Barack Obama's "friend" in Turkey is a deeply corrupt radical Islamist dictator that has just staged a coup to consolidate his grip on power.  As I have reported previously, 1,845 "journalists, writers and critics" have been arrested for "insulting" President Erdogan over just the past two years, and a couple of years ago he had a monstrous 1,100 room presidential palace built for himself that is 30 times larger than the White House.  With each passing day, more evidence emerges which seems to indicate that the recent "coup" was a staged event meant to enable Erdogan and his allies to eliminate their enemies and solidify their stranglehold over the nation.  At this point the number of victims of "Erdogan's purge" has hit 50,000, but the final number will not be known for quite some time.

Of course there is a possibility that the coup was not staged, but if it wasn't staged it was the worst military coup that I have seen in my entire lifetime.  As Fox News has pointed out, not a single high level member of government was killed or detained…

Among the questions being asked are why coup plotters didn't execute the most basic steps in seizing power, like securing Erdogan and other top officials. Not a single member of his cabinet and inner-circle AKP party leadership was detained. Nor did coup plotters effectively take control of TV, radio and internet outlets. The government TRT station and CNN Turk were for a time occupied by alleged coup plotters, who quickly retreated as the putsch fell apart.

It is being reported that soldiers that took part in the coup claimed "that they thought that they were taking part in military exercises", and those running the "coup" allowed Erdogan's plane to fly across the country without incident.  Here is more from Fox News…

Coup plotters also failed to secure most airports and other transportation hubs, didn't occupy or attack Erdogan's $600 million presidential palace, and failed to intercept his plane before, during or after he flew from one of the country's busiest and most accessible airports back to Istanbul. This despite the supposed active participation of top generals in Turkey's Air Force, which maintains a fleet of F-16 aircraft easily capable of tracking, intercepting or – if it came to it – shooting down Erdogan's plane.

There were opposition soldiers that did occupy Ataturk International Airport for a short time, but they suspiciously left just in time for Erdogan's plane to land.

So much about this supposed "coup" absolutely stinks, and that includes the fact that lists of judges, teaches, soldiers and government officials to be rounded up after the coup appear to have been prepared ahead of time.  This is so obvious that even the EU commissioner in charge of Turkey's membership bid, Johannes Hahn, is commenting on it…

"It looks at least as if something has been prepared. The lists are available, which indicates it was prepared and to be used at a certain stage," Hahn said.

"I'm very concerned. It is exactly what we feared."