Coup Underway in Turkey

[David Guyatt]

Here's an alternative explanation offered by an anti-Turkish government journalist:

A well-known antigovernment Turkish journalist took to Twitter on Saturday to describe a related, yet more immediate, incident that led the officers to mobilize. In a string of tweets in Turkish translated by Ragip Soylu, a journalist for the pro-government newspaper Daily Sabah Ahmet Sik, citing security sources, said Turkey's prosecutor had decided to arrest the plotters for an alleged conspiracy they were planning against other officers to get higher ranks in the military. According to Sik, the coup was planned for a later date perhaps just before the August military purge but the prosecutor's decision to arrest them scared them into acting more quickly.

Indeed, Erdemir noted that the coup plotters might have been "forced to act prematurely" if an early wave of arrests was being planned for mid-July.

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-turke...led-2016-7

Under this explanation, the US and Gulen are simply convenient scapegoats for Erdogan to use to justify a domestic crackdown.

One final point, and I'm done talking about this until new real evidence comes to light: Erdogan took to the skies in a Gulfstream jet while the coup was ongoing. It was tracked by radar, the flight is apparently visible on flight tracker websites. After all the suspicious plane crashes over the years that might, or might not, have been related to some military/intelligence activity, are we to think that the US MIC has lost its nerve, or its capability, to down a civilian plane?

It seems that the transponder on his jet switched identities and this saved him from being shot down by two chasing F-16's.

So yes, it seems that on this occasion as US "backed" coup (who were Turkish pilots) failed in their mission to shoot down Erdogan's plane. See HERE and HERE. The short version is that Erdogan's jet changed its transponder call sign to appear as a Turkish commercial carrier; no one was going to shoot down a passenger jet...

I'm not sure the Business Insider aerticle you linked is accurate? It says that young officers of the rank of Colonel and conscripts - rather than more senior (thus experienced) officers of flag rank - were involved in the coup. The implication being that the coup was poorly planned and executed and thus amateur.

However, if you read this BBC report 99 officers (other reports say between 88-103) of the rank of General and Admiral have been charged with participating in the coup -- making a third of the nation's senior officer corp -- so clearly it wasn't just an amateur lower ranks affair the report tries to suggest.