Lord of the bridge



This story has nothing to do with July 15 coup attempt in Turkey. Don’t get ideas!  

Under normal circumstances the state would speedily investigate, identify individuals responsible and establish the link that brings them together and declare the guilty. However this time it went somewhat differently thank to the extreme skills of the leaders. The coup attempt was leaked by a Major of the army (who have just been dismissed form the army as his reward) to the intelligence. Then the Intelligence informs the Chief of Staff of the Army say around 16:00-17:00. Since the attempt has been leaked, the plotters decide to move around 9pm instead waiting until around 3 am the next morning. It is Friday night by the way and it is in Istanbul. For those familiar with Istanbul traffic, you don’t want to be out at that time. 

The coup plotters decide that  they should block the bridge (only one direction by the way) connecting two continents as a first step of the coup by sending around 100, mostly conscript soldiers some of whom were told they were going for an exercise! Then off course they did not forget to send couple of tanks and some soldiers to Ataturk airport as well. They must have thought if they make life difficult for the public they will be scared?

Then they thought, they should be taking control of some media! Good thinking. They immediately deploy few dozen soldiers to the public broadcaster and take control forcing an anchorwomen to read out the ultimatum! DONE! Then they also remember that there are many private media too. Hence with great genius, they send six (yes you read it right it is number 6) soldiers to a private TV channel who seemed to take control until they were overpowered by police and arrested in about an hour or so. I watched this part live, it was very scary! 

OH yes! Face time! President of the country who happens to be one of the very few greatest leaders of the time hears that there is a coup attempt from his brother-in-law! If you are asking about the intelligence, I will tell you what they did. After informing the Chief of Staff of the army, the head of Intelligence went out with the head of Religious Affairs Department (maybe they wanted to pray together, we can’t say). We were saying face time right? President learns about the coup attempt and can’t get hold of intelligence or the army. He then decides to call private media via face time and call people to the streets and said I will also join you little later. The lady in the studio asks the million dollar question: who is behind it? In a nutshell he says it is “you know who!". But the lady asks an unintended question and say have you spoken to head of intelligence? NO. Chief of staff? NO. Do you know where they are? NO. But he knew who was doing it. Oh yes, brother-in-law! I am sure coup plotters are thinking “damn you brother-in-law”, we should have gone for you first. 

And while the Chief of Staff remains at his office to continue working, commanders of other arms of the Turkish Armed Forces all go to a wedding where they have been abducted later all meeting at an airbase in Ankara. And despite having been informed by Intelligence a few hour earlier, when Chief of Staff was told of the coup, he told the guy (I mean the General): “are you idiot, what coup are you talking about?” 

Coup plotters try desperately to convince the public that they are serious by flying military jets low and bombing police special force head quarters and the parliament! The Parliament! So let us go back again: The plotters attack these places: The bridge, airport, police, state TV, ONE private TV, parliament. Let me now ask you: If you were planning a coup, what would be your priorities? 

No President, no Prime Minister (who heard about the coup from his FRIENDS by the way!), no ministers, not even a mayor was targeted. I would be dying to ask the coup plotters how on earth they came up with this plan or what went wrong? The only explanation given (by the government) is that since it was leaked and moved to earlier time, things were messed up. SO, 5pm everyone goes home and agree to meet 3am then what? Someone decides that they must act and sends Whatsapp to the group called “peace at home” (official information!) saying: change of plan we go at 21:00 tonight (or let us meet at the bridge or airport whichever is more convenient at 21:00) or something to that effect. 

The change of time messes up the plans to capture/assassinate the President. When time change they rush very fast but somewhat they miss him by about 20 minutes! 

While there are two astray F16 fighter Jets in air, President manages to fly into Istanbul Ataturk airport and addresses the public wowing that these traitors (you know who!) will now see how you actually do a coup! He (and brother-in-law I assume as he is more efficient than the Intelligence) work without sleep whole night and identify approximately 40 000 people involved in the coup ranging from soldiers to teacher and turkish Airlines employees! Then the coup is complete! 

As I said this story is entirely my imagination, how on earth such thing could happen even in some countries where whoever wakes up early runs the country! So please don’t link this to any recent similar incident. You would break my heart by so doing!… 

Good night...



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