Category Archives: Religion

FTAC -Extremism, ‘Known Wolves’, and Mental Illness

25 Thursday Aug 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Religion, United States of America

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Too often irrefutable: the cry of “Allahu Akbar” in the act of murder, which then may give us “Allahu Akbar Terrorism”.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fbi-probing-possible-virginia-terror-attack/ – 8/23/2016.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/08/23/fbi-probing-stabbing-where-suspect-shouted-allahu-akbar.html – 8/23/2016.

The question was why mental illness seemed to be taking the murderous mad jihad direction — and answer had to do with the susceptibility of some to messages similar in medieval thought to that represented in this now well-known video featuring imam Farrokh Sekaleshfar and the ability to integrate that with their own problems.

Posted to YouTube by United West on April 6, 2016 in relation to the Orlando “mass casualty” attack by Omar Mateen, who was also known to the FBI.

As “lone wolves” keep turning out to be “known wolves”, it would seem sensible to review three dimensions of law: incitement and sedition — to both dampen the ardor with which some ideas are presented and to get them into discussion before a critical public; and detention of perhaps greater period to provide law enforcement with the time needed to caution or channel a “person of interest” and to investigate what is going on within a person who by way of speech and activity has thrown out a number of caution flags.

BackChannels has a related piece in https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/06/12/omar-mir-seddique-mateen-known-to-the-fbi/ – 6/12/2016.

From The Awesome Conversation:

Focusing on aberrant medieval thought and extremism without attachment to affiliation allows moderate souls to formulate and choose moderate paths without the burden of defending against an aggressive and unnecessary demonization.

I would not want to make an enemy of someone who really isn’t my enemy _unless made out to be that way_.

Each seduced “Allahu Akbar terrorist” has the effect, of course, of tarring Muslims as a class and driving resident nationalist sentiment toward an extremism of its own.

McVeigh — a very different story — got a mention, but one might and perhaps should focus on the way he handled his grievances associated with the FBI ambush on the Koresh facility at Waco and the other long-argued-about shooting at Ruby Ridge.

Re. McVeigh — I might suggest that dictators and terrorists share this characteristics in their political psychological makeup or expression: “Paranoid Delusional Narcissistic Reflection of Motivation” (https://conflict-backchannels.com/coins-and-other-terms/anthropolitical-psychology/paranoid-delusional-narcissistic-reflection-of-motivation/) — where each takes upon himself a messianic mission to restore something damaged (I would call that “projected externalization of damage” — i.e., in McVeigh’s head, it’s not Timothy who has been damaged but the American Constitution — and he’s the hero who’s going to make the statement that addresses that by summarily engaging in mass murder.

Tsarnaev Brothers — same thing. In fact, we could probably go down a pretty good roster (let’s not leave out Brevik) and find out the key is less what we imagined as a class or division issue and much more a personal issue shared by very different individuals.

If I type as an apologist, it may be to keep the spotlight on the extremism and shared psychology but not necessarily to give each culture or subculture coughing up terrorists a free pass as strident ideas (‘this is what the book says . . . killing them now would be a mercy’) incite and apparently obligate that “narcissistic paranoid delusional” class of messianic murderers.

–33–

FTAC – Syrian Wrap

15 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Politics, Religion, Russia, Syria

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The “Syrian Knot” binds to itself two kinds of power in the world:

Political Absolutism (Moscow) v Democratic Distribution of Power (Washington)

Behind that contest:

–Syria’s drought and declining agriculture (leading to protests in 2011), which in a good world would be less important, but for a dictatorship, getting rid of people one doesn’t really care about or care for in the first place seems pretty convenient.

–Dissolving of the Soviet 25 years ago (December 26, 1991), for which the Soviet had prepared in the 1980s, and which Putin has effectively dropped the communist ideology but sustained the architecture of the earlier organization of the state, i.e., secret police (FSB), central leader (himself), and a privileged class (the “Oligarchs”). Possibly (probably), Russian barbarism predates the czars, and the combination of very dirty deeds (like bombing refugee camps) and high culture (like the concert in Palmyra) have centuries of historical precedent (that assertion is something I want to research and better anchor).

In 2011, and in a quick exchange about positions, Obama and Putin played what in chess would be an opening gambit. Obama had offered the potentially democratic Russian state a “reset” and Putin handily declined in favor of producing a neo-imperial update on the Soviet model. The KGB became the FSB. The invention of the PLO became the continuation of relationships with Hamas, Hezbollah, PFLP, and others.

***

The cultivating and promoting of anti-Semitism in the world is a feudal-medieval ruse to deflect fault on the part of leadership toward the Jews.

Why the Jews?

The Jews have been doing battle with “political absolutism” since the humbling of Pharaoh — thanks to God — and their turning their backs on the same with a “mixed multitude”, i.e., others who shared the Jewish abhorrence of the tyrant. What follows about 4,000 years later is “uptake” by others, i.e., the Romans who turn to Judaism and later differentiation and expansion of subscription (which brings wealth) as Christians. Several hundreds years after that, Muhammad borrows from the Jews, makes himself central in access to God or the Idea of God, and we arrive about here with a long sorry history of medieval warring over “political absolutism” and the basis for it (e.g., “divine right”; “dictatorship of the proletariat”; etc.)

With dictators, you know my rule: “Different Talks — Same Walk!”

Now the “digest” version of the Jews and Russia —

Once Rome had burned, raped, and sacked Jerusalem, the Jews became everybody’s “guests” . . . so come forward a thousand-plus years and find the Jews, a People laden with laws from the time of Moses, a “problem” (more of an opportunity) — an alien enterprise, strangers in a strange land — to Russian Christians who could and would leverage anti-Semitism into the customary theft and murder.

Look into the history of the Cossacks and the Pale of Settlement.

Then go forward again into the Soviet enterprise and its repression of religion (“the opiate of the people,” said Karl Marx). Russian Jews found themselves trapped for decades in Russia by the forces of Soviet exploitation and possession. When it became possible to leave that atmosphere en masse, they did.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Jews_in_Israel

Along comes Putin, and Putin makes it his mission to “defend” the speakers of Russian — “Russophones” — wherever they may be found. The ploy excuses aggression (as in Ukraine). With hundreds of thousands of the Jews of Russia repaired to Israel, he knows also to become modern in this fashion and stand against anti-Semitism!

Post-Holocaust, post-Hitler, what Russian leader would not do the same?

Let’s add back ISIS — Assad’s incubated horror — and “Islamic Terrorism” in general and its effects: when a mosquito pricks the skin, the skin swells. The body responds to in the insult. Of course, the hand slaps or slaps away the mosquito (or the bee or wasp), and it starts repairs against infection and against any poisons delivered.

So it is that each terrorist act encourages resurgent nationalism where it takes place.
Migration has similar effects: people want to close their doors seal their boundaries, and fend off those most in need.

It could be said that nature is cruel — or here with political nature that Putin, Assad, and Khamenei are cruel, but like the cowardly fireman who sets the fire and later offers to put it out (!), these have created a condition and perception in many of the west that they can handle ISIS — and they may, having incubated that enterprise to glorify themselves in battle against the same.

Oh brother oh sister — Israel is a precious jewel of a small state representing the character of a people who turned their backs on the idea that any man, including Moses, could represent God on earth. For the Jews, God is indeed greater, and while Moses gets recognition, prayer is always to God, not to Moses. That separation changes the politics, and when Titus of Rome destroys Jerusalem, the priests take the hit (because they failed!) and the scholars and teachers rise in the esteem of the community and the great conversation about ethics and morality comes to represent the Jews. Old Jewish wisdom . . . that’s just my opinion and not very good scholarship but something that might hold up to scrutiny.

Putin has melded many modern ideas into his own medieval atmosphere and the surface of related political theater — “Assad vs The Terrorists” — works for most who simply haven’t the time to examine (as I have) the complexity of the conflicts displayed or experienced.

Israelis don’t like being murdered by incited teenagers creeping into their children’s bedrooms — and there is Putin the Strong fending off Chechnya rebels and applying Russia’s most advanced weapons to the same once they have been channeled to ISIS in Syria.

The “west” has moved around Syria in its responding to post-Soviet neo-Imperial Russia in Syria and Crimea and elsewhere, but, give the devil his due, Putin has worked to weaken the European Union (the British vote on BREXIT seems to me an example of success with that) and NATO (Erdogan’s own embrace of despotism in Turkey accompanied by a go-ahead from Russia on the the “Turkish Stream” pipeline project seems also to affirm Putin’s influence and power) — and he has succeeded in partially renewing — or affirming — our world hosts immensely powerful financial and political elites — medievalism in the modern world.

Post-Soviet Russia saw two old clients — Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi — swept away into history, but with Assad in Syria and the way to Iran potentially laid bare, the dictators have taken their stands.

Would nature have forced mass (economic) migration from Syria?

Possibly.

But nature would not have incubated ISIS (by selecting other targets for bombing and combat earlier in the war) to later aggrandize and glorify the “abilities” of the “strong men”.

The conversation continued, always a few more words, a little more distillation of old observations and new ideas.

In the Garden of Eden story in the Torah, God introduces to Adam and Eve human awareness, self-awareness, and conscience.

It’s all right there at the beginning, i.e., a statement about our own nature — and it’s a good statement.

It’s not the Christian statement; it’s not Muhammad’s statement.

It’s a mysterious statement about the two that God will send off into human life and they will have to work to eat and wrestle with some thorny realities in the way of their own survival.

The dictators — caliphs, emperors, kings, sultans down through the ages — often bend the Divine to their own will, and then they use that power that comes from similar words and technologies in the worst imaginable ways.

The good seem either not powerful enough, proactive enough, or smart enough, frankly, to unmake the tyrant before he has got his hands on a serous treasury and a willing military.

Some could argue that the evil is as much our nature too.

I don’t know the answer to that.

I know that Syria represents perhaps the darkest tragedy of our time, as I believe it has been fashioned by Moscow, Damascus, and Tehran as a complete theater of politics and war.

______

BackChannels had a Muslim conversational partner for this post and one who advocated for Israel against anti-Semitic anti-Zionist smears launched in an advocacy site for the Syrian Revolution.  Questions were raised about Israel’s nationalist politics, links with Russia, and associated anti-Islamism.  Over the years, BackChannels has come to see Moscow promoting the amplification of political sentiment into internal conflicts beyond its borders.  Color codes “Red”, “Red-Green”, “Red-Black” apply to the reinvigorating of “old comrade networks” and the Islamic and Black Power politics that feed Black Lives Matter, Palestinian Solidarity, International Solidarity, Code Pink, and so many others nourished by the still moving inertia of old Soviet disinformation and related inspiration.

As Putin and Russo-Iranian politics have also promoted Far Right politics (Marie Le Pen in France, Jobbik in Hungary), the political color code “Brown” for nationalists and national socialists also applies.  It’s perfectly sensible that any space attacked by an alien force, conveniently “Islamist” these days, including “Islamist” against Muslims worldwide, will rally around its flag, and that whether it be in London or Islamabad.

A third force — i.e., a Moscow — helping to make that attack happen (by incubating ISIS; by using war to create conditions for mass migration irksome to one’s more true target regions and states) is something else: call it “diplomacy by other means” — and means generally beyond the public ken, for the public rarely has time and space for doing more than adjusting its perceptions according to major headlines.

Fast Link Reference

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/05/15/cold-war-cold-struggle/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/02/09/ftac-on-why-the-jews/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2015/10/02/syria-assad-vs-the-terrorists-how-isis-defends-assad/

https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/05/06/ftac-russias-not-so-appealing-turn-in-syria/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Jewish_pogroms_in_the_Russian_Empire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990s_Post-Soviet_aliyah

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/war-in-syria-russia-s-rustbucket-military-delivers-a-hi-tech-shock-to-west-and-israel-a6842711.html – 1/29/2016

https://www.oilandgaseurasia.com/en/news/erdogan-turkey-russia-agree-jointly-implement-turkish-stream – 8/15/2016

http://vladimirets.org/pale_of_settlement.htm

http://www.newsweek.com/us-accuses-assad-aiding-islamic-state-through-airstrikes-338582

https://yannayspitzer.net/2012/07/22/a-new-map-of-jewish-communities-in-the-russian-empire/

 

–33–

Turkey’s Sick Republic – Philos Project

15 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Religion, Syndicate Red Brown Green, Turkey

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The recent “ides of July” coup attempt was the fifth since the 1923 founding of the Turkish republic, an indication of Turkey’s recurring instability. While “Turkey is, at least in name, a constitutional democracy … Turkey’s government is quite literally in a state of emergency,” Rough said, and Kennedy added that the foiled coup quickly became overshadowed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his allies’ “incredible seizure of power.

”Erdoğan has publicly called the coup a “gift from heaven,” and Hillel Fradkin commented that “it has already given him a great deal, and he means to make it a gift that keeps on giving.” The three-month state-of-emergency that Erdoğan declared may end up being renewed. In the name of restoring order and suppressing coup supporters, Erdoğan had received an opportunity to complete his “transformation of the Turkish political system such that all power resides with him.” He is purging opponents from institutions like the military, judiciary, police and universities, while intimidatingly calling for ongoing demonstrations of supporters and reporting of opponents.

Source: Turkey’s Sick Republic – Philos Project – 8/9/2016.

Also in Media – “Abandoning Iraq’s Religious Minorities to the Islamic State”

15 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Islamic Small Wars, Religion

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Left defenseless, Iraqi minorities often perceived their own Sunni Muslim neighbors in the area of ISIS’ advance as more of a threat than ISIS foreign fighters, Talabany stated.  As these minorities would recount, “our neighbors came to the Christian family and said, ‘you have lived next to us for 100 years and so for that reason I am going to give you and your family ten minutes to go and I won’t kill you.’”  She noted Yazidi ISIS sex slaves often knew their captors and dismissed trying to “re-integrate people with their torturers,” while segregation often helped pacify refugee camps.  Benoka asked of treacherous neighbors “how could we continue living in peace with them.”

Source: Abandoning Iraq’s Religious Minorities to the Islamic State – 8/10/2016

FTAC – Adjusting Normative Global Values – Religious v Secular Societies

12 Friday Aug 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Philosophy, Political Psychology, Politics, Religion, Syndicate Red Brown Green

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The promotion of conflict seem to me inseparable from the invention and promotion of cultural, political, religious, and social discriminators, and those who stand to gain in prestige or wealth by leveraging such differences will certainly do so in the cause of their own aggrandizement, messianic delusion, and glorification. Note, please, the Putin promotes both Far Left and Far Right political organizations and personalities aligned roughly “Red-Black-Green (old “comrade networks”, Black Power movements, and Islamists) AND Brown, i.e., “New Nationalists” like Donald Trump and Viktor Orban, although Trump may not wish to nor be able to pervert constitutional basics as Orban has done (for himself) in Hungary.

Writing here as “an American of Jewish descent” and somewhere along the spectrum of “secular humanists”, the recognition of the world’s 7,000 living languages, each representing beliefs and spirituality — or none — in the process of using sound and signal to address in some place the challenges of living with the earth and with one another — I should think the retreat from too zealous a passion for one belief a part of “live and let live”.

I wouldn’t incline as the Soviets toward doing away with religion but rather promote tolerance for beliefs embraced privately and confined to behaviors and practices within each faith community. In essence, it’s that outlook that produces the modern multi-cultural, multi-religious open and secular democratic societies.

The sustained presence of anti-Semitism in the world and the possible emergence of either latent or new anti-Semitic movements involves the presence of the medieval world in the 21st Century.

Putin’s post-Soviet neo-imperial revanche in Russia has reemphasized medieval values certain to produce “wars of all against all” that then may contribute to his appearance as a strong force for stability — he’s the fireman who sets the fire and then shows the world how to put it out.

It’s very difficult for the general public to perceive that story, but I believe, with cause, that the projection of a Total Political Theater is and has been what Moscow has been about for generations to, perhaps, centuries. Today, it remains hampered by its own medieval urges — and to put a cap on that, one may note the revival of the Russian Orthodox Church, which is not a bad thing but part of a larger package in the Kremlin’s worldview.

The modern soul would rather religion persisted and thrived with both a sense of prudent social constraint and volunteered boundaries. Most modern people recognize there are many things between the person, family, and community and God — or the possession of a compassionate and ethical happiness — but the same want for a socially healthy sense of community and personal boundaries.

Must couples, for example, hetero or homo, display affection in public? How intensely? How much “signal” is needed or wanted? To what end?

There are a lot of questions like that, and because we really can’t solve them species-wide, it’s better to go about our business privately but with awareness also of the impact our behavior may have on the earth and on others.

______

Hitchens only found out he was Jewish by birth when his mother died. It didn’t change how he felt about the improbable existence of God, but I believe it made his writer friend Martin Amis a little jealous.

Posted to YouTube 4/17/2013.

The above post was prompted by a Muslim’s complaint about having atheism and secularism foisted on the same by such luminaries as Dawkins, Geller, Hitchens, and others.

BackChannels simply hews to its observation of Putin’s re-medievalization project in Russia and attached to former Soviet client states, political enterprises (like the PLO), contested spaced and, as with Turkey, old enemies.  In essence, Russia’s president wants to keep playing old movies in realpolitik in realspace.  It behooves the open democracies of the west — or their constituencies, from the least informed on the streets to the ivory tower set — to reconsider what it took to produce (and shame on Brexit) peace and prosperity x political integrity, rule of law, and functioning and reliable courts across Europe and North America.

Moscow and its partners have raced backwards — of course, in their heads forward — into the worst of medieval absolutism.

Syria should today serve as an example of how that world works and what it looks like.

–33–

FTAC – Fast Wrap on the Ahmed Mohamed Story

10 Wednesday Aug 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Religion, Syndicate Red Brown Green

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Ahmed Mohamed brought an “invention” to school, showed it off several times, and finally made it beep in a classroom. In America’s “See something? Say something” culture, the teacher felt obligated to confiscate and report the box. The rest is history.

Ahmed’s father is now trying to prove that the city and school district have made, as a racial and religious class, black Muslims fair game for state-based discrimination.

No one knows WHY Ahmed chose to build a clock — or “timing device” — but all recognize that if the same thing had been armed with plastic explosive (very small, very potent material), we’d be chatyping about some other kind of story. As the state’s writ demands the same protect its citizens, sending / bringing a box jammed with electronics into the classroom raises questions and compels the making of some choices.

Hoax bomb?

Maybe it was.

Maybe it wasn’t.

Where should the public set its sensitivity to threat?

When Ahmed set off the clock’s alarm, it interrupted – or disrupted — the classroom. The teacher took the box and alerted the next official.

This small Texas incident took off with the help of the local NAACP leader Anthony Bond and in a matter of days became both a cause celebre and reviled part of the history of terrorism and related threat in the U.S. and around the world.

My partner in conversation didn’t know whether to laugh or cry over news of the lawsuit brought by Ahmed Mohamed and his father, Mohamed Elhassan, against the “Irving Independent School District; Daniel Cummings, In His Individual Capacity; and the City of Irving” (August 8, 2016 – URL links to PDF of the filing).

Not to summarize the suit here, readers may nonetheless note the charge of institutional racism against “black Muslims” as inseparable from the suit.

–33–

FTAC – Regarding Candidate Trump and Islamic Extremism

01 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Politics, Religion, Syndicate Red Brown Green

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I am certain that Donald J. Trump doesn’t know the region between Islamism and Islamic Reform as he should, but he knows how to be thorough in assessing and working through a challenge, and he’ll come up to speed on an issue that is essentially about extremism and incitement PLUS the amplification of similar qualities in others, i.e., with every “Allahu Akbar” attack, a portion of the recipients elevate their response — and Putin, who has set out to destabilize the west, loves it!

You know what . . . let’s keep in mind that the greater framework for Islamic extremism and terrorism is in fact the Cold War and its shadows — the Phantom of the Soviet, state sponsor of terrorism and proxy wars, lives on in structure in a revanchist neo-imperial Russia. The sooner everyone sees that, the sooner we’ll get through this together and come out with still modern, secular, pluralist, humanist, and amazingly free democracies that work.

Related Reference

BackChannels.  https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/07/31/also-in-media-retrospective-look-at-american-policy-and-language-associated-with-islamic-extremism/ – 7/31/2016.

Ahmed-Ullah, Noreen S., Sam Roe and Laurie Cohen.  “A rare look at secretive Brotherhood in America.”  Chicago Tribune, September 19, 2004.

Continuation

I think the demonizing slung from both sides in this ugly election season skews our perception, but of the two, I prefer his straight talk, and I think he knows he’s a tenderfoot among politicians and needs to come up to speed, fast!

Also, again, the framework for the “islamic Small Wars” — we’ve all seen a lot of change — Arab Springs to the failed coup in Turkey — in the past decade, but it takes reading and research to see the same wrapped in the themes of the Cold War.

We’re going to be voting character plus the character of the party associated with the election’s winner.

This bothers me:

http://www.blackforpalestine.com/

it doesn’t bother because there are black people struggling to make lives for themselves and there are refugees whose families were caught and abandoned between armies in 1948. It bothers me because it links back to the Soviet Era and the mentality of Russia’s Communist Party and hypocrisy in promising paradise and brutalizing millions for the privileges of party apparatchik.

Here’s the reminder of the relationship between Moscow and the formation of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. https://conflict-backchannels.com/…/quote-manipulation…/

Tell me, after 68 years, how much the leaders of the PLO / PA and Hamas shown compassion or empathy with regard to the lives of the refugees of 1948?

Clinton / Trump – Washington Insider / Washington Outsider — it’s not going to make any difference if WE don’t find our way back to the center of the aisle — “Moderate Conservatives / Moderate Liberals”.

-33-

Also in Media: Erdogan’s Countercoup

21 Thursday Jul 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, Islamic Small Wars, Religion, Turkey

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Estimated number of “coup plotters” killed: 24.

Civil service firings and suspensions: 50,000.

Detained: 9,000

In BackChannels’ opinion, the coup — the real one — has been successful.

At the end of an interview (published July 15) with Slate contributor Isaac Chotiner, Jenny White, a professor at Stockholm University’s Institute for Turkish Studies, notes, “In previous coups the army took over because they thought institutions were not working properly or being populated with Islamists. But the institutions were still there. This time, the institutions themselves have been destroyed.”

Here follow a passel of factual and more recent reporting on the countercoup as President Erdogan consolidates his Putinesque domination (“different talks — same walk”) of Turkish politics.

BBC.  “Turkey coup attempt: Crackdown toll passes 50,000.”  July 20, 2016:

Before the vote, Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said that once emergency measures are invoked, the country would suspend its participation in the European Convention of Human Rights. He said the move was justified under a convention article allowing for such a suspension in times of emergency.

CBS/AP.  “More arrests as Turkish leader tightens the noose.”  July 21, 2016:

The detentions reported by Anadolu news agency come hours after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared a three-month state of emergency that is expected to expand the crackdown.

Already, nearly 10,000 people have been arrested while hundreds of schools have been closed. And nearly 60,000 civil service employees have been dismissed from their posts since the failed coup Friday.

Newton, Jennifer.  “Now Turkey suspects 15,000 TEACHERS over ties to Fethullah Gulen as Erdogan demands US hand the cleric over.”  Daily Mail, July 19, 2016.

Pamuk, Humeyra, and Ece Toksabay.  “Turkey says no return to past repression despite state of emergency.”  Reuters, July 21, 2016: “Governments can impose curfews and declare certain public and private areas off limits, and it can ban or restrict meetings, gatherings and rallies.”  Add to the elimination of freedom of assembly the possibility of warrantless searches and extralegal — or capriciously approved — murder, torture, and press censorship.

RFE/RL.  “More Arrests In Turkey As State Of Emergency Takes Effect.”  July 21, 2016:

Nearly one-third of Turkey’s roughly 360 serving generals have been detained. The Defense Ministry is investigating all military judges and prosecutors and has suspended 262 of them, broadcaster NTV reported, while 900 police officers in Ankara were also suspended on July 20.

Turkey’s education system has been hit particularly hard during the ongoing crackdown. The Education Ministry on July 20 added more than 6,500 new names to the list of 15,200 school employees suspended, state media reported.

Sarlyuce, Isll, Angela Dewan.  “Turkey coup: What does the state of emergency mean for democracy?”  CNN, July 21, 2016.

Withnall, Adam.  “Turkey suspends European Convention on Human Rights in wake of coup.”  Independent, July 21, 2016.

Earlier, from the coup period

Chotiner, Isaac.  “How Turkey Came to This:  The attempted military coup isn’t the country’s first.  but this time is different.”  Slate, July 15, 2016:

They think of it as recalibrating democracy, but they can’t get rid of pandering to religion because people are conservative. And Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) managed to pull that off to such an extent that they now have half the population, in part because that part of the population has been constantly pushed back and disrespected.

Koplow, Michael J.  “The Coup Attempt Will Leave Him Stronger.”  Foreign Affairs, July 18, 2016:

The 1997 “postmodern” coup that deposed Erdogan’s political mentor, Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, and led to Erdogan’s subsequent imprisonment and suspension from politics for religious incitement only reinforced the notion among non-elite Turks that the old secular establishment, of which the army was the cornerstone, would never fully cede power.

It was only when Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) co-founder Abdullah Gül won their 2007 stare-down with the military over Gül’s candidacy for president (which the army opposed because Gül’s wife wore a headscarf), that Erdogan seemed to gain the upper hand and be in position to alter the balance of power with the army for good.

Pipes, Daniel.  “Why I Rooted for the Turkish Coup Attempt”.  Middle East Forum, July 18, 2016.

Before the “Coup”

The Economist.  “Erdogan and his generals: The once all-powerful Turkish armed forces are cowed, if not quite impotent.” February 2, 2013.

After the Coup — Rapidly Shared Links

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36868230 – Turkey coup attempt: Detentions ‘tip of the iceberg’ – 7/22/2016

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/07/turkey-crackdown-by-the-numbers-statistics-on-brutal-backlash-after-failed-coup/ – 7/26/2016

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security-idUSKCN1061DK – 7/26/2016:

The religious affairs directorate removed another 620 staff including preachers and instructors in the Koran on Tuesday, bringing to more than 1,100 the number of people it has purged since the July 15 coup attempt.

http://www.voanews.com/content/gulen-accuses-edrogan-of-slow-motion-coup-in-turkey/3435542.html – 7/26/2016:

“My philosophy, inclusive and pluralist Islam dedicated to serve to human beings from every faith is antithetical to armed rebellion,” wrote the 75-year-old cleric, a former Erdogan ally who has been living in self-imposed exile in the eastern U.S. state of Pennsylvania since 1999.

http://www.npr.org/2016/07/27/487577923/despite-turkeys-crackdown-some-critics-are-still-speaking-out – 7/27/2017:

Earlier this year some 2,000 academics signed a petition calling for an end to the conflict with Kurdish militants in Turkey’s southeast. Dozens of signatories were sacked and many were investigated for spreading what the government called terrorist propaganda.

Odman says in a militarized society, no one is safe from eruptions of violence.

http://www.voanews.com/content/turkey-issues-arrest-warrants-for-dozens-more-journalists/3436603.html – 7/27/2016

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-security-journalists-idUSKCN1070NO – 7/28/2016 – “Turkey dismisses military, shuts media outlets as crackdown deepens.”

Turkey on Wednesday deepened a crackdown on suspected followers of a U.S.-based cleric it blames for a failed coup, dismissing nearly 1,700 military personnel and shutting 131 media outlets, moves that may spark more concern among its Western allies.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37003819 – “Turkey coup attempt: Istanbul rally against plot” – 8/7/2016.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37009931 – “Turkey’s Erdogan unnerves West with Putin visit.” – 8/9/2016.

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