Turkey Prediction

[Greg Davidson]

No matter what Obama does, those who have no idea what to do right now will criticize Obama for not doing what they ultimately decide he should have done.

Just heard that Obama came out for the elected government rather than the coup plotters. Therefore, the Republican position will be that the US should have immediately endorsed the military take-over.
 

[cherrypoptart]

It depends on things we may not know right now but Obama might or should.

Why is the military trying to overthrow him?

Is it to restore their secular society as the military did in Egypt?

Is it because Erdrogan is on the side of and actively helping ISIS?

Or is it because Erdrogan isn't Islamist enough for them and they want even more Sharia?

I could make the same prediction for when Trump is in office, that those who politically oppose him will also find fault in everything he does even if they would have supported it had Hillary done the exact same thing.

[TheDeamon]

It depends on things we may not know right now but Obama might or should.

Why is the military trying to overthrow him?

Is it to restore their secular society as the military did in Egypt?

Historically, that has been the role that the Turkish Military has performed over the past many decades, and there have been op-eds I can recall which probably predate Obama becoming President saying Erdrogan needed to be deposed, and worrying over his removal of many high profile (secular) generals in favor of other generals they insinuated as being more Islamic in their outlook.

Considering it's now well over half-a-decade later, and the "Arab Spring" that has come and gone, complete with a military coup in Egypt(which would have encouraged Erdrogan to further defang the top Generals who'd oppose him on secular grounds). I guess a lot of this comes down to how successful Erdrogan was in trying to desecularize the Turkish Military leadership. So only time will tell one way or another as to what is going on.

[Pete at Home]

No matter what Obama does, those who have no idea what to do right now will criticize Obama for not doing what they ultimately decide he should have done.

Just heard that Obama came out for the elected government rather than the coup plotters. Therefore, the Republican position will be that the US should have immediately endorsed the military take-over.

don't play games.  You're not a prophet but a post-it.  fox news argued for endorsing the military hours before Obama came out and endorsed the Islamist bastard who right now has more journalists in prison than the People's Republic of China. Nice company you keep, there.
btw, I also approve of the military conspiracy to kill the "democratically elected" adolf hitler.

doesn't matter how he was elected.  when he violates the constitution he swore to protect, to take on powers that he was never elected to take, it's been the traditional role of the Turkish military to take the tyrant out, and then turn the government back to the people.

[TheDeamon]

Speaking of the Hitler-esque parallels, I actually wouldn't be surprised to discover at some point in the likely far distant future, that Erodrogan's "people" were actually the ones who staged the failed coup to give them a "political optics opportunity" to further solidify their power base.

False flag attack? Nah, those never happen. Particularly if they actually do believe they were in looming peril of coming under the real thing. Now that this (false flag) coup has been attempted, he now has cover to pursue "aggressive reforms" and "in depth investigations" to the largely independent Turkish Military to help ensure such a thing doesn't happen again to the democratically elected government of Turkey, of course.

[Pete at Home]

I think it was a real military coup because of the way they let themse4lves get arrested by unarmed civillians rather than just running them down with tanks.  Historically the turkish military has, nearly ever 10 years, exercised a coup to kick out an islamist dictator, then turned power back to the people in the next election.  What makes the difference between the turkish and egyptian military coups is that they save human rights that were diminishing under the previous leadership.

Obama should have minded his own bloody business and said nothing.  We dont want to come out as supporting military coups, but we dont want to support islamist tyrants who jail journalists and focus their efforts on destroying ISIS' foes.

[Pete at Home]

Obama's craven posturing has given the turkish tyrant the courage to threaten america thus:

Erdoğan demanded that Obama arrest or deport an exiled cleric, Fethullah Gülen, from his home in Pennsylvania. Secretary of state John Kerry said the US would consider extradition but required evidence of the imam’s wrongdoing

This demand that we assist egodan's suppression of free speech, is backed by a threat of war.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2016/jul/15/turkey-coup-attempt-military-gunfire-ankara

[Greg Davidson]

I missed the craven posturing part. 

Turkey (as with a lot of countries) helped the US with a lot of no-questions-asked extraditions during the Bush Administration.

However, this case is tricky because the guy in Pennsylvania came out against the coup, and is reputed to have pro-democracy views.  Unfortunately, that makes the situation unclear - it's possible he's lying and a bad guy, but not involved in this coup - is the request of Erdogan enough to run him over?

[Pete at Home]

I missed the craven posturing part. 

Turkey (as with a lot of countries) helped the US with a lot of no-questions-asked extraditions during the Bush Administration.

He also sabotage the invasion of Iraq. causing a delay of days which led to, among other things, the captures, tortures and rapes among Jessica Lynch's platoon.

I'm horrified that you'd even put his extradition on the table, with no bleeding evidence that he's done anything wrong. 

If Ergovan extradited people who were legally in his country, over to us, without any proof of wrongdoing, well shame on him.  I'm dismayed that you'd consider making the US legal system into Ergovan's Islamist bitch.

[Greg Davidson]

Wow, I guess you don't like Ergovan. Not my favorite guy either.

But you do remember that the Iraq invasion was stupid and destructive, and many of our allies were telling us to believe the UN inspectors who were correctly saying that Iraq did not have an active program in weapons of mass destruction?

So "sabotage" may be a strong term for not letting the US move tanks through Turkey to start a dumb war that was going to do more harm than good.

[Pete at Home]

Wow, I guess you don't like Ergovan. Not my favorite guy either.

But you do remember that the Iraq invasion was stupid and destructive

Sure.  That's a good reason to say no, ahead of time. 

So "sabotage" may be a strong term for not letting the US move tanks through Turkey

Come again? Is sabotage yet another word that should be subject to political tweakery? Sabotage is sabotage.  Americans and our allies sabotaged Hitler's works in WW2; sherman sabotaged Southern railroads. 

He did nothing to prevent the war from happening in the first place, but sabotaged us once it started, screwing our troops over at the last minute when lives are at stake.  Whether the war was a good one or a bad one makes no difference to whether what he did was sabotage.

Remember, I was responding to your argument that we should turn over an innocent cleric on Ergovan's say-so because he would have done so with us.
 
Ergovan's an Islamist brute, a murderer, and destroyer of civil liberties and free press.  and right now, Obama's got his head in his ass and pretending that everything's OK when Ergovan's just shut power off at a US air base, and put it under seige, all while telling us we need to turn over a US resident cleric with no history of criminal wrongdoing, or else we are at "war."

to start a dumb war that was going to do more harm than good.

even though I fully agree with you that the war did more harm than good, The war was already started at that point, and to sabotage the US transport at that point in the game did more harm than good.  If Turkey had told us when we were making war rumblings, that if we do this, we should not count on using their roads or airspace, that would be the consciencious voice of a good friend. To do so after troops were already deployed was death-dealing sabotage and treachery to an old friend.

[Pete at Home]

More from this Ergovan--

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36817980

some 2,700 judges sacked as the government re-asserts power.

Pray tell what did twenty-seven hundred JUDGES have to do with that attempted coup?

doesn't it seem more likely that Ergovan's just using this as a pretext to kill anyone with independent thought and fill positions with his dittoheads?

What sort of joke would we be if we turned over that Pensylvania cleric without a protest?

and if he won't let us evacuate our base, let's not declare war until we first kill the bastard and open his political prisons.

[DJQuag]

Greg

Which do you value more? Secular society, government, and free speech, or unbridled democracy?

Because the Turkish President in no way stands for the latter. He's basically pulled a Putin. When he was PM, the PM had all of the power. When he is President, the President has all of the power.

As others have said, it's hard to say whether the coup should have been supported without knowing if it wanted to return the government to a secular one and tweak the Constitution to stop this happening again. But if they did, I think it's a shame that they lost.

How far along would Christian Dominionists have to get in this country, what parts of the Constitution could they ignore or change, before you supported a secular coup?

Obama and European leaders might have to play realpolitik. We're just guys on a message board. We don't.

[Pete at Home]

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security

This is the role that the Turkish military has played at least five times in the last 90 years, throwing out a dictator and restoring a secular democracy.  They failed this time for no other reason (watch the fragging videos if you don't believe me) because they were unwilling to run over the unarmed civilians that mobbed them.  Even knowing that those civilians were dragging them to their deaths, they stopped, gave up their weapons, and let themselves be dragged off.

[Pete at Home]

Joy to the world!  Secretary Kerry has found himself some balls!

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36818401

The US has warned Turkey against "public insinuations" of American involvement in a failed military coup, saying such claims are "utterly false and harmful" to their relations.
US Secretary of State John Kerry was speaking after Turkey's labour minister suggested the US was behind the coup.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called on the US to extradite US-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen.
Mr Erdogan has accused him of being behind the plot, which Mr Gulen denies.
Mr Gulen, speaking from his home in Pennsylvania, denied the claims and said "as someone who suffered under multiple military coups during the past five decades, it is especially insulting to be accused of having any link to such an attempt".

Now here's Erdogan's claim, which Greg, to his shame, repeated here uncritically--

President Erdogan told the US - a Nato ally - that it had never refused a US extradition request for "terrorists"  "If we are strategic partners," he said in a televised speech on Saturday, "then you should bring about our request".

That presupposes that Gullen is a terrorist.

Mr Kerry, speaking in Luxembourg, said the US fully anticipates "there will be questions raised about Mr Gulen".
He said Turkey should "present us with any legitimate evidence that withstands scrutiny. And the United States will accept that and look at it and make judgments about it appropriately".

So back to Greg D's initial prediction--

No matter what Obama does, those who have no idea what to do right now will criticize Obama for not doing what they ultimately decide he should have done.

While I recognize this as a general lamentable tendency among the GOP, I think that Greg is horribly and immorally wrong as to this application. I predict that IF Obama tells Turkey's dictator to go stuff himself (pun inevitable) over Gullen, that the GOP, far from disagreeing, will only say that Obama was too polite about it.

[Greg Davidson]

I think that all of you are reading far more in to my words than is actually in them.  When the leader of an allied country requests an extradition, I do believe that we have a need to consider that request. The answer might be no, but the US probably shouldn't say no until they have checked out the claim of the ally.

When makes no sense to me is how Pete could read me writing

this case is tricky because the guy in Pennsylvania came out against the coup, and is reputed to have pro-democracy views.  Unfortunately, that makes the situation unclear - it's possible he's lying and a bad guy, but not involved in this coup

and then he respond

Now here's Erdogan's claim, which Greg, to his shame, repeated here uncritically

 

So I noted the positives about the guy (against coup, reputed to be pro-democracy), and even noted an additional situation where he made have some more extreme views but was not specifically guilty of what Erdogan claimed he was. 

[Greg Davidson]

DJQuag,

Was the coup right or wrong? I do think that we should weigh the opinions of virtually every political party in Turkey, on the right and on the left, they all came out against the coup while it was in progress (and Erdogan was outside of the country and looked to be losing). 

And I think it is noteworthy that the population at the urban centers (Istanbul and Ankara) came out into the streets in defense of Erdogan and the democratically elected government - in general, the urban centers are where opposition to Erdogan is strongest.  While it is theoretically possible this was all staged, I think it is unlikely that you could have that many people involved in a pre-planned activity without someone spilling the secret. 

I think that Erdogan is not a good ruler, there is more than a bit of Putin in him, he is suppressing the press, and it looks like he is using the coup to retaliate against perceived opponents, including those who had nothing to do with the coup.  But he also was democractially elected and appears to have popular support, and we have overlapping areas of interest, such as Russia/Crimea/Ukraine, the Caucuses, Syria/Iraq, Iran, etc., which makes this a challenging case for US foreign policy.   

 

[Greg Davidson]

Another complication - it does seem like the coup plotters are based primarily in the Turkish Air Force, which does have closer ties to the US than the other branches of the turkish military. I am not saying that there was any US involvement, but for a paranoid leader like Erdogan, that has got to be suspicious.

I think it is in messy, ambiguous foreign policy situations like this that Trump's ignorance and bluster might be most likely to cause unecessary damage.  Some of you have even greater concern than I do about ISIS or Iran - the degree to which we can employ appropriate diplomatic actions with regard to Turkey will affect those other areas.

[DJQuag]

All due respect, Greg, but I'm not sure that I saw an answer to this question.

"Which do you value more? Secular society, government, and free speech, or unbridled democracy?"

It's the former for me, and it's not even a hard question. Democracy without limits is one of the more terrifying forms of government, and it's why things like the Constitutional amendments are so important.

If - IF - this coup was trying to return Turkey to it's secular, Ataturk inspired roots, then I have no problem saying that it's defeat was something to lament, democratic government or not.

Haven't we had enough of playing buddies with the enemy of our enemy, not because they're better, but because they slaughter people that we don't care about or dislike?

[Greg Davidson]

"Which do you value more? Secular society, government, and free speech, or unbridled democracy?"

Not sure we ever get a set of choices that clean. Even the US is not a fully secular society/government or an unbridled democracy.  I prefer modern, liberal, secular societies but I would not discard the value of democratic legitimacy.

If those who take power by force have the purest of motives, then things might actually work out, but even in that case they might erode the foundations of democratic legitimacy giving encouragement to the next coup which may not be so nobly intentioned.  For this coup, how can we tell if it was purely motivated by a desire to shift the needle in a secular direction, or if it was a way to improve the prospects key individuals or factions?

Democracy can have terrible outcomes - Milosevic and other tyrants came to power through the actions of voters.  But suppressing democracy can also have terrible outcomes - US efforts to support the coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of Iran in 1953 have not worked out too well for us over the past 63 years. 

[Pete at Home]

"Which do you value more? Secular society, government, and free speech, or unbridled democracy?"

Not sure we ever get a set of choices that clean. Even the US is not a fully secular society/government or an unbridled democracy.  I prefer modern, liberal, secular societies but I would not discard the value of democratic legitimacy.

I don't think we discarded that value when it came to making war on Adolf Hitler.  We simply weighed that value against other values and necessities. 

"If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons."

-Winston Churchill

[Pete at Home]

Check this out, Greg. Ergovan's introducing ex post facto executions. The death penalty is against the law in Turkey, and Ergovan now threatens to reintroduce it and apply it for actions and supposed actions (e.g. 2900 judges that he just arrested) already committed.

http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2016/07/18/475710/Turkey-Erdogan-death-penalty-reintroduction

[TheDeamon]

"Which do you value more? Secular society, government, and free speech, or unbridled democracy?"

Not sure we ever get a set of choices that clean. Even the US is not a fully secular society/government or an unbridled democracy.  I prefer modern, liberal, secular societies but I would not discard the value of democratic legitimacy.

I don't think we discarded that value when it came to making war on Adolf Hitler.  We simply weighed that value against other values and necessities.

Lend-lease aside, it was Germany that declared war on the United States, not the other way around.

As to unbridled democracy, I agree with many of the Founding Fathers in saying "Please, no!" Democracy is great and all, but in many respects, a person could call an angry mob a "democratic process" in many respects. The U.S. and most "first world" nations realize this as well, or they wouldn't take measures to protect minorities from the majority within their own borders.

Which is part of what's so odd about many "unbridled democracy" advocates also trending towards being social justice advocates as well. They do not understand what they're advocating.

[Pete at Home]

"Which do you value more? Secular society, government, and free speech, or unbridled democracy?"

Not sure we ever get a set of choices that clean. Even the US is not a fully secular society/government or an unbridled democracy.  I prefer modern, liberal, secular societies but I would not discard the value of democratic legitimacy.

I don't think we discarded that value when it came to making war on Adolf Hitler.  We simply weighed that value against other values and necessities.

Lend-lease aside, it was Germany that declared war on the United States, not the other way around.

Quite true.  But there were several points in the war that we could have made peace, and saved tens of thousands of lives at the cost of leaving a "democratically elected" Hitler in power.  I shall rephrase:

"I don't think we discarded that value when it came to refusing to make peace without an unconditional surrender.  We simply weighed that value against other values and necessities."

Would you agree with that?  You clearly understand the military considerations better than I do.  I note we compromised on unconditional surrender with the Japanese, but not with the Germans, even though as a nation we had been stung far worse by the Japanese than by the Germans.

[DJQuag]

Is my memory wrong in that we told Japan to unconditionally surrender, they said no, and we then dropped nukes on them in response? After which they unconditionally surrendered?

[TheDeamon]

Is my memory wrong in that we told Japan to unconditionally surrender, they said no, and we then dropped nukes on them in response? After which they unconditionally surrendered?

That was my understanding, Japan gave an unconditional surrender. We may have "played nice" with some post-war considerations(like keeping the Emporer, but that probably a political convenience call, easier to keep the population pacified if we have him in our pocket rather than theirs), but we were under no treaty obligation to do so.

[Pete at Home]

Is my memory wrong in that we told Japan to unconditionally surrender, they said no, and we then dropped nukes on them in response? After which they unconditionally surrendered?

I started to say;

Your memory is probably right since I was told that as well, but we were lied to.  We accepted Japan's surrender with conditions.  not a lot of conditions, but conditions nonetheless.

But then I realized I was assuming that certain documentaries I had seen had painted everything accurately, so I looked up the instruments of surrender myself, and it turns out that ...

you are right.,  Japanese did surrender unconditionally.  We simply dealt with them more gently than we did Germany, and post-surrender agreements gave some people, including myself, the erroneous impression of a conditional surrender. Thank you for correcting my error.

[Fenring]

Is my memory wrong in that we told Japan to unconditionally surrender, they said no, and we then dropped nukes on them in response? After which they unconditionally surrendered?

That was my understanding, Japan gave an unconditional surrender. We may have "played nice" with some post-war considerations(like keeping the Emporer, but that probably a political convenience call, easier to keep the population pacified if we have him in our pocket rather than theirs), but we were under no treaty obligation to do so.

Yeah. If anything playing nice is exactly the opposite of what was done with the Japanese, where they were nuked as a warning to Russia. Germany did not enjoy that privilege.

[Pete at Home]

Is my memory wrong in that we told Japan to unconditionally surrender, they said no, and we then dropped nukes on them in response? After which they unconditionally surrendered?

That was my understanding, Japan gave an unconditional surrender. We may have "played nice" with some post-war considerations(like keeping the Emporer, but that probably a political convenience call, easier to keep the population pacified if we have him in our pocket rather than theirs), but we were under no treaty obligation to do so.

Yeah. If anything playing nice is exactly the opposite of what was done with the Japanese, where they were nuked as a warning to Russia. Germany did not enjoy that privilege.

I'm surprised you didn't realize that deamon's term "playing nice" referred to terms of terms of surrender, not to terms of war.  The Germans murdered only 1% of US POWs while Japan murdered at least 25%, and yet we put very few of them to death for war crimes, compared to the Germans. The Japanese had a kill order upon surrender issued for its POW camps that was carried out in Borneo and would have been carried out elsewhere if we'd accepted a conditional surrender.

Furthermore, Hiroshima and Nagasaki was "Playing nice" compared to the sort of casualties were reasonably anticipated from a full invasion of Japan by mixed US and Soviet forces. Not a single Japanese person was left alive in any of the areas occupied by the Soviets.

Finally, the US behavior to Japan, post-occupation, demonstrates a remarkable absence of the malice you seem intent on inferring. 

With the exception of questionable execution of Hideki Tojo, I think the US behaved itself with unparalleled mercy in Japan.

[Fenring]

I'm surprised you didn't realize that deamon's term "playing nice" referred to terms of terms of surrender, not to terms of war. 

I was referencing the term he used to make my own point; I was not directly addressing his comment.

And yes, I've heard all the arguments about why the nuke was used, and read articles about which were really plausible. I think the chances that the nuke were entirely about mercy and not about scaring the s**t out of Russia are remote at best.

[Pete at Home]

I'm surprised you didn't realize that deamon's term "playing nice" referred to terms of terms of surrender, not to terms of war. 

I was referencing the term he used to make my own point; I was not directly addressing his comment.

And yes, I've heard all the arguments about why the nuke was used, and read articles about which were really plausible. I think the chances that the nuke were entirely about mercy and not about scaring the s**t out of Russia are remote at best.

You should study the matter more. Stalin was specifically begging the US to use the bombs.  He wanted to see them demonstrated.  He approached an embassador at an England meeting urging the US to deploy the bombs on Japan.  So your narrative about "scaring" russia is absurd.

Russia's advance left no Japanese alive, and the US advance captured very few.  Even civillians were killing themselves rather than surrender.  The abombs bombs saved lives.

Donald L. Miller, citing Knox Burger, stated that there were "at least 100,000" Japanese deaths and "about one million" injured. The Operation Meetinghouse firebombing of Tokyo on the night of 9 March 1945 was the single deadliest air raid of World War II, greater than Dresden, Hiroshima, or Nagasaki as single events.

but Japan was willing to fight to the death until the a-bombs dropped. Single plane, city gone.  It worked, and backseat drivers can gnash their teeth and speculate vaguely, but I have yet to hear anyone offer a path to peace that would have saved more lives.

Scaring the Russians is an ignorant fiction.  Stalin had expressed his joy that such a weapon was possible.  He made clear to the allies that he wanted to see it.  Even blew his intelligence secrecy by letting them know he knew they had it.

[TheDeamon]

Yeah. If anything playing nice is exactly the opposite of what was done with the Japanese, where they were nuked as a warning to Russia. Germany did not enjoy that privilege.

There were a few things that worked to Germany's advantage in regards to their not getting nuked in WW2.

1) There were no nukes available as of when Germany surrendered. (After we dropped the second A-bomb on Japan our nuclear weapon arsenal count was 0 bombs available. IIRC, the next bomb was expected to be ready in a couple weeks.)

2) The situation and nature of fighting going on in Germany was different in many respects to what was being encountered against Japan. Even if they could have brought a nuke into the European front(which as already mentioned, was a non-factor), they weren't looking at anything close to the casualty forecasts, for any involved party, that they were looking at in regards to Japan.

3) While not much of a concern at the time, fallout still was a minor consideration. In Japan, it would mostly go out to sea.

[NobleHunter]

I hadn't heard about Stalin requesting the bombs be used.

As I recall, the Japanese were offering surrender on terms similar to what the US eventually imposed before the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The US still held out for unconditional surrender, I guess in case they wanted to depose the Emperor or something.

A lot of the demilitarization of Japan was reversed during the Korean War, too, with key individuals from the WW2 administration being allowed back into power.

[Pete at Home]

I hadn't heard about Stalin requesting the bombs be used.

It was at the conference in London after German's surrender.  The implication was that either they had really good spies, or Churchill had slipped word to Stalin, which I doubt. The documentary involved a first person interview of the ambassador that Stalin had spoken to.  It was a bit chilling.

As I recall, the Japanese were offering surrender on terms similar to what the US eventually imposed before the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The US still held out for unconditional surrender, I guess in case they wanted to depose the Emperor or something.

If they wanted to depose the emperor, they would have.  What they wanted to do, is to decide what to do about war crimes and the reorganization of Japan once they had the information on the ground.  and that's what they did.  a conditional surrender would have tied hands so that pows could have been exterminated without recourse.

A lot of the demilitarization of Japan was reversed during the Korean War, too, with key individuals from the WW2 administration being allowed back into power.

so what?  It worked.  Japan's one of our best success stories.  It's unlikely that we would have accomplished that with a conditional surrender.  Our brief and quite benign occupation term, and execution of a few of the worst war criminals, was necessary to help Japan become the free state that it is.  Not a duplicate of America by any means, but free to make its own decisions without the coercion of the previous brainwashing regime.

[Fenring]

Pete, I did a bit of checking on Stalin being tipped off about the nuke. I'd never heard about that so thanks. However, after checking a little I'm not sure if the situation was what you thought it was. Here are some direct statements from the players involved at that time:

President Truman's version:

On July 24 I casually mentioned to Stalin that we had a new weapon of unusual destructive force. The Russian Premier showed no special interest. All he said was he was glad to hear it and hoped we would make “good use of it against the Japanese.”

Harry S. Truman, Year of Decisions (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1955) p. 416.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s version:

I was perhaps five yards away, and I watched with the closest attention the momentous talk. I knew what the President was going to do. What was vital to measure was its effect on Stalin. I can see it all as if it were yesterday. He seemed to be delighted. A new bomb! Of extraordinary power! Probably decisive on the whole Japanese war! What a bit of luck! This was my impression at the moment, and I was sure that he had no idea of the significance of what he was being told. Evidently in his immense toils and stresses the atomic bomb had played no part. If he had the slightest idea of the revolution in world affairs which was in progress his reactions would have been obvious. Nothing would have been easier than for him to say, “Thank you so much for telling me about your new bomb. I of course have no technical knowledge. May I send my expert in these nuclear sciences to see your expert tomorrow morning?” But his face remained gay and genial and the talk between these two potentates soon came to an end. As we were waiting for our cars I found myself near Truman. “How did it go?” I asked. “He never asked a question,” he replied. I was certain therefore that at that date Stalin had no special knowledge of the vast process of research upon which the United States and Britain had been engaged for so long...

Winston Churchill, Triumph and Tragedy (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1953) pp 669-70.

So no, Churchill didn't tell Stalin, and it wasn't spies. The secrecy in the Manhattan project was completely successful, both within America and without. While Stalin did say he was happy for any weapon the Americans had to be used against Japan, we should not conclude from this that deploying those weapons was done at his behest and that he was happy to know the Americans had such weapons. On the contrary, he was happy for Japan to be beaten but perhaps not at all happy for what would come next.

Here's a statement made by a Russian official which paints an interesting picture on that score:

Soviet Marshal Georgii Zhukov’s version:

I do not recall the exact date, but after the close of one of the formal meetings Truman informed Stalin that the United States now possessed a bomb of exceptional power, without, however, naming it the atomic bomb.

As was later written abroad, at that moment Churchill fixed his gaze on Stalin’s face, closely observing his reaction. However, Stalin did not betray his feelings and pretended that he saw nothing special in what Truman had imparted to him. Both Churchill and many other Anglo-American authors subsequently assumed that Stalin had really failed to fathom the significance of what he had heard.

In actual fact, on returning to his quarters after this meeting Stalin, in my presence, told Molotov about his conversation with Truman. The latter reacted almost immediately. “Let them. We’ll have to talk it over with Kurchatov and get him to speed things up.”

I realized that they were talking about research on the atomic bomb.

It was clear already then that the US Government intended to use the atomic weapon for the purpose of achieving its Imperialist goals from a position of strength in “the cold war.” This was amply corroborated on August 6 and 8. Without any military need whatsoever, the Americans dropped two atomic bombs on the peaceful and densely-populated Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Georgii Konstantinovich Zhukov, The Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov (New York: Delacorte Press, 1971) pp. 674-675.

From this it's clear that the Soviets did take the tipoff as carrying an implicit threat against them, whether or not the threat was directly intended. They immediately saw the bomb as being a problem for them, not a boon. But until the bomb was implemented in practice that threat would never materialize into a solid ground for concern, hence why the actual detonations were needed to cement that the Russians had something to be scared of.

From what I've read the actual bombing destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were NOT the armageddon-type final disaster that single-handedly made the Japanese surrender. Here's an interesting article on the subject:

http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/

The article describes in detail how much destruction had been rained upon Japanese cities even prior to the bomb, and in terms of pure destruction or casualties the nukes weren't the worst of it. Even without the nukes the Americans could have done that kind of damage through conventional bombardment if they felt like it, so I still believe that putting the Russians in their place was a primary reason for the nukes to be deployed.

[Pete at Home]

It wasnt the level of destruction that made Japan surrender. It was the fact of one plane one bomb one city.'

Interesting that it was truman.  I just got the story from the embassador, who was shocked to have ... Comerad Molotov, iirc, jog his elbow and say that comerad Stalin was eager to see our new weapon deployed.