They say if Turkey is to become a country where there is supremacy of law, it is high time for members of the military to learn to remain in their domain of power and not interfere in political matters, as experience shows that the military's meddling in politics does nothing but harm both the country and itself.Sabah's Nazlı Ilıcak welcomes the criminal compliant filed by the intellectuals because she interprets this as a move aimed to preserve the supremacy of law. Even though the case against Başbuğ has not been concluded, she says it is appropriate for intellectuals to react in such a way. In her view, if various nongovernmental organizations can act in a constant and determined way when members of the military meddle in political issues, the members of the military will learn to stay in their own domain and will avoid evaluating political issues in the same manner as a politician.
We will learn two things from this criminal complaint, says Milliyet's Hasan Cemal, who states that the case against Başbuğ will show whether the chief of general staff in Turkey is subject to Turkish law or if he is above it, the person who will investigate Başbuğ and the people who filed a lawsuit against him. “They say the military has a mission to guard the nation, but the law which gave the military this mission is a law which was written following a military coup in 1960. A law which bans members of the military from speaking on political issues went into effect in 1930 during the era of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the nation's founder. This is a note for the lovers of Kemalism,” says Cemal. Expressing his view about the progress of the legal action taken against Başbuğ, he explains that the prosecutor's office accepted the complaint against Başbuğ, but it is not authorized to investigate him as the Military Prosecutor's Office has that authority. So Cemal thinks the prosecutor's office will rule that the case is out of its jurisdiction and transfer it to the Military Prosecutor's Office. “What do you think the Military Prosecutor's Office will do? Will it launch an investigation into the chief of general staff on the grounds that he engaged in politics? No. There are so many things that need to be done to transform Turkey into a state which is governed by law that sometimes it is impossible not to be pessimistic about it,” complains Cemal.
Another Sabah columnist, Emre Aköz, says as Turkey evolves into a global actor, it is vital that it prevent military officers from engaging in politics. Noting that up until now the military has tried to solve the Kurdish problem through violence, which resulted in the waste of $1 billion and the deaths of 40,000 people over the past 25 years, he says all these failures prove that the military's involvement in politics is wrong. “There can only be one prime minister in a country. Countries where there are two prime ministers [one the actual prime minister and the other one the chief of general staff] will not be saved from trouble,” warns Aköz.
