Çağaptay's latest analysis: ill-informed, ill-intentioned
by
İHSAN YILMAZ

Çağaptay tries to dilute evidence against the coup attempts and writes: “When I asked a former US ambassador to Turkey for his views on the news, he thought the scenario was ridiculous. ‘If the Turkish military was going to do a coup, they would not be writing a 5,000-page memo about it,' he stated.” But on Friday the military prosecutor confirmed that experts agreed that the coup documents were authentic. I am sure the experts know this better than a former ambassador who only relies on speculation. What is more, we know that the coup-plotter generals say in the recording that they themselves recorded and archived that the plan they imitated was the Flag (Bayrak) Plan which was a written document prepared to plan Sept. 12, 1980. The fact that the plan is longer this time is only a sign that coup-plotting junta knew that this time civil society is much stronger thanks to the Gülen movement and many others, so the plan had to be more detailed, careful and vigilant. They recorded everything, and one reason could be that they did not trust each other. On March 9, 1971, some generals betrayed their colleagues and the leftist (Baathist, to be more accurate) coup and sided with the rightist generals who successfully staged a coup on March 12, 1971, and the next generation of coup-lover generals never forgot this.

The fact that no one has been prosecuted for the wiretap of the chief of General Staff is interpreted by Çağaptay as a sign that the balance of power in Turkey has shifted decisively. Bu he never mentions that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan himself and several other Justice and Development Party (AK Party) deputies also were wiretapped and that Ergenekon suspect Doğu Perinçek's newspapers and TV stations published them. They were not prosecuted, either. Çağaptay prefers to give us half the picture, as he has done many times before, for instance, when he was arguing that Turkey was changing its axis from a Western-alliance position to pro-Iranian, etc., position. This was repeatedly and vehemently denied by the US State Department, EU politicians and Eurocrats. Not surprisingly, only rightist Israelis, Likudniks, Zionists and some neocons advocate these views, which are not based on evidence and facts but on pure conspiracy or speculation. It has repeatedly been shown by academics that the main engine behind the success of the AK Party, the Anatolian middle classes and the nascent elite, are fully supportive of the EU process and that is why they support the AK Party. Otherwise they would support Necmettin Erbakan's Felicity Party (SP), which has an anti-West and anti-EU discourse.

Speculation and accusations

He also claims that “today, it is those who criticize the Gülen movement who get burned.” It seems that Çağaptay never reads Turkish newspapers and never watches Turkish television. The lies and accusations that Çağaptay is fabricating here are not original whatsoever. Every day on television and in newspapers several pro-oligarchy journalists, so-called writers, academics and so on keep repeating these conspiracy theories. Nothing happens to these people. In the past, Gülen always sued them and got compensation for libel (the pro-Ergenekon daily Cumhuriyet's archive is full of papers with corrections, even in the headlines), but as far as I can see, Gülen is no longer interested in them; maybe he does not want to make those marginal voices happy and famous.

Çağaptay states that “Zekeriya Öz, the chief prosecutor leading the Ergenekon case, and Ramazan Akyurek, the head of the police's domestic intelligence branch, as well as other powerful people in the police, are thought by some to be Gülen sympathizers.” Everybody who is anti-oligarchy or not corrupt is thought to be a Gülen sympathizer. What can Çağaptay say if I write here that Çağaptay is thought to be a Mossad agent by some as he always writes along the lines of the pro-Israelis, and what is more he works for an openly pro-Israeli think tank? Writing this here seriously would be ridiculous, but this is what so-called academic Çağaptay does when it comes to police officers and prosecutors without -- again -- any shred of evidence.

Çağaptay portrays Türkan Saylan as just a grandmother; he never mentions that she could not explain a document discovered on her computer mentioning encouraging girls (who were given scholarships by Saylan) to make every sacrifice needed to become close to young officers. Several other original documents that were filed by the prosecutors also show similar activities.

No proof of evidence

Çağaptay also claims that “the military … opposes the AKP and the Gülenists because it sees itself as the virtual guardian of Turkey's secular polity à la Atatürk's vision, serving as a bulwark against religion's domination over politics and government.” But why does Çağaptay not look at the EU progress reports on Turkey that totally discredit his claims and ask for a more transparent, democracy-friendly and accountable army? Why do EU officials always reiterate that the Ergenekon case gives them hope for the future of Turkish democracy? It seems that everybody in the EU has become Gülen sympathizers! It seems that they are not as intelligent as Çağaptay!

Çağaptay also allegedly writes that Gülen said “to his followers in a message broadcast on Turkish TV in 1999 that ‘every method and path is acceptable [including] lying to people'.” Even in the doctored video that Çağaptay mentions (he never says that it was broadcast to accuse Gülen but gives the impression that it was Gülen who broadcast this message), he never said this. Also, a staunchly secularist prosecutor prepared an indictment against Gülen based on this doctored video recording, and the Feb. 28 coup's mighty generals openly supported him, but the courts, including the highest court, the Court of Cassation, found Gülen not guilty, as Çağaptay mentions only briefly.

A Gülen-Erbakan alliance?

Çağaptay also claims that “the AKP … is largely a reincarnation of the banned RP,” but there is no evidence to support this. Erbakan went on to establish his own party, and he accuses Erdoğan and his friends of being children of the Byzantine Empire and sheepish slaves of the West. Çağaptay and his friends can never explain why the Armenians in Turkey reportedly (as declared by the Armenian patriarch and some Armenian journalists such as Etyen Mahçupyan, who is also a Taraf columnist) voted for the AK Party in the July 22, 2007 general elections, when the AK Party got 47 percent of the vote. Is it again a case of those people not being as intelligent as Çağaptay? I must note that I submitted a paper on the AK Party and its non-Islamism to a respected journal, and one of the reviewers was upset by the information on the pro-AK Party Armenian voting and did not hide his feelings, saying that this information was irrelevant. I wonder why?

Çağaptay is himself solid proof that the conspiracy theories he repeats about the Gülen movement are based on fabrications and lies, blanket accusations without any evidence, mind reading and disrespect for the judicial process in Turkey. These desperate attacks on the movement by Çağaptay, Michael Rubin, Rachel Sharon-Krespin, Barry Rubin and so on, will only strengthen the movement's respected peaceful and pro-dialogue status all over the world.

Believe me, if he had any evidence against the Gülen movement, instead of humiliating himself once more and abusing Foreign Policy and its readers, Çağaptay would not hide it from his readers, unless he is also a secret Gülen sympathizer sacrificing himself and his academic career by way of strange tactics.