And yet turkey now has a president ... that obviously gained the better part of his power through a false-flag attack (the "coup d'etat" that "somehow" managed to fail to capture even a single government official or building).
And you just can't believe how bad it gets ... They're arresting everyone who supposedly had anything (right down to IP addresses) to do with, oh, lots of things. Gulenists, Kurds, the Press, LGBT, ...
And then people in the US reply "but that's thousands, no, tens of thousands of people".
Yes. Yes it is [1].
And you just can't believe how bad this guy is:
(about the Armenian genocide) "a muslim cannot commit genocide"
(about women) "Our religion [Islam] has defined a position for women [in society]: motherhood. You cannot explain this to feminists because they don't accept the concept of motherhood."
He, and his family, personally organised oil sales on behalf of islamic state, including to the US
"We will rip out the roots of the Twitter service"
He orchestrated physical attacks against newspapers.
The worst of it is, truth be told he has flip-flopped on just about every issue, including the ones mentioned right above here, and doesn't seem all that coherent at all. But unscrupulous is a word that just falls short : the guy is accused to have organised, in some cases systematic, physical attacks against Turks in Germany, the US and elsewhere for being perceived as being against him.
I can't imagine how threatened Turks must feel.
[1] http://edition.cnn.com/2017/04/14/europe/turkey-failed-coup-...
http://dailycaller.com/2017/09/22/erdogans-goons-beat-up-som...
When the topic itself is already politicized, this of course is a matter of degree. But however we draw the line, a comment like yours here is well on the wrong side of it.
And he recently got the Turkish constitution changed in his favor, openly citing Adolf Hitler's Germany as an example of an effective presidential government.
I recommend doing some reading to understand the situation in Turkey
> ... is a CBC News correspondent based in Istanbul.
One problem at a time.
IMHO, a better one:
Your friend (used loosely in this case) is doing criminal acts. Would you tell him to stop doing criminal acts while you treat him?
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Sometimes journalist take this "ALLWAYS two sides to every story" and "each side is equal" crap too far.
See the success of Wolf's book on Trump.
1. Turkey's government is brutally suppressing opposition
2. The means Turkey is using to identify its opposition is flawed.
You don't have to talk 1. to talk 2.
Case in point is that you can legally talk 2. in Turkey but if you talk 1. you get fucked. If you try to fight 2. you help a bunch of people if you try to fight both 1. and 2. at the same time the chance of you solving 2. is diminished because Turkey's government will be suspicious that it is propaganda against them because you included 1.
Thus: one problem at a time.
Also remember that your attitude leads to shit like Iraq. Its perfectly "legitimate" for a government to be autocratic. Russia is a government, Iran is a government, China is a government. They wield the power, is that not legitimate? You seem to be suggesting that only "legitimate" governments are democracies and that sort of attitude leads us back to Iraq where we go on a liberation war and heroically give people a democracy that they didn't fight for themselves. Reality is messy and complicated and "nice" ideas like making everyone have the good government are well intentioned but naive.
I will celebrate the day Turkey gets its democracy back but it has to do that itself and its not the problem of anyone who isn't Turkish as their "help" may well hinder.