A legal advisor to the General Staff, Hıfzı Çubuklu, officially confirmed these documents, but he claimed that these Web sites were established upon the instruction of the Prime Ministry. While his claim was soon refuted, the General Staff’s confirmation about the plans attached to the whistleblower’s last letter can be seen as another confirmation about the original of the conspiracy document fastened to his first letter. So we can conclude that this whistleblower is not a military officer who would eternally produce fantasies in his mind. If the Web sites’ plan he disclosed in his second letter can be substantiated, then the original of “The plan to finish off the AK Party [Justice and Development Party] and [Fethullah] Gülen,” signed by Col. Dursun Çiçek, attached to his first letter, cannot be ignored.

Upon these developments, Çiçek, who signed the conspiracy document that targeted the AK Party government and the faith-based Gülen movement, was referred to the court for the second time, and he was arrested and sent to jail. He still does not admit liability despite the forensic reports. In this regard, the truth will come out at the end of the trial process. But one thing is certain: The General Staff had established some Web sites to manipulate the general public by way of defamations and had labeled certain Web sites. This is what the people speaking on behalf of the General Staff confessed.

I looked a little closer at the Web sites labeled by the General Staff. The list is an exhaustive one: The English news sites, the national and international sites where strategic issues are discussed. Every Web site in the list was labeled with such attributes as “nationalist,” “anti-TSK [Turkish Armed Forces],” “separatist,” “reactionary,” “pro-Jewish,” “Atatürkist,” “news site,” etc.

Some of the Web sites are really those that the General Staff is supposed to monitor with a security-oriented perspective. For example, the Web sites that are known to be connected to terrorist organization Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fall into this category.

However, the adjectives used to describe these Web sites give us hints about how those who prepared the list, if not the General Staff, view the world and developments. In this context, the Web sites labeled “pro-EU” are of special concern. One of the Web sites that is labeled as such is the Bianet Web site that reports on human rights violations in Turkey.

As far as we know, membership in the European Union is a state policy. All official statements specifically stress this. However, in this Web site’s plan, the “pro-EU” label is used in such a manner that it seems as if it is a group collaborating with the enemy.

It is not difficult to understand that the kind of minds that prepare Web Sites under fake names and conduct psychological warfare, seeing no harm in labeling people or groups with various denominations, would be bothered by Turkey’s EU bid.

Indeed, the critical role of the EU cannot be overlooked in today’s Turkey, where we question the coup plans in which certain civilian and military circles have been deeply involved.

Even if we are critical of the slow progress and of the double standards applied against Turkey, this process has made great contributions to the current state of affairs in which we can openly discuss yesterday’s taboos.

If the legal arrangements required for the Copenhagen criteria, a prerequisite for membership negotiations, had not been implemented, most of the columnists who wrote about these matters would have been arrested. If it were not for this legal and psychological environment, those who question the junta’s activities would be subject to interrogation, not those who question them.