The following appeared in The Washington Post yesterday (Turkey is expected to curb military power as purge expands”), but not so juxtaposed:

“The counter-coup is not over yet,” said Soner Cagaptay, a Turkey expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He said he believes that Erdogan is using the coup attempt as a “one-time window” to consolidate power and lead Turkey toward being a single-party state.

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“But the president also made clear a couple of other things,” Earnest said. “The first is that the United States doesn’t support terrorists, the United States doesn’t support individuals who conspired to overthrow democratically elected governments. The United States follows the rule of law.”

The first paragraph has to do with a policy analyst’s prognosis for Turkey as an open democracy, the kind more familiar to Washington than to Moscow.

The second — the speaker is White House press secretary Josh Earnest — indicates Washington’s equivocal stance toward Turkish President Erdogan’s consolidation of power with Fethullah Gulen as a “chip” being played in the diplomacy.

So the United States “doesn’t support individuals who conspired to overthrow democratically elected governments”.

How “democratically” was Morsi elected in Egypt — and how democratic proved his administration?

Perhaps it was best the Egyptian people answered with their army, and the Muslim Brotherhood has been rightly purged from power in Egypt.

Similar dynamics apply to coup and countercoup in Turkey, which to BackChannels looks awfully manipulated in the state’s favor before it began, but that’s another story for exploration in a later post.

For the time being, Washington promotes “rule of law” — but look at how Turkey’s ruler has treated the same concept to effectively suppress the same throughout his nation and invest it all in . . . himself.

It appears that in Erdogan’s idea of the Turkish state, what democracy was designed to prevent it has instead enabled.

Addendum – Additional Reference

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.

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.

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