Turkey's Top Generals Quit En Masse Over Political Targeting

[ensho]

http://www.truth-out.org/turkeys-top-generals-quit-en-masse-over-political-targeting/1312040824


Turkey’s top military commanders resigned en masse on Friday, a move without precedent in Turkish history that many analysts saw as a failed effort by a beleaguered institution to exert what is left of its dwindling political power.

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Hours later, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoganaccepted the resignations and elevated his own choice to become the senior military commander: Gen. Necdet Ozel, who was until Friday the commander of the military police. The decision stamped Mr. Erdogan’s civilian authority on the country’s military, which has long regarded itself as a protector of Turkey’s secular traditions.

The news stunned Turkey and left many people wondering whether they were witnessing the end of the power the military has long exercised over the nation’s political system.

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“Besides this one act, the military doesn’t really have that much left in the tank,” said Steven Cook, an expert at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington. Mr. Cook argued that the resignations also said a great deal about Turkey as a democracy, because its citizens — even those who dislike Mr. Erdogan’s increasingly powerful Justice and Development Party — were no longer willing to accept military rule.
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I'm jealous

[Ikonoklast]

1. The true sign of a real Democracy is that the military stays subordinate to the elected leaders.

We are dangerously moving in the other direction.