Caught Red-handed

There is no need for hemming and hawing. This is simply a situation of being caught red-handed. This is exactly what happened, when those preparing the conspiracy of the era were at work, the lights turned on and their shadowy plans came to the surface.

The Taraf daily reported a historic piece of news on Friday when it published a document which contains the Turkish Armed Forces' (TSK) plot to discredit the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the Gülen movement, inspired by respected Islamic scholar Fethullah Gülen.

What did Taraf's headline of the lead story say? It said exactly the following: “The plot to finish off the AK Party and Gülen movement.” You cannot imagine what the document the Taraf daily published contained! “Agents who were placed in the AK Party will be mobilized, enabling the discovery of weapons, ammunition and documents at addresses of Gülen's followers as if they were members of a terrorist organization.” The Gülen movement will be presented as having a link to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and a propaganda campaign will be launched to show Gülen followers as having relations with institutions such as the CIA and Mossad. Officers who are suspects in the ongoing trial into Ergenekon, a clandestine crime network which has alleged links within the state, will be defended and the media will be mobilized to this effect. News stories will be prepared about Greece and Armenia that will create reactions among the people and that will help expand the voter base of nationalist parties…” This is unbelievable!

The sole explanation coming from the General Staff is a statement released halfheartedly about the launch of an investigation into the document. Unfortunately, the General Staff fails to meet the public's expectations for a full-fledged investigation on such issues. It does not deal with the essence of the charges or unfortunately leads to the formation of such an environment because it does not react to the content of the documents as much as it gets angry over those who leaked such documents. One should investigate those who leaked those documents, but one should first investigate the charges. Who dares prepare a document showing the TSK as a crime organization? First, the General Staff should give an account of this (or investigate it) so that everyone can understand the investigation of those leaking these documents. Then people may naturally ask the General Staff whether it is flawless regarding this issue.

The name of Col. Dursun Çiçek is under the TSK's “Action Plan to Fight against Reactionaryism.” As we learned from the media, Çiçek is commissioned in the Operations Command 3rd Support Unit, which replaced the Psychological Warfare Department. This means this plot was prepared in the center of the General Staff. Moreover, the document is dated April 2009, meaning it is very new. It was possible for the General Staff to deny the existence of this document at first. It is obvious who prepared it and when it was prepared. But the short and ambiguous explanations made by the General Staff raised suspicions further. The fact that some media outlets immediately began to defend the General Staff in the wake of the disclosure of the action plan does not cover the scandalous picture.

A more terrible situation is in question than the situation regarding the coup diaries of a former general, which showed the preparations of some generals to stage a military coup in 2004. Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ dwelled on the importance of democracy and supremacy of law in all the speeches he delivered, so he raised the people's expectations from the General Staff to respect these values. What he does now with his staff that was caught red-handed will set an example. Things such as whether he will remove the colonel in question from his post “for the safety of the investigation” or whether he had knowledge about the document are being debated and will continue to be debated more. The General Staff failed to label the document prepared two months ago as “fake.” After this silence and hesitation, the things it says no longer have any value. How unfortunate!

In every one of his speeches, the chief of General Staff talks about democracy and the importance of remaining within the boundaries of law. I wonder whether some busybodies understood “remaining within the boundaries of law” as first inventing a crime, creating a criminal and trying civilians through military courts. I wonder whether this is the new way to fight against reactionaryism. There is no need to say more; this is called creating a conspiracy, slander and has nothing to do with remaining within the boundaries of law. With which reason, conscience and mind can it be explained for those who keep in mind the “presumption of innocence” when it comes to the Ergenekon suspects who were caught with their weapons, maps, action plans and bombs to invent crimes for innocent people and transfer them to military courts?

Did the police plant the document?

Those caught red-handed are not only wannabe coup plotters and conspirers that have infiltrated our military. In this incident, some media institutions have also been caught red-handed. Take newspapers from June 13 and you'll understand what I'm saying very clearly. A team plotting a coup that infiltrated the military is conspiring against the government and the nation, and only four newspapers are carrying this to their headlines. Is this your understanding of democracy? Is this your media responsibility? Is this your journalists' reflex in action?

Worse, a military court tried to issue a ban on broadcasting the accusations. If the General Staff had not issued a statement announcing that it is starting an investigation, readers of some newspapers would go on with their lives without any knowledge of the conspiracy of the century. Particularly, two newspapers whose names I will have to mention or else I will have done a wrong to future researchers studying media history in Turkey, have acted this way openly. One is Posta. It is OK for a newspaper to market itself as “cheap,” or “easy” or to even appear “cute” to some of its readers. But such irresponsibility is detachment from journalism, nothing else. Look at the headline they chose for the said news story: “Investigation into and Broadcasting Ban on Plan to End Religious Fundamentalism.” This was the headline? As if there was a “plan to end religious fundamentalism” and an investigation was started into that. I don't think this was worthy of Posta.

Even Habertürk, a daily which likes to challenge others by saying it has more courage to publish certain news stories than others, chose not to include any information about the Action Plan for Fighting Religious Fundamentalism. Normally we would expect them to show the courage and independence they have shown in energy issues. It is a confounding situation!

The most perplexing situation, however, is, unfortunately, that of the Vatan daily. Using the subheading “Strange things are transpiring,” the daily took a whole new approach by completely twisting the subject. So what is it? Fethullah Gülen said on April 8 that “they will present Muslims as terrorists.” And so what? What happens if he said that? They try to appear as if they are implying something using the curiousness inherent to journalism. If you are a journalist, you first have to talk about the document at hand; only then can you express things indirectly. Was it Mr. Gülen who told a colonel working as the commander of the operations command to create such a ridiculous document? Who and with what kind of audacity can put together such an action plan? It is really not difficult to attach meaning to Gülen's words. For in the past few years some armed organizations have been guising their units as “Işik houses,” keep Gülen's books in those houses and this situation has been most disturbing to both Gülen and those who love him. This is not a secret. This has been written about many times. It is also known that some organizations known to have suspicious relationships have been attempting to appear close to the Gülen movement, which is disturbed by these tactics. This being the case, is it right for a journalist to blame the victim? Is it OK for a human being to do that?

Yesterday's Milliyet daily also slightly leaned toward Vatan's tactics and tried to raise question marks. What did it say? “It was trying to raise suspicion of whether it could be the police that planted the action plan in the suspect's office.” Luckily, yesterday's issue of Star wrote down the process of how the action plan was seized, second by second, effectively refuting the argument that the police might have planted this document. According to the story in Star, the police and the lawyer of the Ergenekon suspect whose office was being searched entered the office at the same time, and every second of the search was recorded on video. This being the case, what is resorting to the claim that “the police planted it” but trying to water down the case? What's more, it goes without saying that after this point those who claim that the action plan was fake will have to confront scientific methods to prove their claim.

Here is the gist of it: It is important not to hurt the reputation of our military, no doubt about it. However, apparently, a group within the TSK is still trying social engineering via illegal means. If some people have stepped the boundaries of their legal duties and attempted to conspire against the government, the average citizen and even against television series, this means that everyone has a duty. Politicians cannot get rid of this by staying silent. The TSK cannot overcome this incident just by investigating the source of the leak. The media cannot save themselves from being collaborators of propaganda by only producing conspiracy theories. The judiciary cannot simply overlook various crimes from “trying to overthrow the government” to slander because there is an obvious crime out there. What's more, those who were caught red-handed are simply standing there in front of our eyes.