Turkish leader brings military more under civilian authorityI'll cut to the chase:
* Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a new presidential decree Sunday that introduced sweeping changes to Turkey's military in the wake of a July 15 failed coup, bringing the armed forces further under civilian authority* The decree gives the president and prime minister the authority to issue direct orders to the commanders of the army, air force and navy.* It also announces the discharge of 1,389 military personnel, including Erdogan's chief military adviser, who had been arrested days after the attempted coup, the Chief of General Staff's charge d'affaires and the defense minister's chief secretary.
1,389 military personnel discharged- Turkey's military is how big? Roughly 640,000 regular personnel and about 340, 000 reserves. If Wikipedia's stats are accurate?
* The decree" puts the military commands directly under the defense ministry, puts all military hospitals under the authority of the health ministry instead of the military, and also expands the Supreme Military Council - the body that makes decisions on military affairs and appointments - to include Turkey's deputy prime ministers and its justice, foreign and interior ministers" * The document, published in the official gazette Sunday, also shuts down all military schools, academies and non-commissioned officer training institutes and establishes a new national defense university to train officers.
Figuring this takes Gulen schools out of the picture- Possibly any US training schoolsCuriously enough it appears as if Gulen schools operate, or will be, on US military bases?The above article is an interesting read, by the way.
"The most immediate threat is in Nevada, where Coral Academy of Science Las Vegas (CASLV) is currently negotiating with the United States Air Force to locate a charter school at Nellis Air Force Base, with classes starting this fall."
*AP-Erdogan launched a sweeping crackdown on those believed linked to the movement of U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom he accuses of instigating the coup. Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, denies any knowledge of the coup.
Fethullah Gulen left Turkey and self imposed his own exile in the KEYSTONE State (Keystone Coup) of Pennsylvania- With the help of the CIA's Graham Fuller. I've got an interesting oped regarding Graham Fuller & Co ,you really should read. It'll be at the bottom of this post!
* In an interview Saturday with private A Haber television, Erdogan said he also wanted to put the country's MIT intelligence agency and the chief of general staff's headquarters under the presidency. "If we can pass this small constitution package with (the opposition parties), then the chief of general staff and MIT will be tied to the president," Erdogan told A Haber.
There is something off about that quotation- It just seemed not quite right.. So I went looking. Due diligence etc. That quoted statement , AP's version is slightly different then what is quoted here:(Armenian source)
"We are going to introduce a small constitutional package which, if approved, will bring the National Intelligence Organisation (MIT) and chief of staff under the control of the presidency," President Erdogan told Turkey's A Haber television on Saturday.
So AP presents the changes as being tied to the implied dictatorship of Erdogan From the Armenia media coverage we get "under the control of the presidency" "Under the control of presidency" , means the office of President, rather then the implied dictator Erdogan, "tied to the president"- So AP omitted a portion of the quotation to push a specific meme
* The package would need to be brought to parliament for a vote.
All in all it appears that the national government of Turkey is bringing the military under the leadership of the civilian government. Or as my hubby says- "They are transitioning the control of the military to the civilian government , the one elected by the people." - This would put Turkey's military on similar footing with Syria's military. Where al Assad is the commander in chief. So now we can expect the western media to call the Turkish National Army- "Erdogan's army" in the same way we've been duly informed by the warmongering media that the Syrian National Army is "Assad's Army" Just wait for the spin to happen. Cause it will! Oh yes, it will!GrahamEFuller.com Graham E. Fuller is a former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA, a former senior political scientist at RAND, and a current adjunct professor of history at Simon Fraser University.Image from Mr. Fuller's site Open letter to Graham Fuller & CoSadik Unay @ Daily SabahI'm going to post the entire oped. It's only 5 paragraphs but it covers a lot of ground.
Over the course of the last fortnight, the mainstream international media channels were bombarded by a full-scale misinformation campaign trying to discredit the brave, popular reaction that thwarted the July 15 coup in Turkey perpetrated by the Gülenist Terror Organization (FETÖ). In the early hours of the coup, NBC claimed that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan tried to escape and demanded asylum in Germany, which was rejected by Berlin. The New York Times degraded the people's heroic resistance against the coup plotters as "herd behavior" and both The New York Times and Washington Post tried to discredit post-coup security measures by accusing Erdoğan of utilizing the coup to justify oppression against all opposition groups. The Financial Times was busy publishing the hypocritical message of Gülen denouncing the coup that he himself masterminded, while the BBC was looking for analysts who could criticize the government's democratic stance via open invitation. The Guardian and Independent chose not to criticize the coup plotters who killed and wounded thousands, but the extraordinary measures taken under the constitutional state of emergency. Le Monde and Der Spiegel, as ever, demonized Erdoğan, who was only 15 minutes away from being assassinated by the Gülenists, with charges of Middle Eastern-style authoritarianism against the coup plotting junta. International media outlets seemed committed to not mentioning the role of the FETÖ and its pathological indoctrination of military officers in the bloody coup, but cry of democratic weakening in Turkey, as if the coup happened all by itself.
While the misinformation campaign was proceeding with full-force, unsurprising support to the mastermind of the coup Fetullah Gülen came from former CIA Vice Chair Graham Fuller. Fuller, known for his organizing role in the secretive Gladio organization of the Cold War years and the Green Belt project supporting pro-Western Islamic movements, has been no foreigner to Gülenists since the 1970s.
He extended personal protection for Gülen using the old language of "moderate, peaceful cleric," trying to weaken the legal case for his extradition. Fuller's claim that "the Gülen Movement is not a cult, but represents one of the most encouraging faces of Islam," is truly outrageous in the face of all factual evidence that links this terrorist organization to multiple military and judicial coup attempts. Fuller tries to manipulate global perceptions by reflecting the process in Turkey as a case of normal political competition and equating the incumbent Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the FETÖ as "two moderate Islamic movements." Although the AK Party is the legitimate political representative of "conservative-democratic" social forces and its founding leader, Erdoğan, is the democratically elected president, FETÖ is a secretive, cultish terrorist organization. This organization systematically used illegal means, such as stealing questions for centrally managed exams, blackmailing and wiretapping, to form a massive web of human cells in the higher echelons of the security establishment, intelligence institutions, judiciary, bureaucracy, academia and business circles. FETÖ operatives in the special forces of the army and the police force committed high-level assassinations, details of which are still being investigated.We must categorically reject stereotyping that tries to portray Erdoğan as a typical Middle Eastern autocrat and Gülen as a progressive Muslim leader. Gülen was not exiled to Pennsylvania, but escaped to avoid prosecution due to his illegal activities in Turkey, most of which were perpetrated under the knowledge of U.S. authorities. Therefore, it would not be wrong to describe Gülen as an innocent cleric but in the same manner with Fuller, a murky and secretive agent acting as part of a wider intelligence network supporting American interests. Another myth concerning the FETÖ is that the movement is strictly apolitical. For years, adherents of the cult tried to invade strategic political and bureaucratic posts by getting involved in various conspiracies. They tried to maximize their power base by supporting military coups and collaborating with juntas; never defending the fundamental rights and liberties of those suffering under repression.Turkey is a crucial NATO ally for the United States, and if Washington is committed to avoiding an existential crisis in bilateral relations Gülen would have to be extradited to Turkey to face trial. Despite the international media frenzy distorting the realities on the ground, the strong commitment of Turkish society to democracy and rule of law requires that FETÖ faces legal prosecution for all the crimes that its members have perpetrated. The truth has a bad habit of emerging sooner or later.
UPDATE! hattip: AnonymousJuly 31, 2016 at 2:35 PM
Dear Penny
Hoping everyone gives that letter a read? Don't Miss: