Greetings, and welcome to the World Affairs Board!
The World Affairs Board is the premier forum for the discussion of the pressing geopolitical issues of our time. Topics include military and defense developments, international terrorism, insurgency & COIN doctrine, international security and policing, weapons proliferation, and military technological development.
Our membership includes many from military, defense, academic, and government backgrounds with expert knowledge on a wide range of topics. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so why not register a World Affairs Board account and join our community today?
That's going to happen regardless. The first thing is going to happen is he's going to lose control. He gutted his institutions. Crime is going to skyrocket and he doesn't have enough police to calm things down. That means calling out the army ... giving the remaining officers with exactly the positions they need to take their shot.
Hell, the Kurds would now escalate. The army is gutted and in disarray.
hm, the purge is getting to the extent that there will certainly be a political backlash to all this. wondering what the end-game is here.
Don't see the backlash. Nothing will occur internationally and beating back a coup makes Erdogan more popular at home. Losing a bet and doubling up to make back your losses is the Martingale System.
you possibly can not imagine how accurate this is.
they are meticulously selecting bright younglings, take them, support them in anyway necessary which includes stealing the questions of important entry exams of lets say military high schools or universities.
they create they own generations. i know this first hand.they tried to convince me too... they are incredibly patient (like 20 or more years).
they sad thing is nobody listened the warnings made by many people years ago...
Turkish media announced that:
15,200 teachers and other education staff had been sacked
1,577 university deans were ordered to resign
8,777 interior ministry workers were dismissed
1,500 staff in the finance ministry had been fired
257 people working in the prime minister's office were sacked
Turkey's media regulation body on Tuesday also revoked the licences of 24 radio and TV channels accused of links to Mr Gulen.
The news came on top of the arrests of more than 6,000 military personal and the sackings of nearly 9,000 police officers. About 3,000 judges have also been suspended.
there are two sides,
one is that you are right, they will likely use this to eliminate ALL opposition.
secondly gulen move is far more dangerous than you might expect. as i tried to explain in a few words above. they inflitrate slowly everywhere. they start right after the elementary school and "guide" younglings to the critical positions in order to use them as "sleeper cells" once the time is right.
so even if i dont like erdogan, this purge might not be that bad.
Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy rather in power than use; and keep thy friend under thine own life's key; be checked for silence, but never taxed for speech.
not at all. If Kemalists would go out believing the rebels (which they tried to do) it would be a civil war.
gulen does not influence any charm among Kemalists. he was there BEFORE erdogan.
you possibly can not imagine how accurate this is.
they are meticulously selecting bright younglings, take them, support them in anyway necessary which includes stealing the questions of important entry exams of lets say military high schools or universities.
they create they own generations. i know this first hand.they tried to convince me too... they are incredibly patient (like 20 or more years).
they sad thing is nobody listened the warnings made by many people years ago...
there are two sides,
one is that you are right, they will likely use this to eliminate ALL opposition.
secondly gulen move is far more dangerous than you might expect. as i tried to explain in a few words above. they inflitrate slowly everywhere. they start right after the elementary school and "guide" younglings to the critical positions in order to use them as "sleeper cells" once the time is right.
so even if i dont like erdogan, this purge might not be that bad.
Sir, you're there, I'm not. You know far more than me. My impression from afar looking at the numbers involved though is this is a blanket "get rid of all my opponents", not just Gulenists. Is that not near the case you're saying? What proportion of the expulsions are Gulenists in your estimation?
And if they recruited you and you declined, they would know you're not "with them".
Top Turkish commander’s aide admits allegiance to Gülenists
Mesut Hasan Benli – ANKARA
Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar’s aide, Infantry Lt. Col. Levent Türkkan, has revealed in testimony his allegiance to the suspected group behind the July 15 failed coup attempt, detailing how his involvement with the movement began and admitting that the group bugged Turkey’s top commanders.
“I am a son of a poor family. My dad was a very poor farmer. We did not have any fields, private gardens. I first met with the Fethullah Gülen movement during my middle-school years. I was a bright and promising student,” said Türkkan, who was arrested over alleged links to the movement of U.S.-based Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.
He added that he always wanted to be a soldier and that ambition “played into the hands of the [Gülen] community.”
“In 1989 I took the Işıklar Military Academy’s examination. I was sure to pass it with my own knowledge. My brothers in the community were sure as well. But they still brought me the questions at midnight before the exam. Brother Serdar brought the questions. They gave the questions to me at a community house based in central Bursa,” said Türkkan.
Yes, I am a member of the parallel establishment. I am from the Gülen community ... After I was brought to the aide-de-camp position at the General Staff, I started to execute the orders given on behalf of the community,” said Türkkan.
Türkkan also plead guilty to bugging former Chief of General Staff Gen. Necdet Özel with a listening device.
“We used to listen to Necdet Özel Pasha with a bug all the time. A ‘brother’ working at Turk Telekom provided the device. Once in a week I was taking the bugs to the ‘brother.’ Bugging was made during the times of Necdet Özel Pasha, Hulusi Akar Pasha, and Yaşar Giler Pasha. I learned about the coup on Thursday, July 14, 2016, at around 10:00 [a.m.],” said Türkkan.
Türkan was working as a deputy aide for Özel between 2011 and 2015 and then promoted to the aide position.
“I used to put the bugging device called the ‘radio,’ which was as big as two fingertips, in a spot in the room of the pasha every day and take it while leaving in the evening. It had its own memory. Its battery lasted for a day... Sometimes there were searches for the bugs in the room of the Chief of General Staff. Naturally since I knew when these searches were to take place beforehand, I was not planting them [during those times].”
“In the afternoon of July 15, I went to Maj. Gen. Mehmet Dişli’s room. He is a community member as well. He told us that ‘I will ask the Chief of General Staff if you will be Kenan Evren or not.’ Dişli was thinking that Akar pasha was going to accept the offer. But Akar did not accept the offer. Force commanders were not convinced either,” said Türkkan, adding that Akar was at his post on July 15 between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. and he spoke last with the head of the National Intelligence Organization (MİT), Hakan Fidan.
“After Fidan left the post, some 20 fully-equipped soldiers from the special forces entered the headquarters. Dişli was there as well. Five minutes later, Dişli left and told us ‘enter,’” said Türkkan.
Saying he found out about the bombing of parliament from TV, Türkkan added that he started feeling “regret” after learning that civilians were harmed.
“When I found out that the bombs were exploding and the civilians were getting harmed I started to feel regret. It was like a massacre. All this was done by a movement that I thought was working for God,” he said, adding that he did not resist the security forces while surrendering.
“I sincerely regret not only participating in the coup, but also being a part of the Gülen movement. I have responsibility for these events but I’m not a traitor. I didn’t shoot at the police or civilians and I would never do that,” Türkkan said.
July/20/2016
Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy rather in power than use; and keep thy friend under thine own life's key; be checked for silence, but never taxed for speech.
Sir, you're there, I'm not. You know far more than me. My impression from afar looking at the numbers involved though is this is a blanket "get rid of all my opponents", not just Gulenists. Is that not near the case you're saying? What proportion of the expulsions are Gulenists in your estimation?
And if they recruited you and you declined, they would know you're not "with them".
yes the numbers seems too high. surely they use this opportunity as a "get rid of all my opponents".
nevertheless gulens move numbers can also very high.
the recruiting process is not that simple... the local gulen communion was too dumb to my taste ;)
Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy rather in power than use; and keep thy friend under thine own life's key; be checked for silence, but never taxed for speech.
not at all. If Kemalists would go out believing the rebels (which they tried to do) it would be a civil war.
gulen does not influence any charm among Kemalists. he was there BEFORE erdogan.
Hey BigK, perhaps you can provide me with some clarification.
I was under the impression that the coup came from members of the military (a Kemalist stronghold) that thought Erdogan was becoming too authoritarian. Meanwhile Erdogan was blaming Gulen as a pretext to purge political opposition rather than seriously believing he was behind it.
The idea that an old cleric in Pennsylvania is behind the coup rather than Kemalists in the Turkish military always seemed like a bit of a stretch.
Do you think Gulen was actually involved or is Erdogan just playing political games?
Hey BigK, perhaps you can provide me with some clarification.
I was under the impression that the coup came from members of the military (a Kemalist stronghold) that thought Erdogan was becoming too authoritarian. Meanwhile Erdogan was blaming Gulen as a pretext to purge political opposition rather than seriously believing he was behind it.
The idea that an old cleric in Pennsylvania is behind the coup rather than Kemalists in the Turkish military always seemed like a bit of a stretch.
Do you think Gulen was actually involved or is Erdogan just playing political games?
he is not just an old cleric believe me :)
and yes there might be some desperate Kemalist officers in it but Kemalists werent behind this. gulen is really dangerous.
erdo is serious about gulens return to Turkey. he can risk many things in his desperation. and now he has a tremendous peoples support behind him. he can do anything.
what would you specificly want to know?
Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none; be able for thine enemy rather in power than use; and keep thy friend under thine own life's key; be checked for silence, but never taxed for speech.
erdo is serious about gulens return to Turkey. he can risk many things in his desperation. and now he has a tremendous peoples support behind him. he can do anything.
Imagine the Turkish Army losing 9000 men in two days.
I get the feeling there is a disconnect in how Gulen is viewed between Turkey and the US.
I think the US was willing to take him in largely because they view his espouted philosophy as a potential "bridge" between Islamists and the more secular West. His advocacy of interfaith dialogue, secular schools, charities, and favoring good relations with Israel while opposing hardline Islamists like Hamas and the Muslim brotherhood are all things that play very well to a US audience looking to find some common ground to establish better relations with the Muslim world.
From the US point of view, it seems like an increasingly autocratic Erdogan is laying down ultimatums because he is vindictive rather than because his defeated "moderate" opponent Gulen had anything to do with the coup.
What I'm hearing from you is that Gulen isn't the moderate he seems to be or is portrayed as, and there is a pretty good chance he or his followers really were behind the coup.
It's a totally different take on the situation that I doubt I would have even heard if you weren't here to lay it out for us.
Originally posted by Officer of EngineersView Post
It was undemocratic in motive.
.
They lost. So we will never truly know. They didnt try to overthrow a democracy in the western sense. If Obama was behaving like Erdogan. People would be picking up their guns.
Originally posted by Officer of EngineersView Post
Dark days were here once the first soldier took up his coup position. 1000s were going to be rounded up regardless in the aftermath. If the coup had succeeded, it would have been 1000s of Turks who did nothing wrong but believed in Erdogan. Instead, we have 1000s of people being punished for not believing in Erdogan. Either way, 1000s of people were going to be punished.
Well maybe you hit that one on the head. But for me I would prefer to see the other side in chains. Now that the coup has failed and some time has passed we are seeing erdogans true colours. The irony is, with each passing minute, we are witnessing further justification of the need for his removal.
Originally posted by Officer of EngineersView Post
Rightly or wrongly, Erodogan is the elected head.
I know you like things stated straight out. Not enough for me. Democracy is becoming fairly diluted as a word and a concept if the west considers it aptly applied to Erdogan's Turkey.
The Exile That Might Derail Erdogan’s Grand Design
Amir Taheri
Amir Taheri
1 day ago 307
Gulen: My aim is service, not power
Fethullah
Muhammad Fethullah Gulen (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Those looking for an “away-from-it-all” spot in the United States are unlikely to find anywhere better than the Poconos, a jumble of mountains, forests, lakes and rivers in Pennsylvania, mid-way between New York and Washington. People come here to forget the world, admire the waterfalls at Bushkill, fish in the majestic Wallenpupack Lake, or undergo a “restore-your-health” cycle in one of the area’s numerous resorts.
Some also come here to hide. Among them are gangster characters from thrillers by Harlan Coben and Jack Higgins. More recently, however, this corner of the American “paradise” has been the home of a special kind of fugitive who also wants to hide from his enemies while keeping contact with his “network” of friends, associates and followers across the globe.
This new arrival, having taken up residence here since 1999 is Muhammad Fethullah Gulen, the man blamed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for having tele-commanded last Wednesday’s abortive coup in Ankara.
On the surface, Gulen is no more than the “spiritual leader” of a string of informal groups that together form the so-called Hizmet (in Arabic khidmah) or “service” movement. The movement’s raison d’etre, as spelled out by Gulen in some of his writings, is for the members of “Hizmet”, sometimes also labeled “Jama’a”, to prove they are good Muslims by putting themselves at the service of society at large.
One of Gulen’s favorite poems puts it this way:
“Prayer (ibadah) is nothing but serving the people,
“It is not dependent on rosary (sabha), and the prayer mat (sajjadah).”
But, of course, to be “good Muslims” and to be of any service to others, one also needs to eat. This is why Gulen’s Hizmet Movement is also a gigantic network of businesses concentrated in Turkey but also present in more than a dozen other countries in Europe and North America. The network is sustained by semi-secret cells patterned on the old Turkish Sufi fraternities like the Bektashis and the Naqshbandis without adopting their theological and/or philosophical narrative.
Gulen was born in the village of Pasinler, near Erzerum in eastern Anatolia on 27 April 1941 into a family of religious preachers who had fallen on bad times because of the secular system introduced by Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk), the founder of the Turkish Republic after the abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924.
People seeking religious education for their children had to depend on the few thousand preachers still around. Gulen’s grandfather and father were among them. They also earned a meagre living by performing necessary rites at weddings and funerals. According to Gulen’s entourage, some members of his family wanted him to seek a “modern education”, more in tune with the Kemalist epoch. However, his father decided that the young Fethullah must continue the family tradition dating back to two centuries and become a religious scholar.
However, Pasinler lacked the facilities needed for advanced Islamic studies. After a brief sortie in Erzerum, young Gulen ended up in Izmir, at the other end of Turkey, where European influence had always bene strong. There, young Fethullah became acquainted with the teachings of some Sufi fraternities and flirted with them for a while. But the encounter that was to determine his future course came when he discovered the writings of Said Noursi, a theologian whose ambition was to “revitalize” the Hanafi School, one of the four “madhabs” of Sunni Islam followed by a majority of Turks. In Noursi’s theology, the key concept is that of light (nour in Arabic) in the sense that the key aim of faith is to shed light on the darkness of human ignorance and point men towards “the right path.” The Noursi School borrows some of the lexicon of Sufism without moving away from faith towards philosophy as Imam Muhammad Ghazzali had warned 1000 years earlier.
By all accounts, Gulen was caught between two options: becoming a religious thinker or a socio-political leader. He tinkered with both options. He has composed hundreds of pseudo-philosophical poems the best of which could be described as “average” at best. He has also published a number of theological essays most of which consist of hasty re-hashing of classical Hanafi texts.
By the 1980s, Gulen must have understood that his future as an Islamic scholar might not be as bright as he had hoped. So, he shifted gear by mobilizing his undoubted leadership talents. Forging close ties with a succession of Islamist parties, starting with Necmettin Erbakan’s Rifah (Welfare) Partisi he secured enough prestige to attract attention but kept enough of a distance not to go under when the whole experience failed. He adopted the same tactic vis-à-vis the Fazilat (Virtue) Party that succeeded the Rifah while continuing to build his network of business, political and military influence.
Having taken up residence in Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city and its cultural and business capital, Gulen was bound to run into Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a Muslim Brotherhood sympathizer, and a rising star of the new generation of “Muslim engineers.” Erdogan is 13 years younger than Gulen and, according to most accounts, regarded the older preacher as a “big brother and teacher.”
Although he needed Gulen’s support to get started, Erdogan was nobody’s poodle. He could stand and fight on his own two feet as he did by winning the key position of Istanbul’s Mayor in 1989, succeeding Betrettin (Badr Al-Din) Dalan who had put the great metropolis on a new course.
There is no doubt that Gulen played a crucial, though behind the-scene, role in the creation of the Justice and development Party (AKP) which was to become Erdogan’s vehicle for achieving power, first as Prime Minister and then as President, and, as he now hopes, a kind of “super-leader” in a new chapter in Turkey’s history. By appearing to stand above factions, Gulen was able to bring more than two dozen different Islamic groups and parties together to form the AKP. He was the “honest-broker”, the man who has “no personal interest”, the shoulder on which everyone could cry. In every meeting he repeated one of his favorite mottos: “My aim is to serve (khidmah), not to get power (qudrah).”
Gulen made several crucial contributions to the development of the neo-Islamist discourse in Turkey. Chief among these was his acceptance of secularism, albeit with his original re-interpretation. Kemalist secularism he argued, had not separated religion and state but created a fusion between the two.
To achieve real separation, Turkey had to develop “a secular state in a religious society.” In practical terms, that should mean the restoration of the endowments seized by the state since the 1920s. Taken together, religious endowments and the businesses they have invested in for more than eight decades represent between 10 and 15 per cent of the Turkish gross domestic product. To return them to “the people” in a massive program of privatization would give “true believers” a strong economic base from which to challenge the state when and if it tries to exceed its powers.
Differences on how to divide the spoils created the first rift between Gulen and Erdogan who, as his power grew and his self-confidence deepened, resented being labeled “Gulen’s boy”. Erdogan wanted to give the lion’s share to his own faction within the broader Islamist constituency. Gulen wanted a suitable share for his own followers. By the end of the 1990s, Gulen was beginning to feel concerned about his own safety and decided that a period of self-exile might persuade Erdogan that AKP won’t be successful without support for Hizmet.
In hindsight, that was a mistake on Gulen’s part. Exiles seldom return to positions of power; most die in foreign lands stricken down by nostalgia.
Gulen was also influential in encouraging Erdogan to play the European card as a means of dispelling Western fears about an Islamicization of Turkish politics. A series of seemingly “progressive” shibboleths now associated with Erdogan, things such as “gender equality” and “cultural freedom for minorities” came straight out of Gulen’s earlier writings.
Gulen also helped soften the image of Turkey’s Islamist movement as a whole by forging ties with leaders of other religions. He met the late Pope John Paul II and waxed lyrical about “common values”. Israel’s chief Sephardic Rabbi, the late Eliahu Bakhshi-Doran also became a close friend of Gulen’s; the two were often on the telephone to each other exchanging jokes, ideas, and gossip. Gulen’s contacts with the Orthodox Church helped soften Greek opposition to Turkish attempts to join the European Union.
Nevertheless, the Gulen-Erdogan alliance was bound to run into trouble. Two egos, each the size of Everest, cannot co-exist for long. Forty dervishes could sleep on a mat but two Khans cannot live together in a continent, as the Turkish proverb has it.
Erdogan began to think that Gulen had secured the better deal, reaping all the rewards of powers, albeit much of it distributed among his followers, but not sharing any of the hustle-and-bustle of political dogfights.
The point of no-return in what had been a beautiful, though at times bumpy, friendship, came in 2012 when Erdogan began to shape his “Grand Istanbul project”. This is going to be the biggest urban regeneration and re-equipment enterprise of the new century anywhere in the world. Estimates of how much business it could generate vary between $120 and $250 billion. To Gulen, it was, of course, intolerable that all of that should go only to one faction within the Islamist movement with his army of “Service” ending up with either mere crumbs or nothing at all.
Slowly but surely Gulen’s attitude towards Erdogan changed from “friendly-critical” to “benevolent-critical” and, by 2013, outright “hostile-critical.”
Gulen’s admirers claim that he is a “very ill-informed man”. He certainly is, if only because he has sources within every nook and cranny of the Turkish machinery of state, notably the secret service. By the summer of 2013 special couriers from Ankara and Istanbul brought “blue files” to the Guide’s residence at Saylorsburg. The “blue files” contained documentation regarding a range of alleged corrupt practices directly or indirectly linked to Erdogan and/or his family.
At one point, and though he has repeatedly denied it, Gulen seems to have decided that it was time to “expose and oppose” Erdogan in the hope of driving him out of power. It was then that some of the “blue files” were leaked to the media, weakening Erdogan’s position as he prepared the AKP for a difficult general election.
Rightly or wrongly, Erdogan concluded that his former mentor and friend had declared war on him. However, Erdogan is nothing if not a fighter. This is why in 2014 he launched a massive purge of pro-Gulen elements in all sectors of the military, judiciary and civil service. He even took over some of the businesses, including media outlets that directly or indirectly belonged to “Hizmet”.
What Erdogan feared most, and perhaps still fears, is a tactical alliance between Gulenists, pan-Turkists and Kemalists to stop his ascension to unchecked power, if not actually toppling his regime. This is why he was preparing a second wave of purges for August when the amateurish coup attempt forced him to speed things up.
Gulen wanted a share but was denied any. Erdogan wants it all. He may end up by being denied that, too.
A life of piracy awaits.
Wed Jul 20, 2016 2:13pm EDT
Related: World
Turkey scrambles fighter jets after reported sighting of missing vessels http://www.reuters.com/article/us-tu...-idUSKCN1002C4
Turkish F-16 fighter jets scrambled on Wednesday to check reports that missing Turkish coastguard vessels had appeared in Greek waters in the Aegean Sea, Turkish military sources said.
They gave no further details. Some Turkish military hardware was seized and used in last weekend's failed coup in which more than 230 people were killed. Officials have said no military equipment remains unaccounted for.
Turkey's government and military General Staff say they are fully in control of the situation in the country but tensions remain high as the authorities purge tens of thousands of suspected coup supporters from state institutions, including in the armed forces.
(Reporting by Istanbul bureau; Writing by Gareth Jones; Editing by David Dolan)
To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway
Well maybe you hit that one on the head. But for me I would prefer to see the other side in chains. Now that the coup has failed and some time has passed we are seeing erdogans true colours. The irony is, with each passing minute, we are witnessing further justification of the need for his removal.
And the idiots gave him the legal justifications to do what he's doing.
I know you like things stated straight out. Not enough for me. Democracy is becoming fairly diluted as a word and a concept if the west considers it aptly applied to Erdogan's Turkey.
Tweet
Comment