Legal counselor Hıfzı Çubuklu, speaking on behalf of the General Staff, made things even worse while trying to save face for the General Staff. In other words, he confessed their guilt while he was trying to cover it up. He failed to estimate how he would add to the credibility of the whistleblower by confirming the context of the letter. His biggest blunder was to admit, while trying to defend the General Staff’s psychological warfare on the Internet, that they had acted in accordance with an instruction from the Prime Ministry in doing so. It will be very hard to compensate for this blunder. Obviously, it was odd to assume that the Prime Ministry, i.e., the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), had instructed them to establish some Web sites that would spread propaganda against itself.When the Prime Ministry inquired of the headquarters about this “assignment,” which it failed to find in its archives, another statement came which was as ambiguous as the first: “The assignment was given in 2000.” After all, I have serious doubts about the existence of such an assignment. It is impossible that the Prime Ministry’s archives do not have such an assignment. Since we do not live in a banana republic, it is equally unlikely that such an assignment was made verbally. The strangeness of the statement is exacerbated by an uncertainty over dates. If there was a real assignment, its date and number should have been mentioned. For instance, the statement refers to the subsequent legislation with its number, i.e., 5651. The reference to the year 2000, it seems, is far from being convincing and is intended to overcome doubts. The General Staff is trying to cover up the incident through fuzzy statements without revealing its soft spots. For instance, it does not explain when the black propaganda Web sites in question were closed down. It just says that an arrangement was made as per the new law in 2007, and the project was later completely abandoned. Anyone who reads this explanation may think that this project was abandoned immediately, but when you check it on http://web.archive.org, which keeps an archive of all Web sites, you will see that the latest record appears on June 20, 2008. In other words, in the most conservative estimate, the project lasted for another year. Now, an expert question: As the assignment was given, or so it was claimed, by the Prime Ministry, then it could only be canceled by the same authority. Is there any instruction saying that the assignment should be abandoned? In my opinion, whoever gave the initial instruction should be the one that cancels it, and this is somewhere outside the Prime Ministry.
When you enter the Web site, your memory is refreshed. Irtica.org is one of Web sites created by the group. Every bit of information that is against the AK Party that appeared not only in the media, but also on Internet forums was incorporated into this Web site. The materials produced in one of these Web sites -- which number 35 -- were reproduced in succession by others. A lie told at the beginning of the chain was wrapped in the guise of truth at the end. Many texts start with “The AK Party government.” The rest is not difficult to predict. Carefully selected books are introduced and recommended, such as “Musa’nın Çocukları: Tayyip ve Emine Erdoğan” (Moses’ Children: Tayyip and Emine Erdoğan) by Ergun Poyraz, a defendant in the Ergenekon terrorist organization trial. As Brig. Gen. Çubuklu confessed, what we see is a structure that conducted psychological warfare against the government for at least six years. There is more. As described in the “action plan” which is claimed to have been written in April, Fethullah Gülen had his share of these conspiracies. It is worth remembering that Gülen’s trial was under way during the years in question. Thus, we see that they not only tried to influence the general public, but also a fair trial.
The denomination “whistleblower” used by the media for the anonymous soldier who led to the unveiling of the truth better befits Çubuklu. The difference is that the latter did not have the intention of illuminating anything.