- (july 2016)
Turkey's coup
Everybody is right in condemning the coup staged in Turkey, except that they
are not condemning the real one: Turkey's president Erdogan has been steadily
overthrowing Turkish democracy. He is now using a failed coup by some
military units as an excuse to purge the country of tens of thousands of
officers, judges and even teachers.
The man is absolutely paranoid, besides being a supporter of Islamic terrorism.
Erdogan has managed to pitch Turkey against everybody.
Diplomatic relationships with Israel have been damaged by his support
for the Islamist movement Hamas in Palestine (which is surreal for someone who doesn't want to grant the Kurds
the independence that he supports for the Palestinians), he has damaged
diplomatic relationships with Russia even before he shot down a Russian
military plane, he has never mended the relationship with Greece over the
Turkish invasion of Cyprus, he has never acknowledged and apologized for the genocide of the Armenian people,
he is loathed by Egypt's new dictator Al-Sisi due to his
support for Al-Sisi's predecessor Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood (another Islamist movement),
he is simultaneously at war with ISIS (that he initially helped to create, arm and fund), with Syria's dictator Assad, with the Kurds who fight Assad
and with his own Kurdish minority, he opposes the independence of Iraq's
Kurdistan, he is blackmailing the European Union over the issue of the
refugees, and now he has also pitched a battle with the USA over the
extradiction of his political nemesis, the influential Islamic cleric
Fethullah Gulen who lives in exile in the USA and whom Erdogan considers
the architect of the failed military coup (despite the fact that Gulen condemned it).
Meanwhile Turkey has been the victim of terrorist attacks by both ISIS and
Kurdish separatists: the former are avenging that
he turned against them after nurturing them for years; and the latter have provoked by him for political gains.
By arresting or suspending thousands of soldiers, police officers, judges, teachers in the biggest purge since Stalin's times, i.e. by staging his own coup,
Erdogan has created a very divided country. He can expect violence not only
from Kurds and ISIS, but also from the young people that he is terrorizing.
Russia's annexation of Crimea proved that European borders are not eternal.
Brexit proved that the European Union is not always destined to expand.
Turkey is proving that democracies can decay into dictatorships in Europe.
It is revealing that Erdogan's first action after the attempted coup was to
cut off electricity at Incirlik, the military base that the USA is using to
attack ISIS. Note that Turkey denied permission to use this base until late
2015. This was de facto the biggest protection that any country had granted to
ISIS.
Turkey has been a strategic ally of the USA: first to contain the Soviet Union,
then to provide a role model to the Middle Eastern world.
Now it has become a strategy ally of anybody who wants to destabilize that region.
Turkey's tourism industry has collapsed in parallel with its democracy.
It is difficult to find another country that has plummeted into such a big mess.
Sadly, he was indeed democratically elected.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2016 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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P.S.
Note: my website is currently banned in Turkey and Turkish people will never be able to read this opinion piece just like they cannot view about one million
other websites. Shame on the USA and the European Union that accepts a
fascist regime like Turkey's in NATO.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2016 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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