He says that he is not sure about the issue and is not capable of comprehending the exact nature and details of the issue. It must be humbling for an almighty Turkish general to say that he does not know or he does not have clear idea on an issue, given that as their past record shows, they have an idea about everything under the sun and they have never been shy to share their knowledge, ideas, firm opinions and true beliefs with the public. One wonders why they suddenly become humbled when it comes to the Ergenekon case. Even though only a few of them voice it publicly, we know that because of the education they get, many of our generals firmly believe they are superior to civilians in all respects and that they are the only ones who know Turkey, its issues, problems, challenges, opportunities and so on. It is easy to understand this from all their public speeches. Moreover, with the exception of ones like Hilmi Özkök the Democrat, the Turkish public has only extremely rarely heard of military officers speaking of the virtues of democracy and the importance of civilian governance, etc. In their speeches, our generals touch upon almost every single socio-political issue and firmly state that the Turkish army will never allow this and that. We teach in our classes that in normal democracies, parliaments can discuss anything as long as they do not establish a tyranny of majority and respect minority rights. It seems that in our generals’ “democratic” vision, or to put it more correctly, “Kemalist militarist theocracy,” parliaments can only discuss issues allowed by the generals, and respecting minority rights is not a big issue. Anyway, this state of affairs gives us the “opportunity” to observe how our generals pride themselves in knowing everything and having a firm idea about every single issue in Turkey. Somehow, they even know the real intentions and secret desires of people as well. It is for this reason that I find it puzzling to hear Gen. Büyükanıt saying that he does not have detailed information about the Ergenekon case and that it is very difficult to comprehend the case and establish an opinion.
Until very recently, he was the chief of general staff, who was also the head of a number of military intelligence agencies. He attended all National Security Council (MGK) meetings and challenged the prime minister on several issues, such as a number of civil servants who are graduates of theology schools and so on. He never had any difficulty in reaching information on even minute details. But somehow, he says he does not have sufficient information on the Ergenekon case. As a matter of fact, one does not have to be a chief of general staff to get enough information about the case. The two indictments about the case are more than 5,000 pages, and its annexes, as far as I know, are millions of pages. After judging the hard evidence, not only one, but several independent tribunals have reached the verdict to imprison suspects until the court reaches the final decision. We know that our generals have constantly and publicly accused several people and groups without even one-millionth of the Ergenekon evidence, but when it comes to the Ergenekon case, suddenly they humble themselves and claim that they cannot comprehend the case.
I wonder if the Ergenekon case is more complicated and sophisticated than social, cultural, religious, historical, diplomatic, economic, political, linguistic and anthropological (remember that our generals had always claimed that Kurds were not a separate ethnic group, but mountain Turks and Kurdish was not a language) issues. It is, of course, not. But our generals do not like the true answers in the case and, even worse, they hate to pronounce them. Somehow I remember ostriches.
