Bummer of a Birthmark, Recep

It appears that even Cypriot Turks, for whom Turkey is a shield against ethnic cleansing by the Greek Cybriots, are taking to the streets against Recep Tayyip Erdoğan:

Thousands of Turkish Cypriots chanting “we want our country back” have taken to the streets of Nicosia despite heavy rain, after calls for a mass demonstration against Ankara’s heavy-handed policies towards the breakaway republic.

Tensions with the Turkish government mounted this week after a mob of hardliners attacked the office of the Turkish Cypriot newspaper Afrika for running a front-page article critical of the country’s military offensive against Kurdish militants in Syria.

Led by the nationalist Grey Wolves, they went on the rampage after the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, criticised the newspaper’s stance as “immoral” and “shameless”.

Beneath the headline “one more occupation from Turkey”, Afrika drew parallels with Ankara’s 1974 military operation in Cyprus when Turkey seized the island’s northern third.

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe condemned the attack as an assault on free press and freedom of speech.

Ahead of the protest on Friday, Sener Elcil, a trade unionist, told the Guardian: “The attack was very violent and very humiliating for Turkish Cypriots, who no longer feel secure in their own country.” At least 5,000 people were believed to have taken part.

“In Turkey, all the intellectuals, journalists and writers have been imprisoned. There is no opposition, but in Cyprus there are people who believe in democracy and peace,” he said.

If history is any indication, an overreaction in Cyprus by Turkish troops might very will go pear shaped in a hurry, and if Turkish troops are expelled from Cyprus, that would be the end of Erdoğan.

One can only hope.

Missile Deal is Signed

Turkey has officially signed a deal with Russia to buy S-400 Triumf surface to air missiles:

Turkey has finalized a deal with Russia to purchase the S-400 Triumph (SA-21 Growler) missile defense system, in a move that is likely to irritate NATO allies. The deal was signed by Ankara on Friday, Dec. 29. ………

NATO in general, and the US military in particular are freaking out over this, because, as I have noted before, the Pentagon sees NATO as a sales vehicle for American weapons.

The Russian system is more capable, and cheaper, and given its origin, it is probably easier to maintain, but none of this matters to NATO leadership, because it doesn't support the western arms manufacturers.

So basically, you have the military industrial complex on one side, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the other.

I'm just hoping that there is a way that they can both lose.

Erdoğan Wants to Return to the Ottoman Empire. That Appears to Include the Genocides.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan just issued a decree that grants immunity for extra-judicial violence against anyone deemed to have participated in the coup, or its "continuation".

The term "continuation" appears to be defined as, "Anyone and anything that Erdoğan considers a threat to his power", which bodes ill for opposition parties, and the Kurds, and other ethnic minorities in Turkey.


How to deal with the transformation of a NATO ally to this is profoundly unsettling.

Tweet of the Day

Guys I just found out that super chill cat was from a neighborhood in Istanbul and when she passed away in 2015 the residents missed her so much they made a statue of her sitting in the same spot and I am now dead my ghost is typing this pic.twitter.com/PJle1OJ5Yi

— August J. Pollak (@AugustJPollak) November 15, 2017

This is such a wonderful thing.

H/t naked capitalism.

Just When I Thought That It Could Not Get Any Weirder………

We now have allegations that Michael Flynn, Trump's former NSC Advisor, tried to cut a deal with representatives of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to kidnap dissident cleric Fethullah Gülen and transport him to Turkey:

Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, is under investigation for involvement in an alleged plot to kidnap a Turkish dissident cleric living in the US and fly him to an island prison in Turkey in return for $15m, it was reported on Friday.

………

The new allegation, that Flynn and his son engaged in a conspiracy to arrange the rendition of Fethullah Gülen to the Erdoğan government – which accuses the cleric of plotting an abortive coup in July 2016 – could if confirmed result in even more serious charges.

In September, the Wall Street Journal reported a meeting about the plan, in which former CIA director James Woolsey is said to have participated. Friday’s report describes a second meeting involving both Flynns at the 21 Club restaurant, a prohibition-era New York speakeasy patronised by Trump, in mid-December. According to “people familiar with the investigation”, it was at this encounter that the $15m payment was discussed.

Even if this were legal, and it might be under a legal precedent from the late 1800s, this is SERIOUSLY f%$#ed up.

Even for Flynn, a man who typifies the flying monkey faction of modern conservatism, this is off the charts.

Once again, reality outstrips the most outlandish products of my imagination.

Not Again………

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's goons just beat more protesters in the United States again:

Violence erupted at a New York hotel after protesters heckled a speech by Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with chants of "terrorist".

Mr Erdogan was addressing supporters in Turkish at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in Times Square when he was interrupted by several demonstrators.

"You're a terrorist, get out of my country," one protester shouted before he was punched and dragged away.

Mr Erdogan is in New York for the UN General Assembly.

In footage from the speech on Thursday, protesters are seen being pushed and punched in the head as they are ejected from the venue by suited men.

It is not clear at this stage if they were pro-Erdogan attendees, presidential bodyguards, or guards providing security at the hotel.

It's pretty clear what they were.

We saw this in DC as well. It's his goons.

We need to declare his entire security detail personae non grata, and let some more responsible entity, say for example Blackwater, manage his security.

Now Which Pathological Liar Are We to Believe?*

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has claimed that Donald Trump apologized for forcing Turkish security forces to attack unarmed protesters, while the White House has denied this:

The White House on Wednesday denied Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s claim that President Donald Trump called him to apologize for an incident in May where Turkish security agents allegedly attacked protesters in Washington.

A White House spokesman told the Hill late Tuesday that Trump and Erdogan “discussed a wide range of issues but there was no apology.”

“It’s not true,” White House spokesperson Lindsay Walters said, according to BuzzFeed News reporter John Hudson.

………

Washington, D.C. police in June issued arrest warrants for nine Turkish security guards and three Turkish police officers accused of attacking protesters who gathered outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence. A grand jury in August issued indictments for three more Turkish security officials charged with attacking protesters.

This is seriously f%$#ed up.

^*Not my line. It's from the comments thread of the post.

Of Course Heads Are Exploding, Their Post Retirement Sinecures Are at Risk

Turkey is in serious discussions with the Russians over procuring their very long range SAM systems, and the US military is having a major sh%$ fit over this:

The Pentagon on Monday criticized Turkey’s plans to purchase a Russian air-defense system instead of investing in NATO technology.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is in talks to get Russia to supply Ankara with its latest S-400 surface-to-air missile system.

Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain Jeff Davis said the Pentagon had concerns over its NATO ally’s purchase of the Russian technology because it might not work with other equipment used by the 29-nation alliance.

………

The S-400 system has a range of about 400 kilometers (250 miles) and is designed to shoot down enemy aircraft.

The Patriot has a range of about 160 km (200 miles), significantly less than the S-400, and unlike the Patriot system, it was designed from the start to be a part of an IADS (integrated air defense system), which means that integrating it with (Russian) short range missiles and AAA is easier and more straightforward.

Incorporating NATO standard IFF (identify friend or foe) into this system is not rocket science.  (Pun not intended)

US and NATO doctrine has always been about air superiority being the primary way to protect the troops on the ground, the Russians, and the Soviets before them, relied far more on an IADS, and so have applied more resources to these systems.

Because of this, their systems are more capable than western systems.

The Pentagon is freaking out because some of the generals are worried that a comfortable retirement as a consultant at Raytheon are jeopardized.

Well, This Is a Fine F%$# You to Erdoğan

The US has decidedly to supply arms directly to Kurdish fighters in Syria:

President Trump has approved a plan to directly arm Kurdish forces fighting in Syria, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, inflaming already strained ties with Turkey and putting the U.S. military a step closer to seizing a remaining Islamic State stronghold.

Pentagon spokeswoman Dana W. White said the president made the decision Monday, describing the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a diverse group dominated by Kurdish fighters, as “the only force on the ground that can successfully seize Raqqa in the near future.” For more than a year, the U.S. military has been advancing plans to capture Raqqa, the Syrian city that is the Islamic State’s de facto capital, as the final major step in its nearly three-year effort to defeat the militant group.

“We are keenly aware of the security concerns of our coalition partner Turkey,” White said in a statement. “We want to reassure the people and government of Turkey that the U.S. is committed to preventing additional security risks and protecting our NATO ally.”

………

Ankara sees the YPG as an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which is considered a terrorist group by both Turkey and the United States.

Since Turkey is perhaps the 2^nd worst external actor in Syria, after the House of Saud, so the fact that their agenda is going pear shaped is a good thing.

It's fairly clear that Erdoğan is using the conflict with ISIS to reinforce his authoritarian rule, and it appears highly likely that he is intent on creating some sort of Turkish zone of influence akin to the Ottoman empire.

That reality is disabusing Erdoğan of his delusions is a good thing.

It Looks Like the Ottomans Missed a Document

An academic studying the Armenian Genocide has uncovered a document that is best described as a smoking gun for the deliberate murder of over 1.5 million Armenians in the early 1900s:

For more than a century, Turkey has denied any role in organizing the killing of Armenians in what historians have long accepted as a genocide that started in 1915, as World War I spread across continents. The Turkish narrative of denial has hinged on the argument that the original documents from postwar military tribunals that convicted the genocide’s planners were nowhere to be found.

Now, Taner Akcam, a Turkish historian at Clark University in Worcester, Mass., who has studied the genocide for decades by piecing together documents from around the world to establish state complicity in the killings, says he has unearthed an original telegram from the trials, in an archive held by the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

“Until recently, the smoking gun was missing,” Mr. Akcam said. “This is the smoking gun.” He called his find “an earthquake in our field,” and said he hoped it would remove “the last brick in the denialist wall.”

The story begins in 1915 in an office in the Turkish city of Erzurum, when a high-level official of the Ottoman Empire punched out a telegram in secret code to a colleague in the field, asking for details about the deportations and killings of Armenians in eastern Anatolia, the easternmost part of contemporary Turkey.

Later, a deciphered copy of the telegram helped convict the official, Behaeddin Shakir, for planning what scholars have long acknowledged and Turkey has long denied: the organized killing of up to 1.5 million Armenians by the leaders of the collapsing Ottoman Empire, an atrocity widely recognized as the 20th century’s first genocide.

And then, just like that, most of the original documents and sworn testimony from the trials vanished, leaving researchers to rely mostly on summaries from the official Ottoman newspaper.

………

Instead, he found a photographic record of the Jerusalem archive in New York, held by the nephew of a Armenian monk, now dead, who was a survivor of the genocide.

While researching the genocide in Cairo in the 1940s, the monk, Krikor Guerguerian, met a former Ottoman judge who had presided over the postwar trials. The judge told him that many of the boxes of case files had wound up in Jerusalem, so Mr. Guerguerian went there and took pictures of everything.

The telegram was written under Ottoman letterhead and coded in Arabic lettering; four-digit numbers denoted words. When Mr. Akcam compared it with the known Ottoman Interior Ministry codes from the time, found in an official archive in Istanbul, he found a match, raising the likelihood that many other telegrams used in the postwar trials could one day be verified in the same way.

………

The genocide is commemorated each year on April 24, the day in 1915 that a group of Armenian notables from Istanbul were rounded up and deported.

It was the start of the enormous killing operation, which involved forced marches into the Syrian desert, summary executions and rapes.

Two years ago, Pope Francis referred to the killings as a genocide and faced a storm of criticism from within Turkey. Many countries, including France, Germany and Greece, have recognized the genocide, each time provoking diplomatic showdowns with Turkey.

It is well past time for the US to recognize the genocide.

In fact, I think that if anything, we need to be even more aggressive about this than we are about Holocaust deniers, because they are (thankfully) a relatively small fringe group, while the Turkish state continues to continue this crap in their mandatory education curriculum, polluting the minds of the next generation.

I Think That This Is a F%$# You to Erdogan

Germany is revoking a law that made it an offense to insult foreign leaders:

Germany is ditching a law specifically protecting heads of state and government against insults, after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tried to sue a prominent satirist. Slander and libel laws still apply.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet decided on Wednesday to abolish the rarely enforced section of the criminal code by January 1, 2018.

"The idea of 'lese majeste' dates back to a long-gone era, it no longer belongs in our criminal law," Justice Minister Heiko Maas (pictured above) said. "The regulation is obsolete and unnecessary," he added.

Maas said heads of state and government would still be able to defend themselves against slander and defamation "but no more or less so than any other person."

Insulted foreign leaders will still be able to pursue their own libel and defamation cases. The main difference between the laws was the extent of the sentence, insulting a political leader could carry up to three years in jail while ordinary libel or slander can carry a one-year jail sentence or a fine.

This is a good thing, terrible law, but this is really about Merkel dissing the Turkish President, and I think that a significant amount of political self-interest is part of the motivation for doing this.

This is a Direct Consequence of Turkey's Support of Daesh

Over 30 people were killed in a terrorist attack of an Istanbul night club:

The manhunt continues for a gunman who killed 39 people in an Istanbul nightclub as Turkey marked the start of the new year.

The unknown assailant opened fire at Reina nightclub early on Sunday, before managing to flee amid the chaos.

The motive for the attack is not clear, but suspicion has fallen on the Islamic State group, already linked to at least two terror attacks in Turkey last year.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said such groups tried "to create chaos".

I would argue that they are not trying to, "Create chaos," they are exploiting the chaos that Erdogan created in Syria through tacit and explicit support of Salafist fighters in his attempt to depose Assad.

This sort of sh%$ always comes back to bite you in the ass.

More Evidence of Our Clusterf%$# in Syria

The US remains focused largely on its credibility in the Syrian conflict.

There are no meaningful goals, it promulgates fictions and allies itself with a state sponsor of terrorism (the House of Saud) as well as al Qaeda affiliate al Nusra (now Fateh al-Sham) in an increasingly incoherent quest by parts of the US state security apparatus (Dod &CIA) to overthrow the Assad regime while other elements are making half hearted efforts at damage mitigation.

It has created a situation where Bashir al Assad is the best alternative available for the US, the EU, and anyone not interested in the thousand year old great game between Shia and Sunni Muslims, which is a pretty good indication of just how thoroughly this pooch has been screwed.

And now we have some more repercussions of our failure to have any policy beyond mindless dick swinging, as Russia and Turkey have signed a gas pipeline deal, a part of a significant rapprochement between the two regimes:

The Russian and Turkish leaders have agreed to intensify military and intelligence contacts after a meeting in Istanbul.

President Vladimir Putin also said he and Recep Tayyip Erdogan had agreed on the need for aid to get to the northern Syrian city of Aleppo.

The two countries have signed a deal to construct two pipelines to send Russian gas under the Black Sea to Turkey.

Ties were strained after Turkey downed a Russian military jet last year.

But speaking at a joint news conference with Mr Putin, Mr Erdogan said he was confident that the normalisation of relations would take place rapidly.

Unlike Russia, Turkey is a member of Nato, but both countries currently have uneasy relations with the West and are also facing economic challenges.

………

This is a developing alliance defined as much by what Turkey and Russia oppose as by what unites them.

Both feel isolated. Both have taken a decidedly authoritarian turn in their politics. Both have significant tensions with Washington. And both have strategic stakes in Syria with Moscow and Ankara well aware of the need to deal with the other if these interests are to be protected.

It's something of a rapid reversal though. Less than a year ago Turkey shot down a Russian warplane and relations went into the freezer. But self-interest, notably Turkey's "post-coup attempt" resentment at Washington and the shifting balance of military advantage in Syria, gives this unlikely pairing a certain logic.

………

One pipeline will be for Turkish domestic consumption, the other will supply southeastern Europe, bypassing Ukraine.

(emphasis mine)

This is a lose-lose for the United States.

In addition to Syria going pear shaped, it means that the situation in the Ukraine has moved against the US agenda.

Russia, at far smaller cost, has been far more successful in both Syria and the Ukraine, and they have done so because they have realistically defined their essential interests, and only taken those actions that directly benefit those interests.

By contrast, US efforts have been a toxic mix of hubris and incompetence.

Wikileaks Releases 300K Emails from Turkish AKP

There have not been any bombshells discovered (yet), but the release of a year's worth of emails from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's AKP party should prove to be rather interesting:

Over the weekend, the Internet may have saved the regime of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, as protestors organized online to fight a military coup, and Erdogan himself addressed the nation via Apple’s Facetime video-calling app. Today, however, Erdogan may remember that he doesn’t particularly like the Internet, after all—as hundreds of thousands of his ruling party’s alleged private correspondences spills onto the web.

On Tuesday, WikiLeaks published what it’s calling the Erdoğan Emails, a searchable collection of 294,548 emails it says are leaked from the AKP, Turkey’s ruling political party, and the organization president Erdoğan led before he was elected president. Turkish citizens and the world community are still struggling to understand the context of Turkey’s coup and the crackdown that’s followed, all of which could make this alleged Erdoğan leak more significant than the secret-spilling group’s average data dump. However, at the time of writing, it’s not at all clear yet what exactly the Turkish-language megaleak contains, or if the emails are what Wikileaks claims they are.

“The material was obtained a week before the attempted coup. However, WikiLeaks has moved forward its publication schedule in response to the government’s post-coup purges,” reads a note posted with the release on WikiLeaks’ site. “We have verified the material and the source, who is not connected, in any way, to the elements behind the attempted coup, or to a rival political party or state.”

I did a quick search of the data (for Bilal, Erdoğan's remarkably corrupt son), so the search works, but given my complete lack of understanding of the Turkish language, it proved of little use to me.

Hopefully someone in the expat community (Turkey is blocking access to the site) will do a deep dive.

Speaking of Paranoid Megalomaniacs in Turkey

TURKEY: List of the massive numbers involved in the #TurkeyPurge following failed coup. - @ashishjena94pic.twitter.com/elnmyynoaa

— Conflict News (@Conflicts) July 19, 2016

It's been three days since the coup attempt, and Erdogon is using it as an excuse to destroy the civil service and make it another one of his private fiefdoms:

Turkey’s post-coup crackdown took a more sinister turn on Tuesday after tens of thousands of teachers were fired and all the country’s university deans were told they faced suspension.

The licences of 21,000 staff working in private schools were revoked, more than 15,000 employees at the education ministry were sacked, and the state-run higher education council demanded the resignation of 1,577 university deans.

The purge is part of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s heavy-handed attempt to root out supporters of Fethullah Gülen, the US-based cleric accused of orchestrating the failed revolt, whose movement is accused of infiltrating state institutions.

………

The suspensions followed Monday’s purge targeting other ministries and state institutions.
The employees include 9,000 police, 2,745 judges, 8,777 from the interior ministry 1,500 from the finance ministry, 257 staff working at the prime minister’s office, at least 100 from the National Intelligence Agency MIT, 399 from the family and social affairs ministry and 492 from the religious affairs ministry.

………

There was speculation that Mr Erdogan might try to put in place a state of emergency so as to take full control of all state institutions.

It's pretty clear that they had a list of people to purge long before the attempted coup was set in motion.

This is not going to end well.

The Coup Fizzles, and Things in Turkey got Worse

Now the coup has been put down, the crackdown on innocent members of the opposition begins:

Turkey widened a crackdown on suspected supporters of a failed military coup on Sunday, taking the number of people rounded up in the armed forces and judiciary to 6,000, and the government said it was in control of the country and economy.

President Tayyip Erdogan and the government accused the U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, a former ally whom Erdogan accuses of trying to create a "parallel structure" within the courts, police, armed forces and media, of orchestrating the coup.

Erdogan's supporters of gathered in front of his Istanbul home to call for the plotters to face the death penalty, which Turkey outlawed in 2004 as part of its efforts to join the European Union.

………

With expectations growing of a heavy clampdown on dissent, European politicians warned Erdogan the coup attempt did not give him a blank cheque to disregard the rule of law, and that he risked isolating himself internationally as he strengthens his position at home.

Broadcaster NTV cited Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag as saying more arrests were expected.

By Sunday evening, authorities had rounded up nearly 3,000 suspected military plotters, ranging from top commanders to foot soldiers, and the same number of judges and prosecutors after forces loyal to Erdogan crushed the attempted coup on Saturday.

Arresting 3000 judges and prosecutors?

Tell me that Erdogan is not using this an excuse to further buttress his his grip on power.

It also looks like he's going to use the events of this past weekend in an attempt to blackmail the US into extraditing a political opponent of his living in exile in Pennsylvania:

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, newly emboldened after crushing a coup attempt, is testing his country’s key defense relationship by demanding the U.S. turn over a cleric he accuses of inspiring the uprising.

Erdogan on Sunday repeated his challenge to the U.S. to extradite Fethullah Gulen, an Islamic preacher who lives in exile in rural Pennsylvania, as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry balanced comments about considering such a request with criticizing the Turks for implying the U.S. had involvement in the coup attempt.

“If we’re strategic partners, I’m saying, carry through on your strategic partner’s request,” Erdogan said in Istanbul. “When you wanted a terrorist, we delivered him to you. Now we’re saying deliver this guy who’s on our terrorist list to us.”

………

An immediate point of tension in the partnership was resolved Sunday when the U.S. resumed flights out of Incirlik Air Base, a staging point for the fight against Islamic State in both Syria and Iraq, according to Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook. Operations at Incirlik were halted Saturday after the Turkish government closed its airspace to military aircraft and cut off commercial power to the base, which hosts about 1,500 American military personnel and aircraft.

………

“You have to begin to be concerned that if the U.S. continues to resist the extradition request and other requirements, would the Turkish government restrict use of Incirlik, would they start impacting our operations against ISIS,” said Heather Conley, director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “They are a crucial ally -- the location is very, very important, but they have been an extremely challenging ally to work with.”

Kerry said Turkey would have to submit a formal request for extradition and prove its accusations. “Give us the evidence, show us the evidence,” he said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” program.

………

The chances of the U.S. extraditing Gulen, who has lived in the country for nearly 20 years, are slim, said Brett Bruen, a former official in Obama’s National Security Council and now president of the Global Situation Room consulting firm.

“I don’t see a scenario at the moment at least in which he is extradited to Turkey,” Bruen said. “The evidence that has been presented that he was somehow behind this coup is still not there. And obviously there would be very real concerns about what would befall him if he were turned over to Turkish authorities.”

This has turned into a complete clusterf%$#.

There is an Ongoing Coup Attempt in Turkey

There is Civilian Resistance

As is frequently the case, the picture of what is going on is unclear:

A military coup attempt plunged Turkey into a long night of violence and intrigue on Friday, threatening its embattled president and injecting new instability into a crucial NATO member and American ally in the chaotic Middle East.

The coup attempt was followed hours later by an equally dramatic public appearance by the president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose whereabouts was unknown for hours after the plotters claimed to have taken control. Flying into Istanbul Ataturk Airport from an undisclosed location early Saturday, Mr. Erdogan signaled the coup was failing.

“A minority within the armed forces has unfortunately been unable to stomach Turkey’s unity,” Mr. Erdogan said, after the private NTV television channel showed him greeting supporters. Blaming political enemies, Mr. Erdogan said: “What is being perpetrated is a rebellion and a treason. They will pay a heavy price for their treason to Turkey.”

There were indications that the coup’s leaders, at a minimum, did not have a tight grip on many parts of the country. Supporters of Mr. Erdogan took to the streets of Istanbul to oppose the coup’s plotters. More than 130 people have been arrested in connection with the coup attempt, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said in comments to CNN Turk.

Nonetheless, the abrupt turn of events in Turkey left Mr. Erdogan’s grip on power uncertain. The country has been reeling from a wave of deadly extremism by the Islamic State militant group, struggling to accommodate hundreds of thousands of refugees from the war in neighboring Syria and fighting a resurgent Kurdish rebellion in the Turkish southeast.

Martial law was declared in the country, which has been convulsed by military takeovers at least three times in the past half-century. Mr. Erdogan, an Islamist who has dominated politics for more than a decade and sought to exert greater control over the armed forces, was forced to use his iPhone’s FaceTime app from a secret location to broadcast messages beseeching the public to resist the coup attempt.

Erdogan has been a disaster for Turkey and the Middle East:  He has systematically dismantled the already meager protections of civil rights in Turkey, and has (at least until recently) been a supporter, along with the House of Saud of the Islamic State terrorist group.

Additionally, he has taken to stoking ethnic tensions with the Kurds, and re-initiated operations in Kurdish regions that is brutal even by the standards of the Turkish-Kurdish convlict.

If he were to leave the political stage it would be a good thing for pretty much everyone who has to deal with him.

On the other hand, a coup d'etat by the military is not a good thing.

There is no upside to this.

That's Gotta Be Driving the Turks Crazy

Green Berets assisting the Kurds in Syria are wearing Kurdish militia insignia on their uniforms:

Photos have emerged of American special operations troops in Syria wearing uniform insignia affiliated with a Kurdish rebel group known as the YPG, whose connection to Turkish terrorists could could fuel tension between the U.S. and a key ally in the Islamic State fight.

The images were taken in a village about 40 miles north of the Islamic State group’s self-declared capital of Raqqa, which is the target of a newly announced offensive being led by a disparate group of Kurdish and Arab fighters, and backed by American military advisers and air support. They highlight the complicated network of alliances the U.S. is trying to forge in Syria, and the ethnic and sectarian tensions that could tear apart this fragile coalition.

Speaking Thursday, a top Pentagon official said it's fairly common for Green Berets and other operators to wear allies' patches.

This has got to be putting some kinks in Erdogan's mustache.

Unsurprising News

Leaked documents show that Turkey provided tacit support to Daesh:

These 422 pages of classified documents contain blood-chilling information regarding terrorist activities in Turkey.

These documents classified as ‘secret’ material, contain huge amounts of information regarding the activities of Daesh militants in Kilis and Gaziantep.

Erdem, commenting on this information, said that in Kilis, Gaziantep and across Turkey dangerous processes are taking place to which the government turns a blind eye. “I am speaking here as a deputy, whose duty is to control what is happening. The documents that I present to you, is a living proof of what kind of dirty games the AKP government is involved in.”

He showed the documents containing the phone records of one of the organizers of the terrorist attacks in Turkey, İlhami Balı, known in the ranks of the jihadists, as Abu Bakr

“These entries recorded comprehensive information such as which hotel the terrorists are going to stay in, where they will wait for their car, which gas station they will use for refueling in a mosque in Kilis, how many people and who exactly would be responsible for the preparation of a terrorist attack."

“Despite the fact that all this information was in the hands of the authorities, the security forces had not carried out any operations to detain terrorists. I ask one very simple question: why were these terrorists not arrested?” Erdem pointed out.

The deputy further spoke about how the Safety Authority tapped and recorded all phone conversations of the terrorists.

This is not a surprise.  About the only people who don't acknowledge that the Turks (and the House of Saud) are the US State Department, Angela Merkel, and the Turks and the House of Saud.

And Hillary Clinton Acolytes Continue to Ruin the World

In this case, it's Victoria "F%$# the EU" Nuland, who is attempting to coerce the government of Cyprus to cut ties with Russia and accept the continuing occupation of the northern portion of the island nation by the Turks:

The US is intensifying the pressure on Cyprus to accept a secret NATO plan to keep Turkish forces on the island.

Victoria Nuland, the State Department official in charge of regime change in Russia and Ukraine, met for talks last week with the President of Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades, and with Turkish Cypriot figures. The State Department and US Embassy in Nicosia have kept silent on what was said. A well-informed Cypriot source reports Nuland “was in Cyprus to pre-empt any likelihood of future deepening in relations with Russia. Anastasiades may not want to, but he may have no other option.” A second Cypriot political source said: “[Nuland] will try to blackmail him. I’m not sure how he will react.”

Andros Kyprianou, head of AKEL, the Cyprus Communist Party running strongly against Anastasiades’s party in next month’s parliamentary election, issued an unusual warning against the Nuland plan. “For us”, Kyprianou (right) said, there is only one acceptable outcome to negotiations between the Greek and Turkish communities for the reunification of the island. This is a “solution that ends the occupation and colonization, restoring the sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and unity of the Republic, based on UN resolutions, the High Level Agreements, International and European Law. The solution is to demilitarize Cyprus and excludes any guarantee and intervention rights in the internal affairs of the country by foreign forces.”

………

US military commanders and political leaders have never advocated Turkish withdrawal from the island, or compliance with the UN resolutions. Instead, they have recommended incorporating both parts of Cyprus into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The political and military commands in Ankara have been reluctant to accept a NATO solution for Cyprus because they object to what they regard as “dilution” of their army on the island. The Nuland plan is the latest attempt to give Ankara what it wants, and override Greek Cypriot objections. Nuland has also told Anastasiades she wants to accelerate agreement on the terms of settlement before the US presidential election in November.

Anastasiades has already declared himself in favour of joining NATO by signing the preliminary Partnership for Peace programme, but AKEL has been able to block it. For the time being, Cyprus is not a NATO member, and cannot accept another NATO base on its territory. “How can Nuland now push through a Turkish base on the island”, a well-known Cypriot strategist asks – “that isn’t a Turkish base and isn’t a NATO base either, but meets Ankara’s demand for a military ‘guarantee’, and will be accepted by Anastasiades?”

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For weeks now in Moscow, there have been public hints that Nuland has resuscitated the scheme for withdrawing Turkish forces under the Turkish flag, then returning them under a NATO flag. In Nicosia in December, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that such a scheme would be unacceptable to Russia. “The sides should reach agreements that would provide these security guarantees on a fundamentally new basis,” Lavrov said, “which will be acceptable to both Cypriot communities…This role should be primarily played by the UN Security Council.” For more details, read this.

In February, Lavrov’s spokesman at the ministry in Moscow attacked statements by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for his “calls on the Cypriot Turks to take a tough, uncompromising stance in the ongoing intercommunal talks in Cyprus, including on territorial delimitation, a very sensitive issue. This is in stark contrast to Ankara’s statements on its commitment to facilitating a peaceful settlement on the island in the near future. It is obvious that by addressing such calls to one of the parties to the inter-Cypriot dialogue, Turkey’s leaders are rudely interfering in the negotiation process with a view of promoting their own interests.”

 This Neocon bullsh%$ is getting really old.

H/t Naked Capitalism.