Martial Law in Turkey?

wrath
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A coup?

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I’ll see if my friend from Turkey knows anything
 Meanwhile, al-Jazeera?

Here is from the BBC right now:

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The Turkish military has long had a policy of seeing itself as a stopgap against theocracy. Erdogan has been corrupt and vile in a lot of ways, but I’m going out on a limb on this one and saying this is Not Good.

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Yep
 this can’t be good news


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https://twitter.com/agirecudi/status/754039502981791744

Shit. Shit.

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Yeah, I’m not taking Erdogan’s word on this.

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Yeah, I’d say “behaving irresponsibly” is an understatement.

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Meanwhile, Reuters and AFP report that military jets and helicopters have been deployed over Turkey's capital, Ankara.
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Yeah. When ‘groups’ in the military behave ‘irresponsibly’, you then have all the makings of hell on earth.

The military is not, in any nation, a democratic institution. It is a weapon of war, whether defensive or offensive, and is both required and necessary for every nation state. It takes orders and fulfils them, or dies in the process.

Maybe Boris Johnson put them up to this.

BTW take note - Google news seems to be having real indigestion with this piece of news. Looks like they’ve joined the fold. Twitter etc are indeed faster and more ‘on the scene’.

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They’re on it.

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Yup. They’re covering it now. It took me a second because the feed wasn’t working for me at first and I couldn’t get the Arabic feed either. But yeah, BBC World didn’t seem to have anything.

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I’ve also asked my old Ottoman history prof what he’s heard. He used to teach in Turkey and I know he visits regularly, so he’ll know something, I’m sure.

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So far just the Reuters info


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the BBC confirms

btw - why close the bridges? Some clear and present security risk?

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The Guardian feed seems to be providing aggregating the most detail at the moment:

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I’m just really kind of surprised. I thought the Kemalism in the Turkish military was all but dead. I wonder what the last straw was.

My guess? Turkish military isn’t all of one mind, or at least the faction leading the coup doesn’t feel secure enough. They want the strategic and tactical advantage as quickly as possible.

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Is it clear who closed the bridges, etc? Was it the coup faction or the pro-government faction?

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Istanbul is the most important transportation hub in Turkey, I think blocking the Bosporus makes sense for a military coup attempt.

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My friend doesn’t know, but is getting bad news from friends in Turkey
 Ugh! She did say the airport is shut down.

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All I’m hearing and reading is “security forces.” Unconfirmed reports of clashes between police and gendarmerie.

Naturally Erdogan is saying that it’s only part of the military, but if I were dealing with a coup, I’d probably say that, too.

ETA: I wonder what this means for Kurds and the PKK. That seems to be a precipitating factor.

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