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[martinuzz]

The French government is deploying 12000 police reservists to strenghten the nation's police and military forces. That's a 10% increase in manpower, with currently 120.000 officers on police duty.
They have also called upon any and all patriotic French citizen to become a reservist.

[Sheb]

So the plan is that once everyone is a policeman, no civilian will get killed anymore?

[martinuzz]

Egypt used veto to block a UN Security Council statement drafted by the US, which condemned the coup and urges to respect the democratically chosen government.

Their argument is that the security council is not in a position to determine whether a government has come to power democratically or not.

Inb4 Erdogan invades Egypt

Meanwhile in the US, Gulen again strongly denies to have anything to do with the coup and condemns armed regime changes once more. He urges the Turkish people to "never consider military intervention as something positive".

He does say however that he thinks it's possible that the coup was staged by Erdogan

[Sergarr]

Terrible jokes thread material: Turkey's PM declared war on any country that supports Gulen, which will most likely include USA, if they don't extradite him.

I wonder how would Turkey waging war on USA look like...

[TempAcc]

He does say however that he thinks it's possible that the coup was staged by Erdogan

Not terribly unlikely. While there was a fair bit of conflict, it was mostly localized and the military forces backing it seemed very confused about what exactly they were doing, and were rather easily overcome by loyalists. Meanwhile Erdogan was away and safe from the whole conflict from the start. Suddenly the coup's forces break apart in less than a day and a captured general urges the troops to surrender.

In one day, Erdogan's greatest internal enemies have all mostly been arrested and are probably going to die once Erdog walks over the Turkish constitution and installs the death penalty while Erdog points at everyone he dislikes and calls them orchestrators while he paints himself as the people's savior.

Tis a dark time for Turkey.

[Vilanat]

The Muslim Brotherhood won it through their brainwashed subjects shouting Allah Akhbar in the streets and squares. the only thing that is of any consolation is that the popular rejection of the coup was so fierce, that the military was so divided and that the coup was so poorly planned out (Staged?), that the blood shed is/will be relatively small considering what a true coup in modern day turkey would look like.

Turkey is going to crack down on any last remaining shades of freedom and democracy left in it. forget the Turkey of past, this is Turkey now: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/turkish-soldier-beheaded-pro-government-8433319

If the U.S extradite Gulen to Turkey it would be... extremely disappointing.

[smirk]

I rather doubt we will. Here is Kerry's statement about Gülen:

No official extradition request had been made, according to the US secretary of state, John Kerry, who spoke to reporters in Luxembourg. “We fully anticipate that there will be questions raised about Mr Gülen,” he said.

“And obviously we would invite the government of Turkey, as we always do, to present us with any legitimate evidence that withstands scrutiny. And the United States will accept that and look at it and make judgments about it appropriately.”

Given Kerry's easy-going and bland reputation, I'm inclined to read that as his version of "haha, screw that noise".

[Erkki]

And they call this the victory of democracy.

[Loud Whispers]

They may have believed the citizens of Turkey would support them. Or they were ordered not to shoot civilians to prevent a PR disaster. It reminds me of Garibaldi.

Who tries to get good PR from media controlled by your enemy? That's not how media control works, you don't try to appease a media that hates you

And they call this the victory of democracy.

Is a democracy allowed to end itself by popular demand? Hell if I know, but it's a question Europe's been asking the past century quite a lot

They don't really know how to do PR very well.
"Let's blame a guy who is in self-imposed exile and preaches tolerance and altruism for starting it!"
"Okay, let's say they're terrorists too, that'll get everyone on our side!"

Blame a Sufi mystic (see: infidel) known for connections and influence in Turkey (see: good scapegoat, someone far away who doesn't have power to stop accusations), who preaches tolerance and altruism (see: codewords for western ideology), then say they are terrorists (everyone is ok with killing terrorists) and it is a winning recipe - which also sets out that this is NOT a conflict between the popular military and the AKP, and that the popular military stands with the AKP against the infidel conspiratorial tolerant antidemocratic terrorists.

[Teneb]

And they call this the victory of democracy.

Is a democracy allowed to end itself by popular demand? Hell if I know, but it's a question Europe's been asking the past century quite a lot

It certainly would be quite democratic.

Sultanate of Rum when?

[martinuzz]

Greece has come back on their decision to extradite the 8 military who asked for asylum.
Prime minister Tsipras has said that their asylum request will be taken seriously, and handled with respect for human rights and international law.
(I guess they're not too sure now that they get a fair trial and won't be convicted to death, and international law forbids extradition of anyone whose life is in danger, or is in danger of being denied a fair trial).
If a mass murderer would escape from the United States and ask asylum in a European country, we'd not be allowed, by international law, to extradite to the US either, because he can get death penalty. (He'd not be allowed asylum either though. Probably spend the rest of his life in illegal alien detention)

Ofcourse it's also possible that intelligence agencies jumped in and said "just wait a second with extradition, we want to debrief those guys and see if we can get more info on wth really happened in Turkey."

[Loud Whispers]

(Gruesome), Greece is right to consider the safety of the surrendered soldiers

[miljan]

Posted on one of the other forums from turkey member and what he thinks about all this:

"Rather than staged, it was a desperate attempt by a certain sect in the military which didn't have the support of the core. Back in 2002, when AKP won the elections, they were hand in hand with the Gulen movement.. Both were Islamists and both saw the Kemalist bureaucrats/military as the common enemy. So, AKP happily let Gulenists take over the police force and infiltrate into the judicial system. Gulenists brought on investigation after investigation, convicting almost half the high-ranking officials in the military of -oh, the irony- attempted coups or corruption charges, usually based on fabricated evidence. (Nobody suspected the evidence much back in those days, because the military was indeed anti-AKP and had a long history of real coups.) But in 2013, like all Islamists do since the time of the four caliphs of which three are assassinated, in the end, they couldn't share the power and turned on each other. The Gulen movement started to leak secretly recorded tapes of AKP politicians, which presented bribery, corruption, and other sort of scandalous material. Yet, AKP still won the elections that year despite everything that surfaced and in return, started a man-hunt, removing and arresting anybody in the police force or judicial system that was linked to Gulen. Erdogan started to accuse any political opposition or journalism of working for the Gulen movement which he now called "the parallel state." It is known that a similar house-cleaning was just about to take place in the military and the Gulenist officers were going to be discharged. So, this was their last resort. Hoping the Kemalist core of the military would back them against Erdogan once they start the coup, they went ahead. But of course, the Kemalist officers hate the Gulen movement even more than they hate AKP, since it was Gulen's people who convicted them back in the 2000's. Also, this is not 1980 anymore, there are hundreds of TV stations, the internet, cell phones... So, they couldn't prevent communication and Erdogan's "call of duty" to his conservative Muslims, and once they got that call, they flooded the streets with "Allah-u Akbar" jumping on tanks, blocking the roads etc.

Overall, AKP first snowed the state bureaucracy up by filling it with Gulenists and when they turned on each other, what was completely lost in chaos and greed was the establishment and reputation of this state. This failed attempt will only strengthen Erdogan's hand and I'm afraid "his Islamist crowds" will be much more aggressive from now on.   "

[martinuzz]

The United States is forced to cease using the Turkish airbase of Incirlik after the failed coup attempt.
The US use the base in the southeast of Turkey for carrying out attacks on Syria and Iraq.
This has become impossible, with the Turkish airspace shut down for military planes.

A spokesman of the US ministry of Defense told New York Times that the military is conducting negotiations with the Turks to resume the attacks as soon as possible.
According to the newspaper, losing the base is a big blow to the US military campaign, if only temporary. Jet fighters and drones are stationed and now grounded there, and the base is essential for refueling.
Without the base, aircraft will lose action radius considerably, when they are forced to refuel from aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf.

Military analists are also worried about continued Turkish contribution to the battle against IS.
"They will be focussed on finding and neutralizing those responsible for the coup, and everything else, including the fight against IS, will have low priority", says Eric Edelmann, former US ambassador in Turkey.

THere's also worries that the coup has weakened the Turkish army, making them a less strong partner in the fight against IS.
John Kerry has urged the Turks to continue focussing on fighting IS.

Kerry also expressed frustration at rumours in Turkey, that the US is behind the failed coup. He told the Turkish government that it is harmful for the relation between the two NATO countries.
He offered to cooperate in finding out who is responsible for the coop to the Turkish minister Mevlut Cavosolglu.
http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/amerikanen-moeten-is-aanvallen-vanaf-turkse-basis-staken~a4341262/

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/17/world/europe/turkey-us-incirlik-isis.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=b-lede-package-region%C2%AEion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1

The plot thickens. So apparently the US staged the coup now.

In other news, only 20% of Dutch people who booked a holiday to Turkey this week have cancelled, despite being able to get a full refund on cancellation. The other 80% don't think the coup will affect the popular tourist beach cities of Turkey they plan to stay at.

[TheDarkStar]

Who actually staged the coup though? As far as I can tell, there are no apparent leaders, self-claimed or otherwise.