Coup Underway in Turkey

[David Guyatt]

Since the US Government hasn't said anything (AFAIK) about the "coup" except to state that it supports the democratically elected government of Turkey (a statement originally made when the outcome was yet unclear), when I say "the official position" I am referring to the government of Turkey's "official position," which is that Gulen led it, with US support. I cannot and do not believe that the US Government, if it did decide to instigate a coup in another country, would be so inept and spineless as the alleged "coup" Turkish participants are said to have been. Our recent history with "regime change" in both Syria and Libya shows you the modus operandi of the official US Government, as well as the fortitude and competence that US surrogates on their respective grounds have possessed. (I do not mean to imply approval of such, merely to contrast it with the Turkish situation.)

I believe this pretend "coup" is a power grab on Erdogan's part. There is plenty of historical similarity to other such power grabs, from Hitler's Reichstag fire, to Stalin's "Great Purge", to the Church Committee's finding that the FBI falsely blamed "enemies of the state" political activists for FBI-sponsored bombings under its "Cointelpro" program, Algeria, Latin America, 9/11 and Anthrax, ... (long list omitted). To quote the article David just cited:

Some of the returning (Fascist) Italians are suspected of joining ardent terrorists who engaged in a wave of bombings that rocked Italy throughout 1969 and into 1970, killing and wounding dozens of people. Many of those attacks were falsely attributed to anarchists and leftists, as part of a "strategy of tension" to build political support for an authoritarian crackdown on the Left by Italy's security services.

There is even Seymour Hersh's uncovering of the Turkish role in the 2013 use of chemical weapons in Syria:

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/4/7/sy_...rkish_role

So, to the extent that the Turkish government could not have envisioned, or carried out, a false flag attack before 2013, there is good evidence that it has done so now.

I cannot, of course, prove that no Americans somehow played some role in this attempted "coup." I do think that anyone who trusts Erdogan and his government for the truth is bound to wind up quite disappointed, and any enemies of the US who think that the US government won't back up its surrogates is bound to wind up quite dead.

Anyone who trusts Erdogan is a fool. But the same can also be said about the USA these days.

Recent experience with Syria and Libya is not really relevant because they were the declared enemies of the US, whereas Turkey was very much a declared friend and ally. And friends and allies have to be handled differently. Until they stop following orders from Washington.

There is a fundamental difference with Gladio's strategy of tension in Italy. That had the heartfelt backing of the Italian elite and all the movers and shakers (checkout the membership list of P2, for example). Therefore, not a finger was lifted to counter it.

Nor do I think the Ghouta sarin attack in 2013 applies to this present situation. Three years is a long time in politics. Back then Erdogan was a major part of the US strategy of regime change in Syria and blaming the Ghouta sarin attack on Assad was just another dirty trick straight out of the US playbook. That changed when the US decided to arm, fund and train Erdogan's deadly enemies, the Kurds, in Syria. Thus the US, in their blind rush to regime change Assad, ignored the imperatives of an ally and are now reaping the consequences. I might add that this picking and dropping of friends and allies is all clearly set out in the neocon foreign affairs handbook, the Wolfowitz Doctrine.

Erdogan's momentous decision to piviot to Russia, following his betrayal by the US over the Kurdish question, surely has to be considered as the underlying motive for US involvement/backing of the coup.