Is This What Would Happen Here? Erdogan Now Targeting 50,000 Dissidents in Turkey Following Failed Coup

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and his loyal government are going on a hunting mission. They are rounding up and detaining anyone anywhere across the country that they deem loyal to U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen following the recent failed coup attempt.

The Turkish government is blaming Gulen for the uprising and has vowed to ask the U.S. government to extradite him back to Turkey. Gulen claims he would abide by such an order but that he had nothing to do with it, saying Erdogan staged the coup himself in order to crackdown on his own military and judiciary.

While initial reports said Erdogan had detained 6,000 people, the number just keeps getting bigger as the Turkish government goes after more and more people.

Reuters and others are now reporting that some 50,000 people have been suspended or detained following the recent failed coup attempt, and it isn’t just soldiers. It’s police, judges, civil servants. The licenses of some 21,000 private teachers just got canceled, and thousands of deans were just fired. Any journalists not completely under Erdogan’s control, you name it. What’s happening in Turkey right now isn’t just a counter coup but a full-on witch hunt.

Other world leaders have warned Erdogan not to use this coup, which it has been suggested by many in alt media circles over the past couple of days was staged from the onset as well, as not just a means of consolidating more power but as a “blank check” or “carte blanche to do whatever he [Erdogan] wants,” such as imprisoning anyone even remotely critical of the Turkish president.

But that’s exactly what he appears to be doing.

Amid pictures of half naked detainees being splashed across the media like this one above, Erdogan vowed to “clean the virus” of coup plotters from his government. His prime minister Binali Yildirim said, “This parallel terrorist organisation” (in reference to Gulen’s followers) “will no longer be an effective pawn for any country,” and, “We will dig them up by their roots”.

Historically, this is what happens in every country were coups go down. Successful or not, coups are used to round up and violently purge dissidents. This failed coup is now Erdogan’s opportunity to double down, to hold on to power until the bitter end.

Some “democracy” Turkey has. Back in March, as a group of about 50 academics and activists were being rounded up, Erdogan gave a speech in which he literally said the concepts of democracy and freedom have “absolutely no value” in his country any longer, and he vowed to extend the legal definition of terrorist, calling for more politicians, lawyers, journalists, and activists to be tried for terrorism.

Now imagine what would happen here if a large group within our military hypothetically decided to rise up against or attempt to overthrow, say, the tyrannical government of the United States. Anyone involved would likely be rounded up as declared “terrorists” in the same fashion as what Turkey is doing now. But where would it end?

Would it end with the people directly responsible? Or would it be used as another blank check to round up anyone critical of the tyrannical government? Kinda makes you rethink how the mainstream establishment media would interpret what’s on your Facebook wall, doesn’t it?