A lesson for conspirators about paperwork
by
Peter Edel*

I witnessed several such discussions and noticed how easily unbelievers can become upset in confrontations with believers. The idea of a conspiracy within the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) against the government seems entirely surreal to them. I have even seen some of them lose their temper a bit when a believer clings to the existence of such a plot. Their irritation can sometimes reach the level of anger, but it never manages to convince me, for there's too much uncertainty.

Unbelievers seem to ignore the tendency of history to repeat itself, when given the chance. Turkey is especially vulnerable to this phenomenon with a sequence of military takeovers since 1960. The unbelievers are not impressed by these facts. Their absolute belief in the impossibility of another military takeover in Turkey is amazing. It's like they think they are living in a country where no such thing has ever happened, in Sweden or something.  

Recently, I met an unbelieving friend. He is not happy with any political party in Turkey and would rather start one himself if he had the chance. At least that's what he says. My friend shows quite an affinity for the ideas of existing nationalist parties, though. For instance, he does recognize the need for the specific position of the TSK in Turkey, which is, of course, exactly what turned him into an unbeliever to begin with. My friend feels protected by the TSK: protected against religion. It is a strange sense of security since history proves that the TSK has been the main disturber of Turkey's stability over the last five decades. The TSK, not religion.

Like most outspoken unbelievers, my friend carries around a considerable bunch of arguments with him to defend his truth whenever he feels the need. As soon as I mentioned my interest in the subject, he could not wait to lay down one of his favorites: “Do you really think that if you and I were part of a conspiracy together, we would be so stupid as to leave all these documents behind?” The victorious smile shows a lurking suspicion of evil fundamentalists producing fake documents in order to slander the TSK.

Anyway, if only for argument's sake, he did come up with a nice one. At first, he even seemed right. For it is indeed hard to understand why all these conspirators have their plans written down. Still, that's what happened with Operation Sledgehammer, Operation Cage, the Action Plan to fight Reactioniarysm and, of course, with Ergenekon.

Have these people never heard of a paper shredder? It should be the first lesson for conspirators. For each time a document is what exposes the conspiracy. Strange, because the situation following the exposure of these documents could easily have been foreseen. It is hard to accept that no conspirator took this scenario into consideration before it all began. Or is it too difficult to understand that storing sensitive information can easily lead to trouble in the context of conspiracy? For the same reason it is not very popular to take minutes during the more private meetings on the international political scene. Take the highly secretive Bilderberg meetings. At the end of each exchange of ideas, notes are collected and destroyed, according to witnesses. And not without reason, since all these paper trails can be used by opponents.  

So the unbelievers seem to have a point. But then again, it wouldn't be the first time that a forgotten piece of documented information becomes the key to a scandal. The truth of it all is that as stupid as it may sound, these things do happen, not only in Turkey, but everywhere. Former US President Richard Nixon would have spared himself a lot trouble if, for instance, his conversations had not been taped. The tapes haunt his memory to the present day. And no one thought of that before.

Another point is, of course, that the prosecutors in the Ergenekon case have more than only documents. If that were all they had, their case would indeed have been quite thin. But there were also weapons found, which no general has been able to explain so far. And incriminating telephone conversations as well as statements from witnesses confirm much of the other evidence as well.

However, nothing of this explains the urge of conspiring generals to put their megalomania down on paper. There may be some psychological mechanism at work here, something like arrogance. The conspirators became sloppy, probably because they take their power over the country for granted and breaches of secrecy are the consequence. Moreover, we're talking about the military here. These guys consider everything they do a military operation. So when they plan a takeover, it will certainly be handled by them as such. Also, when it comes to the massive reports and stacks of paperwork a command structure just can't do very well without that. Especially in Turkey, where even the slightest bureaucratic action leaves a paper trail.

The manager of the future Turkish coup museum is likely to object to my words here. He may refer to the attempt of the group around Gen. Cemal Madanoğlu and some leftish intellectuals, including the recently deceased Ergenekon suspect İlhan Selçuk, to take power in Turkey on March 9, 1971. The scheme was foiled but became the overture to the “memorandum” three days later, which brought a totally different military clique to power. The civilians involved with the March 9 group were later severely punished by the March 12 junta. But most of the “leftish” military conspirators got away with it at the time. How could they do that? The manager of the future Turkish coup museum will claim that Gen. Madanoğlu and his henchmen didn't leave any documents behind that could later be used as evidence against them.

In 1971, however, the TSK included two opposing factions, but both with the ambition to take over. Any official document would have given most or everything of the plan away to the rival party and was, therefore, out of the question. In 1971 the main opponent of the TSK was to be found in the TSK. Currently, of course, there is a different situation. In some ways more complicated, but at least all the signals of coup plans are, more or less, pointing in the same direction. This inner coherency within Ergenekon and related plots may very well explain the recklessness, arrogance and, eventually, the dangerous overabundance of paperwork.