Referendum in Turkey

[canavare]

Today a critical referandum held in Turkey on Constitutional changes which will give Erdoğan almost dictatorial authority, there is a lot of manipulation and fraud in the election. Considering that Turkish parliament has been prevented US operation to Iraq over Turkish soil in 2003 , a dictator who can bypass the parliament will be a more useful puppet for US and NATO and after its shelf life expires it will be easier to remove the dictator like sadism.


http://www.birgun.net/haber-detay/no-votes-take-the-lead-in-major-cities-in-turkey-155692.html

 

[Glenn]

I see dictators, as not inherently good or bad. Same with democratically elected leaders. In fact, choosing to avoid the West's democratic model can be seen as a way to avoid the manipulation that the West applies to most regimes around the world. Look at China for instance. And also you can see how the West wants inroads into Hong Kong, using the democracy angle. Erdogan is hard to figure out, as he seems to have many faces, with the real one not so apparent. This may be an effort to distance their country from outside influence. The knee jerk reaction to something like this might be to think that he wants only more power for himself, but there may be another angle to it. OSIT.

 

[Joe]

Today a critical referandum held in Turkey on Constitutional changes which will give Erdoğan almost dictatorial authority, there is a lot of manipulation and fraud in the election. Considering that Turkish parliament has been prevented US operation to Iraq over Turkish soil in 2003 , a dictator who can bypass the parliament will be a more useful puppet for US and NATO and after its shelf life expires it will be easier to remove the dictator like sadism.


http://www.birgun.net/haber-detay/no-votes-take-the-lead-in-major-cities-in-turkey-155692.html

I don't share this take on the situation. I don't think the new powers will make Erdogan a "dictator" in the sense that that word is being used by the Western press, and I think this referendum is a direct result of the US-backed coup against Erdogan last year, and aims to prevent it happening again. It seems to me that Erdogan and co. are being realistic about the current geopolitical climate where the law of the jungle, so to speak, prevails. As such, I think that now that the powers have been secured, Turkey is LESS likely to be a NATO pawn. Time will tell though.

 

[Ant22]

Hi mouse, I've noticed that the commonly propagated public perception is that any form of firmer power granted to a country's leader will inevitably lead to dictatorship. But the reality seems to be that weaker power base has resulted in many leaders becoming puppets of whoever was stronger than them. These influencers, both national and foreign, often do not have that country's best interest at heart and a weak leader has not enough power to stand up to them.

I hope I haven't misunderstood Joe's post above but since the referendum was a direct result of "US-backed coup against Erdogan last year", Erdogan is trying to ensure he gathers enough power to stand up to the American (or any other) influence effectively.

That's just my own take on Joe's words of course, I'm sorry if I misread it.

I found this SOTT radio show to be very informative. The Turkish referendum is discussed during the final 30-45 minutes and it's definitely worth listening to. It definitely improved my own understanding of this issue a lot. Oxajil provided a useful description of the part of the show that discussed the Turkish referendum in this post.

The topic of the Fifth Column in Turkey would be useful to look into in more detail as well I think.

Just my 2 cents :)



Edit: grammar

 

[Ant22]

I came across the below RT article about the Turkish opposition calling for referendum result to be annulled over unstamped ballots:

Turkish opposition figures have called for the results of Sunday’s referendum granting new presidential powers to be annulled, citing unstamped ballots given to voters. The electoral board insists the referendum result is valid, however.
Bulent Tezcan, deputy chairman of the main opposition Republican Peoples' Party (CHP), said Monday that the “only one way to end the discussions about the vote's legitimacy and to put the people at ease… is for the Supreme Electoral Board to cancel the vote.”

It is illegal to count the unstamped ballots as valid, Tezcan said. He added that his party had received complaints from a number of regions where people couldn’t vote in privacy, with some ballots counted in secret, as cited by Reuters.

"At the moment it is impossible to determine how many such votes there are and how many were stamped later. This is why the only decision that will end debate about the legitimacy (of the vote) and ease the people's legal concerns is the annulment of this election by the [electoral board]," Tezcan told a news conference.

According to the chairman of the High Electoral Board (YSK), Sadi Guven, the last-minute decision to use the unstamped ballots was not unprecedented. He insisted the step had been made before the results were entered into the voting system.

“The members of some election commissions, despite the education we provided, despite the information we gave them, made mistakes. Due to those mistakes, we have made this decision, not to violate the voters’ rights for the expression of their will. It's not the first time we have made such a decision. Previously, ballots were accepted as valid, unless proven otherwise,” Guven was reported by HaberTurk as saying.

Members of the ruling AK Party, as well as opposition representatives, were at nearly every polling station and signed off the reports, the chairman said.

However, this did not satisfy participants of the ‘No’ campaign, with CHP head Kemal Kilicdaroglu saying that they would demand a recount of up to 60 percent of the votes. The politician also slammed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for seeking a "one-man regime," and added that the proposed presidential changes would put the country in danger.

Erdogan announced his victory in Sunday’s tightly-contested referendum, with about 25 million Turks supporting his proposal and the ‘Yes’ camp garnering some 51.5 percent of the vote, according to the latest figures provided by Reuters.

"For the first time in the history of the Republic, we are changing our ruling system through civil politics. That is why it is very significant," Erdogan said.

The final results are set to be announced within 11-12 days after the vote, RIA Novosti reported.

Most of the changes proposed in the referendum will come into effect following the 2019 elections, but essentially they will see more powers given to the country’s president. The president will appoint the cabinet and a number of vice presidents, and the country’s leader will be able to dismiss senior civil servants without obtaining approval from the parliament. Critics say this will allow Erdogan to stay in power until 2029.

 

[canavare]

Today a critical referandum held in Turkey on Constitutional changes which will give Erdoğan almost dictatorial authority, there is a lot of manipulation and fraud in the election. Considering that Turkish parliament has been prevented US operation to Iraq over Turkish soil in 2003 , a dictator who can bypass the parliament will be a more useful puppet for US and NATO and after its shelf life expires it will be easier to remove the dictator like sadism.


http://www.birgun.net/haber-detay/no-votes-take-the-lead-in-major-cities-in-turkey-155692.html

I don't share this take on the situation. I don't think the new powers will make Erdogan a "dictator" in the sense that that word is being used by the Western press, and I think this referendum is a direct result of the US-backed coup against Erdogan last year, and aims to prevent it happening again. It seems to me that Erdogan and co. are being realistic about the current geopolitical climate where the law of the jungle, so to speak, prevails. As such, I think that now that the powers have been secured, Turkey is LESS likely to be a NATO pawn. Time will tell though.

First of all, most of the intellectual people in Turkey will disagree with you, there is an idiom in Turkish ''davulun sesi uzaktan hoş gelir.'' which means ''drum sounds pleasent if you are away from the source. With erdogan leadership Turkey is in a desecularization and creating more ignorance process, only the Sunni way of Islam is promoted, religion class has become mandatory in schools, more and more highschools are transformed to ''imamhatip'' religion high schools, there is very little freedom of speech, protest right, almost all of the media is pro-AKP or controlled opposition, even people make auto censorship on their comments on social media, for example I didn't comment your facebook post even if I like to. Most importantly people with higher qualifications removed from the positions and instaead of them pro-AKP people which don't have the appropriate qualifications for jobs employed. Without using state of the art knowledge he is playing and experimenting even on the properly functioning and hardly achieved systems of turkey and making a lot of mistakes which he rationalizes by confessing with sentences like ''we have been deceived''. He is removing the remaining of the secular and equally good education system which was achieved by Ataturk under very difficult circumstances.

I may agree with you that a wise leader with conscience like Ataturk could use very high authoritical political powers without or very little misusing them and that could be a better government approach than the western democracies but erdogan is neither so wise nor so conscientious.

As you know since the military coup turkey is under martial law, that means that erdogan already have a very high power, and we observed that he used that powers not only against gulen or CIA, he misused his powers by kicking out every opposition, not only gulen. For example a Constitution professor called ibrahim kaboğlu (who is anti-Gulen) was removed from university or anti-gulen but pro-asad journalist hüsnü mahalli sent to jail, anti-gulen but pro-kurd writer asli erdogan sent to jail. Since the coup over 200.000 people removed from the state jobs, most of them not pro-gulen only anti-AKP.

From the beginning on and still he is supporting the opposition against Assad in Syria, he supported the recent ''Assad used chemical weapon'' lie in Syria, his referendum campaign was supported by Israel and he was congratulated by Trump for his referendum success, US is still using the incirlik airbase of turkey, erdogan plays his anti-west role very good but in reality if you check the facts and what he has done he is still a western puppet, he only try to increase his negotiation power, and I think before PtB destroy him completely , PtB want to convert him to a person like Saddam or Qaddafi with absolute maximum powers.

I am %100 sure that you remember that before the coup erdogan supported NATO attack to Libya, supported free Syrian army against Assad, he agreed with Israel to gave up the prosecution rights of mavi marmara victims.

A few examples that he is not a conscientious person:

-Erdogan made the a crowd before him boo the mourning mother of Berkin Elvan, who died at age 15, after having been in a coma for nine months as a result of police shooting a tear gas canister into his head.

-after the soma mine accident in which 301 miners died erdogan run after and kicked a protester who protests very weak working safety conditions in mines.

-After teacher mehmet lokumcu who died from hearth attack after the police used gas against the protesters he said ''one of the protesters died, I don't know him, and I don't care what happens to him.''

I see your point but please concider that evil PtB tried to remove erdogan does not necessarily means that erdogan himself is not evil. Remember what happens to Venezuela after Chavez.

The new Constitution gives erdogan similar powers like those in Venezuela, he is able to assign unelected ministers and vice-presidents which can become president if something happens to erdogan and this easily lead to a corruption of the power and most importantly during this referendum process opposition propaganda was practically impossible and there is a very strong suspicion that the election is stolen and because of the martial law conditions this situation couldn't be brought to a fair justice court. This situation is a civil coup, is civil coup better than a military coup?

 

[angelburst29]

A few reports on Turkey's Referendum:

Nearly 50 people have been detained by police in Turkey amid rallies against the result of Sunday's constitutional referendum to broaden presidential powers.

Nearly 50 People Detained in Turkish Protests Against Giving Erdogan More Powers
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201704181052745762-turkey-referendum-protest-erdogan-detentions/

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called victory on Sunday after 51.4 percent of Turkish voters backed switching to a presidential system and vesting the president with powers to appoint top judges, declare a state of emergency, dismiss the parliament, remain party leader while in power and serve extra terms. Opposition parties slammed the election commission for accepting unsealed ballots and pointed to conduct irregularities before appealing to cancel the result. International observers said the referendum was not up to standard, calling the government out on biased media coverage as well as the lack of freedom of information and independent oversight.

At least 49 people, nearly half of these in the Aegean coastal city of Izmir, were detained on Monday after holding unauthorized rallies and allegedly insulting state officials, the Hurriyet Daily News newspaper reported on Tuesday.

In Izmir, six people were detained when a group of protesters intercepted a vehicle carrying "yes" voters, while another group of 19 people was detained in an unauthorized student demonstration in another part of the city.

Another 14 people were held in the Mediterranean Antalya province when dozens of people gathered to protest the impending presidential republic. Another ten people were detained in the central Eskisehir province, according to the publication. Many protests were dispersed using water cannons and tear gas.

Opponents of the government-backed reforms also gathered in the Aegean Mugla province and in central Istanbul, the newspaper said.

The rallies' geography largely corresponded with Sunday's voting patterns. Turkey's central provinces showed the biggest level of support, while the European part of Turkey, as well as the Aegean Sea coast and the Kurdish-dominated areas showed the lowest support for the changes.

The constitutional amendments referendum in Turkey will not provide stability and guarantee Ankara's collaboration with the United States on combating global terrorism, US think tank Bipartisan Policy Center National Security Director Blaise Misztal said in a press release on Monday.

Referendum Allows Erdogan to Transform Turkey Into 'Islamist Autocracy'
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201704171052718023-erdogan-turkey-referendum/

On Sunday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared victory after unofficial results indicated the country’s referendum had passed with a narrow majority.

"Under these conditions, stability will not return to Turkey any time soon. Nor should the United States expect that Turkey will become any more cooperative on issues critical to US national security, such as the fight against ISIS [Daesh, outlawed in Russia,]" the release stated.

Misztal claimed that the outcome of the referendum would enable Erdogan to enact policies that would lead to transforming Turkey into an "Islamist autocracy."

Earlier on Monday, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's (OSCE) observer mission said the campaign opposing the referendum was denied equal opportunities and voters were not given impartial information about key aspects of the constitutional changes.

Turkey's minister for relations with the European Union slammed OSCE's report on the referendum as "immature and far from objectivity".

Turkish Minister for EU Affairs Calls OSCE Report on Referendum 'Immature'
https://sputniknews.com/politics/201704181052746529-celik-turkey-referendum-osce/

Turkish Minister for EU Affairs Omer Celik on Tuesday accused the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) mission, which oversaw the constitutional referendum in Turkey, of a biased approach.

Report of the OSCE observation mission is immature and far from objectivity. The violations were noticed, however, the observers did not comment on the lack of opportunities for the supporters of the presidential system in Europe to hold campaigns there, and this is an evidence of their biased approach. The mission also noted the alleged unequal conditions for 'yes' and 'no' campaigning," Celik told journalists.

He pointed out that the observers also ignored the fact that many mayors of Turkey's provinces were campaigning against the constitutional changes.

Celik stressed that Turkey was ready to continue cooperation with European organizations, but "this cooperation should be based on objectivity and mutual respect, with respect for democratic principles."

Erdogan refuted the OSCE findings, calling them "politically motivated," and added that the OSCE observers "should know their limits."

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have closed ranks in calling for negotiations over Turkish accession into the EU to be halted in the wake of the referendum in Turkey which is set to hand huge powers to its President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

MEPs Call for Halt to Turkey Talks on Joining EU as Anger Grows Over Referendum
https://sputniknews.com/europe/201704181052739301-eu-turkey-accession-migrants/

Turks voted, April 16, to accept controversial changes to the country's constitution — effectively handing him more power — with a new executive presidency replacing the office of the prime minister, as well as allowing him to appoint judges.

However, critics say it is a power-grab by Erdogan, which is already under fire for his clampdown on the media and opposition supporters — especially following the failed coup, July 2016. Critics say his actions put Turkey at odds with the EU's principles of freedom of the media and political expression, as well as its rule of law policy on independent judiciaries.

"The proposed constitutional changes do not only grant President Erdogan authoritarian powers, they also disrupt the democratic checks and balances in Turkey and the referendum on which they are based didn't meet the standards of the Council of Europe," said former Belgian Prime Minister and leader of the Liberals and Democrats in the EU Parliament, Guy Verhoftsadt.

"A fair campaign has been prevented by the Turkish government who intimidated the "no" side and even resorted to jailing dozens of journalists.
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) confirms that both media and opposition parties have been boycotted by the Turkish government, thus precluding a level playing field between the "yes" and "no" sides," he said.

"On top of that, the outcome was very tight. Turkey's big cities, for example, clearly voted against changing the constitution. The only logical conclusion of this all is that the EU stops accession talks immediately and rethinks its relationship with Turkey."

​'Closed the Doors'

"Another harsh blow against democracy and rule of law has been dealt in Turkey. This is yet another decisive step away from Europe. Erdogan has closed his doors to the EU with this referendum. The EU accession talks should be suspended once Turkey decides to implement the 18 constitutional amendments," said Socialists and Democrats Group president Gianni Pittella.

"We must stand side by side with all those Turkish citizens who are still striving to bring their country towards a rapprochement with the EU. However, it is clear that the strengthened economic cooperation that Erdogan so aspires to cannot happen so long as he continues to lead Turkey in an ever more oppressive direction," said Greens/European Free Alliance co-president Ska Keller.

​"Negotiations over the modernization of the customs union must not be opened until Erdogan has proven he is willing to make concessions and return to democracy,"

If talks do break down, it will put the EU-Turkey migrant deal — already under severe pressure — at risk, which could lead to another exodus of migrants into Europe. Under the deal, Turkish accession to the EU would be accelerated in return for Turkish assistance in curbing the number of migrants crossing into Europe.

According to media reports, Turkey's opposition Republican People's Party plans to seek the annulment of a government-backed referendum with the Supreme Election Board.

Turkish Opposition to Appeal Election Board to Nullify Constitutional Referendum
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201704181052733789-turkey-opposition-referendum/

Turkey's opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) plans to seek the annulment of a government-backed referendum with the Supreme Election Board (YSK), Turkish media reported Tuesday.

"The CHP to appeal to YSK to cancel the referendum at 2:30 p.m. [11:30 GMT]," the Haberturk broadcaster said on Twitter.

Preliminary results indicate over half of the voters in Turkey supported the proposed expansion of presidential powers during Sunday's referendum.

 

[Hesper]

I see your point but please concider that evil PtB tried to remove erdogan does not necessarily means that erdogan himself is not evil. Remember what happens to Venezuela after Chavez.

Thanks for sharing this perspective, Mouse. I don't think Joe was saying that Erdogan is a 'good guy' though, but more that it's possible he won't be a good NATO puppet anymore.

This situation is a civil coup, is civil coup better than a military coup?

I see it as another means of transferring power. The transfer of power could be seen as 'good' or 'bad' depending on who the power is transferred to, and what they do with it.

A few examples that he is not a conscientious person:

I think many would agree with your statement that Erdogan is not a conscientious person. However, the original point is that, after consolidating power, he may be something more than just the West's puppet. It's similar to the dynamic in US politics, with Donald Trump and the way he is portrayed in the media. Does it make either of them 'good guys'? No, not at all - they are both heavily invested in their own egos, and in power structures that are forged by deception and many forms of violence. Thus it's difficult to predict the course of events, which is why Joe said 'time will tell'.

But in the grand scheme of things they could act in ways that sabotage, or at least hinder, the progression of the West's 'boot in everyone's face' pathocracy. And, since this pathocracy has been responsible for so much of the de-evolution and enslavement of humanity for so long, that could be seen as a positive.

But, like you said, the drum sounds pleasant if you are away from the source - not saying that the drum sounds pleasant at all, but your point remains. It reminds me of the saying 'when elephants dance, the chickens must be careful'. None of us are much more than chickens at this stage in the game, so the best we can do, it seems, is to analyze events and the forces prodding them along, and try not to fall into confluence with it all while we strive to evolve on a personal and collective level (what really matters). As Mouravieff states about confluence:

When man is CONFLUENT, and consequently forgets himself, he is simply carried away by one of the mental currents which pass through him--but he is not conscious of it; he thinks he acts, when in reality he is carried away all the while plunged in mental sleep. Whenever he practices the 'tresvenic' (a Russian term relating to 'coming to' after a state of drunkenness), that is, whenever he is present, and as long as this state lasts, he will realize that he is being carried away. But that is all.

He still continues to be carried away. Nevertheless, this is a great progress, as it will permit him to constate on the idea: I AM. By doing this he will make the first effort to attach himself to the permanent by detaching himself from the temporal. With the formula the I AM, man for the first time can make an effort to resist the many mental currents which carry him away, and for which he is otherwise like a plaything. It is by this sort of conscious effort that he will start to build his cage--his future command post.

This is also why, as Joe said, time will tell.

I presume, and I may be wrong, that you are Turkish. If so, please stay safe and keep us updated.

 

[munaychasumaq]

Yes,only time will tell...

 

[Joe]

First of all, most of the intellectual people in Turkey will disagree with you, there is an idiom in Turkish ''davulun sesi uzaktan hoş gelir.'' which means ''drum sounds pleasent if you are away from the source. With erdogan leadership Turkey is in a desecularization and creating more ignorance process, only the Sunni way of Islam is promoted, religion class has become mandatory in schools, more and more highschools are transformed to ''imamhatip'' religion high schools, there is very little freedom of speech, protest right, almost all of the media is pro-AKP or controlled opposition, even people make auto censorship on their comments on social media, for example I didn't comment your facebook post even if I like to. Most importantly people with higher qualifications removed from the positions and instaead of them pro-AKP people which don't have the appropriate qualifications for jobs employed. Without using state of the art knowledge he is playing and experimenting even on the properly functioning and hardly achieved systems of turkey and making a lot of mistakes which he rationalizes by confessing with sentences like ''we have been deceived''. He is removing the remaining of the secular and equally good education system which was achieved by Ataturk under very difficult circumstances.

I may agree with you that a wise leader with conscience like Ataturk could use very high authoritical political powers without or very little misusing them and that could be a better government approach than the western democracies but erdogan is neither so wise nor so conscientious.

As you know since the military coup turkey is under martial law, that means that erdogan already have a very high power, and we observed that he used that powers not only against gulen or CIA, he misused his powers by kicking out every opposition, not only gulen. For example a Constitution professor called ibrahim kaboğlu (who is anti-Gulen) was removed from university or anti-gulen but pro-asad journalist hüsnü mahalli sent to jail, anti-gulen but pro-kurd writer asli erdogan sent to jail. Since the coup over 200.000 people removed from the state jobs, most of them not pro-gulen only anti-AKP.

From the beginning on and still he is supporting the opposition against Assad in Syria, he supported the recent ''Assad used chemical weapon'' lie in Syria, his referendum campaign was supported by Israel and he was congratulated by Trump for his referendum success, US is still using the incirlik airbase of turkey, erdogan plays his anti-west role very good but in reality if you check the facts and what he has done he is still a western puppet, he only try to increase his negotiation power, and I think before PtB destroy him completely , PtB want to convert him to a person like Saddam or Qaddafi with absolute maximum powers.

I wouldn't put much faith in what the 'western powers' want to or try to do these days. Nothing seems to be working the way they plan. Just a note, Qaddafi didn't have maximum powers. I'm not so sure that he is "supporting the opposition" in Syria. He seems to be supporting a very specific group, and is pursuing his own agenda which seems to aimed at protecting Turkish territorial integrity.

I am %100 sure that you remember that before the coup erdogan supported NATO attack to Libya, supported free Syrian army against Assad, he agreed with Israel to gave up the prosecution rights of mavi marmara victims. [...]

This situation is a civil coup, is civil coup better than a military coup?

Maybe you misunderstand, but I'm not saying Erdogan is a "good guy", I'm just trying to understand his motivations in the context of the very chaotic situation in which he and Turkey and the wider Middle East finds itself. A coup of some description appears to have been forced on Turkey by external forces. The choice was a NATO coup that would have resulted in serious bloodshed for Turkey, or a reactive coup by Erdogan. Who's going to say which is better? The time is long gone where anyone in this world can hope for an 'ideal' society, anywhere. Things are going from bad to worse. So maybe we should be looking at things from that perspective rather than from what *might* be in an 'ideal world'. While we can strive to live an ideal life in our personal interactions etc. I don't think there is much hope for the people or 'leaders' of this world to do the same.

 

[Niall]

First of all, most of the intellectual people in Turkey will disagree with you, there is an idiom in Turkish ''davulun sesi uzaktan hoş gelir.'' which means ''drum sounds pleasent if you are away from the source.

It's interesting that you distinguish 'intellectual' people from the overall population, most of which, apparently, supports Erdgoan. And they are very close to the source.

 

[Joe]

First of all, most of the intellectual people in Turkey will disagree with you, there is an idiom in Turkish ''davulun sesi uzaktan hoş gelir.'' which means ''drum sounds pleasent if you are away from the source.

It's interesting that you distinguish 'intellectual' people from the overall population, most of which, apparently, supports Erdgoan. And they are very close to the source.

True, and as regards the drum sounds, you could argue that a clearer interpretation of the meaning and intent of the drum sounds can be had from further away than close. Being close to the 'drum' can lead to exaggerated or distorted interpretations because of the 'cacophony'.

It seems to me that Turkey's primary goal as regards events in Syria is to safeguard Turkish territorial integrity from the threat of a Kurdistan. As I've said a few times previously, the creation of a Kurdistan across N. Iraq and Syria seems to be at least one of the 'plan Bs' of the US, and I would suggest that the attempted coup last year (sponsored by Western forces) had the intention of putting a new govt. in power in Turkey that would have been more accepting of such a plan. So while there is not necessarily any 'right or wrong' here (everything is so messed up right now) I can understand why Erdogan and co. have taken the steps they have taken. As already noted, I highly doubt that things would improve in any significant way for the Turkish people if Erdogan had been eliminated last year and the US plan for Turkey had been put in place.

 

[canavare]

First of all, most of the intellectual people in Turkey will disagree with you, there is an idiom in Turkish ''davulun sesi uzaktan hoş gelir.'' which means ''drum sounds pleasent if you are away from the source.

It's interesting that you distinguish 'intellectual' people from the overall population, most of which, apparently, supports Erdgoan. And they are very close to the source.

Yes Niall, actually this distinguishment does not belong to me, this is the result of the surveys and at the same time this is a confession of AKP leaders and supporters, a few examples:

old AKP minister Taner Yildiz says ''with increasing education level the votes of AKP decreases''

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnsftqyDGLQ

pro-AKP prof. dr. bulent arı says: ''I fear from the educationed people, I get panic attack if the education level increases, I trust on the foresight of the ignorant and uneducationed people, ''

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVoKes3PEHs

after this comment he was promoted with a new position (member of the board of the higher education consul).

In turkey education system is shifting from a questioning based to conditioning based and to religion based education and the result is a sharp drop in the PISA scores of turkish children. :(

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkeys-education-problems-revealed-in-oecd-wide-education-test-pisa.aspx?pageID=238&nid=106997

 

[canavare]

Maybe you misunderstand, but I'm not saying Erdogan is a "good guy", I'm just trying to understand his motivations in the context of the very chaotic situation in which he and Turkey and the wider Middle East finds itself. A coup of some description appears to have been forced on Turkey by external forces. The choice was a NATO coup that would have resulted in serious bloodshed for Turkey, or a reactive coup by Erdogan. Who's going to say which is better? The time is long gone where anyone in this world can hope for an 'ideal' society, anywhere. Things are going from bad to worse. So maybe we should be looking at things from that perspective rather than from what *might* be in an 'ideal world'. While we can strive to live an ideal life in our personal interactions etc. I don't think there is much hope for the people or 'leaders' of this world to do the same.

Hi joe,

Yes, maybe I misunderstand , I agree that a coup attemp has been forced to Turkey by NATO/super NATO/gladio/gulen/fifth column/CIA etc. and it is very important to sabotage the plans of this evil PtB.

What I want to make clear is giving erdogan more power could be the less favorable approach to achieve this result. Erdogan is the one who makes Turkey so vulnerable to the 2016 coup attempt.

In the past he gave most important state and military positions to Gulen , the result is removal of the anti-imperialist pro-Ataturk officiers from the military and he bypassed the filter mecanism of the military which lead gulen concure the military and make this coup attempt.

His most important weakness is his human resources, he has trust issues and because of this reason his team cosist of not from best qualified person, on the contrary his team mainly consist of people who he personally know or people who have a religious background. Because of this lack of qualification his team try to solve problems mostly on a error-trial basis without considering the state of art, which lead a lot of consequtive errors.

Of course we could not predict the future but my opinion is instead of converting turkish state system to a saudi like dictatorship it will be better to keep the turkish state system as a western like qualification based system in which the parliament, military, jurisdiction and government balance each other.

A few examples from the past:
-during the first gulf war turkish prime minister Ozal wanted to push turkish army to Iraq but the chief of army had enough power to prevent this attempt. since this time PtB want more control in turkish army, and PtB achieved this thanks to erdogan.

-in 2003 erdogan wanted to allow US army use turkish soil for invading ıraq, the parliament had prevented this attempt.

Nobody know which sects and government positions fifth column hiddenly controls, now turkey could be more vulnareable to manuplation.

may be you may misunderstand me too, because english is not my mother language.

 

[canavare]

The topic of the Fifth Column in Turkey would be useful to look into in more detail as well I think.

Hi Ant22,

yes I am aware of ''fifth column in turkey'' gladio A and galdio B operations since 1947.

In the past Turkey had a western style qualification based system in which parliament, government, jurisdiction, bureucracy including army etc balance each other.

My opinion is if instutitions employ human resorces on a qualification basis instead of sect brotherhoods, than in each instution there may be a higher probability to cancel the evil efforts of the fifth column, even if they does not know anything about psychopathie, but anyone who is not wise enough and not have a good team with best qualifications like erdogan acquire all power, probabily he will keep making a lot of errors some of which will be irrepairable and at the end this will serve to PtB. And it is eaiser to monsterize ,destroy his country and remove a dictator like saddam but more difficult to remove a democratic leader.