more dangerous.

[Mika]

Turkey doesn't use capital punishment. But lifetime-sentence is definitely not a spa-hotel. One must spend 10  years in isolation to be granted any kind of contact with outside world and other prisoners. Death punishment was also abolished in the army, but now the politicians are discussing on restoring it.

But I agree. That thing looks staged as hell. It reminds me of Stalin's methods, the great purge he made in army in 30's. Removed all kind of opposition (and those being only suspected) in army and also in public administration, etc. Many ordinary citizens got caught by the blast as well.

Yes I know that there's no capital punishment in the EU under peace time laws. However, many EU nations DO have capital punishment under the martial law (treason being one of them). I believe that the coup attempt would fall under the martial law jurisdiction (or at least it likely would be judged as such in Finland).

20 000 teachers suspected of the coup? Yeah, right! This play is directly out of Soviet Union's false flag operations manual. I also really have doubts about the army doing this badly if it really wanted to pull a coup; more likely is that some units have been goaded or ordered to this by their superiors. The first thing to ensure in a coup would be to kill Erdogan, and him being the president, the military should know his exact location all the time. They didn't, so that indicates only mid-level officers could possibly have been involved. But mid-level officers starting the coup is also unlikely in my opinion.

The question is, what will the EU do this time? Stand still, or make a choice to support either? Public comments from the external ministries seem to underline that the EU respects the democratic voting result, but whether that's actually rhetoric for internal EU politics, that we will have to see. I can't say I wouldn't feel disappointed with the EU on how it has handled Turkish coup attempt so far. Regardless of the democratic voting result, the question we have to ask is whether we believe Turkish people will be better the way they are headed now in years to come.

Interestingly this also reveals quite a bit of the EU commentary; comparing the noise we got from the refugee crisis and this, the EU has been markedly less vocal nor does the media show as many tragic and heart breaking pictures. Possibly because the EU feels things are not as clear as they were in the refugee crisis, but here I have to disagree. This is about as clear as it can get, and for the Eastern European nations in the EU, doing the right thing here would actually show the EU in a far better light.

The immediate result of this is that Turkey will not be in the negotiations table for joining the EU for a long long time. While this alone could be seen as a positive development, the downsides to the whole matter are the consequences of the regional geopolitics. Fracturing NATO and the EU at the same time are indeed bad news, and NATO really has to start looking for every option with Turkey. One worrying thing specifically is technology leak.

[The E]

The immediate result of this is that Turkey will not be in the negotiations table for joining the EU for a long long time. While this alone could be seen as a positive development, the downsides to the whole matter are the consequences of the regional geopolitics. Fracturing NATO and the EU at the same time are indeed bad news, and NATO really has to start looking for every option with Turkey. One worrying thing specifically is technology leak.

The negotiations for EU membership have been stalled for close to 20 years now. Even without this recent coup, even without Erdogan at the helm, Turkey wasn't going to become an EU member this generation.

[Mika]

Erdogan has apparently declared State of Emergency that will last for three months.

Finnish media is reporting that Erdogan stated the the soldiers that shot down that Su-24 on Turkish border might have been part of the coup attempt.

Translation: This effectively means Martial Law and that Turkey is attempting to heal its relationship with Russia.

[The E]

Also, the european convention on human rights was suspended in Turkey. This is obviously good for bitcoinTurkey, as british conservatives have called that thing an impediment to progress. We must therefore applaud Erdogan for taking decisive steps to Make Turkey Great Again.

[Luis Dias]

It's like watching a hyper slow motion movie of an atom bomb going off. You know what is going to happen but you just can't stop looking. Everything's predictable but you're still fascinated and surprised while watching it.

[Dragon]

Yeah. The worst thing is that there's no way to stop it, despite knowing what's gonna happen next. Those who would be able to either don't have the guts or a reason to interfere. But that's the modern times for ya.

No, you need private schools to train people who will actually fill important positions in your government's hierarchy that require some kind of skill, or you end up like Venezula.

Well, where do you think Turkey is heading? If you look at how the government was under "dictators who lasted for any length of time", you'll see that it's exactly the point. Soviet Block was an exception, commies (after Stalin, at least) generally tended to keep their propaganda and ideology to history and economics lessons, respectively (also literature, to some extent), so their school system wasn't really that bad. Which is the whole reason they managed to keep their authoritarian state up and running for that long.

[Mika]

Yeah. The worst thing is that there's no way to stop it, despite knowing what's gonna happen next. Those who would be able to either don't have the guts or a reason to interfere. But that's the modern times for ya.

No, you need private schools to train people who will actually fill important positions in your government's hierarchy that require some kind of skill, or you end up like Venezula.

Well, where do you think Turkey is heading? If you look at how the government was under "dictators who lasted for any length of time", you'll see that it's exactly the point. Soviet Block was an exception, commies (after Stalin, at least) generally tended to keep their propaganda and ideology to history and economics lessons, respectively (also literature, to some extent), so their school system wasn't really that bad. Which is the whole reason they managed to keep their authoritarian state up and running for that long.

There's a way to do something: contact the ministry of external affairs and let them know what you think.

Well, I wasn't part of the Soviet Union, but saw enough its effects in the history teaching and the societal studies. I let the Polish of the age to tell the story in more details, my understanding is that the Soviet System did not attempt to suppress scientific truths like those discovered in Physics, Mathematics or Biology, instead what it did was history revision and subverting a bunch of other societal areas. More dangerous things such as foreign languages were only taught for a select few, and those were constantly monitored by the assigned agents (which is what happens in China). And then there was always the arbitrary system of sending somebody to gulag if he looked funny.

The fact that Erdogan is targeting schools is not at all surprising and is exactly what most of the dictatorships have done to varying degrees. This isn't because of what the schools ARE, it's because of what the schools could be - in their minds.

[Dragon]

There's a way to do something: contact the ministry of external affairs and let them know what you think.

Well, that's not exactly likely to spur anyone into action. In this case, "something" needs to be backed with guns, and big ones at that. One disgruntled foreigner isn't gonna cut it. Now, if that foreigner was backed by a force capable of flattening Erdogan's recently purged army, it'd be a whole different talk... Indeed, if someone feels like conquering Turkey, he should get a move on. The purged officers were probably the best and brightest of Turkish military, leaving the country with incompetent lackeys in place of decent officers. Stalin himself nearly lost WWII that way (if Hitler wasn't even more of an idiot than Stalin, he could have won that one).

As for the Soviets, the gulags were only that bad during Stalin's time. Later on they generally needed a good reason to set you to Siberia. It's true that they taught Western languages (languages of friendly countries were not a problem and Russian was mandatory in places like Poland) on a "need to know" basis, but it wasn't as impossible as people make it out to be (though it tend to put you on the "watch list"). You could even go abroad to the Western countries (once again, Eastern Block was never a problem) if you gave them a good enough reason, though you did have to report in and give information on the country you visited once you got back. From what I heard from my parents and grandparents, post-Stalin USSR (and Poland, during that time), despite being authoritarian, wasn't that bad of a place. The commies' big problem (and the ultimate downfall) was an unworkable economic system.

[Mikes]

There's a way to do something: contact the ministry of external affairs and let them know what you think.

Well, that's not exactly likely to spur anyone into action. In this case, "something" needs to be backed with guns, and big ones at that. One disgruntled foreigner isn't gonna cut it. Now, if that foreigner was backed by a force capable of flattening Erdogan's recently purged army, it'd be a whole different talk... Indeed, if someone feels like conquering Turkey, he should get a move on. The purged officers were probably the best and brightest of Turkish military, leaving the country with incompetent lackeys in place of decent officers. Stalin himself nearly lost WWII that way (if Hitler wasn't even more of an idiot than Stalin, he could have won that one).

As for the Soviets, the gulags were only that bad during Stalin's time. Later on they generally needed a good reason to set you to Siberia. It's true that they taught Western languages (languages of friendly countries were not a problem and Russian was mandatory in places like Poland) on a "need to know" basis, but it wasn't as impossible as people make it out to be (though it tend to put you on the "watch list"). You could even go abroad to the Western countries (once again, Eastern Block was never a problem) if you gave them a good enough reason, though you did have to report in and give information on the country you visited once you got back. From what I heard from my parents and grandparents, post-Stalin USSR (and Poland, during that time), despite being authoritarian, wasn't that bad of a place. The commies' big problem (and the ultimate downfall) was an unworkable economic system.

With about half the country (or so) full of (civilian) Erdogan supporters who went to the streets yelling "Allahu Akbar", capturing tanks and lynching soldiers during the "coup", I wouldn't wanna be in the shoes of the poor sod who tries to invade there ...  Syria 2.0 coming up if not worse.

There's already several reports of Alevites, Christians and other religious minorities being scared sh**less by the display of religious fanatism during that night, wondering when the progroms will start.

If he really does go full scale batsh** crazy Hitler style the force he could potentially field simply by arming fanatic civilians is actually rather scary in a nightmarish sort of way.

[jr2]

Dictators don't usually arm the populace, quite the opposite, in fact.

[Grizzly]

Dictators don't usually arm the populace, quite the opposite, in fact.

That aspect is not limited to dictators. Every state tends to keep the monopoly of violence. Erdogan is an exception because he does not have the monopoly of violence to begin with.

[Mika]

With about half the country (or so) full of (civilian) Erdogan supporters who went to the streets yelling "Allahu Akbar", capturing tanks and lynching soldiers during the "coup", I wouldn't wanna be in the shoes of the poor sod who tries to invade there ...  Syria 2.0 coming up if not worse.

Correct. The basic rule of military interventions is that you don't intervene a civil war.

The reason to contact external affairs ministry is more nuanced. Any intervening military action at this point is out of question (unless Turkey attempts to secure nukes in the NATO bases). The idea is to pressure the ministries that the general populace can already see through the "we respect the democracy" comments when Turkey is really on the path to a dictatorship and has gone Stalin all the way. This makes the current approach appear as a repeat of Chamberlain's policies, possibly causing the EU to reconsider its position and look towards the electoral.

First the EU could pressure Turkey to expel at least a part of the "conspirators" instead of executing them by letting these people in to asylum. Use whatever human reasons you can, they shouldn't have any problems figuring those out. While Erdogan will cry wolf about this, he is actually likely to let some people of the hook, which will then demonstrate that the Western powers will not approve everything Erdogan does, possibly sowing the seeds of a real coup with an exit strategy for the perpetrators as long as they behaved morally acceptably by the EU standards.

Furthermore, the EU could place an embargo on Turkey, and with sufficient electorate support behind this, the politicians could actually see this as a viable option instead of tyrannical EU forcing member states to damaging embargo as some see the trade restrictions with Russia. This is more unlikely, but it could happen given some time. Yes Erdogan will get closer with Russia, but he seems to have decided to go there anyways. The thing he has done it now could be a gamble to extort Western support to his government, or it could be an actual move.

However, Obama has already expressed his support for Erdogan, likely due to geopolitical interests of controlling Bospor and locking the Russian Black Sea fleet to Black Sea. I still see Erdogan shifting to the Russian side as possibility with enough probability that the USA support may not matter in the end anyways.

[Dragon]

TBH, I don't think EU could pressure Turkey into anything. Not at this point. With the US and Russia competing for Erdogan's support, the EU is no longer an important in that game. Indeed, should EU push Turkey away, Russia will be more than happy to pick up the slack. If Erdogan is anything like Stalin was, he wouldn't give much thought to foreign cries to spare the conspirators, either. Regardless of whether he wants to be closer to Russia or to US, he's not going to go easy on the opposition.

Sure, you don't want to intervene in the civil war, but considering everything, can we really say it's still a civil war? It seems like whatever opposition Erdogan had has been crushed already. Of course, there's still a matter of armed civilians in the streets. The military is still weak, though, and a foreign invasion at this point would probably be about no harder than the US invasion of Iraq, where the regular armed forces were quickly overrun. Pulling off an occupation after that could be though (and could very well turn into Iraq if botched), but if your goal wasn't to take over the whole country, but just take some of its territory, this could be workable from a purely military standpoint.

Indeed, I wonder how Kurds feature in all this. They've wanted their own state for quite a while and I don't think they're onboard with Erdogan's Islamic dictatorship. Not that they were ever big on Turkey in general. Considering how they were treated before the coup, it seems like they'd really want to kick Turks out and become independent before Erdogan starts sending them to concentration camps.