The Plot Casting A Shadow Over Başbuğ's Speech
The Taraf newspaper on Friday ran a headline that many saw as extremely horrifying. The news story connected with the headline disclosed an action plan drafted by the Operations Department of the General Staff that aims to plan conspiracies against the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and Fethullah Gülen with a view to portraying them as potentially criminal in the eyes of the general public.
The plan, prepared by the Col. Dursun Çiçek, talks about a number of black propaganda moves such as mobilizing agents inside the AK Party, defending the military officers who are defendants at the Ergenekon trial, preparing news stories about Greece and Armenia that will create reactions among the people and that will help to expand the voter base of the nationalist parties, and discrediting popular TV serials such as “Kurtlar Vadisi,” “Kollama” and “Tek Türkiye.”
The plan, which was prepared in April, was seized during a police search at the office of Serdar Öztürk, who was the lawyer of retired Col. Levent Göktaş, currently under arrest in connection with the Ergenekon investigation. (Öztürk, too, was arrested several days ago.) The plan heavily uses the concepts of "friendly" and "enemy" during the implementation of the activities envisaged thereunder.
The most heinous part of the plan consists of developing certain conspiracy plots in order to charge innocent people with false crimes. The following horrifying excerpts are from this brazen plan:
- In the propaganda to be spread, it will be frequently noted that we are not against religion.
- Actions will be planned without creating the impression that they are changing the agenda of the Ergenekon trial and the pro-religion media will not be allowed to concentrate on this.
- We will create the impression that the supporters of Fethullah Gülen are going too far and are directly attacking the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), and we will conduct activities that will make sure that even conservative citizens will say: "This is too much. We are all Muslims, but these supporters of Fethullah Gülen are making provocations in order to attack the TSK."
- Reactionary military officers and noncommissioned officers who are in the category of unfavorable/suspicious will be reported to be involved in reactionaryism propaganda, and then news stories will suggest that these people behave immorally.
- As part of the operations against the reactionary TSK members, intimidating propaganda will be conducted against those unidentified reactionary TSK members in order to force them to make errors or collapse on their own.
- During the raids against the addresses of Gülen's followers to be conducted under the military penal code, weapons, ammunition, plans and other materials will be arranged to be seized so that the Fethullah Gülen group is described as an armed terrorist organization or Pro-Fethullah Terrorist Organization (FTÖ) and the investigations concerning it will be conducted under military jurisdiction.
It is really saddening to see that an institution whose primary duty is to ensure the security of Turkey and the Turkish people completely ignores the law and thinks about how to manufacture crimes against innocent people and attempts to implement a plan to this end.
It is grievous... This is because the plot in question manufactures crimes in order to portray innocent people as guilty in the eyes of the general public and before the law.
The plot in question intends to make people culpable for military crimes in order to mobilize the military judiciary.
It aims to employ the military judiciary in order to deprive people of their right to a defense.
Then?
Then, everything will be easier.
The media organizations will step in to launch a smear campaign against the Fethullah Gülen group in order to defame them in the eyes of the general public and convict them in the military courts.
How?
Through plots to present them as members of a terrorist organization.
Why should an organization seek to undertake such an action plan?
In 2000, then-State Security Court (DGM) prosecutor Nuh Mete Yüksel launched a case against Fethullah Gülen Hocaefendi on charges of establishing an illegal organization. At the end of the eight-year case, he was acquitted. Upon objections, the General Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the acquittal.
Thus, it turned out that all the crimes attributed to Gülen were just libel ?????.
Why do they need to resort to conspiracies in order to overturn an acquittal decision given by civilian courts after a litigation process of eight years?
Does this mean that the military courts are fairer? Is it because they do not want to take the crimes they will manufacture to the civilian courts?
Who can attempt to place weapons and ammunition in the houses of innocent students to find them later just to accuse them of being members of a fabricated terrorist organization? Can we consider these people patriotic in their efforts to defame those innocent students?
I hope the General Staff will do whatever is required about this plot, which has created great suspicions about the TSK.
Otherwise, they will be deprived of legitimacy in the eyes of the general public for their efforts to defend some retired or active military officers who had been involved in some illegal activities by resorting to the principle of presumption of innocence against the evidence obtained by prosecutors, the arsenals uncovered and the charges made under the Ergenekon investigation.
Similarly, their complaints that there is a systematic opposition that aims to weaken the TSK will never be heard.
The speeches given by Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ on April 14 at the War Academies Command and on April 29 at the General Staff headquarters and which were described as highly intellectual must have been considerably overshadowed by this plan.
I hope he will soon announce that those who prepared this plan will never achieve their goals and that he will rebuke those who consider the majority of the nation and the government as the "enemy."
Until then, his statement that no one who undertakes activities against the existing democratic regime will be allowed to stay within the TSK will not be convincing.
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