However, the ongoing process is proof that what we face is an institution whose room for maneuver is gradually getting smaller and which is paralyzed at the point of crisis. The main reason for this is that what is unexpected happens in civilian politics. They have seen many coups so far. More importantly, these coups emerged at points when the military tutelage was supported and could restore the regime to its original, i.e., far from democracy.Therefore, one can easily conclude that the periods without coups complied with the expectations of the subversive generals. In other words, the rationale behind coups in Turkey has always been a natural extension of the country’s concept of “republic.” Indeed, none of the civilian prime ministers who were subject to coups were able to form a resistance. For this reason, the real major change is the one seen in civilian politics. As understood from the documents concerning the Sledgehammer (Balyoz) coup plan, military officers have made coup possibilities part of their routine work, and they do not even feel the need to conceal it. The action plans subsequently prepared were all conducted within the chain of command, and all of these plans were signed off on by the force or army commanders of the time. This is because in Turkey, power essentially indicates the capability to act “outside the judicial system,” and this immunity has always been considered a privilege specific to the military. The fact that the person who conducted the Sept. 12, 1980 military coup still enjoys his retirement in a holiday resort is simple proof of this.
In short there is nothing new or different in the behavior of the military. What was unprecedented was the stance of the civilian politicians, in particular the ability of a government with strong support from Islamic groups to be astute and capable. This, it seems, has paralyzed the military. However, what further complicates this troubled situation is that we now know that not all of the commanding generals perceive “institutional interests” in the same manner. It is not hard to see that there are big disagreements among these generals as to the place of Turkey in the world and its future. The documents leaked to the media are at least a clear indication of discord, as the way in which these documents are leaked implies that there are not only a handful of idealist soldiers who did this, but that a new perspective has emerged within the military.
Thus, we can safely assume that the General Staff-orchestrated meeting of generals and admirals was inconclusive. No one in this meeting would want the military to suffer attrition, but it appears that not everyone understands “attrition” as the same thing. Indeed, no statement was made after the meeting, nor after the tripartite summit of the president, prime minister and chief of General Staff, implying any agreement among the participants. The prime minister continued to be at ease in his later speeches. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that no one is privileged, everyone is subject to an independent and impartial judicial system and that the developments indicate a normalization that would promote democracy. On the General Staff side, no statement was made, as expected, and it would not be surprising if it continue to be keep silent for some time.
The remarks to be made by the General Staff after this point will be addressed to the inside, intended to facilitate the institutional management of the military.
This is because the evidence found has already passed beyond the critical threshold. In addition to the weapons and arsenals discovered, there are concrete plans which envisage individual or collective killings, identifying the people who would perform these killings and how. Recently, police searching the Gölcük Naval Command found another plan to assassinate Erdoğan. One of the files located inside a folder containing confidential military documents was titled “Tayyip’i kim vuracak” (Who will shoot down Tayyip). After the indictment concerning the arsenals discovered in Poyrazköy was accepted by the court, we learned how the military had prepared for a coup in 2004. According to the plan, the gendarmerie would produce information to prove that there was a rising trend of reactionaryism, the general public would be made to believe that reactionaryism was widespread, civil society organizations would be mobilized with help from retired generals and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) would be divided.
These findings are embarrassing in three respects. They are proof that the military is extremely preoccupied with the habit of committing crime, that those who prepared such plans were completely superficial and that the commanding generals are miles away from perceiving social change. The result is a complete fiasco... This is a military which has insistently tried to overthrow the government in one attempt after another during a period of eight years and failed in all of them. It is also a psychologically and ideologically defeated one... Without doing an actual internal cleaning, it would be hard to get rid of this paralyzing situation.
