1933 Revisited?

Submitted by Dr. Jack Lawson (United Kingdom), Jul 21, 2016 at 09:31

I too cheered for the 'coup'...until Turkish friends informed us that this was nothing like the previous military coups they had experienced, when the army acted like an army and not sheep in military clothing--meekly laying down their arms and allowing themselves to be beaten, tortured and killed. Granted it is 'hearsay' from people we know in Turkey, but it is reliable as far as I can tell. They believe that Erdogan has taken a page from Hitler's Reichstag fire, and has preempted any move on the part of progressives/secularists to oust him, by staging the coup. In today's news we read that he now has the power he has so long desired: executive power to bypass parliament and to make his own laws; to arrest people at will--and make them disappear: Nacht und Nebel all over again. And then there is blaming the coup on Gulen in the US. This sends a clear message to ISIS and other Islamist operatives in Turkey who are opposed to the US carrying out air strikes against ISIS from Turkey. It's all very worrying.

One of the main reasons my wife and I voted 'out' in the recent EU referendum was Turkey. 1) It is not European (not since 1453), 2) It is increasingly becoming an Islamist state, 3) It plays Western democracies and ISIS against one another, and 4) Turkey's entrance into the EU would make Europe's eastern border Syria!

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