Breaking the grip of Turkey's military

[Pete]

Breaking the grip of Turkey's military

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...ilitary-turkey

"Thirty years to the day after Turkish generals seized power in a coup that shattered civil society and resulted in the death and torture of thousands, voters will go to the polls to vote on amendments to the anti-democratic constitution the generals imposed before leaving................."

Many like to hold up Turkey as the great example of the secular Islamic State. We've had many posts here over the years about Turkey's slow march into the Islamist's camp.

About 4 years ago the propaganda campaign against the Military and it's leaders began. We now see the fruit of it's actions.

The "anti-democratic constitution" will be changed. Changed to what?

[Ret10Echo]

Originally Posted by Pete

The "anti-democratic constitution" will be changed. Changed to what?

Based upon Turkey's leanings of late. I can take a guess here....

[akv]

This should be interesting, women have voted in Turkey since 1930, unlike Afghanistan where violent fundamentalists took over, why would women there vote themselves back into servitude? The folks I met in Istanbul considered themselves European, were proud of their secular state, and looked down on what they called "tent Islam".

[Pete]

Turkey Referendum to Be Closely Watched

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...googlenews_wsj

"........Mr. Erdogan says the reforms are necessary to bring Turkey closer in line with the EU, while opposition parties charge that the moves to give parliament control over top judicial appointments are a smoke screen for undermining Turkey's secular state. ..............."

As has been noted before the current government has spent the last few years replace most heads of government departments with non-secularists.

Folks, the process is not fast. It doesn't happen overnight. It is a slow process that takes years. This vote Sunday has been 7 years in the making. Looks to be a coin flip right now.

Edited to add a link to a 2007 story about the Army.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6602375.stm

It goes a long way to explain the assault by the government on the Military leadership since 2007. The leadership has been replaced with more "dependable" generals.

[Pete]

Turkey votes 'yes' to amending military-era constitution

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1704259/

"........The military and the court system, including the Constitutional Court, have sought to uphold the secular legacy of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who founded Turkey in 1923, and the ruling Justice and Development Party has been accused of plotting to undo those principles.

The ruling party, whose reforms have won backing from the EU, says the hard-line emphasis on secularism and nationalism must be updated to incorporate democratic change, including religious freedoms. It lost a battle in 2008 when the Constitutional Court struck down a government-backed amendment lifting a ban on the wearing of Muslim headscarves in universities. ................"

Nothing ever happens overnight. It's a slow process. Take a few years to pack the courts with reliable judges. And the EU approves.

[drymartini66]

Originally Posted by Pete

Turkey votes 'yes' to amending military-era constitution

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/...rticle1704259/

"........The military and the court system, including the Constitutional Court, have sought to uphold the secular legacy of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who founded Turkey in 1923, and the ruling Justice and Development Party has been accused of plotting to undo those principles.

The ruling party, whose reforms have won backing from the EU, says the hard-line emphasis on secularism and nationalism must be updated to incorporate democratic change, including religious freedoms. It lost a battle in 2008 when the Constitutional Court struck down a government-backed amendment lifting a ban on the wearing of Muslim headscarves in universities. ................"

Nothing ever happens overnight. It's a slow process. Take a few years to pack the courts with reliable judges. And the EU approves.

Turkey is ever so slowly reverting back to it's roots of the Ottoman Empire. It raises eyebrows to see how they are gaining influence or putting fingers in pies so to speak throughout the Middle East. Their latest sojorn into the Israeli/Palestinian conflict with the backing of terrorist blockade runners is troubling. They truly need to be watched.

[Pete]

Our world: Who lost Turkey?

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columni...aspx?id=188726

Some can look into the future.

"......According to the Kemalist constitution, the military was the constitutional protector of secular Turkey. It was constitutionally bound to combat all threats to Turkey’s secular regime – including threats posed by political parties and political leaders. Over the past seven years, the AKP has done everything it could to demoralize and criminalize the military’s leadership and eviscerate the military’s constitutional powers and organizational independence. Most recently, President Abdullah Gul began intervening in promotions of generals to block all non-Islamists from acquiring command positions........"

And...

"........Aside from the chastened military, the only remaining outpost of secular power in Turkey has been the judiciary. In the past, the judiciary has overturned many of the government’s actions that it ruled were unconstitutional and illegal. The new constitutional amendments will work to end judicial independence by giving the government control over judicial appointments. The AKP’s justice minister will also have increased power to open investigations against judges and prosecutors.........."

And.

".......Obama and his European colleagues may believe that they will not be blamed for the loss of Turkey. After all, its transformation into Iran’s best friend started seven years ago. But they are wrong. If they continue to sit on their elitist laurels, Turkey will be lost on their watch and they will not be forgiven by their own peoples for their failure to act in time........."

[greenberetTFS]

Turkey.............. "Faithful unto Death".......... They saved our ass big time,twice during the Korean war............http://www.tallarmeniantale.com/korean.htm

Big Teddy

[Pete]

This link was posted before in a different thread about Turkey from last year.

Just adding it here to note we've been talking about Turkey for a while.

http://www.theatlanticright.com/2009...rom-democracy/

"Turkey moves away from Democracy"

What we've talked about is slowly coming to pass.

[Pete]

Something on the coming trail - and the evidence.

"A Turkish Tragedy"

http://nationalinterest.org/commenta...h-tragedy-4138

"The authors continue their public campaign to free their close relative, Çetin Doğan, a leading defendant in the Sledgehammer case. Here, they take on the evidence."

"........Much like the “facts” revealed in Taraf, they contain numerous entries that reflect knowledge of events that took place in later years and which could not have been known back in 2002-2003. In most of these instances, the error is the same: an entity is referred to by a name that it adopted several years later. A political association that took on a new name in 2006 to reflect the political mood, a hospital that was acquired by a business group in 2008 and appended the group’s name to its own, a pharmaceutical company that was bought by an Italian firm in 2008 and changed its name to reflect the new ownership, a naval officer whose full name was altered when military registries were updated in 2007, a military unit that was renamed in 2004 as it was reconstituted—in all these cases and many others the Sledgehammer files use the later appellations. It is as if the perpetrators’ “fact-checkers” made an attempt to confirm the existence of these entities at the time Operation Sledgehammer is supposed to have been hatched, but overlooked that some of them may have undergone a name change since 2003. ..........."

So the is becomes "What becomes of them after they are found guilty?" To me it looks like they are being framed.

[Pete]

Turkish Chief of General Staff, top commanders resign amid controversy

http://www.todayszaman.com/news-2521...ntroversy.html

"..................YAŞ meets each August to discuss promotions and dismissals within the armed forces. The fact that there are some commanders and military officers who are suspects in ongoing coup cases has led some to speculate that there could be disagreement between the military and the government about the promotion of these individuals. The ruling AK Party had earlier signaled that it would not give the green light for the promotions of these individuals at the YAŞ meeting....................."

As a stand alone story there is not to much too see in this one. But when taken in context of this longer thread you see the screws tighten.