Erdogan Warned of Incoming Coup by Russian Alert

a reply to: ipsedixit
Why would they favor Turkey ? Think what country in the Middle East hold most favored status by the Russians ? And that goes back a long , long way.......The very reason they dont care much for Turkey.

a reply to: the2ofusr1

So the badge use is evidence?

I am now of the mind that Putin and Russia just made a master play for Turkey.

I'm only part way through the Newsbud video but I don't buy the notion that this coup was plotted over many years on a WatsApp social media platform undetected. It's just too neat and tidy as well as being completely implausible. It is hard for me to believe that nobody in the Turkish military or police force ever asked someone outside the loop,

"What's with all this "rapid deployment" socializing? Is NATO throwing a party?"

The idea that this kind of activity would never get back to "loyalists", who would then start to ask embarrassing questions, is hard to believe.

originally posted by: Gothmog
Why would they favor Turkey ?

To try to split NATO.

Think what country in the Middle East hold most favored status by the Russians ? And that goes back a long , long way.......The very reason they don't care much for Turkey.

The Russians have had ambitions in the Middle East for a very long time. Currently they are most involved in helping Syria, but in the past they have been very involved with Egypt. I don't think the Russians would like to occupy territory in the Middle East, with the possible exception of the European side of the Bosphorus. They are just, in my opinion, interested in keeping the United States' mischief to a minimum in the region.

The Russians may or may not "care much" for Turkey but they will deal with Turkey and all other countries in their own self interest.

Why do you think Vladimir Putin has spoken well of Donald Trump? Boosting Trump is in Russia's interest.

He would much rather deal with The Great Pumpkin than Lady Maleficent.

a reply to: thesungod

The days and weeks ahead will be interesting to see what moves within Turkey happens .They do seem to have a lot of sorting out to do if it was a western backed coup .Even if it was a CIA covert one ,its going to have some serious diplomatic issues . If Turkey thinks that Washington is going for a Kurdish state then Turkey will turn towards China and try and make up to Syria .

a reply to: the2ofusr1

Russia has thrown a spanner into the works, but I think something along those lines was planned. I think the ultimate goal in the region was to bite off the western end of Iran and split it between the Azeris and the Kurds.

People don't realize it much in our world but Iran is sandwiched between ambitious Kurds and enemy Azerbaijan, who is a staunch ally of, guess who? . . . . Israel!!

a reply to: ipsedixit
They wouldnt assist Turkey. The Russians have backed and favored Syria since , well since...

I just spent a close to a year with the Kurds...

I am biased where they are concerned.

I support a Kurdish state.

a reply to: the2ofusr1

I think it was Russian backed coup to blame NATO now.

a reply to: Gothmog

We'll just have to agree to disagree on this. It is true that definitive statements can't be made at this time. Erdogan has said that his brother-in-law told him about the coup. Sure he did. I think some smoke screens are being put up at the moment. It's a delicate political situation.

a reply to: ipsedixit
Well , finally ., someone honest enough to backtrack a bit when faced with history and geopolitics
Not a sign of weakness, but a show of strength of character
I applaud you.

Unrelated.

en.farsnews.com...

TEHRAN (FNA)- Two Turkish pilots who played a role in the downing of a Russian plane in November are in custody over the recent failed coup in Turkey, an official said.
The shooting down of the Russian fighter jet on the Syrian border sparked an unprecedented diplomatic crisis between Turkey and Russia, which ended last month when the two countries agreed to restore ties, Express Tribune reported.

“Two pilots who were part of the operation to down the Russian Su-24 in November 2015 are in custody,” a Turkish official told journalists, adding that they were detained over links to the coup bid.

Russia want access to Bosphorus and Dardanelles, otherwise their black sea fleet just a little turd in polynya.

a reply to: FlyingFox

To me this a repudiation by Turkey of its own participation in NATO operations directed against Syria and Russia. I wonder if Turkey is going to leave NATO.

It is worth mentioning that a lot of the ferment going on right now, Brexit, UK/China, Turkey, Scotland, Trump, is related to the very inconspicuous but important fact that Russia is no longer . . . communist.

She may have been a "dog" as a communist country, but she has "cleaned up" very well and people just don't look at her the same way anymore. People aren't so afraid of Russia anymore. Everyone is ready to "go it alone", to find new friends, or like Donald Trump, to ditch old brothers in arms who have trouble coming up with cash.

Strategically, politically, in terms of propaganda and PR, intelligence, and in terms of expanding its own sphere of influence while fomenting disruption in others, Putin et al have been running circles around us, almost from the moment we decided to pull out of the ABM treaty. Now NATO finds itself scrambling to come up with effective ground deterrence against a more militarily proactive Russian Federation, while also coping with refugee crises, the erosion of European unity, and a destabilized Turkey, who for their part both shares a sea border with Russia and a border with a country Russia has successfully defended (read: saved) its proxy government in. While in the U.S. someone who has now called into question American commitment to NATO allies is an election away from the White House.

None of this happened by accident. The saddest part? We brought this on ourselves more via our own foreign policy failures and failure to respond robustly to humanitarian crises in the wake of said failures, than through any particular brilliance of his own. He simply did what should have been obvious, what would have been obvious but a few decades prior, but that we failed to anticipate.

As such, many now perceive Putin almost in a heroic "resistance hero" light. Which is not an accurate characterization IMHO (being opposed to one set of bad guys - or just not very good guys - doesn't make you the good guy; I see no good guys at the moment apart from the innocents caught in the middle) but it's understandable how he's managed to foment that view. We brought it on ourselves and, barring drastic corrections, we almost deserve what we get going forward.

Peace.

a reply to: AceWombat04

If I could give you all my stars I would.

a reply to: ipsedixit

Why would the US be behind a coup of their allies who let us base nukes there and allow us to use their bases to fight ISIS...and why allow them to restart the fight against ISIS if the US is behind this coup?

Seems that is a bit silly to do if a country supposedly is behind a coup attempt that just happened?

a reply to: tsurfer2000h

This is a complicated question to answer. One could also ask why America would shelter an opposition leader in exile (Fethulla Gulen) from a NATO ally?

Turkey is involved in two big political processes. The first is their long standing effort to be admitted to the EU. The second is the American/NATO effort to (a) secure oil resources from North Africa to the Caspian Sea and (b) reduce the power of or "balkanize" every resource rich state in the region.

As an aside, against this background, Russia is attempting to solidify areas within what it sees as its proper area of interest, the Ukraine, its Muslim zones within the Russian Federation and Syria.

When looking at the situation one needs to be mindful of two groups that might be considered "cat's paws", or tools being used to influence political movement. One is the collection of jihadists that exist in various formations, who were armed and trained by the US or allies and smuggled into Syria to turn an "opposition protest movement" into a full fledged civil war.

The use of the jihadi groups has had unexpected consequences that have culminated in the situation in Syria, eastern Turkey and Iraq that we have today, with the jihadis attempting to set up their own state (ISIL) and the indigenous Kurds of the region attempting to do the same.

When these groups started to set up their own state, Erdogan started to increase support for the jihadis because they were pushing Turkish Kurds, a disaffected and rebellious Turkish minority, out of their traditional Turkish territory toward Iraq. This had the effect of giving the jihadis too much support. Erdogan had started to step out of line as a NATO member to use the jihadis for particularly Turkish reasons, and this started to interfere with the main NATO game plan.

But even that plan was going haywire because the Assad regime in Syria was actually not as unpopular or shaky as the Americans/NATO had originally believed. An attempt by the US/NATO to recover the initiative in Syria and rescue the jihadis from the Syrian Army by creating another Libyan style phony "no fly" zone, was blocked by Russia in 2013.

NATO's ally Turkey had stepped out of line in the handling of the jihadi proxy armies in Syria, but they also started to get "wise" in the way they created a "cat's paw" of their own to use against the EU.

The second "cat's paw" was the refugees created by the use of the first "cat's paw".

Turkey started to facilitate the movement of those refugees into Europe. This has created huge problems for Erdogan's prospective stable mates in the EU.

This is a case, I believe, where "poetic justice" made one of its infelicitous appearances in the world of realpolitik. Without going into a lot of detail, I believe the "poet" in Erdogan said,

"OK my EU friends, you are delaying our admittance to the EU because you are afraid of Muslims, while your aggression in our region has put large numbers of refugees into my lap. I'll fix you. I'll just pass the problem back up the line to Europe. Your own meddling will get you more Muslims than you can handle, even if Turkey is not admitted into the EU. Muslims are a fact of life. Deal with it!"

I think NATO just decided that Erdogan was becoming too much of an unpredictable factor in a complex situation and could be replaced relatively easily. It looks as if they did not take sufficient notice of Russian interest in these matters to prevent its influence being felt counter to NATO's interests.

This a complicated situation where mutual interests have diverged significantly. We don't know if Turkey will turn away from NATO and the EU and toward Russia. It will take a while for the new shape of things to become clear. I would imagine that the United States, and Russia too, are walking on eggs for the moment.

I'm not vouching for the veracity of this, but have a look at these pictures (in the link). They are disturbing.

Amnesty says it has ‘credible evidence’ Turkish police are holding detainees in stress positions for up to 48 hours, denying them food, water and medical treatment and in the worst cases some have been subjected to severe beatings and torture, including rape

If true, these people are being tortured. WTH?

www.mirror.co.uk...


Additionally see this
www.mirror.co.uk...

If this is true we should seriously rethink our relationship with Turkey.

a reply to: ladyinwaiting

Thanks for the information. I think Turkey may well be one hundred years from eligibility for admittance to the EU. It is completely obvious that they don't belong in the EU and would be a better fit within some authoritarian friendly grouping, perhaps including Russia and Iran and possibly China.

They have numerous important trade and military connections to Europe/NATO, but as a society they are neither secular nor democratic enough to be a good fit in Europe.

a reply to: ipsedixit

This is a complicated question to answer. One could also ask why America would shelter an opposition leader in exile (Fethulla Gulen) from a NATO ally?

They aren't sheltering him, because if Turkey has the evidence he is behind this he will be sent back.

And Turkey hasn't actually sent a formal request for extradition so the US doesn't have the reason to send him back yet. Until that is done the US has no legal reason to extradite him out of the country.

I think NATO just decided that Erdogan was becoming too much of an unpredictable factor in a complex situation and could be replaced relatively easily.

And yet he wasn't...guess they didn't think that.

We don't know if Turkey will turn away from NATO and the EU and toward Russia.

Can Russia give the Turkish country billions of dollars in aid and military equipment, and free travel through Europe because if not why would they look towards Russia?

It will take a while for the new shape of things to become clear.

It is pretty clear the moment they reopened their bases to the US coalition to fight ISIS that they aren't looking toward Russia as an ally...you don't allow foreign governments that you are trying to move away from to use your military bases, as you would keep them from running military operations from your country.