In a recent Huffington Post article Turkish-American journalist Hasan Piker explained Turkey’s failed July 15 coup d’état to American readers. Piker offered a fairly uncontroversial account of events, but his analysis of the role of the Turkish military in the country’s history was extraordinary:

[B]efore we talk about why the coup happened, let me tell you a little bit about Turkey’s military culture. Turkey has a unique military tradition dating back centuries to when the area was ruled by nomadic central Asian Turkic tribes. The military is a source of great national pride, and all able-bodied men over 18 are required to serve.

The military also plays an important role in the nation’s government by providing an additional layer of checks and balances. In the past 40 years the military has staged four successful coups, all of which resulted in the prompt turnover of power to elected civilian governments. Because of this, coup d’etats in Turkey are unlike coups in any other country, in the sense that they’re usually welcomed by the people. The military protects the citizens from oppression, and has repeatedly intervened to preserve the secularist values of the nation’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

The analysis winds up with the claim that “the Turkish military has long been a bastion of secularism and a source of national pride — and rightly so.”