Playing Chicken in Turkey

This is a RE-post of a posting I did yesterday.

I'm gonna step out of my bounds by a lot here...but,

This OpEd about Turkey gives me the chills.

It is an interesting and quite long story, but me and my partner own an apartment in Istanbul; and so, I try to keep myself abreast about what's going on.

Long story short: the party in power, the AK (Islamist leaning), has been arresting military figures, academics, journalists for some time now. The reason? Their alleged membership to Ergenekon, a secret and extremely complex organization, that many Turks refer simply as 'the shadow state' or the 'state within the state'. A very paranoid idea, but still, it is real. Ergenekon exists. But this past week they arrested four ex-leaders from the military. The higher brass. And the military is not happy at all. It is becoming evident that the party in power is using a legitimate concern (Ergenekon) to bully the military into political submission. It is more complex than that, but it sounds like what I just described.

The particularly troubling part is the author's opinion (which I share) that: "The A.K. government’s disdain for its critics and its intimidation of the media hardly make me confident about the next episode in this drama." (my emphasis).

The thing the US needs the least right now is a coup d'État in Turkey. And, understanding some of the political dynamics of the country, and having many friends who served in its military, I think I know were things are heading. Will it be successful? Don't know. The military has already lost a lot of its prestige, but consequences there will be.

Today there is new article in the New York Times about the situation; the author believes that Turkey has already crossed an important threshold, and that the military seems to unwilling or unable to react in the ways it has done in the past (orchestrating coup d'etats).