Rubber bullets fly as Turkey faces meltdown

express.co.uk ^ | December 29, 2013 | Stuart Winter

[Berlin_Freeper]

PROTESTERS stormed the streets of Turkey’s biggest cities yesterday as a deepening corruption scandal threatened to bring down the government and sparked fears of a military coup.

Riot police fought back with water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets in Istanbul’s Taksim Square six months after violent scenes in the city over Turkey’s shift away from its leanings to western democracy.

To cries of “catch the thief”, a slur aimed at prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, protesters threw rocks and firecrackers as riot squads attempted to block demonstrators from taking over the square.

At least 70 were arrested.

[ken5050]

Erdogan had earlier canned most of the military leaders, supposedly thus cementing his power. What’s the army doing? Will they stay out?

[DemforBush]

There’s little doubt that Erdogan is a crony capitalist (i.e. picks winners and losers in the economy and “takes care” of his friends) and probably has more than his share of unbroken scandals floating about.

Still, the prospect of a military coup in Turkey is troubling on many levels. For all its failings and warts, Turkey has been the closest thing we’ve seen to a functioning modern democracy in the Islamic world. If Ataturk’s great experiment fails a century in, it does not bode well for elsewhere in the region, IMHO.

[Mount Athos]

Erdogan’s AKP political party was formed out of two previously banned Islamist parties.

Turkey has a had a lot of military coup in the past 50 years.

So many that everyone has to be wondering about the possibility of another.

But the big earlier purges in the Army might mean a coup has a different result than people expect.

[machogirl]

Female homicide bomber hits Russian station. 18 dead. Supposedly near Sochi. In Volograd.

Putin’s reaction should be interesting. I’m assuming this is an Islamic bombing. Russians say terrorists.

[Joe Boucher]

Turkey has had a quasi democracy until Erdogan and with him they have a gub mint that is hell bent on pushing Islam down everyones throat.

[LibLieSlayer]

islam... it’s what’s for Armageddon.

[dennisw]

your thinking is wrong!!

[IbJensen]

Best send in our esteemed Secretary of State to mount a soapbox in the midst of anarchy with a bullhorn to show how America’s presence in a troubled eastern nation can quell even the most violent rioting.

Then after the smoke and din subsides, move in a detail to bear him home....a martyr in his own time.

Thanks to this Obama administration the world is now a safer place and America’s prestige is now the highest in our history.

[Old Yeller]

Mmmmmmm. Turkey melt.

[SunkenCiv]

He’s got a military that he expects will keep him propped in power; his removal of various officers using kangaroo courts and Islamofascist amendments to the Turkish constitution means it is unlikely that the military will remove him, but also unlikely to lift a finger to save him.

[SunkenCiv]

> a deepening corruption scandal threatened to bring down the government and sparked fears of a military coup.

Thanks Berlin_Freeper.

[RetiredArmy]

Turkey’s PM wants them to become a Muzzie She-ira law run society. He and Iran are big pals.

[melancholy]

Erdogan is in real trouble. It looks like the start of what happened in Egypt.

As Sisi did in the beginning, he talked to Morsi about the people's demands of early elections, doing something to combat and arrest the Hamas and Islamist killers who murdered Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai, do something about government corruption, etc. The answer was a big fat no and that caused tens of millions came out on June 30 and July, 3 and demanded that the army remove the bearded bastard and the rest is history.

Erdogan worked on pushing away and purging the Turkish Constitution's protector, the military. He defined the military's ONLY responsibility as "to protect the country's borders." He proceeded to push radical Islam down people's throats and to convert the secular government to an Islamist one. That was/is clearly against the Turkish Constitution.

The Turkish military maybe quite mad about being purged and marginalized. They're probably waiting for the demonstrations to become larger and more chaotic to justify a crackdown and the removal the Erdogan Islamist regime in a people-demanded non-coup! An Egyptian moment could be what's needed in Turkey.

0b0z0 is losing his most powerful Islamist ally after Morsi. This will also help Assad in Syria and the civilian government in Egypt, but will upset the world's Islamocommies and the western communist press.

Morsi's trial for treason starts Jan, 8 and the goodies about the Chicago cabal, AKA, the American administration that must be bracing themselves in anticipation of the great possibility of shining the light on what REALLY happened in Benghazi!

We shouldn't forget the Erdogan hosted the anti-Egyptian International Moslem Brotherhood conference with 0b0z0's, Qatar's and Western Europeans' blessings.

[BeauBo]

Is this a coup orchestrated by the Gulen Movement, rather than the old guard “deep state”?

[CodeToad]

Turkey keeps the region stable. if it goes, so does everything else.

[MestaMachine]

Are we looking at deja vu all over again? Looking very much like Egypt 2.0.
Will we need a live Turkey thread?

[MestaMachine]

Turkey has tipped and has been smuggling arms to the radicals in Syria, Egypt, and to hamas in gaza, They are no longer a stabilizing force. They are also part of iran’s genocidal plot against the Kurds...and not just the pkk. The Kurds et al.

[melancholy]

“Will we need a live Turkey thread?”

Sure, if the Turkish military makes its move by next Thanksgiving. Hehehe

Wish you and yours well, dear Mesta.

Prayers up.

[melancholy]

Totally correct.