I don't know what to think. This is Zero Hedge, but I don't see it as out of the realm of possibility. Whether or not it was staged as an excuse for a purge, or is it was taken advantage of for the purposes of a purge, the result might be the same. Not good. The markets are ambivalent, though.
My guess is that he's not brazen enough to stage a coup, but that he probably found out that one was in the works and he let it happen (in a semi-controlled way), knowing what the end result would be. We don't need to look a lot further than the fact that no government officials were arrested by the military (which is, like, thing 0 you do if you're trying to overthrow a government) as evidence that some very high up people were complicit or at least wise to what was happening. Roger Cohen think it was ineptitude, but this seems bigger than pure ineptitude. I'm not normally given to wild eyed theories, but this has so many things that went wrong in just the right way that it seems like more than coincidence.
I've thought about this a little bit in the last day, and I'm afraid you're correct. If the coup was organic, or even if it wasn't, the entire cadre of conspirators could only number in the tens, not hundreds or thousands, and certainly not tens of thousands. The whole point of a conspiracy is to keep it a secret. That doesn't happen when ten or twenty thousand people are co-conspirators. Yet here we are with that many people being rounded up and jailed. Maybe Turkey is going to make a pivot toward Russia? I think I read they already kind of shut down Incerlik, right?
I read that too but couldn't believe it. I think the power was briefly cut off, activating backup generators. Apparently one or more jets involved in the coup refueled at the base. By Sunday operations were restored and a commander was arrested and replaced. "Secretary of State John Kerry said U.S. operations against Islamic State won’t be interrupted because of the events in Turkey." http://www.wsj.com/articles/turkey-arrests-incirlik-air-base-commander-1468760920I think I read they already kind of shut down Incerlik, right?