They capture him and bring him to court. The judge says: “Tell me, son. How did you do this?” Temel replies: “I was in Trabzon. I got out of the house. There was rain; the streets were flooded. I got into the car, but it didn't work. So I got back out,” and goes on with road stories for hours. The judge gets angry and says, “Leave those and come to İstanbul; tell me about the murder.” Temel replies: “Oh, I come to İstanbul so you can lock me up in jail. Why should I ever go to İstanbul?”
A heinous murder has been committed, and some are still complaining about how “this document was leaked to the press.” They are still beating around the bush and twisting words.
Have you thought about the number of coup plots we have spoken about in the past, not 50, not even in the past 40, 20 or 10, but in the last 5 years? Leave aside the May 27, 1960, March 12, 1971, Sept. 12, 1980 and Feb. 28, 1997 coups we have already been through. I am also skipping those plans such as the ones by Talat Aydemir and Cemal Madanoğlu that were averted in the last minute. Since 2003, we have talked at various times about the coup attempts code named by the plotters as Blonde Girl (Sarıkız), Moonlight (Ayışığı) and Yakamoz (Seasparkle). Then there was the April 27, 2007 e-memorandum. Today we find ourselves talking about yet another coup plan.
The logic at work is always the same! You successfully avert a coup plot, but another one is coming at you. One that was probably in the making as you were struggling to eliminate the other one. It is impossible to understand this game that never changes, differs or develops. This has nothing to do with the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) Internal Service Law Article 35. Nothing at all.
Particularly, the most recently revealed plan to destroy the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and Fethullah Gülen is even more terrifying. This plot attempts to first create the “crime” to evoke the circumstances that would justify a coup d'etat. It plans to punish a crime by framing the individuals involved at first. I am sorry to say this, but this is a hideous plan that wouldn't have occurred even to the devil himself. What was done here has nothing to do with the Internal Law Service or any other law in force in any country in the world.
Some, and chiefly the General Staff, are still preoccupied with “how this document could have been leaked to the press.” The military prosecutor's office started a probe into this. There are many reservations in the head of the public about these military probes. When one looks at its investigations until today, none of them has yielded any results. What would happen if this document had not been leaked to the press? The answer to this question is actually hidden in the first investigation into Col. Dursun Çiçek. Do you remember the first investigation? The military prosecutor said -- even without looking at the document -- that the document was fake. Civilian prosecutors arrested Col. Dursun Çiçek, but then he was released through a suspicious change of judges assigned to the case. There are also tens of other cases of General Staff investigations -- such as the Aktütün, Dağlıca and roadside mine investigations -- that have been covered up. If this had not been leaked to the press, it most probably would have joined those cover-ups. In this red-handed case, nobody has anything to say. Even those who first insisted that the document was only a “piece of paper” that didn't mean anything, they, too, are speaking against it. The “murder” here is so out there, so out in the open that there is nothing they can do. Even if they do, like Temel, continuously tell road stories, eventually they will have to talk about the murder itself. What will happen after that?
When will we start talking about the next coup plan? This is not a problem that can be solved by just punishing a few colonels or even generals. This problem is about the very position occupied by the military in Turkey and that it insists to occupy. As long as the military is so deep inside of politics, we will be talking about coup plans for a long, long time.
