Supporting “Democracy” Abroad
July 16, 2016
Obama immediately supported the Turkish ruler Recep Erdogan upon hearing of the attempted coup yesterday. He’s a democratic ally, we are told. Well, kinda. Some 900 Turkish journalists have been fired for criticizing Erdogan; state prosecutors routinely prosecute citizens for “insulting the Turkish leader”; a doctor had his children taken from him and was sentenced for comparing Erdogan to a cartoon character; a woman was prosecuted for criticizing the “ruler” on Instagram; opposition newspapers have been shut down, or political allies of Erdogan put in charge of them; a new law was passed giving Erdogan powers to prosecute his political opponents and their business allies; opposition parties have been banned; and virtually all critics risk being demonized by the government-controlled media, labeled as traitors, and imprisoned.
This is what the military leaders of the coup opposed. Naturally, Obama supported every bit of it by so quickly lending his verbal support, for what that’s worth, to the repressive and dictatorial Erdogan (a.k.a. “The Turkish Lincoln”) regime.
Jack Douglas Writes to Butler Shaffer