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Wide Purges After Stage-Managed Coup Will Cripple Turkey
As fake evidence now gets sorted out from the real stuff considerable evidence emerges that the coup in Turkey was either completely staged or at least a controlled provocation as a prelude to large, well planned purges.
While some junior officers involved in the coup may have believe that it was for real, Erdogan and his power apparatus knew that the coup was coming and had everything under control. One wonders how those juniors were deceived and what provoked them into their hasty, amateurish, hapless attempt. Did some allegedly upcoming investigation spook them?
Erdogan admitted today an TV that he knew the coup was coming:
7:47 PM – 17 Jul 2016 Mahir Zeynalov @MahirZeynalov
Erdogan acknowledges they knew about a "military activity" at least 7-10 hours before the coup vid
9:34am 18 Jul 2016 Borzou Daragahi @borzou
Turkey official: "Gulenists in military under investigation for some time. Group acted out of emergency when realized under investigation"
These "Gülenist" were more likely those nationalist Kemalist seculars which the New York Times now labels "extreme".
That the coup was expected explains why Erdogan left his vacation hotel in Marmaris hours before soldiers showed up to arrest him:
9:12 PM – 15 Jul 2016 (((Garrett Khoury))) @KhouryGarrett
#Turkey: Erdogan confirms coup forces surrounded his hotel in Marmaris…4 hours after he had left. That's a special sort of ineptitude.
It also explains why two F-16 fighter jets, allegedly part of the coup, had Erdogan's plane in sight but did not take it down:
"At least two F-16s harassed Erdogan's plane while it was in the air and en route to Istanbul. They locked their radars on his plane and on two other F-16s protecting him," a former military officer with knowledge of the events told Reuters.
"Why they didn't fire is a mystery," he said.
These pilots were not real partakers of the coup. They must have had orders not to shoot. Flight radar data showed Erodgan's plane circling in a holding pattern south west of Istanbul for hours. It would have been very easy eliminate him.
From the same Reuters piece:
The former military officer said the coup plotters appeared to have launched their attempt prematurely because they realized they were under surveillance, something corroborated by other officials in Ankara.
Colonel Pat Lang, who for years worked as U.S. military intelligence official in Turkey, contacted old acquaintances:
I am assured by Turkish sources that Erdogan and senior officers he had appointed manipulated low level plotting to create a "coup" that could be defeated easily leading to his consolidation of power.
There is precedence for such a coup in Turkey's history:
The Auspicious Incident (or Event) (Turkish: (in Istanbul) Vaka-i Hayriye "Fortunate Event"; (in Balkans) Vaka-i Şerriyye, "Unfortunate Incident") was the forced disbandment of the centuries-old Janissary corps by Sultan Mahmud II on 15 June 1826. Most of the 135,000 Janissaries revolted against Mahmud II, and after the rebellion was suppressed, its leaders killed, and many members exiled or imprisoned, the Janissary corps was disbanded and replaced with a more modern military force.
…
Historians suggest that Mahmud II purposely incited the revolt and have described it as the sultan's "coup against the Janissaries".
This coup is Erdogan's Reichstagsfire, the alleged torching of the German parliament building in February 1933 which was used by Hitler to purge communists and other enemies of his rule.
The stage-managed coup is now followed by a real one in which Erdogan takes down all presumed enemies.
Within hours after the coup against Erdogan 2,750 judges were relieved. Hundreds of judges, including supreme court judges selected by Erdogan's AKP predecessor Gul, were imprisoned. Last night 7,899 police and 631 gendarme officers were relieved of duty and their weapons confiscated. 30 governors and 47 local governors have been suspended. The Higher Education Board announced an upcoming "cleaning" at schools and universities. Twenty independent Turkish news sites have been closed. Businessmen and bankers not in line with Erdogan are next. The lists used for these wide purges must have been prepared well ahead of the coup.
3,000 soldiers, conscripts ordered to take part in the coup but also many high officers were imprisoned. These include 103 generals and admirals, many of whom had not taken part in the coup but explicitly spoke out against it. More high officers were relieved of duty. All major units of the Turkish military have lost some of their top commanders. Captured soldiers were humiliated by police special forces, the most loyal to Erdogan. They had to undress and were shown cowering on the ground. Pictures of these humiliations were widely distributed. This will break moral on all military levels!
The move against the military is reminiscent of Stalin's purge of officers in the Soviet military in 1937-41. The Soviet military disaster in the Soviet-Finish winter war of 1939 and the incredibly high losses in the first years of the fight against the Germans and their allies were the result of these purges. The Turkish military, the second biggest of NATO, is now an empty hull and will no longer be able to launch any consistent, larger operation.
Erdogan has asked his followers to stay in the streets for a whole week to "defend the state". The purges are not over.
One might argue that this coup and Erdogan's purges, will give him independence in foreign policy and will allow him to move out of the U.S./NATO realm towards Russia, China and Iran. Erodgan's people accuse the U.S. of being behind the coup. The threat of blocking Incirlik air base, the center of U.S. operations in Syria, against Russia's southern flank and the main storage area for U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in the Middle East, will cower Washington and prevent any outright "western" measures against him.
The Turkish state is now crippled. The experience and knowledge of all those people purged now is irreplaceable. Any unexpected event, military or civil, will be met with confused and disordered responses. Despite Erdogan's current success hubris will take its toll and Erdogan's triumph will soon be followed by a deep fall.
What are the real friends Turkey under Erdogan has left in the international field? Some toothless Muslim Brotherhood leaders and the dictators of Qatar are the only ones I can think of. Without international goodwill left anywhere Turkey's economy will soon be in ever deeper trouble. The problem of radical Islamists, incited by Erdogan to fight against the Syrian people, will come back to bite Turkey. Erdogan may have believed that such radical forces are controllable. He will become another sorcerer's apprentice to learn that they never are.
These extreme Jhadis Erdogan imported and supplied in Syria are also the reason why we all should be happy that the coup did not by any chance succeed. Would Erdogan have been killed, civil war on the streets of Turkey would have been inevitable. Heavily armed Islamist would have attack the army and other government forces. Various ethnic and religious groups would be fighting each other. The war by radical proxies in neighboring Syria and Iraq would have come back home to Turkey just like the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan came home to Pakistan.
That still might happen. But the chances that some upcoming misstep by Erdogan will now lead to a less brutal change of power are higher than before.
F William Engdahl
The Lost Hegemon: Whom the gods would destroy.
Chapter Ten:
CIA Backs a “New Ottoman Caliphate” in Eurasia
“You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centers. . . . You must wait for the time when you are complete and conditions are ripe, until we can shoulder the entire world and carry it. . . . You must wait until such time as you have gotten all the state power . . . in Turkey. . . . Until that time, any step taken would be too early—like breaking an egg without waiting the full forty days for it to hatch.”
—Imam Fetullah Gülen, CIA-asset in a sermon to followers in Turkey
“Because of the large amount of money that Gülen’s movement uses to finance his projects, there are claims that he has secret agreements with Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkic governments. There are suspicions that the CIA is a co-payer in financing these projects.”
—US State Department in a hearing opposing Gülen’s application for US residency
Fethullah Gülen’s Spider Net
As they were deploying Osama bin Laden’s Arab Mujahideen “holy warriors” into Chechnya and the Caucasus during the 1990s—in order to secure oil pipeline routes for the Anglo-American oil companies independent of Russian control—the CIA, working with a network of self-styled “neoconservatives” in Washington, began to build their most ambitious political Islam project ever.
It was called the Fethullah Gülen Movement, also known in Turkish as
Cemaat, or “The Society.” Their focus was Hizmet, or what they defined as the “duty of Service” to the Islamic community. Curiously enough, the Turkish movement was based out of Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, in the scenic foothills of the Pocono Mountains. There, its key figure, the reclusive Fethullah Gülen, was busy building a global network of Islam schools, businesses, and foundations, all with untraceable funds.i His Gülen Movement, or Cemaat, had no main address, no mailbox, no official organizational registration, no central bank account, nothing. His followers never demonstrated for Sharia or Jihad—their operations were all hidden from view.
In 2008, US Government court filings estimated the global value of Gülen’s empire at anywhere between $25 and $50 billion. No one could prove how large it was as there were no independent audits. In a US Court testimony during the hearing on Gülen’s petition for a special US Green Card permanent residence status, one loyal Cemaat journalist described the nominal extent of Gülen’s empire:
The projects sponsored by Gülen-inspired followers today number in the thousands, span international borders and are costly in terms of human and financial capital. These initiatives include over 2000 schools and seven universities in more than ninety countries in five continents, two modern hospitals, the Zaman newspaper (now in both a Turkish and English edition), a television channel (Samanyolu), a radio channel (Burc FM), CHA (a major Turkish news agency), Aksiyon (a leading weekly news magazine), national and international Gülen conferences, Ramadan interfaith dinners, interfaith dialog trips to Turkey from countries around the globe and the many programs sponsored by the Journalists and Writers Foundation. In addition, the Isik insurance company and Bank Asya, an Islamic bank, are affiliated with the Gülen community.ii
Bank Asya was listed among the Top 500 Banks in the world by London’s Banker magazine. It had joint-venture banking across Muslim Africa, from Senegal to Mali in a strategic cooperation agreement with the Islamic Development Bank’s Senegal-based Tamweel Africa Holding SA.iii Zaman, which also owned the English-language Today’s Zaman, was the largest daily paper in Turkey. The journalist’s description of the Gülen holdings named in the US Court document was very carefully formulated, especially with the statement “projects sponsored by Gülen-inspired followers,” which left actual ownership conveniently vague and completely untraceable.
By the late 1990s, Gülen’s movement had attracted the alarm and attention of an anti-NATO wing of the Turkish military and of the Ankara government.
After leading a series of brilliant military campaigns in the 1920s to win the Independence War that he initiated against an invasion by foreign and allied forces of British, Greek, Italian, French, and other victors of World War I, Ataturk nothing. His followers never demonstrated for Sharia or Jihad—their operations were all hidden from view.
In 2008, US Government court filings estimated the global value of Gülen’s empire at anywhere between $25 and $50 billion. No one could prove how large it was as there were no independent audits. In a US Court testimony during the hearing on Gülen’s petition for a special US Green Card permanent residence status, one loyal Cemaat journalist described the nominal extent of Gülen’s empire:
The projects sponsored by Gülen-inspired followers today number in the thousands, span international borders and are costly in terms of human and financial capital. These initiatives include over 2000 schools and seven universities in more than ninety countries in five continents, two modern hospitals, the Zaman newspaper (now in both a Turkish and English edition), a television channel (Samanyolu), a radio channel (Burc FM), CHA (a major Turkish news agency), Aksiyon (a leading weekly news magazine), national and international Gülen conferences, Ramadan interfaith dinners, interfaith dialog trips to Turkey from countries around the globe and the many programs sponsored by the Journalists and Writers Foundation. In addition, the Isik insurance company and Bank Asya, an Islamic bank, are affiliated with the Gülen community.ii
Bank Asya was listed among the Top 500 Banks in the world by London’s Banker magazine. It had joint-venture banking across Muslim Africa, from Senegal to Mali in a strategic cooperation agreement with the Islamic Development Bank’s Senegal-based Tamweel Africa Holding SA.iii Zaman, which also owned the English-language Today’s Zaman, was the largest daily paper in Turkey. The journalist’s description of the Gülen holdings named in the US Court document was very carefully formulated, especially with the statement “projects sponsored by Gülen-inspired followers,” which left actual ownership conveniently vague and completely untraceable.
By the late 1990s, Gülen’s movement had attracted the alarm and attention of an anti-NATO wing of the Turkish military and of the Ankara government.
After leading a series of brilliant military campaigns in the 1920s to win the Independence War that he initiated against an invasion by foreign and allied forces of British, Greek, Italian, French, and other victors of World War I, Ataturk nothing. His followers never demonstrated for Sharia or Jihad—their operations were all hidden from view.
In 2008, US Government court filings estimated the global value of Gülen’s empire at anywhere between $25 and $50 billion. No one could prove how large it was as there were no independent audits. In a US Court testimony during the hearing on Gülen’s petition for a special US Green Card permanent residence status, one loyal Cemaat journalist described the nominal extent of Gülen’s empire:
The projects sponsored by Gülen-inspired followers today number in the thousands, span international borders and are costly in terms of human and financial capital. These initiatives include over 2000 schools and seven universities in more than ninety countries in five continents, two modern hospitals, the Zaman newspaper (now in both a Turkish and English edition), a television channel (Samanyolu), a radio channel (Burc FM), CHA (a major Turkish news agency), Aksiyon (a leading weekly news magazine), national and international Gülen conferences, Ramadan interfaith dinners, interfaith dialog trips to Turkey from countries around the globe and the many programs sponsored by the Journalists and Writers Foundation. In addition, the Isik insurance company and Bank Asya, an Islamic bank, are affiliated with the Gülen community.ii
Bank Asya was listed among the Top 500 Banks in the world by London’s Banker magazine. It had joint-venture banking across Muslim Africa, from Senegal to Mali in a strategic cooperation agreement with the Islamic Development Bank’s Senegal-based Tamweel Africa Holding SA.iii Zaman, which also owned the English-language Today’s Zaman, was the largest daily paper in Turkey. The journalist’s description of the Gülen holdings named in the US Court document was very carefully formulated, especially with the statement “projects sponsored by Gülen-inspired followers,” which left actual ownership conveniently vague and completely untraceable.
By the late 1990s, Gülen’s movement had attracted the alarm and attention of an anti-NATO wing of the Turkish military and of the Ankara government.
After leading a series of brilliant military campaigns in the 1920s to win the Independence War that he initiated against an invasion by foreign and allied forces of British, Greek, Italian, French, and other victors of World War I, Ataturk had established the modern Turkish state. He then launched a series of political, economic, and cultural reforms aimed at transforming the religiously-based Ottoman Caliphate into a modern, secular, and democratic nation-state. He built thousands of new schools, made primary education free and compulsory, and gave women equal civil and political rights, and reduced the burden of taxation on peasants.
Gülen and his movement aimed at nothing less than to roll-back the remains of that modern, secular Kemalism in Turkey, and return to the Caliphate of yore. In one of his writings to members, he declared, “With the patience of a spider we lay our net until people get caught in it.”iv
In 1998, Gülen defected to the US shortly before a treasonous speech he had made to his followers at a private gathering was made public. He had been recorded calling on his supporters to “work patiently and to creep silently into the institutions in order to seize power in the state,” treason by the Ataturk constitution of Turkey.
Posted by: From The Hague | Jul 18 2016 20:20 utc | 63
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