World Politics News   Articles for World Politics Course

The horrific massacre in Nice, France, has unleashed all the crazies in the US who wish to identify the attack as an example of “radical Islamic terrorism”.  Newt Gingrich wants to vet all Muslims on whether they support “sharia law” and deport those who do (what’s to keep them from lying?  Should we now start calling Newt Torquemada?)  In France, Marine Le Pen, in the Netherlands, Geert Wilders, and in Poland, Mariusz Blaszczak have all assumed that the attack was a terrorist attack.  I am not sure on what basis these people have made this judgment.  The attacker was a French national of Tunisian origin.  Was  Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel a Muslim?  Was he a practicing Muslim?  Did he attend a mosque?  Did he have any contact with Muslims who associated with extremist groups?  He clearly was an anti-social person given his criminal record and the descriptions of his behaviors supplied by his parents.  Right now, and I will wait for additional evidence with a completely open mind, I would say that Bouhlel was just a miserable wretch who rationalized his failures by wrapping himself in a religious justification.

At least some parts of the Turkish military are claiming that President Erdogan has been deposed in a coup.   There clearly is something going on in Turkey, but as of this writing it is not obvious what has happened.  Turkey is familiar with military coups:

Turkey’s military coups

• 1993 – Claims of a “covert coup” intended to prevent a peace settlement with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)

• 1980 – Military coup following armed conflict between right-wing and left-wing groups in the 1970s

• 1971 – Military coup known as the “coup by memorandum”, which the military delivered instead of sending out tanks
• 1960 – Coup by group of young military officer outside chain of command, against the democratically-elected Democrat Party

The tension between the Erdogan government and the Turkish military began in earnest in 2010 when many top military commanders were arrested, and those tensions have only increased as Erdogan has asserted greater powers and moved Turkey toward a more religious direction.  The military believes that it has always been entrusted with the obligation to honor Ataturk’s decision to make Turkey a secular state.  At some point, the issues had to come to a head.