Couldn't read but only the first few lines, "The Times" needs subscription and access to global financial system is forbidden by sanctions, not that I would subscribe if I could anyway. I imagine it's about "too hot" and people allready in bad mood or somthing, and the bad timing (secular military movement against an Islamic-based political party) just days afte the holly month of Ramadan was over.
Actually further information is being revealed every day, and it is further proving my theory, yes the coup was inevitably coming and the western powers that has influence in Turkey chose Erdogan over the military because they still need his role in the region, and because the coup success was to result in ending the Syrian War completely which was going to be a big scandal. What i see is that they had plenty of time to weigh their opinions (months), even Erdogan himself did, and they decided to keep Erdogan, but wanted also to get the best they could out of the situation, either from Erdogan or from the Gulf states that support him, and they got some as i showed in my second post here.
From the information being revealed I'd say that together they "baited" (set up) the army so it had no choice but to execute its coup hastily on their timing, and Erdogan was ready for it with best laid plans. The army maybe KNEW that the Americans had chosen Erdogan (a slightly different take from my previous post) so they where cornered and tried to move and change the situation into a new reality that the west would be forced to deal with, obviously that was not the case. I think they waited on him and his party for so long, he had for three years -or so- established and completed a side structure of 60000 militants called them Special Tasks as an official light-armed groups their mission is to prevent military coups, not to mention that he was allowed time to change the whole Police structure entirely into his loyalty, and make dramatic changes inside the military it self. It was too late, and that probably played the decisive factor in the western powers choice.
If i was to give the coup plotters an advice in such a situation, it would be to execute a vicious one and to first thing destroy all the Special Task forces by sudden attack on all their headquarters and facilities, and bomb all their vehicles and kill everyone that tries to resist them, take hold on all the country's communications, and keep on going for all the time needed to finally find Erdogan and all his high officials and capture them all, then it would be over, and the whole world would have raced to congratulate them.
Erdogan and co are now crying over their claims of civilian losses and brutality of the coup soldiers! It's all lies, there were no civilian casualties, where are the funerals, and how many are civilians? I bet non. All 208 casualties (assuming the number is true) are from the Military and Police and Erdogan's party militia and foreign militants groups (Syrian and international Islamists), maybe there was a civilian pr two, maybe 5 or 10 maximum, but who are they? Can we confirm those numbers? The very few Police funerals we saw on TV probably are the only ones and a result of minor combat cases compared such large coup (the cases of the only true soldiers in this coup, in my opinion). Islamists are liars, all of them, they learn early that if it comes to telling the truth Islam would have been long gone, if you look at the all the coup videos, you would see that the soldiers were peaceful and didn't want to harm anyone, and the Secret Service and Police and Islamic civilians deceived them to hand over their guns and they won't be harmed because they are their brothers, some stupid soldiers were waving to the people, but later afterwards their brothers stepped and walked and jumped on their heads and necks and backs, that's the Islamist civilians conning moral.
Well, you bet that if those were Syrian soldiers it would have been a completely different story, a Syrian Soldier would bomb to ashes his parents house if they were traitors to the Republic, a soldier that would never disobey a military order for any reason whatsoever.
About what you wrote:
"I'm no fan or Edogan - I abhor him dragging Turkey away from the secular path it was on (and which had improved it as a country no end), but I like military coups even less."
That depends on the nature of Ploitical Party running the Government, i'm sure if given a chance you would prefer an early-stage military coup on Hitler before WWII, and Islamic totalitarianism is a much worse project than the Nazies, can you tell how many Jewish are still living in the Arab countries now? I assure you that it's much much less than in Germany under Hitler's authority, and those are only in one or two West-North African Arab countries, otherwise there's not a single one still living in any other Arabic country.
I'm no fan of military coups and military ruling, and politically i was against the Syrian regime my entire life, I come from a Marxists family and you bet i had a very special treatment because of it from the government social directors and military discipline trainers in my public school years (the only schools we got back then) in the 80's and 90's amid the raising aggressive Syrian government attitude against Christians during and after the Lebanese Civil War, i'm not going to talk further but I tell that it cost me a lot in my life, as I lived all my life in the Regime's strongest-hold city, and add to that being a Christian who inherited a left opposition background that i had nothing to do with as it happened before i was born. But now after the past years of war events, i shockingly came to a dramatic conclusion that i was actually on the wrong side, and my father's family left heritage is stupid positioning in such a country, it was not politically studied at all, it just came naturally from the fact that they used to live in the wealthy city of Aleppo in the 60's where there were a different political environment that turned out to be false and not reflecting the real backwarded religious nature of the majority of the Syrian people, it was a complete illusion that I paid so much because it for vain. Having a bit of pragmatic brain (a healed from old childhood injury one
) i always adapt my mindset to match every conclusion i reach in life, so I temporarily suspended my opposition thoughts until the country passes the dangerous war, then i can go back to pointing out to corruption in Syria (which is widespread), but that doesn't mean that i became a supporter fan or allie of the Regime, but i'm not against them either, and also not everything in their government is corrupt, it has so many good policies, at least a lot better than the outside fake and lying opposition Islamic results, I'm definitely against any form of Islamists even if they were the most moderate in the world, no political Islam is acceptable in my standards.
I hate lying and I especially hate living a lie, because I know that it is the corner stone reason of the middle eastern failure mentality, they are all living the lie of the "Good Sake Peaceful Islamic welcomed Invasion" 1400 years age, they even have a name for it, they call it: F 'TEH = opening, as in they were lost and Islam came rescued and guided them to peace and prosperity, i really almost throw up as I write of their hypocrisy and self deceive, they even changed their identity and called themselves "Arabs" like the Muslim Arab Invaders that came from the Arabian dessert, in a disgustingly chronic case of Stockholm Syndrome.
hmmm.....
interesting*
