French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault

In the most prominent instance yet of the Anglin Theory on the Turkish coup being employed, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault has hinted that it might have been staged.

The Independent:

France’s foreign minister has said Turkey may no longer be a viable partner in the fight against Isis in Syria, while Syrian state media has claimed the failed coup in the country was fabricated by President Erdogan to tarnish the military’s reputation.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault raised concerns over Turkey’s ability to fight Isis amid growing political instability in the country following the attempted coup against Mr Erdogan’s regime.

He said: “There are questions that are being asked and we will ask them. [Turkey] is partly viable but there are suspicions as well. Let’s be honest about this.”

He said he would raise the issue at a meeting in Washington next week convened to discuss action against Isis.

…

A Syrian government newspaper has said the coup was fabricated by President Erdogan in an attempt to “avenge the military and strip it of its remaining support.”

In a high-profile article by (((Roger Cohen))), The New York Times felt it necessary to reassure us that just because the entire thing only benefits Erdogan, that doesn’t mean it’s a hoax:

As coups go, the Turkish effort was a study in ineptitude: No serious attempt to capture or muzzle the political leadership, no leader ready to step in, no communication strategy (or even awareness of social media), no ability to mobilize a critical mass within either the armed forces or society. In their place a platoon of hapless soldiers on a bridge in Istanbul and the apparently uncoordinated targeting of a few government buildings in Ankara.

It was enough for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking on his cellphone’s FaceTime app, to call supporters into the streets for the insurrection to fold. That Erdogan will no doubt be the chief beneficiary of this turmoil, using it to further his push for an autocratic Islamist Turkey, does not mean that he staged it. The Turkish Army remains isolated from society. It is entirely plausible that a coterie of officers believed a polarized and disgruntled society would rise up once given a cue. If so, they were wrong — and the error has cost more than 260 lives.

Even Cohen doesn’t appear to be that certain it wasn’t a hoax. “It is entirely possible,” he says. He seems to be trying to assure himself as much as the reader.

The biggest problem for those pushing the official narrative is that there is no official narrative. Erdogan is just throwing out his own conspiracy theory – which is much less likely than my own conspiracy theory – presenting no evidence to support it, and rounding-up thousands of people in a purge the likes of which the world hasn’t seen since the Bolshevik Revolution.

Cohen even admits that no evidence exists for Erdogan’s claims:

His attempt to blame, without any evidence, the attempted coup on Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric and erstwhile ally living in Pennsylvania, forms part of a pattern of murkiness and intrigue.

Many outlets are claiming that the Anglin Theory is widespread in Turkey, though with media outlets being shut down left and right over the past four days, it isn’t being published in the country.

NPR:

Erdogan was democratically elected, but he’s been cracking down on journalists and political opponents. There are many Turks who feel he’s grown too powerful.

The coup attempt has generated a rampant conspiracy theory that the military takeover was “staged” so that Erdogan could respond by purging Turkish institutions.

One man, who believes in the conspiracy and declines to give his name, offers this cynical take on the country’s leadership: “They’re celebrating democracy? They know democracy? They know anything about the democracy? We are ruling with democracy now? They are talking about democracy? Ha. Just I’m smiling,” he says.

“I don’t want to be arrested,” he adds, showing me pictures of people beating and whipping soldiers who had surrendered. “This is shameful. They were only following orders.”

I also recommend reading Tolga Temuge’s article “Turkey’s military coup: A gift from God?” He basically makes the same points I have made, though fleshes them out in a different. He also does not directly say that Erdogan must have done it himself, but leaves the reader to conclude this based on the fact it is the only remaining option after you go through and consider the other possibilities.

Anyway.

The good news is, Erdogan will make a great enemy once the Crusade starts.

He’s really got that super-villain aura.

Cengiz Candar

A famous Turkish journalist and academic, Cengiz Candar, has written an article about the Turkish coup being a hoax.

He obviously knows much more about the situation than me, and yet has drawn the same conclusion that it is most likely staged.

He also quotes my article entitled “Was the Turkish Coup an Erdogan Hoax?”

Candar writes for Al-Monitor:

As a veteran observer of military coups and coup attempts in Turkey, I have never seen any with this magnitude of such inexplicable sloppiness.The first coup occurred on May 27, 1960; the most ferocious one was on Sept. 12, 1980. Another military intervention occurred March 12, 1971 — I was one of its victims — and came to be known as the “postmodern coup.” I was given the reputation of coining this name thanks to a title I had used in one of my articles about the two aborted coup attempts in February 1962 and May 1963 that led to exchanges of fire in my neighborhood in Ankara, as our house was overlooking the premises of the War Academy, whose cadets had taken part in the failed attempts. Neither one of those occasions seemed so unprofessionally executed and really bizarre as this one.

Everyone observing the last attempt could not help but ask, “What is this? Who is behind this? What are they doing? Why?”

In no previous military coup or coup attempt in Turkey’s history has parliament been bombed by military helicopters and fighter jets.

Why did the coup attempt begin with blocking one side of Istanbul’s Bosporus Bridge? Why was the passage from the Asian side to Europe blocked while the passage from Europe to Asia was allowed to flow?

Why did the putschists — knowing that Erdogan was neither in Ankara nor Istanbul but instead spending his vacation in the Mediterranean seaside town of Marmaris — not move to detain him? They let him travel from Marmaris to the nearby Dalaman airport and then fly to Istanbul on a flight that took over an hour.

Why did the putschists not seize the main TV news channels and instead waste precious time taking over the least-watched state TV channel, TRT, allowing their targets to regroup and use more popular channels and social media effectively to challenge the coup attempt?

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim spoke first on the NTV channel, alleging that it was not a coup but a rebellion perpetrated by a small faction in the military. Erdogan then spoke through CNN-Turk via FaceTime and called on his supporters to take to the streets.

Seemingly a headless and disoriented coup attempt crumbled after a few hours, leaving 265 dead, some 1,440 wounded and at least 2,839 military personnel in custody.

The failed attempt left more questions behind rather than plausible answers as to who perpetrated it and why it was executed so sloppily and poorly.

Although the coup attempt foundered, the damages inflicted are grave. First, the reputation of Turkey as the bastion of stability in a volatile region where military takeovers are a relic of the past is over. The country’s image is tarnished, and nobody can assure impossibility of a coup or a coup attempt in the future.

Erdogan and Yildirim unhesitatingly pointed to Fethullah Gulen, a cleric and former ally who has lived in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania for the last 18 years. The Turkish leaders implied that they would seek his extradition from Washington.

I read a tweet from AFP’s White House correspondent Andrew Beatty that Kerry offered US help in investigating the coup and urged Erdogan to present evidence against Gulen.

It is a challenging task indeed. It is not very convincing that key positions in the military of Turkey — a NATO force second only to the United States in terms of its numbers and believed to be a formidable institution — are controlled by an Islamic faction.

Over 40 generals are among some 3,000 putschists arrested. One of them is a four-star general who commands the second army responsible for the regions next to Syria and Iraq. Dozens of brigadiers and major generals commanding mainly combat troops of land forces, gendarmerie units fighting Kurdish insurgents, and combat units of the navy and air force can hardly be classified as Gulenists. Another four-star general — a commander of the third army — was also arrested yesterday. The first army commander, who is in charge of defending Istanbul and had declared his allegiance to the government on the night of the coup, asked Erdogan to come to Istanbul where his safety would be assured, thereby playing a decisive role in the collapse of the attempt.

Twenty-four hours had not passed after the collapse of the coup attempt when 140 judges — judges of the Court of Appeals and 48 judges of the Council of State, two of the highest judiciary institutions — were taken into custody. Summarily purged from the judiciary apparatus were another 2,475 judges. A member of the Constitutional Court, the highest institution of the judiciary, was arrested and charged with association with the putschists.

The swiftness and scope of the action of the executive branch was remarkable. It gave the impression that Erdogan and the government were prepared for a coup attempt and had ample intelligence as to who in the state system would be associated with it.

Looking at the 2,839 military personnel under arrest, including scores of generals who commanded the combat units of a NATO army, it is quite bizarre that no security bureaucracy from the military intelligence to the National Intelligence Organization, the General Directorate of Security and Special Forces Command had a clue that a coup was being hatched at such a magnitude.

Such matters awaiting convincing answers naturally aroused conspiracy theories. A particular interesting one is this: The way you launch a coup is pretty straightforward. First you grab the leader, then the media outlets, then you exhibit the humiliated leader in the media. Instead, these people decided to throw the coup while Erdogan was on vacation and apparently didn’t even attempt to secure him. By the time the coup began, he was already taken to a secret location. Then the whole thing went straight to hell very quickly. The coup told people to go home, while Erdogan told his people to go to the streets. So the coup supporters were at home, while the Erdogan supporters were out on the streets. The coup also reportedly fired on civilians, which is also something you definitely do not want to do. That makes even people who were inclined to support it turn against it. In short, the whole thing could not have been better arranged for Erdogan himself, who now looks like a hero of the people.

As such, it seems to me the most likely possibility is that Erdogan — presumably with the blessing of Western forces — worked with some of his own people in the military to arrange a coup hoax.

It sounds outrageous to everybody who is in a mood to celebrate the victory of democracy over a military coup, the victory of the people over a “handful of traitors,” to suggest that the attempted Turkish coup actually was an arranged coup hoax.

As long as more questions than convincing answers remain and until the dust clears, an abundance of such conspiracy theories should not be surprising.

The third and fourth to last paragraph are a quote from me. It was a bit surreal reading it, because the way it is formatted it isn’t immediately clear it is a quote, and I was thinking “wow, this is exactly what I was saying!”

(To be clear, he links me at the end of the quote, meaning it was definitely not an attempt at plagiarism, but just a weird way to format a quote.)

Candar is serious person. He is regularly interviewed by the mainstream Western media and lectures at Harvard and Oxford.

Hopefully he and others in the academic community will continue to press this issue.

I almost wish that someone other than myself had first presented the theory, but I think in the long run it won’t matter, given that Gulen himself came out and supported my theory, and that many Turks, who presumably did not read my site, are thinking along the same lines.

Zero Hedge is also thinking in this same direction now, citing the fact that Erdogan’s plane was allegedly targeted by the coup and for some reason they didn’t shoot it down:

Looking back at the failed Turkish coup, one question that nobody has been able to answer is why, if the coup was indeed a serious attempt at government overthrow, did the organizers not do the first thing that military coups have done since time immemorial: either capture, or simply eliminate the existing ruler, the vacationing president Erdogan?

The following brief story will only add to the confusion (or maybe not).

As Reuters reports, at the height of the attempt to overthrow Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, the rebel pilots of two F-16 fighter jets had Erdogan’s plane in their sights. And yet he was able to fly on.

In other Turk hoax coup news, Kerry said in Brussels this morning that he is yet to receive a formal extradition request for Gulen from the Turkish government. This is while Erdogan is out publicly demanding that the US extradite him, making this whole big show.

I believe that the Erdogan hoax theory will come to be widely accepted as what most likely took place, and may eventually lead to a collapse of the Erdogan regime.

This fail-coup was an outrageously glorious gift from Allah.

Six-thousand and counting have been arrested, throughout the country’s government, with thousands more removed from their positions.

This is now officially a Bolshevik-tier purge.

Reuters:

Turkey suspended thousands of police officers on Monday, widening a purge of the armed forces and judiciary after a failed military coup, and raising concern among European allies that it was abandoning the rule of law.

A senior security official told Reuters 8,000 police officers, including in the capital Ankara and the biggest city Istanbul, had been removed from their posts on suspicion of links to Friday’s coup bid by a faction in the army.

Thirty regional governors and more than 50 high-ranking civil servants have also been dismissed, CNN Turk said.

Thousands of members of the armed forces, from foot soldiers to commanders, were rounded up on Sunday, some shown in photographs stripped to their underpants and handcuffed on the floors of police buses and a sports hall. Several thousand prosecutors and judges have also been removed.

…

President Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday told crowds of supporters, called to the streets by the government and by mosques across the country, that parliament must consider their demands to apply the death penalty for the plotters.

“We cannot ignore this demand,” he told a chanting crowd outside his house in Istanbul late on Sunday. “In democracies, whatever the people say has to happen.”

…

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini warned the Turkish government on Monday against taking steps that would damage the constitutional order.

“We were the first… during that tragic night to say that the legitimate institutions needed to be protected,” she told reporters on arrival at an EU foreign ministers meeting, which was also to be attended by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

“We are the ones saying today rule of law has to be protected in the country,” she said in Brussels. “There is no excuse for any steps that take the country away from that.”

Except a huge, fake coup.

That is an excuse for that.

Obviously it is an excuse for that, because he’s excusing it.

And he knows you cowards don’t have the balls to do anything to him but talk.

Your governments are run by women, for cryin out loud. It’s like a cartoon.

But here’s the best part:

The swift rounding up of judges and others indicated the government had prepared a list beforehand, the EU commissioner dealing with Turkey’s membership bid, Johannes Hahn, said.

“I’m very concerned. It is exactly what we feared,” he said in Brussels.

A Turkish official acknowledged that Gulen’s followers in the armed forces had been under investigation for some time, but denied that an arrest list had been prepared in advance.

“In our assessment, this group acted out of a sense of emergency when they realized that they were under investigation. There was a list of people who were suspected of conspiring to stage a coup,” the official said.

“There was no arrest list. There was a list of people suspected of planning a coup.”

Ha.

So they had the list ready… whether you want to call it an arrest list or a list of people suspected of planning a coup, it is a list of people who are now being arrested.

Then all of the sudden, like a miracle, a nonsense coup happens, which no one can explain, which there is no evidence is linked to this Gulen character, and which effectively makes Erdogan dictator for life, having finally bypassed the restrictions put on the country’s leadership by Attaturk following WWI.

It’s a hoax.

By the way – this is fun.

Yesterday was the biggest day in the site’s history, with half a million unique visitors.

All the extra hits were going to my article, “Was the Turkish Coup an Erdogan Hoax?”

And a majority of those 300,000-odd extra visitors were from Turkey.

That’s like, the country’s entire English-speaking population.

So, I’m presumably now a target for assassination by the Turkish government.

That sucks.

More proof that Erdogan was the only one who could benefit from a coup which was apparently designed to fail: he’s arrested thousands of judges.

Obviously, the judges had no involvement in the coup, but Erdogan is using it to remove any and all perceived enemies from the government, establishing himself as supreme leader.

Even if Erdogan did not stage this coup himself, as I have suggested, it certainly was – as he himself put it – “a gift from Allah.”

euronews:

Turkey’s authorities have rounded up nearly 3,000 suspected military plotters, including top commanders and foot soldiers, and ordered thousands of judges detained after forces loyal to Erdogan crushed the attempted coup.

In the capital Ankara on Sunday soldiers were being taken away in buses to a sports hall, some handcuffed and stripped to their underwear.

One senior officer told Reuters news agency that only a few coup plotters remain at large and that they no longer pose a threat to security

“Let’s hang them!” chanted crowds in Ankara’s central Kizilay square late on Saturday.

Erdogan supporters waving Turkish flags also thronged the central Taksim square in Istanbul – scene of mass anti-government protests three years ago – and a smaller crowd gathered outside the gates of the his vast presidential palace complex in the capital.

For at least eight hours overnight on Friday violence shook Turkey’s two main cities. But the coup attempt crumbled as Erdogan rushed back to Istanbul from a Mediterranean holiday and urged people to take to the streets in support of his government against plotters he accused of trying to kill him.

…

French President Francois Hollande said on Saturday he expected there would be a period of repression in Turkey in the aftermath of the failed coup.

“They will pay a heavy price for this,” Erdogan said, launching a purge of the armed forces. “This uprising is a gift from God to us because this will be a reason to cleanse our army.”

He told crowds chanting for a return of the death penalty, which has been abolished, that parliament may consider such a proposal.

Hundreds of soldiers were held in Ankara for alleged involvement, leaving police stations overflowing. Among those detained was the head of the Second Army which protects the country’s borders with Syria, Iraq and Iran, state-run Anadolu news agency said.

Some had to be taken under armed police escort in buses to a sports stadium. Reuters footage showed some of the detainees, handcuffed and stripped from the waist up, sitting on the floor of one of the buses.

The government declared the situation under control, saying 2,839 people had been rounded up, including “the backbone” of the rebellion.

…

Erdogan has blamed the coup bid on supporters of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom he has frequently accused of trying to foment an uprising in the military, media and judiciary.

Authorities began a major crackdown in the judiciary of those suspected of links to Gulen, removing from their posts and ordering the detention of nearly 3,000 prosecutors and judges on Saturday, including from top courts.

…

Erdogan called on the United States to extradite Gulen. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Washington was willing to help Turkey as it tries to identify those involved, but made clear it would act only if there was evidence against Gulen.

Kerry also warned that public suggestions of a U.S. role were “utterly false” and harmful to relations after Turkey’s labor minister suggested there had been U.S. involvement in the plot.

Yeah, I guess they figured out that blaming Gulen alone didn’t make any sense.

Nonetheless, I can pretty well guarantee US-Turkey relations won’t suffer from this. There will be a bit more back and forth, then it will be business as usual.

Nor is Turkey going to keep on the path of accusing the US, because they would have to explain why the US would attempt to overthrow an ally who is doing literally absolutely everything they want him to do. Total lapdog.

A “Turkish-German” MP who regularly criticizes Erdogan has come out stating the obvious fact that Erdogan himself is the sole beneficiary of this coup.

She didn’t go so far as to say it was a hoax, even while not explaining who would have benefited if the coup had been successful.

UPDATE:

Erdogan is officially calling for an extradition of Goldstein.

Washington Post:

He reiterated his accusation that a U.S.-based cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania, was behind the plot, and called on the United States to extradite the cleric. “Once they hand over that head terrorist in Pennsylvania to us, everything will be clear,” he told the crowd.

Oh, and Goldstein himself is saying Erdogan hoaxed the coup.

Original article follows.

Incirlik air base in Adana, Turkey

Turkey has officially closed access to a US base containing nuclear weapons, while accusing the US of harboring the guy they’re blaming for the coup.

RT:

Movement in and out of the Incirlik airbase in southern Turkey has been closed by local military authorities. The NATO base stores US tactical nuclear weapons.

“Local authorities are denying movements on to and off of Incirlik Air Base. The power there has also been cut,” the US consulate in Adana said in a message.

“Please avoid the air base until normal operations have been restored,” it added. No further details were provided.

According to CNN, airspace over the area has also been closed and power to the facility has been cut.

The closure of the airspace has reportedly led to a halt in US air strikes against Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL). CNN was told by sources that the Turkish authorities did make an exception for US aircraft that had already been deployed on missions before the airspace was shut and allowed them to land at the base.

The air space will be closed until Turkish authorities gain full control over the situation in the region following the coup attempt, Turkish officials told the US, adding that they want to make sure that all elements of the Turkish air force are under the control of pro-government forces, as some warplanes and helicopters were used by rebels overnight.

…

When the Turkish government closed its airspace to military aircraft, US Air Force operations at the Incirlik base ceased. US CENTCOM is now adjusting its operations against Islamic State to minimize the negative effect of the closure, the source told TASS, adding that the US is now holding consultations with Turkish authorities on the resumption of operations at the base.

The Incirlik airbase is of critical importance to the US military, as not only does it facilitate the US’ aerial operations against terrorists in neighboring Syria and Iraq, but it is also one of six NATO sites in Europe that house tactical nuclear weapons. The exact number of tactical nuclear bombs at the base is classified, although some reports put it at 50 or even 90.

RT:

The Turkish government has indirectly criticized its NATO ally, the US, for harboring Fethullah Gülen, whom Ankara blames for masterminding Friday’s military coup attempt.

The cleric is currently living in self-imposed exile in the States. “I do not see any country that would stand behind this man, this leader of the terrorist gang, especially after last night. The country that would stand behind this man is no friend to Turkey. It would even be a hostile act against Turkey,” Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım told reporters on Saturday, as Turkey was recovering from overnight violence.

Commenting on Turkey’s hostility towards the 75-year-old preacher, US Secretary of State John Kerry said Ankara hadn’t requested the cleric’s extradition. The US official said that Washington will be “completely supportive of efforts to assist the government of Turkey,” but insisted that any decision on Gulen will be taken on the basis of legal, and not political considerations.

“We fully anticipate that there will be questions raised about Mr Gulen, and obviously we invite the government of Turkey to present us with any legitimate evidence that withstands scrutiny and the United States will accept that and look at it and make judgments appropriately and I am confident there will be some discussion about that,” Kerry told reporters during his trip to Luxembourg.

Gülen, a cleric, was a political ally of Tayyip Erdogan when he was Turkey’s Prime Minister, but the two fell out and became bitter rivals. Ankara accuses Gülen of creating a “parallel state” in the form of a network of supporters among Turkish officials. Erdogan accused Gülen of masterminding a corruption scandal involving senior government figures in 2013, and launched a crackdown against his organization.

Emmanuel Goldstein was a character in George Orwell’s 1984, who allegedly led a secret opposition movement against the oppressive government. Like Gulen, he was once a member of the party’s inner-circle.

As the story progresses, it then becomes unclear if Goldstein actually exists, or if he was created by the party as a necessary boogieman which gives them an excuse to implement extreme, oppressive policy.

Fethullah Gulen

Emmanuel Goldstein

As I said earlier today, I think it is extremely likely that the recent coup was orchastrated by the Erdogan government in order to make him appear as a hero, and to give him carte blanche to further consolidate power and purge any elements of the military he finds distasteful.

As it turns out, this is the view of the majority of anti-Erdogan Turks as well. Giving further credence to this theory is the fact that many or most of the troops involved in the “coup” thought it was a training exercise, which would explain why they stood down as soon as people resisted.

Sputnik:

Soldiers arrested for participating in an attempted military coup in Turkey told interrogators that they thought they were on exercises when the attempt began, the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported.

Erdogan is already calling the failed coup a “gift from Allah.”

He returned from 6 hours of exile to a cheering crowd of a hundred thousand people, creating an iconic image of the people’s hero.

RT:

“This uprising is a gift from God to us because this will be a reason to cleanse our army,” President Recep Taiyp Erdogan stated earlier on Friday night, addressing a large and desperate crowd of his supporters.

The overnight coup attempt has been the latest, but not the first, in a string of Turkish military uprisings throughout the decades, exposing the complicated relationship between the army’s leadership and Islamist-leaning President Erdogan.

The idea that this Gülen figure wouldn’t have been under heavy surveillance in the US is ridiculous. Of course he would have been. Planning a remote coup would have been completely impossible.

And Turkey isn’t even requesting extradition.

Will they make such a request?

What will happen when the US investigates?

Of course, if the US does investigate, and finds that this is idiotic, he can just say the US is lying to protect him. He’s already forming that narrative, as you can see. He won’t stop being a US ally, but he’s regularly insulted and threatened his White allies. Every other week he is threatening to flood Europe with “migrants” if they don’t bend to his will.

Please read my article on why I believe this was a staged event. In the meantime, I will be looking for English language sources from Turks and Arabs making this same claim.

Herp derp, just herpin a derp.

Well, the coup appears to be mostly over.

The whole thing was a totally sloppy mess.

Like, outrageously so.

Like, there is very little possibility that the Turkish military, who throws coups regularly, could have screwed this up this badly.

The way you throw a coup is pretty straightforward: first you grab the leader, then grab the media outlets, then put the leader on the media, humiliated.

Instead, these people decided to throw the coup while Erdogan was on vacation. And apparently didn’t even attempt to secure him. By the time the coup began, he was already in a secret location. Then the whole thing went straight to hell, very quickly.

The coup told people to go home, while Erdogan told his people to go on the street. So the coup supporters were at home, while the Erdogan supporters were out on the streets. This is exactly the opposite situation a coup would want.

The coup also started firing on civilians (apparently), which is also something you definitely do not want to do. That makes even people who were inclined to support it turn against it.

They took CNN then people complained so they gave it up.

In short, the whole thing could have been better arranged for Erdogan himself, who now looks like a hero of the people.

As such, it seems to me the most likely possibility is that Erdogan – presumably with the blessing of Western forces – worked with some of his own people in the military to arrange a hoax coup.

All regular readers know that I am generally very critical of conspiracy theories. And yet, looking at this objectively, I must say – it is the most likely option, period.

The head of the military never came out and supported the coup. None of the top military officials did. No one even announced that they were in charge.

There was no leader of this coup.

How is it possible that “a portion” of the military got control of all of these tanks, aircraft and soldiers? The heads of the military just weren’t paying attention while this was planned? How does that make any sense at all?

And here: how were people supposed to know if they supported the coup if they didn’t even know who was running it?

Erdogan and the Prime Minister came out and said it was all being masterminded by an Islamic cleric in Pennsylvania! Why would they say something so nonsensical?

None of it adds up, at all.

Other people are going to come out with this theory. I assume Alex Jones and other conspiracy theorists will. I wanted to come out with it first, because I believe they will attach various bits of nuttiness and confusion to the theory.

Basically, I think – again, I don’t know for sure, I am simply saying it is the most likely possibility – that certain elements of the military collaborated with the Erdogan regime to stage a coup that was destined to fail for the purpose of making Erdogan look like a hero both domestically and internationally.

Now he’s the hero.

Of course, some elements of the military – those who actually carried out the coup – would have been told by those that ordered it that it was a real coup. Because coups are such a tradition in Turkey, very few people would have had to have known that it was fake.

This surely won’t ever be proven. It can’t really be, short of a whistleblower coming out, which probably won’t happen, because again, very, very few people would have had to have known it was a fake coup.

One thing is for certain: even if Erdogan didn’t plan this, he couldn’t have hoped for a better situation. This has effectively made him the country’s king, while also being hailed as the paragon of democracy.

At time of writing, the situation is ongoing. And obviously if it turns out the coup is more successful than it looks right now, my theory will be proven wrong. But it does look like it’s failed, miserably.

FINAL UPDATE:

Erdogan is back in Istanbul giving a massive speech!

I believe this was a hoax!

Please see my new article on this topic!

UPDATE 23:45 GMT:

I was out for a few hours, but was checking things on my device.

All sorts of things have been happening, all of the updates are in the live thread so I won’t go through it all.

A few points:

• Erdogan reportedly tried to land in Germany and was denied and is now trying to land in London.
• Obama and Kerry have both said they support Erdogan.
• NATO is not obligated to intervene, given that it is internal conflict, and has yet to issue any statement.
• The cops are fighting the coup soldiers.

Most importantly, it does appear that the coup is killing civilians. Erdogan, through a FaceTime interview, told people to go out in the streets. Mosques are also allegedly using their call-to-prayer speakers to tell people to fight the coup.

Here’s a helicopter shooting at what appear to be civilians:

VIDEO: Footage of helicopter firing against ground targets in #Ankara #Turkey. – @aletweetsnews pic.twitter.com/myUbtQXnRP

— Conflict News (@Conflicts) July 15, 2016

Here’s a tank running over cars:

Here’s people running from gunfire:

Here’s a dead coup soldier:

Pro coup Turkish soldier killed by Islamist pro AKP supporters.

The secular turks should avenge their soldiers. pic.twitter.com/I38y6BlbtO

— Hamza Hemze حمزة‎ (@sergermed) July 15, 2016

There are reports both that the coup is winning and that they’re losing. Obviously, both things would be announced be their respective supporters. The internet is apparently shut off.

I don’t know why the coup would be killing civilians. That seems like a very bad move. But that has worked in Arab countries, most recently in Egypt in 2013 with the Sisi coup that massacred protesters.

There are all sorts of different reports coming in, including that the parliament has been bombed.

Will update again.

UPDATE 20:43:

TURKISH MILITARY PUBLICLY ANNOUNCES IT’S TAKEN OVER!!!!

Here’s a Sky News live feed:

That one might not be available in some countries.

Fox 10 has a feed where they’re bringing in various networks’ feeds.

CNN has finally picked it up too (nearly an hour after the Daily Stormer, mind you) – this feed may or may not work indefinitely.

UPDATE 20:37 GMT:

From The Telegraph live thread, linked below.

‘The army are taking over everything’

Gabriel Turner, 23, a management consultant from north London, is on holiday in Istanbul and described how there had been heavy police and security presence throughout the day before the military coup got underway after sunset.

He told The Telegraph:

“Earlier today there were police everywhere. I thought that was normal but the two Turkish girls I was with told me it wasn’t normal. We were walking around the centre of Istanbul, at the Grand Bazaar there were police at every entrance and exit with lots of guns.

“A police helicopter was flying very low at sunset, it was about 8pm. It looked like it was searching for something. Later on, at about 10.30 I was in Karakoy, a bar area in the city centre and everyone started looking at their phones. A man who owns the bar told us that the army are taking over everything.

“Then we walked down towards the a quieter area by the sea. While we were walking, my friend said the army had closed brides across the Bosphorus. We could see army helicopters in the sky.

“We went inside a cafe and everyone was on their phones looking worried, texting. Lots of people were running to catch a ferry – because the bridges were shutting and people wanted to get home. Then policemen came out of the ferries on their walkie talkies, looking very alert.”

UPDATE 20:25 GMT:

The Western media is now calling it an “attempted coup,” saying though that it is only part of the military involved in it.

Stormer’s will be giving updates in this article’s LIVE THREAD.

The Telegraph has a good live thread, as does RT.

Part of the military is attempting a coup in Turkey, the country’s Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım said, following reports of military jets and helicopters flying low over Ankara and Istanbul.

“Some people took illegal action outside of the chain of command,” Yildirim told news network NTV. “The government elected by the people remains in charge. This government will only go when the people say so,” he added.

A military helicopter has reportedly opened fire in the district of Ankara where the Turkish National Intelligence Organization headquarters is situated.

According to local news agencies, a large number of ambulance vehicles has been sent towards the Turkish General Staff building in the capital.

If it’s “part of the military,” that means the other part will be fighting it on the streets of Istanbul? I guess?

FUN!

Original article follows

https://twitter.com/agirecudi/status/754046924311887872/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

This is just happening right now.

Like, in the last twenty minutes, at time of writing.

Al-Jazeera:

Istanbul’s Bosphorus Bridge and Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge have reportedly been shut down by the Turkish army, local television channels reported, without giving a reason.

Dogan News Agency footage showed cars and buses being diverted, according to Reuters.

Reuters witnesses in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city, also spotted helicopters overhead.

In the capital Ankara, gunshots were heard, as military jets and helicopters were seen flying overhead, a Reuters witness said.

Erdogan is saying the military is “taking illegal actions.”