zapfranklin

As someone who spent a very long night in the middle of Beyoğlu during the coup (e.g., small arms fire, sonic booms that shattered windows, run on ATMs) and extremely tense weeks that followed (e.g., gangs of men patrolling the streets, shouting takbir, and threatening less conservative citizens), it certainly felt real. I personally think the truth lies not in either binary option, but somewhere in between. A political event can both be organic in nature and carefully exploited by and for the benefit of the other side.

This is extremely disappointing, but sadly unsurprising.

  Step 1: Strangle opposition traditional media
  Step 2: Stifle dissenting social media
  Step 3: Quash all public demonstrations with extreme prejudice
  Step 4: Jail dissenting voices in Academia
  Step 4: Charge opposition candidates
  Step 5: Observably free and fair elections!

The FETO thing is a very, very, large ball of wax. It is a mistake to dismiss it out of hand. That said, the US and Turkey don't see eye to eye on a host of things, but my understanding is that the military and intelligence cooperation/trust between our two countries is significantly stronger than Tweets from our respective leaders would indicate. Whether or not you believe it, I believe they believe it when they say it.

I suspect you don't have a strong understanding of how journalism works. A journalist fact-checking a story is more often a giveaway they are a conscientious journalist working for a legitimate organization. Getting the story right is a sacred thing for real journalists who know that not doing so opens them up to being called out in the public sphere for spreading untruth. Extensive fact-checking is not only critical to maintaining a reputation, it probably provides some kind of legal cover.

I assume he is talking about Planet Labs (https://www.planet.com/) - a very cool service.

I am not sure where I said anything about "beacons of integrity and truth," but I will take institutions that routinely call themselves out for their mistakes over Hersh who appears to stand by all of his reporting despite serious flaws in his stories.

I get my news from the sources you mentioned along with many others. I was taking issue with your disposal of babies with bathwater. If you are discounting information coming from flawed institutions with actual policies and procedures in favor of dubiously sourced "investigative" reporting by people like Hersh, we are in deep doo-doo.

FWIW, I am about as close to being on the ground as just about anyone outside of the actual participants in the war.

I don't disagree, but they certainly won't support the kurds' efforts against a NATO member.

Don't misunderstand that I think this is a) a good idea, or b) ultimately going to work out the way Turkey wants it to work out.

I don't think the kurds will choose to live and die by Afrin.

MintPress is a rather unreliable source. [0][1]

[0] https://www.minnpost.com/media/2015/11/mystery-mintpress-new...

[1] https://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/the-inside-story-of-one-w...

Hersh's recent work has been pointedly criticized as that of a conspiracy theorist versus an investigative journalist. [1]

Generalizing reporting in "most US mainstream outlets" as "childlike misrepresentation" is the kind of fake news doubt-sowing that is killing our (America's) relationship with facts.

There has been some excellent reporting on the relatively complex Syrian Civil War from stalwarts such as the Washington Post and the New York Times. Even upstart Buzzfeed News has done some great stuff that was carefully sourced and thoroughly investigated - regardless of how bad it made the US look.

My perspective is that of someone who has been professionally and personally following the Syrian Civil War since 2012.

[1] - https://www.vox.com/2015/5/11/8584473/seymour-hersh-osama-bi...

I actually think they care a lot about international opinion, but not always in the most healthy way. Turkey seems to be primarily interested in playing spoiler, keeping an eye on economic interests, and exercising their refugee destination card in a beneficial manner. They've got an interesting balancing act going between their increasingly strong Russian alliance and their membership in the European community.

Turkey has the second largest standing military force in NATO. They are also, well, in NATO. The current situation is uncomfortable for a whole lot of people, but when push comes to shove, I don't see how a proxy force with questionable allegiance stands up to a NATO country with a massive air and ground force.

Finally signed up for a yc account for this. As an American who has lived in Turkey for over half a decade, I offer you an opinion that a) it isn't currently particularly unsafe compared to any European cultural capitol (a credit, in part, to their recently depleted security and intelligence communities), b) Turkey has a multitude of viewpoints with the clearest divide (about 50/50) between conservatives and liberals (sound familiar?), c) visiting Turkey in spite of recent CNN-amplified drama, mostly rewards the people in the tourism industry who have been hurt most by the massive drop in revenue from both terrorism and political instability. Travel and form your own opinions.