The Latest: Report: Turkey soldiers fire on people on bridge

Associated Presstitutes ^ | July 15, 2016 | Staff

[Navy Patriot]

1:40 a.m.

Turkish news agency Dogan has reported that soldiers have opened fired on people trying to cross Istanbul's Bosporus bridge in protest of the attempted coup, and some have been wounded.

TV footage showed people running for cover as shots rang out. Earlier, a statement attributed to the military said that Turkish armed forces have "fully seized control" of the country.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan then called on citizens to take to the streets in a show of support for the government.

[Navy Patriot]

Maybe over 90% of Turks welcome this coup..? More, I’d say.

Maybe, ... in any case, they better get busy cutting Islamist's throats.

[arthurus]

I am absolutely elated. I spent my childhood in Istanbul and my brother was born there. In those days Americans walked on water in Turkiye. I have fond memories of Turkish kids I knew then and of my parents' friends. I grew up and never lost my fascination with things Turkish, especially as they related to Ataturk. I have paid attention all my life to Islam and to things Turkish. I defended Turkiye on FR until long after it should have been obvious that Islam had taken over and the Republic was apparently dead. I waited and waited for the Army to set things right as the Army had done twice before but Erdogan had beheaded the Army and ousted the Judges who had also protected the Constitution and the Republic. I had despaired of the Army being able or willing to set things right again. From the look of it I was not patient enough. If this is, indeed, what is happening then I have to speculate that the Tradition was so strong that the new Islamist officers began to feel it as they settled into their commands and gradually transferred their loyalty from Erdogan and Jihad to the Army and the Constitution which ordains the Army as the Protector of the Republic.

I think I remember that Erdogan got a new Constitution a few years ago that cut the Army out of its traditional role but the Army adheres to the old Secular Constitution which has no provision for its replacement that way, and its care and protection by the Army.

[arthurus]

If this is the Army acting in its Constitutional role and if it is successful Erdogan will flee the country or be put on trial or will “choose” to go into total seclusion from which he will be heard from no more.

[arthurus]

But I don’t want innocent people getting shot.

You can't have a nice bloodless Revolution or, in this case, Restoration if the Army has to do it.

[arthurus]

I imagine Sultan Barak Hussein is frantic that his allies in Turkiye are losing out. If the Army is doing its duty then ISIS has just taken it on the chin. That part will work out in the coming year. The events in Turkiye are surely causing Hussein and his minions to look in terror over their shoulders at the American military.

[Enchante]

reports that a Turkish F16 shot it down, if it’s the same helicopter crash referred to in other reports

[Navy Patriot]

I would take Ataturk’s Turkey back in a New York minute.

[arthurus]

Not 90% but the middle class and the business class surely welcome the cleaning of the house. And Turkiye has a large middle class, especially considering how it is in all other Moslem countries. In the countryside the support is probably 50/50 or thereabouts but the rural population will not be terribly eager to shoot it out with either side and will accept whatever eventuates. Islamism in Turkiye is a phenomenon of the big cities, of Istanbul and Ankara primarily. It is rather like our own radicals of several variations.

[arthurus]

Snowflakes don’t make good soldiers.

[RightGeek]

It's going to take "a whiff of grapeshot" (Napoleon)

Is the Turkish military strong enough to do it?

[HiTech RedNeck]

Which has what to do with the price of tea in China?

[katykelly]

I was going to reply to your use of the word " innocent " , but I see that's not necessary 😉

[arthurus]

Ataturk was an analog of Lenin but his revolution went a different way. Ataturk is the sort of leader I hope Trump turns out to be. He was the rare Napoleon who turned out to not aspire to be Napoleon. Pinochet in Chile was another. They do happen but rarely.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Why are they going out there anyhow, is it because they really wuv Erdogan like his pet goat, or is it because they’ve been threatened if they won’t?

I just hope this military is smart enough to figure out who would really be a friend.

[arthurus]

I am answering the post of an apparent snowflake. I suspect third parties understand.

[montag813]

This coup appears to have failed. I wonder if the entire thing was staged to give him absolute power.

[arthurus]

The Army is probably the sanest and most sensible faction of Turkish society and the only reason that Turks still have something that can be termed society.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Could you be a mite more specific.

It was being ass-u-me’d that this was a free will act in support of the despot, which means they probably aren’t all that snowflakey (72 virgins await, remember).

Sure mistakes are going to get made, inadvertently or otherwise. But why double down on them if they are.

[dragnet2]

Well you can bet whoever the bad guys are our government will support them and send us even further into a death spiral of eternal debt. Or else those in Ustinkistan will demand we do the dirty work and heaving lifting for them, but it will cost us billions to rebuild their stuff.

[Chode]

well, so much for that... just damn