There’s a coup attempt going on in Turkey by the military. But Erdogan, the long time big man, is also blaming his former ally, Imam Gulen’s cult, which controlled the test prep centers of Turkey and became the biggest operator of charter schools in the U.S. Here’s my 2014 Taki’s Magazine article on Gulen in case he proves relevant:
The Shadowy Imam of the Poconos by Steve Sailer January 01, 2014And even if the military hasn’t aligned itself with Gulen, the way Erdogan aligned with Gulen to take down the military around 2012 and then Erdogan aligned with the military to take down Gulen around 2014, it’s still pretty informative about How Things Work in Turkey.
By the way, the FBI was aggressively raiding Gulen charter schools across America in 2014, looking to document how the cult skims money from local American taxpayers to finance their operations, but I haven’t heard much about it recently. My assumption would be that the CIA explained to the FBI that having local property taxpayers ripped off for a few hundred million per year is a cheap way to have a potential player in the Great Game of “Who Controls Constantinople?” (But I’m making that up, so don’t take my word for it.)
And here’s my more general 2013 article I wrote for Taki’s on the deep structures of Turkish politics:
The Byzantine Forces Behind Turkish Politics by Steve Sailer June 19, 2013Also, remind me again why Chancellor Merkel has been financially pounding hell out Greece, which, for all its sins, is part of the European Union, while cozying up to and inviting into the E.U. Turkey, which is not?
I have this weird notion that the European Union would be more popular with Europeans if it tried harder to benefit Europeans than non-Europeans in, say, West Asia.
