US-Turkey relations have gotten ever more complicated, and sadly readers rarely get an honest look into this topic by the people they trust to cover the news of the day.
It is crucial in an age of liars and demagogues who seek to distort everything their critics say, that readers know that just because they give a take about what the diplomatic relations should be, that doesn’t mean at all they support everything the leader does.
President Erdogan is more Islamic of a leader than past Turkish leaders that is true however alarmists have not been entirely truthful with their readers about what is happening on the ground.
Alarmists point to two particular examples of Turkey’s turn towards a more Saudi sharia style system, those two things being enforcing the drinking age and allowing for women to wear the hijab. In Turkey, the drinking age is 18, and it has been so for a long time, and if Turkey enforcing the drinking age law is Sharia Law, I don’t even want to know what we have here in the United States. There is a debate to be had on wearing the Hijab, of course, there is but in my personal opinion as long as women like everyone else follows the law, aren’t hurting anyone and as long as they are doing it on their own free will, I don’t personally oppose allowing the Hijab.
If moves occurred that genuinely went towards an Islamist constitution, then it should be opposed by everyone, but that isn’t something one should be too concerned about because when the former Parliament Speaker Ismail Kahraman called for an Islamist constitution, the President said “My views are known on this … The reality is that the state should have an equal distance from all religious faiths … This is laicism,” Erdogan said in televised comments during a visit to the Croatian capital Zagreb.
Some outlets were able to in 2016 sensationalize a situation in Diyarbakir a war-torn city in Southeastern Turkey where they were able to paint the story into being Erdogan’s thugs seized churches in the city which had it been true everyone should condemn it but it wasn’t the truth. The government was in 2016 in the process of restoration of many different buildings in Diyarbakir as a fragile peace started to emerge in the area, but dozens of mosques, 18 mansions, 19 shrines, and 447 historic buildings were among those buildings that underwent restoration.
Representatives in the Armenian community like Toros Alcan, the Armenian Representative in the General Directorate of Foundations, described claims of just indiscriminate government seizure of Christian churches as ridiculous as well as “impossible under the law.”
As well under the Justice and Development Party rule, the government has given over 400 Armenian Christian properties back to the Armenian community in Turkey of which is roughly 60,000.
The concern and support for religious minorities who are truly persecuted is a noble thing to do, but when the facts on the ground in a situation emerge that show there isn’t the persecution we feared was happening, we should all be happy about it and move on.
There are many different angles to US-Turkey relations as well as various factions who have their goals on the relationship.
In February 2018, FBI Whistleblower and ultimate enemy of the deep state Sibel Edmonds exposed in an article that elements in the CIA and the State Department directly sabotaged the negotiations between President Trump and Erdogan over the release of Pastor Brunson. Why would the deep state sabotage these talks? Do you think they would sabotage talks because they think Erdogan is an Islamist (which he isn’t), these people armed ISIS, and they used Incirlik and other bases to train terrorist forces in Syria? You know how the deep state operates, do they try to sabotage negotiations that occur with a genuine deep state leader?
Now it is true that at the beginning of his leadership he was much more of a globalist just as Vladimir Putin was but as his time continued he has soured on the EU, he has successfully forced out people like George Soros, he has been able to go after corrupt practices in Big Pharma in Turkey, and the coup attempt by Fethullah Gulen was defeated.
Many still try to claim that it is a conspiracy theory to suggest Fethullah Gulen is completely innocent and that anyone who says he was behind is just a paid shill for Erdogan.
The Akinci military base was one of the important locations where coup plotters used as they carried out the violent coup attempt against the flawed but democratically elected government. Explain this one; on Friday night and into Saturday morning, assistant theology professor Adil Oksuz was caught at the military base trying to flee the base with coup plotter soldiers. He was a close associate with Fethullah Gulen something the mastermind of the July 15th coup attempt himself admitted to France 24. Oksuz returned to Turkey from the US two days before the coup attempt and he returned with Kemal Batmaz another Gulen affiliated Kaynak Holding, and he was found trying to flee Akinci military base with Oksuz, but also he was seen communicating with the butcherers that night! It goes without saying there are many crazy professors in the world but I don’t recall many cases of professors just going around military bases on a Friday night and Saturday morning, much less on the night of a coup attempt with a man who communicated with the killers, and whom both fled the base in the morning.
At the base the morning after CCTV camera footage three men fleeing the base and they had something in common.
Harun Sahin was the general manager of Surat Technology a company within the Gulen associated Kaynak holding he was seen fleeing the base after the coup attempt.
Niyazi Akallin was found fleeing the base and he was a systems engineer at Surat Technology the same company within the Gulen associated Kaynak holding.
Seyfullah Genc was another one who was found fleeing the Akinci military base and he was the CEO of the Gulen affiliated Supercom Informatics.
Mithat Aynaci a former police chief in Istanbul he had a court record before the coup because of his extensive Gulen connections, he was caught in a tank near Istanbul Police Headquarters.
The testimony from the Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces Hulusi Akar a highly respected man of integrity said in his sworn testimony, as he was taken hostage by the coup plotters, they took him to the Akinci military base and when Akar asked who was controlling them the plotters offered to organize a phone call with Fethullah Gulen who they described as their leader.
Akar said,
“I shouted at them, I said “Who do you think you are? Who really are you? Where are those commanders of forces and that second head that you claim you have assembled? Where are the ministers? Bring forth whomever you say you have. Who is your head and who is your tail?” In reply to this, Hakan Evrim said something like “If you’d like, we can put you in contact with Fethullah Gülen, our opinion leader.” I scolded him and said, “I will not speak to anyone.
An accused flight lieutenant said in his testimony that he knew that as the Hizmet Movement (Gulen established the Hizmet Movement) that they were executing a coup attempt when he dropped another bomb near the Presidential complex.
Former Gulenists have not had the most flattering things to say about Fethullah Gulen.
One of Gulen’s longtime closest associates Latif Erdogan said that “Gulen’s mission is to take control of the state and declare himself absolute ruler. This has always been his unwavering mission.”
Huseyin Gulerce former editor in chief of the Gulenist newspaper Zaman said that children are extensively brainwashed in these schools and that they are taught to treat Fethullah Gulen as a savior, in a way somewhat similar to the Mujahideen e Khalq in Iran.
Leading up to the coup attempt some very suspicious social media posts were made by Gulenists.
Osman Özsoy a political science professor and important Gulenist player he appeared on the US-based Özgürlük Zamanı (Time for Freedom), he said:
Özsoy: “Good times are just around the corner. How I wish I were a colonel today and not a professor, then I would have much more to contribute to this process..
Presenter: How exactly would you contribute?
Özsoy: I just said what I said and won’t be commenting on it more. If I were to be a colonel today, I would have a bigger chance of service.”
Gülenist prof foretells coup,says ‘useless crowds’ would never stand for democracy in Turkeyhttps://t.co/SMLHjPRzDB pic.twitter.com/Yui8FTKO8k
— DAILY SABAH (@DailySabah) July 31, 2016
Faruk Mercan who wrote the biography on Gulen hinted about the coup attempt saying
“There had not been this many blasts and loss of civilian lives even in the days before September 12th, 1980. The Republic of Turkey is going through the most serious crisis of its history.” (March 13th, 2016)
What did Mercan know? When did Mercan know it?
Gulenist journalist for the outlets Bugün and Aksiyon; Tuncay Opcin tweeted a threat saying “Busted in bed, hung by dawn” he said this 2 days before the coup attempt, and it sounds awfully similar to what the coup plotters tried to do storming the resort Erdogan was staying in.
The Ankara Representative for the Gulenist media outlet Zaman Mustafa Unal said in a tweet “You just wait and see what is to come.”
Gulen himself has not in private whatsoever denied that he wants to overthrow the government, in fact, he said he has wanted to overthrow the Turkish government since he was 20.
But as well he has said “You must move within the arteries of the system, and if you decide to retreat, you must do so without being noticed. This is vital for our organization’s future.” “Do not act until such time you have all the state power until you have brought to your side all the power of the constitutional institutions in Turkey.”
There are many above the surface facts about Fethullah Gulen and then many more below the surface facts about the mastermind of the 2016 coup attempt.
Fethullah Gulen began as a religious cleric who started a movement that would spread across the world.
In 1976 he opened his first student dormitory where they held religious discussions on the side. That dormitory opened the can of worms which inspired the Gulen schools and tuition centers. The schools sought to bring income and recruitment to the Gulen network.
The high achieving successful students in the schools were groomed for positions within the Turkish bureaucracy.
After these students got their jobs in the Turkish bureaucracy they were asked to give back to the group by donating 10-20% of their salaries.
Gulen has strongly criticized secularism and the secular constitution he was convicted in 1999 under the government that preceded Erdogan of trying to overthrow the secular constitution. Istanbul chief Rabbi Ishak Haleva had warned US of Gulen, saying he is a “radical Islamist” hiding behind the cloak of moderation.
The network has a hierarchical structure that consists of many circles who work as small secretive cells. The cells all have a brother or a sister who leads the cell and the people in the cell are left in the dark about the work of the other cells. High ranking members communicate through code names.
Gulenists were told that to avoid being detected they can avoid prayer and abstaining from alcohol.
Gulen ran a massive empire with TV stations, newspapers, a major bank, Turkey’s largest trade association as well as businesses and schools.
Members of the Gulen network would constantly give Gulen access to confidential state information.
Gulenist infiltrators into the Turkish bureaucracy worked together to try to destroy their political opponents through the use of wiretapping, leaks, and falsifying evidence.
This sounds frighteningly similar to what is happening here in the US, to the whole Spygate scandal and the basis for the Russia investigation (the Steele dossier, and the set up of George Papadopolus.)
One of the biggest examples in Turkey of this was the Ergenekon trials where Gulenist prosecutors forged evidence which was responsible for getting 275 nationalists in military, media, and politics arrested on trumped up charges of trying to overthrow the government.
Similarities here in the US also include the travesty against Justice Brett Kavanaugh whose reputation was dragged through the mud by the Democrats who brought out many women to accuse him of sexual assault. Many of the women either retracted their stories or admitted they lied about their claims against Justice Kavanaugh but Dr. Christine Blasey Ford really kept persisting without evidence. Dr. Ford’s best friend Leland Keyser said that she was pressured by Ford’s ex-FBI friend Monica Maclean to change her testimony that was under penalty of perjury. The only big difference being, in this case, was that Kavanaugh was able to overcome the fabricated allegations made against him, but the 275 victims in the Ergenekon trials were convicted first.
As the positions needing to be filled in the Turkish bureaucracy grew it was always the Gulen movement who stood ready and able to come in and to infiltrate the Turkish state even more.
How does a Turkish cleric of “humbled origins” amass a multi billion dollar empire he runs in rural Pennsylvania and without a registered mail address, corporate registration or bank account?
Graham Fuller former Vice Chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council best remembered for authoring the memo that served as the basis of the Iran contra scandal was the man who got Gulen’s green card application through. Fuller also was famous for saying the Clinton administration should use Muslims to further globalist interests in Central Asia.
Fuller wasn’t the only one in the CIA who helped the radical cleric Gulen get a green card in the US, former Ambassador to Turkey and former deputy director of the CIA George Fidas, and state department official Morton Abranowitz.
Abranowitz worked on the board of the National Endowment for Democracy and cofounded the International Crisis Group with none other than George Soros. Both groups have worked extensively in regime change efforts as well as funding violent color revolutions in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
Fethullah Gulen hired Karen Hughes a long time confidant to George W Bush to act as PR lady for him as he wanted to pretend to people that he was indeed a moderate Muslim. Ms. Hughes served as Communications Director, Counselor to the President, and then served as US undersecretary of State for public diplomacy.
The former head of the Istanbul branch of the MIT and former chief intelligence adviser Osman Nuri Gundes wrote in his biography that the Gulen movement sent CIA agents to Central Asia under cover as English teachers for the Madrassas in the region. He said Gulen sheltered over 100 CIA agents in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan alone.
Professor Necip Hablemitoglu of Ankara University in 2001 wrote a report submitted a report that was submitted in Ankara court room where a court case on Gulen was taking place. The report was titled “Operation Agents – Infiltration Spies and Fethullah-ists. ” it said that Gulen worked voluntarily as a CIA agent under the protection of the FBI and lived in Pennsylvania, on a private estate designed for him.”
The report labeled Gulen as “Hocaefendi” (also written “Hodja Efendi,” and translated variously as “Master Teacher,” “Revered Teacher,” or “Master Lord”) and it stated,
- The model the US puts forward of sects [or cults] worldwide applies to our country’s Fethullah-ists. There is no-one in Turkey or the world who does not know that the US is the external support of the sect that is the biggest threat to our secular republic.
- Hocaefendi lives on a private estate in the state of Pennsylvania that is thronged with people and with a doctor on hand 24 hours a day. Following contacts with CIA personnel and the State Governor, it is understood, among other things, that the community has also opened a school within the state’s boundaries.
- The US embassy and consulates solve all the visa problems of those visiting the Hocaefendi people – issuing ten-year visas.
- According to personal statements from his supporters, Hocaefendi until recently was an agent for the Turkish state’s intelligence organizations. After the development of the link with the CIA, the status of this kind of information service continued for some time. Consequently, until the Turkish Armed Forces and MIT [the National Intelligence Network of Turkey] noticed this irregular relationship, public opinion continued to see them as being a symbol of peace.
- According to the Fethullah-ists, as one day Khomeini returned to Iran, the Hocaefendi people will also return in glory and sit in Cankaya (the Turkish President’s residence in Ankara)
The Ankara University Professor was shot dead in December of 2002 and the case still remains unsolved.
The three most important regiments involved in the attempted coup in 2016 were apart of NATO’s rapid deployable corps. In the Whats App conversation group between the coup plotters they named the chat in English “peace at home; peace in the world” the exact same motto as the NATO rapid deployable corps.
That tragic coup attempt which killed over 200 people in Turkey had the marks of deep state globalist forces written all over it because they were mortified that Erdogan realized he was being used by the globalists and that Turkey was getting completely screwed by the globalist scoundrels who didn’t have Turkey’s interests at heart nor indeed of any nation including the US.
It was according to Sibel Edmonds 15-20% of the Turkish military that was infiltrated by the Gulen network and the numbers in the police force were much higher before the coup attempt.
Similar forces here in the US are trying to do to President Trump what they almost succeeded in Turkey. I mean friends Andrew McCabe admitted everything!!
As for the other sticking point in US-Turkey relations, the fight should not be happening over support for the YPG, as they are the Syrian branch of the narcoterrorist PKK, they use child soldiers, and these people threatened to release ISIS terrorists to blackmail the US into staying in Syria. You can criticize Turkey for many things but they are not anti Kurd, 1/5 of Turkey is Kurdish and I’m not seeing genocide happen against the Kurds in Turkey. The PKK/YPG are as representative of Kurds as FARC/ELN are of Colombians. Especially in the age of the evermore violent left and Antifa the US and Turkey should be working together fighting the leftist narcoterrorist threat.
We don’t have to agree on everything, we don’t have to compromise on our values such as opposition to mass uncontrolled immigration, we don’t have to like everything Erdogan does but we do have to prioritize in the fight against globalism and the deep state and Turkey is a natural ally.
