Requiem for Turkey, the Final Chapter

 

There have already been six-thousand arrests made since the abortive coup. Three-thousand Judges and prosecutors as well as three-thousand officers of varying ranks and soldiers all from lists supposedly gathered as a result of the coup. There will be mention of how these individuals were all cooperating and coordinated by Fethullah Gulen from Pennsylvania, USA. Sure, an aging Imam in Pennsylvania organized and commanded step-by-step including telling the pilots of F-16 fighters who had missile lock on President Erdogan’s jet while he was known to be onboard and never fired a single shot, some coup. This coup smells, plain and simple, smells. You do not produce a list of a complete list of judiciary and military personnel within twenty-four hours, if even that long as the list was obviously already prepared. The threat of such a purging may have triggered the coup attempt before the planning was complete if the coup was actually a subversive group. Had the coup been an attempt to return to actual free and open elections and a return to secular rule and bringing an end to the Muslim brotherhood agenda being enacted by Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Freedom and Justice Party, then it would have been well worth supporting. Had that been the case, then constitutionally the entire military should have supported the coup. The fact that this was not the case is another accusation against Erdogan as he has flushed much of the military hierarchy in his last purge and with the current purge all will be loyal to Erdogan who will now wield absolute power.

 

The purge being executed in Turkey would have made Stalin proud. Erdogan will have little if any opposition left in all of Turkey once he completes gathering names from those already arrested and the completion of his purge has removed every vestige of secularism and of all Islamic opposition securing Erdogan President for life status. He and his Freedom and Justice Party, a political party that neither supports freedoms or justice, will rule Turkey with an unopposable outright majority for the foreseeable future. This was Erdogan’s intended desires even when he made his agreement with Fethullah Gulen in order to come to power in his initial election. In each election after this agreement Erdogan has done all in his power in order to attain an unopposable majority even if it, like the last elections, took a second election and the elimination of opposition to attain that majority. Erdogan has been anything but an angel in office often playing power politics and taking any and all steps as required, including intimidations, executions, assassinations and outright military pressures suppressing certain sectors of the society from participating in elections in order to reach absolute power. Absolute power without the need of any compromises has been the desired end which Erdogan has pursued ever since his first election and now that he has attained such he is not about to permit any challenge to his powers. This cements Erdogan as the singular choice for those who desire Sharia and spurn the ideals of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and his dream of a secular Turkey. It has been Erdogan’s desire from day one to impose Islamic law, Sharia, and he is closer than ever to accomplishing exactly that by ridding himself of all opposition, both secular and Islamic. Such a turn of events has been a long time coming and expected eventually by all who know Turkish politics and Erdogan’s desires from the beginning. He has succeeded where Egyptian President Morsi failed by being cautious and taking things one slow step at a time. That time has now passed and he will enact Sharia in rapid succession as he no longer need fear a challenge from any direction and should anybody be fool enough to oppose Erdogan and his Islamization of Turkey will find themselves either in a cell permanently or hanging from a rope. President Erdogan has attained what he always desired, absolute power which will in time corrupt him absolutely and thus be his failing as Sharia will be the instrument of his downfall.

 

 

Turkey had an opportunity to survive Erdogan and his Islamist desires but such a move by the military as required in the Turkish Constitution was repudiated and prevented by President George W. Bush and the European Union allowing for Erdogan to purge the General Staff of opposition while the current lists go deep within the officer ranks and lists many middle level officers and senior NCOs which will lead to more names under torture and other forms of distress leading to a witch hunt the likes of Turkey has never seen. In the coming weeks every and anybody who even the slightest might ever stand in opposition of Erdogan will be purged from Government, the military and anyplace else where influence might rise against him. This is the second purging executed by Erdogan and he is hoping the final time. The bad news for Erdogan is that the purges never reach an end once they have started as there will always arise those who will oppose his rule and some might even rise to the position of posing an actual threat. At this moment in time Fethullah Gulen holds this honor and anybody affiliated with him is in dire threat as Erdogan is intensifying his aim to remove any of those who are aligned with the man who was originally responsible for placing Erdogan in power. As the original person with whom Erdogan shared the reins of power, Fethullah Gulen has now become a threat which Erdogan is no longer willing to permit to exist as Fethullah Gulen could potentially stand in opposition to Recep Tayyip Erdogan any point in the future and actually pose a real risk to take power and end Erdogan’s efforts to subvert all of Turkey under Sharia. Gulen is an Imam who also supports democracy and universal rights, a kind of idiosyncratic personality who supports a reformed Islam which subverts itself to universal freedoms and equal rights. This purge is designed to put down any vestige of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and the secular ambitions subverting them permanently placing all of society under the crushing oppression of Sharia where all independent thought and acts are punishable by severe and often life threatening punishments. Erdogan is shutting down all opposition securing Turkey in much the same manner as Stalin shut out all opposition in Russia within months of taking the reins of power in Soviet Russia. Ataturk is done and all who dreamed that the secular Turkey was protected by the military and would continue forever is done, dead and over. It actually was mortally wounded the last purge which was facilitated by President George W. Bush and the European Union which insisted that should the military ever move to remove a government, a responsibility placed with them by the Turkish Constitution, then Turkey could forget ever being permitted to join the European Union because no normal democracy relies upon the military to protect the realm. Well, Turkey was not a normal democracy and did rely on the military to protect Turkey from Islamic power grabs as Erdogan has slowly enacted since he first took power. Now even that avenue to correct the Islamization of Turkey has been decimated by Erdogan and is now an enforcement of Sharia and Islamic sovereignty over secular governance.

 

This should pose a threat to NATO, a threat which has long existed dating from the initial election of Erdogan. He started his slow but inexorable march towards Sharia from the very outset of his Presidency. His final aim was to alter the Constitution such that it would not only allow for Islamic Sharia governance but welcome such as the desired end all of any government. Soon it will be forgotten that Turkey had dreams of joining the free world and enjoying the advancements of science and technology as the sheath of Sharia falls over the land. Soon simply memorizing the entire Quran will be the ultimate conclusion of a successful education. The Quran will become viewed as the ultimate source for all knowledge as Sharia is incompatible with modernity. What is frightening is the fact that Turkey is a member of NATO which worked as a check on Russia during the Cold War. Such is no longer the situation with Russia standing their Mediterranean fleet docked along the Syrian coast in the Alawite areas which remain loyal to Bashir al-Assad and thus far not under direct threat by the Islamic State or other Islamist forces and are provided with support both from Iran and if needed Russia. Turkey has lost its importance to NATO and with its current threat to become another Sharia ruled Islamic nation should, as we have pointed to before, be dropped from the NATO rolls. The European Union (EU) has thus far refused entry to Turkey and should be glad they had such luck. We refuse to give the EU credit of foresight in not permitting Turkey entrance. We are not even assured that Turkey will not be permitted entrance into the EU as they start their expansion into the Middle East. Once Turkey has been permitted EU membership the ‘refugee’ problem will explode as Turkey allows free access to any and every Arab and Muslim desiring entrance to Europe, Germany in particular. Allow Turkey into the EU and they would become the welcome mat for all peoples desirous of leaving the poverty and backwardness of their Middle East and North African hellholes. From an EU affiliated Turkey these ‘refugees’ would be permitted free travel throughout the EU nations and be permitted settling wherever and whenever they desire and collecting the guaranteed wage proffered by most EU members.

 

The EU already desires entering the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) as explained in their releases to the media and academia. We have discussed these plans in an article titled The European Union Actually Planning Empire and figure the EU plans on surrendering to Middle Eastern pressures. With Turkey on the fast track to Sharia and an end to freedom as the member states of the EU likely remember, the addition of Turkey as a first step to incorporating the Middle East and later Africa into EU membership, then the EU population had best prepare for having Sharia as the basis of their laws. As a member of the EU or just a member of NATO, Turkey holds a prestigious spot; especially when one considers that Turkey has the second largest military in NATO after that of the United States. As such Turkey demands a certain amount of respect but only as long as Turkey maintained a respect for individual rights and freedoms. No matter how the media and others wish to spin the new direction which Turkey has planted itself, those found to favor Erdogan should be watched with additional scrutiny. It is highly doubtful that there would be any changes in how the United States views Turkey as Erdogan has been best of friends with Obama as they are with Hillary through the Clinton Foundation and contributions made to influence Hillary when she was Secretary of State. These influences will likely spend a large amount in campaign contributions, both legal and otherwise as Hillary believes herself above the law; something made abundantly clear at her Senate hearings where she prevaricated, dancing around any truth until the lies became the facts in many a media report. Unfortunately for most Americans, this has become what they expect from the media and the editorializing of the news stories to fit their political leaning tainting many a news story until it is unrecognizable by the truth. Both ends of the political spectrum suffer this affliction.

 

Such twisting, messaging and reworking of facts will inevitably be the only permitted truth out of the media in Turkey. This, once it is not necessarily their fault as the Erdogan controlled government, courts and military; will own the truth and decide what the truth is for the people of Turkey and for the world for good measure. Erdogan knows that his citizens, at least the urban citizens, have access to the world media and thus his spin on reality must therefore become the only story permitted. He, even with the Muslim Brotherhood’s assistance, will find that accomplishing this task will be far more difficult than preventing the poorly executed coup from success. The obvious fact that Erdogan was at the cusp of executing a purge may have pushed those supporters of a truly democratic Turkey or possibly the supporters of Erdogan’s chief rival, Fethullah Gulen, who may have struck a deal with the democracy forces interested in reestablishing Ataturk’s secular Turkey dreams and aspirations for progress, into acting earlier than they had planned facing Erdogan’s imminent purging of their ranks. Whether this was a well played trap or a rushed into execution actual coup will make absolutely no difference down the road a piece. The only item which will matter is, who will survive the sweeping broom of Erdogan and the Islamists as they clean house in the judiciary and the military and likely soon the population at large. The next step is to take those they have rounded up and get public confessions from the most recognized names amongst them. This will definitely be followed by the extracting of names of others who may be of a similar mindset as the coup participants and the others on the prepared lists. This housecleaning was very obviously already planned and just as the coup may have been rushed into execution, so have the cleansing of the Turkish government, military and eventually the public itself.

 

We are witnessing the end of Turkey as it had been known and the birth of Turkey as the hoped rising leader to assume its rightful place as the leaders of the Islamic world. Turkey’s military is both large and well equipped with top of the line NATO equipment, arms and hardware. They have a modern Air Force equipped with F-16s, F-15s as well as other supporting aircraft. Their ground forces have top of the line main battle tanks and armored support. The infantry have modern weapons systems and are supported by highly accurate artillery. The size of the Turkish military is such that they will hardly miss the three-thousand officers arrested in relation to the coup and could lose an equal number before there may be some residual effects. The real question is what will Erdogan do once he attains ultimate and absolute power? Will he use his military against the Kurds, the forces supportive of Bashir al-Assad, attempt a breaching of the Israeli blockade of Gaza to help his Hamas allies, or is Erdogan really planning on a second Ottoman Empire as he has stated in the Past? These questions have ramifications within Turkey, as well as throughout NATO, to Israel, Egypt, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Erdogan has oft spoken of how he would be the right man to reestablish the Ottoman Empire as well as he has claimed the right to being the Caliph of the next real Caliphate which will be perched to spread Islam throughout the world vanquishing all other religions bringing every man, woman and child to bend and surrender to Allah. Sure that sounds crazy but one must bear in mind that it is solely Western Culture which has given up on world conquest, others still believe they were destined from birth to rule the world. Some such people holding to such insanities include but are not limited to North Korea’s Kim Jung Un, Russia’s President Putin, European Union and Germany’s Angela Markel, United States President Obama and presumed President Hillary Clinton, numerous institutions and financial giants, and of course the Grand Ayatollah of Iran and Erdogan of Turkey. This may sound absurd to you and me but it is real for these crazies who walk amongst us.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Turkish Coup Second Guessing Begins

 

We will hear any number of theories about the “failed coup” in Turkey. Due to any number of uninteresting and technical points such as why was internet left running and why were not more of group ‘a’ through ‘z’ not neutralized at the onset and others and the reasons why it failed or if it was an Erdogan run rouse to allow him to remove even more opposition, the realities are the same. Anybody known to be at all important in any Mustafa Kemal Ataturk associated group would do well to become invisible and leave Turkey by any means necessary. Recep Tayyip Erdogan will use this coup as his license to remove all opposition especially from the upper officer class making his position safe for the foreseeable future. How far he might take things will depend on how assured he is that he holds absolute majority. Erdogan made sure of that with a second election after invalidating one where he would have required a coalition and thus not absolute power. Now Erdogan can use this coup in order to cement all power in the President, change the Constitution so as to prevent any further coup attempts such that the sitting President must be voted down by a majority of the people in an election where he runs unopposed and as long as he wins over any negative votes, the election would be Erdogan or full elections, then he would remain and no elections would be required. As Erdogan is supported by the Muslim Brotherhood he would easily win such a vote by such an amount he would appear to be their savior. He could even declare himself Caliph and by doing so challenge al-Baghdadi of the Islamic State as in the end there can be only one Caliph, surprise, surprise.

 

We cannot think of any means by which Erdogan could extend his clearing of the senior and mid-level officer corps and possibly even the non-commissioned officer corps of anybody not known to be somebody he knows is reliable thus permitting him at any future point using the military to enforce his views. Say Erdogan was to lose an election. With his current power he could easily claim it to be another insurrection just like the coup and claim deep seated voter manipulation and other irregularities and then have another election six months later after a similar removal of key opponents and viola, a reelected Erdogan. The real question is what can we expect in the coming days and weeks.

 

The elimination of any and all coup plotters is obvious and even if this was crafted by Erdogan and the Muslim Brotherhood, there would still be those officers who willingly signed on to the initial plan and who were betrayed. They will pay dearly. Some of the soldiers who may have simply been obeying the orders of higher ranking officers will also be made an example of. The critical question will be how many media types; bloggers and other civilians from within and outside of the government will face punishment. Bear in mind, for most punishment will be execution or life in prison with few getting lesser punishments. Being charged with being on the wrong side of things will be really, really bad as torture for confessions and other names will likely be part of the investigatory methodology. I would not like to be a blogger within Turkey right now as even my small slights against Erdogan would be sufficient and my support of Israel would be sufficient for suspicions, it may be that deep reaching.

 

Turkey was originally steered away from Islam and more to a secular democratic state with equality by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, as he saw that as the only path to modernity. Any hope whatsoever of Turkey returning to a true democratic society, with equal rights, what Turkey had been since Ataturk gave her their Constitution, is now lost possibly forever. If there is to be hope for Turkey it now rests with Islam having a reformation, something many Quranic scholars and others who study Islam and the Middle East believe is next to impossible. As the situation now exists, Erdogan will be placing Turkey on the express to Sharia. Once Sharia has been installed in a society elections are meaningless as the old Stalin definition of how to hold elections takes over where it does not matter who votes and for what but matters who counts those votes. Elections in Sharia states, if any hold them; can announce their results three weeks before the people go to the polls to vote. Candidates running against strict Islam will be duly watched and scrutiny in such states almost always leads to prison and death or worse, and there is worse.

 

Anybody who might look to recent events in Egypt and point out that the Muslim Brotherhood President Morsi was overthrown and President Sisi, a brave man who we can only hopes succeeds in his efforts to bring a reformation to Islam allowing it to coexist with other religions and forms of governance, replaced him after a second election in less than a year are hoping against hope. Erdogan has been in power since the early 2000’s and has steadily taken Turkey to the dark side and Sharia. One might ask if I have something against Sharia and the answer is only that it enslaves a population removing all need or ability to question the government as the government is religiously installed by the will of Allah thus questioning the chosen leadership is punishable as is apostasy, death. There is no personal freedom and the Quran becomes the only book to study and the Quran and Hadiths are the beginning and end-all of all knowledge. Any study outside of these requires the approval of an Imam and then can only be pursued so as to serve Allah. Perhaps this is what stirred Winston Churchill to write his scathing commentary on Islam in which he said the following; (The below-quoted passage did appear in The River War when it was first published as a two-volume set in 1899, but the selection was removed when the book was condensed into one volume and republished in 1902.):

 

Churchill gated stride impugning the morning about to tackle the world and all its problems

 

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or.

 

A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

 

Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.

 

We can only hope and pray that such does not befall Turkey as it has modern cities and a well developed intelligent urban communities. The rural areas of Turkey are less developed and in some locations literally still living as they had hundreds of years past. It is in these rural areas where Islam rules their everyday activities and where Sharia is not an imposition, it is their way. Turkey has a population fairly balanced between these two societies with a slight edge towards the urban communities. The difficulty extends from the strong minority of urban citizens who are first generation and remain firmly attached to their Islamic roots. Had Turkey not had the rise of Erdogan and the regimentation and collective awakening brought on by concerted efforts by the Muslim Brotherhood, within the coming century Turkey would have crossed the threshold never to turn back and easily merged with the developed world. This may still come to fruition as the urban population continues to gain and with time perhaps a majority will find an Islamically acceptable leader who still believes firmly in Islam but, like President Sisi of Egypt, desires not to have Turkey pose a direct threat to the non-Islamic world but rather join and forge a new and more acceptive Islam. As things in Islam now stand there can be only one of three outcomes; Islam is defeated and expunged from the face of the earth, Islam conquers all the nations forming a world Caliphate which becomes Allah only knows, or Islam goes through a reformation and declares the Mecca Quranic writings as superseding the Medina Quranic writings (click for a brief explanation of the differences and reasons with links provided by other readers in the comments). Odd as it may seem, that is all that is required for Islam to become as any other religion preaching acceptance and coexistence. The sticking point is that at some point, many claim stated by Mohammad just before he died while others claim this was added at a later date to cement Islam as a religion of conquest, is one of the final Surah states that the Medina verses, the later verses, supersede the Mecca verses, the earlier verses. As with all too many things, time will tell and we can only hope our prayers are favorably received by Hashem.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Short Primer on the Turkish Constitution

The Coup in Turkey must be seen in light of the Constitution of Turkey of which there can be more than one at any given time. The one the government runs on can be different than the Founding Principles of the Republic of Turkey (an approximate translation) while the leaders in Turkey often make small changes kind of personalizing the constitution to their tastes. The Founding Documents (as we will refer to them) task the Turkish Military with keeping Turkey a secular democratic nation and to guard against any Islamist takeover of the government or a dictator cancelling elections and ruling by fiat (not just a small car). The military was prepared to remove Erdogan once before and had told NATO command as Turkey is a member of NATO. Turkey has also been attempting to join the EU, perhaps they can replace Britain now, and back then really thought they were close. The EU backed strongly by George W. Bush demanded the Turkish military back down because civilized nations do not do things this way. Erdogan having gotten wind of this replaced most of the Generals with his puppets. Still, the Turkish military, even with Erdongan’s puppets, take their Constitutional duty very seriously plus a number of these puppets have retired and younger officers promoted and we believe it is these commanders pulling to change the government and undo the Islamization done by Erdogan.

 

George W. Bush followed by Barack Obama produced Recep Tayyip Erdogan

 

So the military acting on their Constitutional duty to keep Turkey secular are attempting a coup, something which would have been easy back in 2005 but will be more difficult as Erdogan controls a very militarized set of police forces and has his own military he keeps as a personal guard. The free world will be fed this blah blah blah coup evil blah bad coup, blah blah no true democratic nation operates blah blah and so forth. Know that when Kamil Ataturk ruled Turkey at the end of World War I and the end of the Ottoman Empire which was ruled from Turkey, he made a Constitution as a Muslim man who understood the Islamic directives for Islamist Sharia to be the law of the land but had seen how democratic nations with their individual freedoms and market driven economies had made mincemeat of the Ottoman forces with modern weapons and individual soldiers who were independent and could operate without being told every little order and he wanted Turkey to emulate this model and set up a secular state. He knew there would be leaders who would, either on their own or bending to popular will, would try to in stages enshrine Sharia.

 

Turkey has had a number of coups to remove leaders attempting to take dictatorial power or enact Sharia or other Islamizations. Erdogan was getting away with his Islamization and march towards Sharia but probably crossed the line for even his own generals in the last elections. What occurred was the Kurdish Party won far more votes than ever before feeling empowered by the Kurds stand against Islamic State and in Iraq against everybody else both Shia and Sunni. The Kurds, for the record, are predominantly Sunni but as Kurds are spurned by the Arabs as lesser human beings at best. This why the Kurds always need stand alone and why they took the lead and were largely responsible for rescuing the Yazidiz from the mountain siege which saw girls and women throw themselves off the cliffs rather than fall to then ISIS forces. This meant that Erdongan’s “Freedom and Justice Party” (which is neither freedom nor justice but Islamic Sharia oriented) did not have a clear majority of the seats in the Parliament and would need a coalition. Erdogan does not share power so he made sure that the coalition he could easily have made refused to allow any majority coalition forcing a redo on the elections. In the weeks between the elections his enforcers killed any number of Kurdish candidates who were elected and terrorized other parties’ supporters and other niceties. Needless to say, his Party won an overwhelming majority and he restarted his Islamization at a quickened pace as he saw that he might not continue to have such support in the future and he desired to become Caliph of the new Ottoman Empire starting with conquest of Syria, or what is left of Syria. With a modern military and NATO weaponry he could carry this out and as long as he left the Alawite coastal area where the Russians are located alone he would easily crush the Kurds and the other less able factions. But Erdogan saw he had a time limit to operate, until the American elections.

 

Erdogan had President Obama in his pocket and can do anything and his BFF in the White House would bless it as really needed. Should Clinton lose and Trump become President he would not be able to do as he pleased and get away with it. Even Hillary might pose difficulties as she would not desire such a conflagration on the front end of her Presidency and won knows after that. As things are Erdogan saw he needed to strike while the iron was hot, so to speak. His military seeing his ambition and his probability to engage in a war, which would eventually pace them fighting Saudi Arabia, Egypt and potentially Israel, were probably not the happiest Generals in the world, because they realize, as Erdogan does not, that they would lose badly in the end. Erdogan only sees him as world ruler as the Caliph of the great and final Caliphate which conquered the world for Allah. He believes that is his destiny and reality be damned. The military is very reality oriented and do not desire damning reality as reality will smack you back and hard. This may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.

 

Now we will just wait and see who wins and pray that Turkey has a restored Constitution and election sometime in the coming year as that would be a huge step in the right direction. What is almost comical is the threat of a new American President, Clinton or Trump, but definitely Trump, has already started paying dividends. It is sad that the vast majority, say 85%, will not see this as anything but some war somewhere they cannot find on a world map and know not that it was what ruled the Ottoman Empire (if they know there ever was an Ottoman Empire) and may will never even know that there is a war in Turkey. I kind of had forgotten how little attention the average person takes in world affairs as long as they are not bothered in some way. I guess as long as it is over there and not here what do I care is a theme everywhere, it is sad.

 

Beyond the Cusp