They act as if they have never heard of such plans before. The liberal media scream at the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) to hand the “criminals” over to prosecutors, while the statist media play ignorant and pretend to have never heard of such plans before. This is hypocrisy. I know from my own experiences that renowned journalists have intentionally worked with the TSK to disseminate psychological warfare as newspapers stories to manipulate people’s outlook. This especially happened during the 1990s against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to help the TSK to win the war against the PKK.What is interesting, however, is that no media outlets question the fundamental problem, the structure, the psychological war institution, to find a better way to deal with the problem. Let me remind you how the institutional structure has been transformed since 2002, then try to outline a few points about how to avoid conducting psychological war against Turkish citizens.
Though it existed well before the 1980 military coup, the psychological war unit in the National Security Council (MGK) was reorganized after the 1980 military coup. It was a department in the MGK that was coordinating, planning and implementing such policies. The name of the department was the Directorate of Public Relations. This unit was coordinating with the TSK, the gendarmerie, the Turkish National Police Department, the Foreign Ministry, the Directorate of Religious Affairs, the Ministry of Education and other related bodies of the government and society. In the TSK and the National Police Department, there were branches of this unit called “psychological war units.” These units were designed to develop strategies to maintain pubic support for the war against terror. By design, these units are legal and conduct plans and policies to maintain public support.
However when the structure of the MGK was reformed in 2003, the public relations unit was transferred under the jurisdiction of the Interior Ministry and the TSK. The TSK enlarged and reorganized its psychological war units under the name of “psychological war brigades.” However, when liberal media outlets started criticizing the concept of conducting “psychological war” against its own citizens, the names of the units were changed to “Bilgi Destek Şube Müdürlüğü” (information and logistical support units), where Dursun Çiçek worked.
Before 2003, retired colonels and generals who had completed academic work were employed in the unit; however, since 2003, due to technical difficulties in re-employing retired officers in the TSK, active duty officers have conducted such operations.
These units are funded from the “örtülü odenek,” the fund that is devoted to conducting undercover operations, and for each unit, there is a safe deposit box that holds millions of lira. The distribution of the money is allocated based on projects conducted in İstanbul and Anatolian cities. For instance, if police units, based on an approved plan, distribute soccer balls to children in Batman, Van or other cities, they could get the funds for the project from the Bilgi Destek Şube Müdürlüğü at the National Police Department and report it as a psychological war operation. Psychological war operations vary across a spectrum, from distributing soccer balls to kids in Van to organizing plans to weaken the elected government. What we are seeing here is a phenomenon that is “technically legal” but “politically incorrect.”
When it comes to the remedy, first, politicians should be frank about their attitudes in public and policies in practice. For instance, it is impossible to conduct such operations if the government allows a civilian oversight mechanism to examine where the money is being used. Second, the government should reform the existing laws, which allow officers to conduct psychological war operations in a wide variety of areas of societies. Third, the government should reorganize its bureaucratic units and make it clear whether the TSK has such authority to conduct psychological war operations during peacetime. Given that the TSK believes it is in a constant war against the separatist movement (PKK) and religious fundamentalism, or irtica (reactionaryism), it considers conducting such psychological war operations part of its war. Therefore there is a structural problem and a deep-rooted practice of the Turkish security apparatus, which needs to be reorganized.
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