What's Really Behind Foreign Policy's Coup 'Argument'?

Foreign Policy (FP) is one of the few respected journals that covers political issues from around the world. On Feb. 25, FP published an "argument" on Turkey, "What's Really Behind Turkey's Coup Arrests?" by Soner Çağaptay that claims to unveil the truth behind Turkey's coup arrests.

The argument's most striking and fearful claim is this: "Illegal wiretaps and arbitrary arrests serve to intimidate the public, not prosecute criminals. Because of Ergenekon, Turks who oppose the AKP and the Gülen movement fear to speak their minds freely. If you have doubts, call a friend in Turkey and ask for an opinion of the case. Your friend will respond with details of the weather."

In this analysis I have no intention of discrediting the name of FP just because of its editorial preference to publish such a problematic "argument" which does not provide convincing evidence to prove the claims, nor do I have any intention to denigrate the name of author, Soner Çağaptay, a friend of mine, once, for a short while. We worked together at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Rather, my intention is to shed light on, or at least providing an alternative perspective, to contribute to the "argument" on "What's Really Behind Turkey's Coup Arrests?"

To begin with, I will examine the argument and the evidence that Çağaptay uses and show why I think it is a problematic argument to understand what is going on in Turkey then offer my "argument" to explain what's really behind Turkey's coup arrests.

The main claim of the argument is outlined as, "The military, which opposes the AKP and the Gülenists because it sees itself as the virtual guardian of Turkey's secular polity à la Atatürk's vision, serving as a bulwark against religion's domination over politics and government, has become the primary target of this round of politically motivated arrests." To prove this claim Mr. Çağaptay provides "evidence": "Illegally obtained documents, including confidential and sometimes embarrassing medical records of four-star generals, were published openly in Gülenist media. Although the chief of staff said the documents were doctored, they were recently used as evidence, with the support of anonymous witnesses, to arrest serving generals and admirals."

From this very point, the article brilliantly twists the facts and presented them as "evidence" to prove the argument. In fact it is true that "the military, which opposes the AKP and the Gülenists because it sees itself as the virtual guardian of Turkey's secular polity à la Atatürk's vision, serving as a bulwark against religion's domination over politics and government." Yet the facts are twisted from this point on and presented as if the military is targeted just because it opposes the AKP and the Gülenists. The reality is that because the military sees itself as the virtual guardian of Turkey's secular polity à la Atatürk's vision, serving as a bulwark against religion's domination over politics and government, it has targeted the AKP government and the Gülenists to eliminate them from power and the bureaucracy since the AKP came to power in 2002. In other words, the military is not the target of these two groups because of its stance but it has targeted the two groups in the name of defending Atatürk's vision.

For the sake of the fight against the AKP and the Gülen movement, some generals in the military planned at least four coups but, thanks to the chiefs of general staff's firm stance against the generals, they failed toppled the government. Those coup plans were proved by various investigations and former Chief of General Staff Gen. Hilmi Özkök admitted that the generals who are now detained were in fact involved in such planning. Furthermore, former Chief of General Staff Yaşar Büyükanit, who is a close friend of Mr. Çağaptay and was hosted by the author when he visited Washington, admitted in a TV interview that he is one of the victims of the Ergenekon criminal network.

Criminalizing the Gülen movement

As another piece of evidence for the argument that the military targeted the AKP government and Gülen movement was the document that was published by the liberal Taraf daily in June 2009 showing the outlines of detailed military plans on how to criminalize the Gülen movement by placing weapons at the schools that Gülen movement run and presenting conspiratorial tactics to weaken the AKP government. This document, after a long-lasting battle between the military and prosecutors, was finally authenticated by the three forensic authorities, forensic science experts at the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBITAK), the Council of Forensic Medicine (ATK) and the Gendarmerie General Command's Criminal Investigation Department. Even the TSK finally admitted that in fact the document is an authentic document prepared by a colonel.

Moreover, the document seized as part of the Ergenekon investigation proved that military intelligence hired an author and provided him with documents to write books on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and President Abdullah Gül to launch a smear campaign against them. The books to be published -- paid for by the military -- are full of anti-Semitic language and propagate anti-Americanism in Turkey.

In addition to hundreds of other piece of evidence, these three examples are enough to prove that the fight between the military and the AKP was not launched by the government and the military was not targeted. Rather, some generals in the military, with illegal plots and strategies, launched a campaign to target the AKP government and the Gülen movement.

When it comes to the details how the author twisted the facts, the following examples are clear illustrations of his twisting of the facts. Unlike Mr. Çağaptay's claims, the documents were neither illegally obtained nor published by the Gülenist media. All of the documents (used in the indictments against Ergenekon suspects) that are discussed in the FP article were seized during the Ergenekon investigations led by public prosecutors. The documents related the Sledgehammer coup plan were leaked by a military officer. Furthermore, the documents were published by Taraf, a liberal daily, which has no connections to Gülenist groups. Mr. Çağaptay cannot provide a single piece of evidence to make such a connection.

In addition, the published documents which were authenticated by the top forensic authorities, the police's and the military's forensic laboratory included, evidence to show that there were illegal activities and coup plans to topple the democratically elected government and the Gülen movement.

In one of his claims Mr. Çağaptay is right. In fact the chief of general staff said the documents were doctored and they were recently used as evidence. Yet they were not used as evidence with the support of anonymous witnesses, they were only used after Turkey's top forensic laboratories, including the military's, proved that the documents are authentic and not doctored. Just two of the recent examples are enough to show how the author twists the facts on that front as well. The documents related to the Sledgehammer plot were authenticated by the top forensic science laboratories, police criminal laboratories and forensic experts at Turkey's top forensic investigation unit, TÜBITAK. More importantly, expert witnesses who are members of the military still on active duty, in their reports for the investigation conducted by a military court, reported that the Sledgehammer coup plan documents indicate that it was in fact an actual coup plan. Based on these reports, the prosecutors detained generals and questioned them on their involvement in the coup plan. Some of the retired generals who were questioned by the prosecutors even confessed to the prosecutors that they had crossed the line.

Another claim Mr. Çağaptay made, once again twisting the facts on allegations connected to the Ergenekon case, was that the Ergenekon case has been "a convoluted investigation that so far has produced nothing in the last three years but a record-setting 5,800-page indictment, hundreds of early-morning house raids and the detention of many prominent Turks." Here once again the author brilliantly hides the fact that during the investigation the police found weapons caches belonging to Ergenekon networks, including anti-tank weapons, C-4 explosives, hundreds of hand grenades, rocket launchers, rocket propelled grenade launchers (RPGs), AK-47s and many more weapons, enough to wipe out a medium-sized town. Furthermore, Mr. Çağaptay also hides the fact that a military court sentenced Ergenekon suspect Lt. Col. Mustafa Dönmez to four years in prison for his connections to the weapons and decided to discharge him from the army.

The author, I know, is smart enough to see and understand above mentioned facts. I do not think that he has any political agenda leading him to write such a problematic argument, one which could bring his expertise into question. It appears that he has been misinformed. One wonders whether the Turkish military fellows at the Washington Institute are Mr. Çağaptay's source and have misled him.