Look, the military interventions are far from ideal, but if I had a choice between a country with a military that steps in lightly when my country's secular ideals are threatened, and a country ruled by a strict authoritarian religious monoparty that strives to weaken democratic establishments, I know which one I'd choose.
As an outsider it seems to me like a choice^ between military backed Nationalism and Theocracy.
If one side uses god as their method of maintaining power and the other uses the army then neither can claim to be representing democracy, at least as a method of acquiring and maintaining political power.
Outside of a basic democratic paradigm, I'm not sure what choice really means. But, even inside modern democracies the concept slightly theoretical.
And yes, each one of these was a big setback for democracy. It was not my claim that military coups are good for democracy.
But which would you rather have, a big setback and then a chance to rebuild a democracy, or a takeover by a party bent on eliminating democracy and the multiparty system, and turning the country into a permanent, hereditary, sham "democracy" in the style of Syria?
Well there are some situations where you can't just choose between 2 options and hope everything will go on track once you make that choice. Otherwise the history will keep repeating itself - an intervention will be an 'aspirin cure' only, which will probably result with deeper consequences in the near future.
The military interventions are the primary reason for political Islam to have such an influence over the Turkish society.