In a still developing story, there has been an attempted coup d'etat by the military against Turkey's Islamist president and strongman, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
I like to think of Erdogan as Muslim Brotherhood in a business suit. He's an incrementalist Islamist, he's tried to criminalize adultery, create alcohol-free zones, and he oversaw the long-time ban in Turkey of Muslim headscarves. He's attacking the secularist tradition of Turkey that was created by the founder of the modern version of that nation, the great Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
The military has taken the role of protector of secular Turkey.
Erdogan was chosen in a free election. Normally I side with democracy, but as with Egypt, where its military overthrew an actual Muslim Brotherhood government, I'm with the troops and the officers in this struggle.
UPDATE 9:50pm: The latest reports are that the coup failed.
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