Turkey: No question, Erdogan is a ruthless dictator, who has bled his country's economy dry, and the EU must not look the other way - by Ahmet Ardani

Turkey: If this is not a dictatorship, what is it?

One publication in the EU recently noted in a report about Turkey's Erdogan: "The man in the big palace is not only a crook. but also a full fledged dictator ".

This should also reinforce the doubts that every intelligent person had about whether it was a real coup attempt at all two years ago in Turkey, or just a staged one. There are plenty of people who thought it was put on by the government of Erdogan, for the sake of purging and jailing its opponents.

We need not do more than to listen to Erdogan’s own declarations. He openly called that “coup” an opportunity for purging his enemies, and just as soon as he defeated the alleged coup attempt, he had a very long list of thousands of enemies to eliminate.

His forces moved immediately to arrest these folks. For most of them, their only failing was that they don’t blindly follow Erdogan.

Ruling in an ever more totalitarian fashion, Erdogan has taken control over all public institutions – the media and the schools, the courts and the police, the civil bureaucracy and the armed forces.

At least 50,000 people have been arrested and 150,000 purged. His Islamist party, AKP, has used these methods to consolidate control in practically all of the structures of Turkish life.

There’s even a detailed report of the Stockholm Center for Freedom, which found evidence from four days before the ostensible coup that a plan was circulated, with Erdogan’s approval, in the Armed Forces to make it look like there was a coup attempt.

It’s sad that most of the EU press, eager-to-please their governments have become quite lazy about this. They have developed a habit of calling it a “coup attempt,” when they do not in fact know that it was any such thing.

It’s high time to stop being complicit in playing Erdogan´s PR game and start being honest to the public. From all we know for sure, it’s just an alleged coup attempt.

The Erdogan regime, however, is profiting from it enormously, to pseudo-legitimize its totalitarian turn and to conduct purges from top to bottom.

We need not do more than to listen to Erdogan’s own declarations. He openly called that “coup” an opportunity for purging his enemies. Just as soon as he defeated the alleged coup attempt, he had a very long list of thousands of enemies ready to arrest.

His forces moved immediately to arrest these folks. For most of them, their only failing it is that they don’t blindly follow Erdogan.

Erdogan was also immediately ready to organize a mass mobilization against the alleged coup, and to synchronize the mosques for this. These are steps that required lots of advanced preparation.

This has even gone on at an accelerated pace after he won his recent Presidential "bogus" snap election 

Ruling in an ever more totalitarian fashion, Erdogan has taken control over all public institutions – the media and the schools, the courts and the police, the civil bureaucracy and the armed forces.

At least 50,000 people have been arrested and 150,000 purged. His Islamist party, AKP, has used these methods to consolidate control in practically all of the structures of Turkish life.

Previously, Gülen was Erdogan´s most important domestic ally. He led the Islamist religious movement, while Erdogan led the Islamist political party.

Very much with the support of Erdogan’s party, Gülen had built up a state within the state. But then Erdogan decided that, to consolidate his power, the imprint that Gülen left on public life in Turkey needed to be removed completely.

Let´s also remember that the real reason for the fallout between the two was that Gülen´s forces, strongly represented in the body of public prosecutors, were closing in on the massive acts of corruption that Erdogan and his immediate family systematically organized.

It was also only logical that Erdogan demanded the extradition of Gülen and Gülenists from the US, because he is familiar with all of Erdogan's plans and corrupt swindles that have bled the country dry.

Not that the Gülenists are anything but squeaky clean. But Germany, Britain, the United States and many others have all found that Erdogan had produced no convincing evidence to justify his extradition demands.

They want no part of Erdogan´s witch hunt, to the contrary. He is considered vindictive and untrustworthy.

Erdogan responded to this refusal with demagogic attacks on Western countries. Even calling some European countries Nazis, when they were not wiling to have his "disciples" speak to Turkish immigrants in Europe, during his "bogus" referendum campaign, on a new Turkish Constitution.

The EU must definitely not cozy up to the Erdogan regime, just because of Donald Trump's tirades against him, who has been trying to get his Evangelical Pastor back to the US, so he can win the Mid-Term US election.

It has nothing to do about Trump in this particular case, but all about Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Trump and Erdogan might have similar characters, but their issues with the EU are different

Europe must start calling a spade a spade - and make the long term survival extremely difficult for Erdogan, who is not only a ruthless dictator who can not be trusted, but also a danger to the European Union's democracy and security.

EU-Digest