Turkey’s new sultan: Erdogan compared democracy to a streetcar: ‘When you come to your stop, you get off,’ by Gelnn Reynolds.
After the suppression of a coup attempt that, in retrospect, seems to have been rather contrived, Turkish ruler Recip Erdogan is going after an extensive list of people he has deemed undesirable.
The modern Turkish state was founded by Kemal Ataturk in 1924, replacing the Ottoman Empire, which served as the Islamic Caliphate, the central political institution of the faith, with a secular modern republic. Many Muslims regret that (I remember listening to an Islamic hip-hop group 2000 on MP3.com, with a song titled 1924 on just that topic, which calls Kemal Ataturk the “worst enemy of Islam”). It would seem that Erdogan is among them. …
The crackdown toll is now over 50,000.
It seems paranoid. But what Erdogan is really doing is eradicating the last remnants of the secular Turkish state, as he proceeds to turn Turkey into, instead, an Islamic State. As he builds an enormous palace, consolidates power, and elevates Islamists over secular types, it almost looks as if he’s trying to restore the Ottoman Empire with himself in the role of Sultan. In fact, Erdogan has made that comparison himself.
Back when he was mayor of Istanbul, Erdogan said that “Democracy is like a streetcar. When you come to your stop, you get off.” By all appearances, he has reached his stop.
Over the weekend we watched a pseudo coup in Turkey where the captured soldiers supposedly involved in the attempt had been told it was only an exercise. “Rebel” fighter aircraft could have attacked Erdogan’s aircraft but didn’t and 2,750 judges were detained after the fact as being part of the coup attempt. It wouldn’t even be possible to write down 2,750 names in a single day so obviously the purge list was prepared in advance. In addition Erdogan arrested 103 senior generals and admirals and removed 8,777 officials and police officers from the Interior Ministry. Either Turkey has the most inept military in history or Erdogan has launched yet another false flag operation.
The Nato air base at Incirlik provides storage for an estimated 50 B61 nuclear bombs. If Erdogan seizes them Turkey will become the 2nd nuclear armed nation in the Middle East and we march one step closer to World War III.
