As reports of the attempted military coup in Turkey began to circulate in the media, President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry were quick to reject the “anti democratic methods” of military leaders who sought to overthrow Turkish President Recep Erdogan, earning the praise of globalists who also lambasted previous American administrations for supporting other military coups since modern Turkey was founded.
Nick Danforth, a Senior Analyst in the Bipartisan Policy Center’s National Security Program, heaped praised on Secretary of State John Kerry’s call for “stability and peace and continuity within Turkey” as news of the attempted coup emerged, as well as on President Obama’s demand for all parties to “support the democratically elected government of Turkey.”
“Faced with a fast-moving crisis as an attempted coup roiled Turkey over the weekend, U.S. officials were commendably firm in their rejection of the plotters’ anti-democratic methods,” he continued.
While globalists like Danforth were happy to praise the Obama Administration for leaving the Turkish coup plotters out to dry, he was quick to point out that the United States has a history of supporting military coups since modern Turkey was founded.
For his part, Danforth suggested that prior administrations were guilty of “turning a blind eye to undemocratic and destabilizing governments that go against the spirit, if not the letter, of the alliance [NATO].”
Turkish Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, first elected in 1950, alienated many in the military, as well as moderate segments of the public at-large, for clamping down on the press and opposition parties, as well as for his attempts to appeal to religious Conservatives. His plans to reach out to the Soviet Union in order to establish new economic ties, in light of a cutback of Marshall Plan funds from the United States, did little to endear him to the anti-Communist military.
In response, approximately 38 young military officers, seeking to preserve the principles of freedom of speech and separation of government and religion specified by the country’s first elected President, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, lead a coup that deposed Menderes; he was executed following a trial in 1960. Officials from United States immediately met with the ruling military junta, which pledged the country’s continued support for NATO.
As the 1960s carried on, Turkey suffered severe civil unrest from an economic depression. Violent left-wing groups, along with far-right Nationalist and Islamist groups, waged a campaign of bombings and kidnappings.
The National Order Party, one of the country’s first Islamist-leaning political parties, was founded in 1971 by Necmettin Erbakan. The military, infuriated by continuing civil unrest and the rise of Islamist political parties, issued Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel a subtle ultimatum: form a “credible” government, resign, or be deposed in a coup; Demirel chose to resign. The non-violent coup became known as the “coup by memorandum.”
In the 1970s, Turkey was racked by continued violent conflict between left-wing and right-wing extremists; one such organization was the Grey Wolves, a neo-fascist death squad long suspected to be linked to Counter-Guerilla, Turkey’s branch of Operation Gladio (a covert CIA operation that involved conducting false-flag attacks to blame European Communist parties). Turkish Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel, having been reflected following his ouster in 1971, was deposed by the military in 1980.
Necmettin Erbakan, an Islamist politician who was elected Prime Minister in 1996, was forced to step down by the military for violating the Constitution’s separation of religion and state clause; he was ultimately banned from politics for life. The military ruled Turkey for three years before ceding power to civilian authority.
It should come as no surprise that the United States and NATO had no desire to see a secular military coup succeed this time around, as Turkish President Erdogan has marched in lockstep with the West in its campaign of funding and arming ISIS to destabilize the Middle East and overrun Europe with a mass of refugees and radical Islamic terrorists.
