{"id":21430,"date":"2016-07-17T13:32:30","date_gmt":"2016-07-17T18:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=21430"},"modified":"2016-07-17T13:32:30","modified_gmt":"2016-07-17T18:32:30","slug":"turkey-convulsed-by-failed-coup-turkish-voters-not-soldiers-should-toss-erdogan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=21430","title":{"rendered":"Turkey Convulsed By Failed Coup: Turkish Voters, Not Soldiers, Should Toss Erdogan"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"article-header ng-scope\">\n<h3 class=\"article-headline ng-binding ng-scope\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/dougbandow\/2016\/07\/17\/turkey-convulsed-by-failed-coup-turkish-voters-not-soldiers-should-toss-erdogan\/#299607f676d1\">Turkey Convulsed By Failed Coup: Turkish Voters, Not Soldiers, Should Toss Erdogan<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"stream-body-container clearfix\">\n<div class=\"article-rail\">\n<div data-article=\"0\">\n<div class=\"article-article-body\">\n<div class=\"article-body-content clearfix\">\n<div class=\"article-text clearfix\">\n<div class=\"article-injected-body ng-scope\">\n<p>Recep Tayyip Erdogan has ruled Turkey for more than a decade. He should be enjoying his time of triumph. He towers above the political system, able to create and dismiss governments at will.<\/p>\n<p>The mayor turned prime minister turned president created a new, victorious Islamic movement. He eradicated the gaggle of old, squabbling secular parties. He promoted more business-friendly policies, generating prosperity for those previously left behind. And he won support from women, academics, and liberals as he defanged the military, which long was the ultimate arbiter of Turkish politics.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_576524486\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"dam-image getty size-large wp-image-576524486\" src=\"http:\/\/specials-images.forbesimg.com\/imageserve\/576524486\/960x0.jpg?fit=scale\" alt=\"\" data-height=\"641\" data-width=\"960\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Turkish army\u2019s tank enter the Ataturk Airport on July 16, 2016 in Istanbul, Turkey. (Photo by Defne Karadeniz\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Yet his country almost crashed and burned on Friday. Elements of the army and air force attempted a coup d\u2019etat. Airports were closed. State television was occupied. Planes bombed the parliament. Tanks blocked the bridge which crosses the Bosphorus, sundering the land link between Europe and Asia. Soldiers and police battled in the streets. Loyalists\u2019 planes attacked renegades\u2019 helicopters and tanks. Army forces besieged the intelligence agency\u2019s headquarters. Insurgents detained the army chief of staff and other top officers. Civilians confronted the coup\u2019s foot soldiers.<\/p>\n<div id=\"article-0-inread\" class=\"inread ng-isolate-scope inread-active\">At last count nearly 300 people were killed and almost 1500 were injured. So far some 3000 members of the military have been arrested, and that number is likely to rise. Erdogan promised revenge against those involved, who will \u201cpay a heavy price for their treason.\u201d<\/div>\n<p>No doubt they will, since the thin-skinned Erdogan long has been making even mild critics suffer for their alleged sins. To tame the military his government previously tried hundreds of military officers and others in mass trials involving improbably fantastic conspiracies, such as the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer cases.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Turkey Convulsed By Failed Coup: Turkish Voters, Not Soldiers, Should Toss Erdogan Recep Tayyip Erdogan has ruled Turkey for more than a decade. He should be enjoying his time of triumph. He towers above the political system, able to create and dismiss governments at will. The mayor turned prime minister turned president created a new, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14183,7921,526,1908,818],"class_list":["post-21430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-doug-bandow","tag-forbes","tag-military-coup","tag-recep-tayyip-erdogan","tag-turkey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21430"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21431,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21430\/revisions\/21431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}