Erdogan’s new normal: Turks told to live with terrorism

[bemildred]

ISTANBUL–After the third major bomb explosion in Ankara in under five months killed 37 people in the heart of the city on Sunday, citizens of the Turkish capital have been warned that they should get used to living with terrorism permanently. “It is painful but we need to learn (to live) with terror for a while,” İsmail Rüştü Cirit, President of Turkey’s Supreme Court told journalists.

ISIL and TAK (Kurdistan Freedom Falcons), one Islamist and the other Kurdish nationalist, have claimed 169 lives between them in three major suicide bombings since Oct. 10, transforming a once secure urban hub into yet another Middle Eastern city in which the population lives in fear of bombers.

TAK, a special unit of the PKK, the militant Kurdish movement fighting a virtual civil war against the Turkish government in southeastern Anatolia was blamed by Ahmet Davutoğlu, Turkey’s prime minister for Sunday’s attack. In it a female Kurdish terrorist detonated a bomb near crowds waiting for buses and the metro while driving in a stolen car through the city’s main square.

http://atimes.com/2016/03/erdogans-new-normal-turks-told-to-live-with-terrorism/

[tazkcmo]

1. Not a big deal to me.

Before Munich, terrorism was a main weapon of resistance (Spain, ME, S.America) and since Munich gets more coverage especially with the birth of the internet. America needs to come to grips with it, too. In a war, you won't escape losses.

[My Good Babushka]

2. The belief that anyone can be made safe from terrorism is a belief

that has unleashed as much if not more bloodshed and mayhem than terrorism. Only working towards a just society, where everyone has a place, and is not economically deprived, where everyone has all the education and opportunities that the best civilizations can provide, these are the things that stop terrorism. War on terror only begets more war and more terror.

[bemildred]

3. +1.

As long as you have shitty government, you will have violence to go with. The best governed places in the world are also the least violent. That is no accident.

[KoKo]

4. ....! Agree.

War on terror only begets more war and more terror.

How do we stop this when no candidates address it and a MSM doesn't even discuss it, though.

I still hope for the Grand Awakening by World Powers. But, then, the monetary interests in war still seem to rule

Maybe there will be changes after the "Grand ME Fiasco" in time, though. Masses of immigrants flooding into countries with so many dying on the way eventually has to seep into the souls of those who've perpetrated this mass dislocation, death and destruction If they have souls...and if not, then other means must be used to stop this for the health of all of us and our planet.

[KoKo]

5. And..this bit at the end of article:

The HDP, Peoples Democratic Party, a group of moderate Kurds who wanted to work with Turkish liberals to create dialogue, called for compromise but its support has been steadily eroded by the rise in violence since the summer and repeated accusations by government ministers that it is involved in terrorism itself — charges which the party strongly rejects. On Sunday it condemned the Ankara bombing and its perpetrators in very strong language.

Nonetheless, the HDP now seems to be a spent force with its three most prominent parliamentarians, including its two chairpersons, waiting for the government to strip them of their parliamentary immunity and launch criminal proceedings against them. A similar prosecution of an earlier Kurdish party in 1994 in Turkey led to a group of Kurdish politicians spending a decade in jail. Few expect events to play out differently this time.

[bemildred]

6. You imprison the moderates, and you enable the radicals.

No mystery.

If Erdogan stays, I expect a civil war, but it won't be civil, and it likely won't stay local. Various nearby parties will be drawn in. It's already started.

Erdogan is in an awkward position, he needs to stay in power to protect himself. That's the problem with too much corruption, it becomes a trap door, you can't get back. And to stay in power he needs to keep the emergency measures and autocratic authority. So he needs conflict. But not too much conflict.

But I expect something will be done, everybody knows the score now, I don't expect the haughty Europeans will appreciate the blackmail with refugees, and Putin will do nothing to reduce the pressure without some act of submission. And we know what Obama says Obama thinks now, no ambiguty there. And everybody understands that Erdogan holds a lot of the responsibility for the nastiness of the present situation.

But he seems to have a pretty good hammerlock on the Turkish state for the moment, so we'll have to wait and see. The thing is he has not shown himself to be very artful in the past.

[KoKo]

7. ...!

He does seem to be oblivious that things have changed for him since Russia came in to Syria and the Iran Agreement was made. His stature in the area is not what it once was.

As you say:

Erdogan is in an awkward position, he needs to stay in power to protect himself. That's the problem with too much corruption, it becomes a trap door, you can't get back. And to stay in power he needs to keep the emergency measures and autocratic authority. So he needs conflict. But not too much conflict.

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The thing is he has not shown himself to be very artful in the past.