From the start, it was obvious that this wasn’t like the coups of the past. For one thing, coups are supposed to begin on Saturday, in the dead of night, and there are good, pragmatic reasons for this, as Friday’s coup plotters learned in their failure. Why did they try to stage it so early, with the nation still awake? This is only one of many questions to which we may not know the answer for a very long time, if ever.
Most importantly, unlike past coups, this attempt was extremely bloody and pointlessly violent. It was also poorly planned. Why did the putschists imagine that bombing the parliament in Ankara and blocking bridges in Istanbul would overthrow Erdoğan—particularly given that he was in neither city, but in Marmaris? Why did the plotters demonstrate such abnormal cruelty and disrespect to their commanding officers? According to a statement from the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), the putschists tried to force Chief of General Staff Hulusi Akar to read their manifesto out loud. Akar, “with rage, certainty, and statements of insults,” refused, even when they put a gun to his head and strangled him with a belt. He was taken to Akıncılar Air Base in Ankara and kept without food and water. This is not how you expect the military to treat its own.
