Haste
The Taraf newspaper ran the headline "The plan to finish the AK Party [Justice and Development Party] and [Fethullah] Gülen" and published a hair-raising document. This is a turning point. Nothing will be the same regardless of whether the document is authentic or not.
Now, a group of media organizations are wailing, "How do you know it is authentic?" Pardon me, but I must ask, "How do you conclude that it is a fake?" Despite the fact that even the military prosecutor's office cannot assert that it is "fake," what is this haste of yours for?
At this point, we cannot know for sure if the document in question is a fake or not; however, we can list some of the facts we know as follows.
Immediately upon disclosure of the document, some Ergenekon suspects and supporters in the media rushed to suggest that the document was planted by the police. But the picture got clearer in time: The search during which the document was seized was conducted in the company of the defense lawyers, who undersigned the minutes concerning the search; copies of the document in question were even handed over to these lawyers. Moreover, the search was completely recorded. There is no deception or ploy.
Last year, Taraf had published a similar document. That 73-page document blacklisted businessmen and nongovernmental organizations in 2006 and was signed by Dursun Çiçek. Yes, his name should sound familiar to you, as he is the senior colonel who works at the Information Support Department and who also prepared the controversial document just published by Taraf that we are discussing now. At that time, the General Staff failed to take any steps after publication of the blacklist document. If legal action had been taken then, we would not be discussing this other disgraceful document today.
Taraf reporter Mehmet Baransu was defending the news story titled "The plan to finish the AK Party and Gülen" on TV. Concerning another news story written by Baransu, the General Staff had stated, "There is no such plan approved at the command level." How forgetful we are. Those who had failed to assert "There is no such document, and it is fake or forged" had to resort to employing wordplay with ambiguous references to the "command level." We learned from Baransu's remarks that although the General Staff had stated that it would bring a lawsuit against those responsible for preparing the document titled "Lahika," disclosed by Baransu, the General Staff has not done so for about one year. Please, tell me which document recently disclosed has been investigated by the military judiciary.
Our precious sons were martyred in the Dağlica and Aktütün attacks, but were those who acted ineffectively concerning these attacks called to account? Was anything more than launching a probe into "who leaked it" done? It was written that nine days before the attack, which killed 16 soldiers at the Aktütün military outpost, the relevant authorities were notified with an “urgent” notice of the possibility of the attack. The only thing the General Staff did was to file a lawsuit against the soldiers who were abducted during the attack. Later, the documents showing that the authorities had the intelligence about the attack, which killed 16 soldiers, days before it happened, were published. The General Staff asked for those documents, but we still do not know the outcome of the General Staff's investigation.
After publishing the coup diaries, the Nokta journal received more pressure from some media organizations than from the military prosecutor's office. Many articles were written to prove that the coup diaries were fakes. Were they successful? No. The former editor-in-chief of the now-defunct Nokta weekly news magazine, Alper Görmüş, was acquitted. Görmüş submitted a petition to the General Staff asking that the coup diaries be investigated. The General Staff stated that there was no such document or information about it, but the court held that the coup diaries belonged to Özden Örnek Pasha. Did those who asserted from the beginning that these diaries were fakes feel any shame?
The Nokta journal wrote that some pro-coup military officers were trying to create nongovernmental organizations that would support a military coup, and they prepared an action plan to this end. The General Staff Military Prosecutor's Office ordered a raid on Nokta's building and seized the computers there. The journal was forced to close because of these pressures. However, the documents disclosed in the Ergenekon case proved that Nokta was right. As Nokta had claimed, there was really such a plan and the crime had been committed.
Should more be said about it?
The Turkish media forgot about their past wrongs, and tried to declare the disgraceful action plan a fake. Even if the document is authentic, it is not the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) that is directly responsible for it, but some of the pro-coup military officers inside it. And these officers are those who are being tried in the Ergenekon case. Our army will not be weakened by "eliminating those military officers who do not have faith in democracy;" rather, it will be strengthened by it. Those who think otherwise and resort to wordplay may be getting "bravos," but they are doing wrong. They are just discrediting the Turkish army, an institution that dates back 2,000 years.
- Created on .