While it is known to have staged many direct or indirect military coups in the past and to have political ambitions, the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) was excluded from the debates. Extreme care was paid so that it would not be worn down by civilians. Although it was not subject to any civilian, democratic or legal review or audit, acted independently and without consulting anyone or any other institution and tried to maintain a military guardianship over civilian politics, the TSK was presumed to have been free from dirt, guilt, corruption, fraud and illegality.
The people who voice statements to the effect that the TSK should be subordinate to the civilian government, as is the case with all contemporary democracies, and that all of its activities should be audited by the civilian authorities in a transparent manner were labeled “traitors who attack the sacrosanct army.” Yet this is a universally valid rule: Any power whose activities are not transparent and cannot be audited by public authorities elected to office by the people will start to rot irrespective of its military or civilian character. An institution’s ability to audit itself is a falsehood. The impulse of the employees of an institution to protect each other and their urge to keep things inside make such self-audits virtually impossible. It is for this reason that even private companies tend to hire external auditing firms so that they go through an exhaustive check in addition to their internal audits.
The Action Plan to Fight Reactionaryism, which is publicly known as “The Plan to Finish the AKP [Justice and Development Party, AK Party] and [Fethullah] Gülen,” published first by the Taraf newspaper on June 12, 2009, created big debates, and society, politics and media organizations were divided into two camps about the authenticity of the document. Acting upon the instruction from the General Staff, the military prosecutor had strangely enough not bothered to see the document in question, but “concluded that it is fake.” The pro-army media organizations and the Republican People’s Party (CHP) insistently voiced the argument that the photocopied document was the product of a conspiracy, and with this attempt that failed to convince anyone, they tried to cover up this dirty plot that targeted the nation and the elected government. Moreover, they tended to ignore the forensic reports from the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) and the forensic medicine department that confirmed the thesis that “if there is a photocopied document, there must be an original from which to photocopy.” Finally, Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ held a press conference and made it crystal clear that the photocopied document was nothing but a “piece of paper” and -- perhaps with a move to make his words more convincing -- he added that those who had produced this “fake document” must be found.
Since Friday of last week, Turkey has been boiling with another wave of debates on this document. This time, there is the original document with a real signature. More important than this is the letter attached by a military officer to this plot document expounding some information and giving the impression that there is a junta within the TSK made up of some high-ranking military officers. This letter, which Today’s Zaman published in its entirety yesterday, contains information about the plot document and what happened at the headquarters of the General Staff after the disclosure of the plot and hints at the illegal activities of a network of traitors at the heart of the General Staff. Consider an army that sees the election results as a threat to the country and regards the elected government as an enemy. Consider an army that tries to devise treacherous plans to portray a civil society movement praised by the country and the world as a terrorist organization and to arrange the planting of weapons secretly in the houses of innocent people for their eventual detention. This is utterly unbelievable.
The fact that the activities mentioned in the “The Plan to Finish the AKP and Gülen” has parallels to the speech Gen. Başbuğ delivered at the War Academies Command is sufficient for us to conclude that the photocopied document was not fake, but it is thought-provoking that today some people claim that the original document with a real signature may be fabricated. Yet, the spear does not fit into the sack. The argument that “the truth has the bad habit of being revealed sooner or later” is verified once again. Like all the lies of the army’s top commanders which have been refuted over the last several years, this lie about the document is has also finally been refuted.
The attacks against the Aktütün and Dağlıca military outposts, the Beştepe massacre, purposely leaving a Cihan news agency reporter atop a mountain in freezing winter conditions, the killing of four privates when a defused hand grenade was given by a military officer to one of the soldiers, the death of a Kurdish girl, Ceylan Önkol, in a mortar shell explosion, Başbuğ’s description of the Light Anti-tank Weapons (LAWs) as “pipes, not weapons” in an attempt to discredit the Ergenekon investigation, the protection afforded to Col. Dursun Çiçek, who undersigned the plot document, Çiçek’s attempt to deceive the prosecutor by executing a different signature, the fact that there is not a single illegal activity within the TSK that has ever been disclosed before being covered by media organizations, Başbuğ’s empty words that all members of the TSK are perfectly innocent and they pay complete respect to democracy and rule of law -- lies, lies, lies. I must exclude the honorable and dignified military officers, but I am sorry to say that with all these lies, the TSK’s commanding generals are like “Pinocchios in uniform.”
