Unfortunately, he has been unable to keep his promise, and he has constantly meddled with daily politics. Yet, he has been shy to talk about military issues and to satisfy the public opinion's concerns. On Friday, when asked about the deaths of four soldiers caused by a military officer's abuse of power, Mr. Başbuğ got upset and told off the journalist who asked the question. Mr. Başbuğ told him that “enough is enough.” I think it is high time that the Turkish public opinion voiced its concerns on the military's effectiveness and told military generals that “enough is enough.” The Taraf daily published a news story a few days ago stating that four soldiers who were declared dead as a result of a tragic accident were not dead as a result of an accident but as a result of an officer's punishment. The officer got upset when a private fell asleep on duty, and as punishment he put in the private's hand a hand grenade ready to explode. For 45 minutes the private tried to stop the hand grenade from exploding, but his hand was too sweaty, and the bomb fell on the floor, resulting in the death of four privates. All authorities announced that they had died because of an accident without giving any specific details and declared the privates martyrs. But after the Taraf daily published the true story, military authorities decided to detain the officer, and he defended what he did as opportunity training. He will now be tried in a military court. But, it is shameful enough that if the daily had not published the true story, nobody would question him.
In Turkey, almost everyone agrees that we need a professional army. In this technological age, it is almost impossible for young people with only three months of military training to fight wars. Despite several promises, still these youngsters fight the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) terrorists in the mountains, and many of them become martyrs. More than 700,000 Turkish youth are now in active military service, and they serve for 15 months. This is a huge loss for the Turkish economy, and as several incidents have shown, they are not effective fighters as their training is not sufficient. Our generals, bowing to public pressure, promised several times that they are making plans for a professional army, but the public has never been informed about a detailed plan.
The generals love to talk on every single issue under the sky, but they are hesitant to inform us on military issues. They need to convince us why hundreds of thousands of our youths have to stay economically idle for almost two years, to interrupt their lives because of military duty, to delay several important issues such as marriage because of military duty interruption and to leave their loved ones for almost two years during peacetime. God forbid, if there were a war, none of us would stay behind and would join our army to defend our families, lives, country and so on, but in peacetime, it is high time that we question if those 700,000 men are really useful for the country. We know that a high percentage of them either serve military officers or themselves as janitors, cooks, drivers, painters and so on. If we had a smaller professional army, many of these services would obviously not be required. What is more, these people would be working and contributing to the economy, thereby sponsoring the army as well. It is crystal clear that there is no economic logic in the status quo. A professional army may be expensive, but our generals should convince us with detailed calculations. Our generals' military expenditure patterns clearly show that they really do not care so much about expenditures, anyway. I am not sure the word “expensive” is in their dictionary. On the other hand, these non-professional youngsters, however brave and heroic they are, are not effective fighters because of the conditions of their age.
We need to hear Başbuğ's voice over these issues, and as far as I am concerned, I am ready to listen to him every day if that would stop innocent, non-professional youngsters from perishing. That would be an original contribution to Turkey by Başbuğ.
