One can reasonably assume that some nation’s intelligence-operation was involved, and that this would have entailed either America’s CIA or Turkey’s equivalent, the MIT or National Intelligence Organization, or else both. America’s CIA has been behind coups in «more than 50 countries». Throughout the CIA’s existence, it has organized or helped others in organizing, most of the world’s coups. Whereas previous empires (i.e., previous international dictatorships) have functioned mainly via overt invasions (using the military), the US international dictatorship operates mainly via coups (using intelligence-operatives) – coups are the American aristocracy’s particular specialty; the CIA is the world-champion specialist in this field, and no other intelligence agency is anywhere in its league, for such operations.

Indeed, the US is the first empire that has functioned mainly by coups, instead of by outright (i.e., military) invasions. The reason for this is that after World War II, when the Allied Powers defeated the fascist powers, the Axis – which had sought to build their empires clearly via the military route (invasions) – the military route has been recognized by publics everywhere as being incompatible with democracy, so that, after WW II, no nation any longer can credibly claim to be a «democracy» if it engages in an invasion that isn’t clearly a response to, and defending against, an existing invasion by the country that’s being invaded by the given country. Even America’s (and Britain’s) 2003 invasion of Iraq was claimed to be ‘defensive’ in nature. (How anyone after that invasion can trust the West, is a question for experts in mass-psychology to address; it’s not a matter to be discussed here. But, after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, coups are practically the only viable means for the US government to enforce its foreign policies. Consequently, the US coup-machine is likely to be even more important post-2003 than it was pre-2003. And US President Barack Obama certainly recognizes that.)

This coup-attempt in Turkey, like all coup-attempts there, was unquestionably carried out by the Turkish military. Wikipedia’s article on the MIT, says that, «According to the former director of Foreign Operations, Yavuz Ataç, the military presence in the organization is negligible. This is a recent development, as the organization has a military heritage… MIT suffered with each coup». That’s understandable, because of the long history of military coups in Turkey, and because of Mustafa Ataturk’s having established in Turkey, in 1922, the ideal of secular democracy for Turkey’s future. Turkey’s military, after 1922, changed its focus away from its previous Ottoman Empire function of external conquest, to its future function of serving as guardian of Turkey’s internal secular democratic future. After WW II, Turkey became a NATO member in 1952, and so one might reasonably assume that Turkey’s military has probably been coordinating many, if not all, of their coups with the CIA.

Consequently, if the CIA was involved in the recent coup-attempt (which Turkey’s government alleges to have been the case), then some alternative to Turkey’s own intelligence service was probably the medium of transmission between the CIA and Turkey’s military: MIT wouldn’t likely have been the organizer of this particular military coup.

What, then, would likely have been the go-between?

The Turkish government alleges that the Turkish international Islamic movement of Fethullah Gülen was behind this coup. However, Turkey’s military has been famous for avoiding all association with Islamic entities, which includes Gülen’s. But that non-association wouldn’t necessarily still be the case if the connection between MIT and the military has now become weaker than it had ever been before. At least the possibility exists that the Gülen movement had infiltrated the military, at the same time as MIT left the military.

Back on 25 February 2010 – when Turkey’s two leading Islamist politicians, Fethullah Gülen and Tayyip Erdoğan, were allied instead of being enemies – the American Establishment (i.e., CIA-associated) magazine Foreign Policy, headlined, «What’s Really Behind Turkey’s Coup Arrests? All signs point to Fethullah Gülen, whose shadowy Islamist movement is rapidly extending its tentacles into all aspects of Turkish political life». This CIA-friendly magazine said, at that time:

«A mountain has moved in Turkish politics. All shots against the military are now fair game, including those below the belt [As a US Establishment – a pro-CIA – magazine, FP promotes the idea that Turkey’s military is the basis of democracy in Turkey, and so this ‘below the belt’ meant that any such serious criticism of Turkey’s military is unworthy of being even considered]. The force behind this dramatic change [the alleged weakening of the Turkish military’s influence in Turkey’s political life] is the Fethullah Gülen Movement (FGH), an ultraconservative political faction that backs the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The FGH was founded in the 1970s by Fethullah Gülen, a charismatic preacher who now lives in the United States but remains popular in Turkey. It is a conservative movement aiming to reshape secular Turkey in its own image, by securing the supremacy of Gülen’s version of religion over politics, government, education, media, business, and public and personal life». That news-report is, clearly, hostile regarding FGH. It’s against Gülen.

At that time, the US Establishment clearly preferred Erdoğan to Gülen; so, Gülen was being portrayed during that period as the villain in this planned coup against both Erdoğan and the military (the military that is, of course, the core of any Turkish coup; so, obviously, to include the military there along with Erdoğan as having been the target of the coup, was wrong; this was instead solely a coup-attempt against Erdoğan).

Gülen had moved to the United States in 1999, and at that time he sent back to his followers in Turkey a sermon-video with him saying that, «Our friends who have positions in legislative and administrative bodies should learn its details and be vigilant all the time so that they can transform it and be more fruitful on behalf of Islam in order to carry out a nationwide restoration [of the religious-based imperial Ottoman state]. However, they should wait until the conditions become more favorable. In other words, they should not come out too early». That sermon also said «You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centers… You must wait until such time as you have gotten all the state power, until you have brought to your side all the constitutional institutions in Turkey». Germany’s Spiegel reported that Gülen’s organization «has no address, no mailbox, no registration and no central bank account». Secrecy and subterfuge are its way, just as they are the way of the CIA or any other intelligence-agency. Serving that function behind the July 15^th coup-attempt would have fit them well.

In 1999, he set up in Pennsylvania the worldwide headquarters for his thriving multi-billion-dollar liberal-Islamist charity, «Hizmet», or «Service» (called by Foreign Policy «ultraconservative», which it also is). Both Gülen and Erdoğan – both of whom had become billionaires by means of corruption (using the government for building enormous wealth for themselves) – accused each other of corruption, but the US government under Barack Obama, refused President Erdoğan’s request to extradite Gülen for trial.

Turkey’s ruling AKP Party had been gradually moving the Turkish government away from the militarily enforced secularism that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk had imposed on the nation in 1922, and then the AKP and FGH became enemies of each other in 2013, when Gülen and Erdoğan blew apart, and this time it is Erdoğan, not Gülen, who is being demonized in Washington as «ultraconservative».

Edward Luttwak is a famous American political ‘scientist’, who had thought that America’s February 2014 bloody coup overthrowing Ukraine’s democratically elected President was okay, but that the West’s acceptance of Russia’s having taken action the very next month to protect Crimeans against Obama’s installed coup-regime would constitute «legitimizing Putin’s use of force». In Foreign Policy, this August 3^rd, he headlined «Erdoğan’s Purge Is a Sectarian War», and he argued there that the United States should continue to protect Gülen against Erdoğan. He blamed Erdoğan, and contrasted his «populist Islamists, led by the thinly educated ex-soccer player Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the university-educated followers of Fethullah Gülen».

Delving far deeper into the relationship between Gülen and the CIA was the former FBI Turkish translator whom the US government has required not to reveal the most incriminating information she had had access to during her FBI employment, Sybel Edmonds, who subsequently has become the publisher of her «Deep State» information site, Boiling Frogs Post. As one writer elsewhere summarized the matter well, but without links to the sources:

«Edmonds claimed that the key link between Fethullah Gülen and his movement with the CIA was Graham Fuller, a prominent intelligence analyst at the RAND Corporation, former CIA station chief in Kabul and Vice President of the National Intelligence Council.

Although he dismissed the allegations about the role of Gülen’s schools in hiding CIA operatives, Fuller admitted that he provided a reference to Gülen at the time the US immigration authorities planned to expel him in 2006. Fuller wrote a letter to the FBI and the US Department of Homeland Security in defence of Gülen. Fuller wrote that he believed Gülen was not a threat to America. Due to this support, Gülen was allowed to stay in the United States. Another person who also wrote a similar letter in defence of Gülen was Morton Abramowitz, former CIA operative in Turkey who later served as a US ambassador in that country».

A more extensive summary, and with several links to Edmonds’ works, was provided at Boiling Frogs Post, by William Engdahl, headlining on 22 May 2013, «CIA’s Graham Fuller – A Deep State Rogue», where readers can find a more comprehensive presentation of the CIA’s operation with Gülen to weaken Russia. In short: Gülen is a key CIA asset in the American aristocracy’s decades-long effort to conquer Russia. Consequently, if Obama were to extradite him to Turkey, then not only would the American aristocracy lose perhaps its key intelligence-operative against Russia, but Gülen’s trove of secrets might then become known to Russian intelligence, and the entire NATO operation to take over Russia could become fatally compromised.

The US is now stonewalling Turkey’s government, which is trying to get to the bottom of a coup that would almost certainly have succeeded if Russia’s President Vladimir Putin had not contacted Erdoğan hours in advance warning him that it was coming.

On August 11th, Russia Today bannered «Erdoğan ultimatum: ‘US has to choose between Turkey & Gülen’,» and reported: «‘Either the coup-plotting terrorist FETO [Gülenist Terror Organization, term used by non-Gülenists] or the democratic country Turkey. The [US] has to make this choice,’ Erdoğan said in a speech in Ankara on Wednesday, as quoted by the state-run Anadolu Agency».

The leader of Turkey has thus now warned that if the US aristocracy continues what he alleges to be the US government’s backing of this coup-attempt, then Turkey will end its alliance with the US aristocracy, and will become allied instead with Russia. He’s explicitly threatening the US aristocracy. He’s indirectly threatening also NATO, of which Turkey has been a member since 1952. No NATO member country has previously left the anti-Russian military alliance, nor even threatened to leave it.

As of August 14^th, a Turkish-organized petition at the US White House website that closes with «I would like our government to stop providing a safe haven to Fethullah Gülen and I want him delivered to Turkey» reached the required number of signatures for the President to be required to respond publicly on the petition’s matter: 100,000 signers.

Why are known terrorists at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia? Doesn’t the Secret Service vet people that are in the same building as the President of the United States anymore?

What the hell is going on?

Invited as a guest to the 2016 Democratic National Convention is none other than Kadri Veseli, the Speaker of the Kosovo Assembly.

Veseli is a former Kosovar Albanian leader of the KLA and its spy organization SHIK. He’s being indicted along with the current president of Kosovo, Hashim Thaci for small things like organ trafficking and crimes against humanity.

“A new investigation into the shadowy spy group, known as Shik, could also prove embarrassing for western intelligence agencies, particularly the CIA and France’s DGSE, whose support for prime minister Hashim Thaçi, the PDK and Shik dates back to the 1998-9 Kosovo war. At the time, the Americans and French-backed Thaçi as the most effective Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) commander fighting the Serbian military, which was conducting a brutal counter-insurgency and “ethnic-cleansing campaign”…The launch of the new inquiry, which will be conducted by Kosovan and Eulex investigators, will raise questions of why it was not begun five years earlier.

“In his 2009 video Bllaca said that he worked for the execution arm of Shik, charged with killing “collaborators”, LDK officials and potential witnesses against KLA commanders for war crimes.

He said that between 1999 and 2003 he took part in an estimated 17 crimes, including assassinations, attempted assassinations, threats and blackmail, claiming that he worked directly for Syla.

His explosive testimony threatened to devastate the PDK and confirm suspicions that Shik, supposed to have been disbanded, remained a potent force in the shadows of Kosovan public life.”- Alleged connections between top Kosovo politicians and assassin investigated Julian Borger The Guardian November 2014

Thaci, who is obviously preparing his defense against the charges didn’t make it this time. But after all, he was a special guest when Secretary of State John Kerry was in the running.

Do organ trafficking operations run like the urban legend would have you think? You know, a guy walks into a bar and a beautiful girl seduces him and gives him a “mickey.”. He wakes up in a bathtub with stitches, feeling a “little sore” and a few pounds lighter?

This real world confession from one of Kadri Veseli’s men lays the horror out plainly. And shows why both he and Thaci are facing charges for it.

“The interview was broadcast on Monday a day after Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic told AFP his office had a witness who “testified about a medical procedure, done in northern Albania, that consisted of harvesting organs from Serbs kidnapped during the 1998-99 conflict in Kosovo”.

“They gave me a scalpel. I put my left hand on his chest and began cutting. When I got near the bottom (of the ribs), the blood started pouring,” the witness, whose face was not shown and whose voice was distorted, told RTS.

“As soon as I started cutting, he began screaming not to kill him and then he lost consciousness. I don’t know if he fainted or died,” he said,”-  Former Kosovo rebel describes removing prisoner’s heart for black market sale The Telegraph September 2012

After you cut out a man’s heart I think it’s safe to say everyone else in the room can figure out if he died or not even if you can’t. The monsters who ordered these things are people Hillary Clinton calls friends. Emigre Super Bloc Part 4- Clinton’s Jihadis | Will the Super Delegates Vote YES to More Terrorism? GH Eliason

“With revealed NATO files as well as WikiLeaks documents, findings suggest that the government of Kosovo is lead by crime fugitives with names such as the ‘Butchers’, ‘Balkan Mafia Boss’ as well as organ harvesters. Judging from the revelations origin, it seems like the United States and some other Western European powers that support the government of Kosovo, have had extensive knowledge for several years of criminal ties to former rebel leader Hashim Thaci, including the whole structure of political parties in the country, without exception. Foreign political, military, police, and justice powers in Kosovo have scandalously kept silent for over 17 years, granting crime a lawless and consequence-free paradise. Those findings suggest that the foreigners would continue to turn a blind eye to crime gangs on their doorstep if there were no insiders to reveal the evidence of their tacit involvement.”-Kosovo: A Nest of Crime Fugitives in Europe Foreign Policy Journal March 2016 Vedat Xhymshiti

“Even before, there were accusations from The Hague (war crimes) tribunal, and KLA commanders prevailed against injustice and slander. The war of the Kosovo people was a just war.”

Prosecutors and diplomats say efforts to investigate war crimes allegedly committed by the KLA have run into witness intimidation, a culture of reverence for the former guerrillas and deep clan loyalties.

The organ harvesting allegations hit the headlines in 2011 with publication of an explosive report by Council of Europe rapporteur Dick Marty.

He alleged that Thaci and four high-ranking members of the prime minister’s Democratic Party of Kosovo (PDK) had been part of a group involved in the sale abroad of organs removed from Serb prisoners who had been smuggled out of Kosovo to a makeshift clinic in Albania during the war…All four of his party allies named in the report are running for parliament on Sunday. One of them, Kadri Veseli, was beside Thaci as he stepped out a black BMW jeep in Gjakova. Kosovo votes under shadow of war crimes probe Gjakova Kosovo Reuters Fatos Bytyci

In spite of all this, Vice president Joe Biden calls Thaci the “George Washington” of Kosovo. I didn’t know George Washington engaged in ethnic cleansing, torture, political assassinations, mafia-like crime and drug trade activities, or of course, the organ trade.

In a rare honest moment, Madeline Albright had this to say to Thaci “I hope you will become Kosovo’s Gerry Adams and choose peace over continuing war and terrorism.”

“For me, my family and my fellow Americans this is more than a foreign policy issue, it is personal,” Clinton stressed. Hillary Clinton was speaking about the KLA and Hashim Thaci.

In Thaci’s Kosovo today, IGIL is quietly setting up training camps ahead of the US presidential elections. The war in Serbia will more than likely start directly after a Clinton win. If we are at war with IGIL, should we be inviting IGIL’s friends to political conventions?

“On the territory of Kosovo and Metohija, the local police detained three militants of so-called “Islamic State” (a terrorist organization banned in Russia), is going to organize a series of terrorist attacks in Serbia.” Terrorists LIH (IGIL) break through the Balkans to Western Europe March 2016

Once again, I’m not accusing Hillary Clinton of a lack of judgment in this situation. Her judgment is clear. Hillary Clinton supports organ selling, drug trafficking, genocidal Islamists that revive Waffen SS battalions in return for their support at the ballot box.

According to USA Today, there were 61 speakers on the first day of the Convention and not one mention of terrorism or terrorist groups.

Does Vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine show better judgment…or at least something recognizable as American policy?

We have a winner! “In 2007, Kaine was the Governor of Virginia and, of all people, chose Muslim American Society (MAS) President Esam Omeish to the state’s Immigration Commission. A Muslim organization against Islamism criticized the appointment and reckless lack of vetting.

Federal prosecutors said in a 2008 court filing that MAS was “founded as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.” A Chicago Tribune investigation in 2004 confirmed it, as well as MAS’ crafty use of deceptive semantics to appear moderate.”Clinton VP Pick Tim Kaine’s Islamist Ties Ryan Mauro July 2016

The article goes further to state that he spoke at a dinner that gave a lifetime achievement award to the founding father of the Muslim Brotherhood USA, a terrorist that wants to institute the Islamic Revolution in the United States.

What is nice about this is that Senator Kaine along with Hillary Clinton also share a special relationship to Fetullah Gulen and his many groups. Kaine, who supports the Muslim Brotherhood also supports the Gulen terrorist organization. When even Gulen’s recent past is looked into, aside from the attempted coup, he directly supports groups that have murdered more people than Osama bin Laden.

Gulen groups are known for greasing the wheel in Congress, and our Congressmen are known for protecting the Islamic graft.- Emigre Super Bloc: The Failed Turkish Coup – An Exploded View George Eliason

What’s kind of nice is that along with Senator Kaine, the Muslim Brotherhood which then Secretary of State Clinton tried to install in power during the Arab Spring in Yemen, Libya, Egypt, Syria, and so on, also support Gulen.

Gulen on the other hand, supports the US Congress. In stories broken by the Washington Post and USA Today, Gulen’s groups illegally funded over 200 Congressional trips to Turkey. The practice has been stopped as a result of a House ethics panel investigation. One member of the panel recused themselves because of taking trips that Gulen paid for. A couple others that should have did not.

“Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist at Public Citizen, agreed.  “The fact these organizations were sponsoring 100 members of Congress and then suddenly dropping to zero would raise red flags that the organizations themselves or their funders are not supposed to be sponsoring these kinds of trips,” Holman said.” USA Today June 2016.

According to Congressman David Scott from Georgia, “In a robust republic, civic organizations such as the Gulen movement cannot and should not be designated as terrorist organizations without evidence for the sake of political expediency.”

The Gulen organization is a finely tuned political machine. When the political donations are looked at they go across the board. Both Democrat and Republican alike are on the graft wagon with this Islamist group. This is not just a Democratic party problem. It’s an American Problem.

“You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centers … until the conditions are ripe, they [the followers] must continue like this. If they do something prematurely, the world will crush our heads, and Muslims will suffer everywhere, like in the tragedies in Algeria, like in 1982 [in] Syria… like in the yearly disasters and tragedies in Egypt. The time is not yet right. You must wait for the time when you are complete and conditions are ripe, until we can shoulder the entire world and carry it… You must wait until such time as you have gotten all the state power, until you have brought to your side all the power of the constitutional institutions in Turkey …Until that time, any step taken would be too early — like breaking an egg without waiting the full forty days for it to hatch. It would be like killing the chick inside. The work to be done is [in] confronting the world. Now, I have expressed my feelings and thoughts to you all — in confidence… trusting your loyalty and secrecy. I know that when you leave here—[just] as you discard your empty juice boxes, you must discard the thoughts and the feelings that I expressed here. -Secret Fethullah Gülen Sermon1990 broadcast on Turkish television

Groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and the Gulen groups make inroads because they are not Muslim in character or practice. They are fascist, nationalist, and terrorist.

In the last article segment Fetullah Gulen has been shown to be a terrorist leader. Congressman Scott, now that the proof has been shown, how about revisiting the designation question again?

What’s are the differences between Osama bin Laden, Hassim Thaci, and Fetullah Gulen? Osama bin Laden was never accused of the organ trade, mafia-like crimes, or bribing Congressmen. Through the emigre groups, the other two not only do the above but sway election results in the USA.

This leads to the conclusion that bin Laden’s great sin was being stingy in the political donation arena. I don’t know for sure but given that the other two have committed greater crimes and he’s dead, it makes you wonder.

Do we really need Fascist Islamist Terrorists having a bigger say in who gets elected to be President of the United States than you do? It’s time to fix the system.

Welcome to Gulen-Gate’ where every terrorist that donates is a winner.

rinf.com

Such a fundamental break seems unlikely, however, given the strategic importance of Turkey to the US-led NATO military alliance – especially at a time when NATO is vital to Washington’s policy of trying to isolate Russia.

Turkey has been a member of the NATO alliance since 1952. With armed forces numbering 600,000, the country is the second biggest member of the 28-nation military organization after the US. At the Incirlik airbase in southern Adana province, Turkey is reckoned to house 90 US nuclear warheads, which is understood to be more than most European members of NATO possess. Since the early Cold War years, Turkey was always a key US forwarding strike base against the Soviet Union.

With Washington resurrecting its Cold War policy of hostility towards Moscow – in order to shore up declining American global hegemony – the NATO alliance has found a renewed, urgent purpose.

Judging by the enormous political investment in the buildup of NATO forces in Eastern Europe over the past four years, it can be reliably surmised that Washington’s top geopolitical priority is its attempted containment of Russia, which is, in turn, closely related to its hostility towards China. To cause a rupture in NATO at this juncture through a severance of ties between Washington and Ankara makes the latter contingency extremely undesirable and unlikely. In short, Washington needs to keep Turkey within its fold. For its bigger geo-strategic reasons, it can’t afford to go «cold Turkey».

For this reason, it seems unlikely that Washington would have colluded in the latest coup attempt against Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

There have been suspicions and accusations from within the AKP and wider Turkish population that Washington may have had a hand in the failed military putsch last Friday, which resulted in nearly 300 dead and thousands wounded. In the aftermath, there has been a surge in anti-American sentiment on the streets among ordinary AKP members and supporters.

At the center of Turkish animus towards Washington is the alleged role of exiled Islamic preacher Fethullah Gulen. The Erdogan government claims that the US-based imam inspired followers within the military to rise up. By extension, because of Gulen’s American domicile, it is averred that he was afforded some form of help from Washington to instigate the coup.

But that accusation seems untenable. For a start, the 75-year-old Gulen categorically denied any involvement and he quickly condemned the coup bid. His track record of mild Islamic teaching and scholastics has always emphasized multi-party democracy, non-violence and anti-terrorism. The notion that Gulen embarked on a coup seems far-fetched.

It is true that the US and Turkish military establishments have long-held close links, and it is true that elements within the Turkish military are not pleased by Erdogan’s growing Islamist version of governance, seeing it as straying from the country’s secularist constitution as envisaged by the founder of the modern state, Kemal Ataturk, in the 1920s.

However, again, it seems an attenuated stretch of reasoning to conclude that this might infer Washington had a hand in the latest coup.

US Secretary of State John Kerry was in Moscow holding talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov when news of the uprising broke last week. Kerry later sternly denied Turkish claims that Washington was involved. He said such accusations were «utterly false and harmful to bilateral relations».

President Barack Obama and Kerry were also quick to denounce the coup and gave their support to the «elected government» – meaning Erdogan’s AKP administration.

Still, having said that, forthcoming relations between Ankara and Washington are set for a rocky time, as are relations with the European Union.

Both Washington and the EU have urged Erdogan to «act within the law» and to not use the failed coup as a license for repression.

Erdogan has shown a truculent disregard to calls for restraint from his Western allies. Within days of the coup being put down, the AKP dramatically widened its crackdown on the alleged plotters, from arresting a few thousand military personnel to detaining over 50,000 army and police officers.

Up to 100 generals and admirals – out of a total of 375 senior commanders – have been reportedly detained.

The AKP backlash has also extended to sacking or suspending 15,000 state education employees, as well as some 1,500 university deans and 3,000 judges. All of them accused of being supporters of the exiled Gulen.

Erdogan has taken to labelling his perceived political opponents as «scum» and a «virus» that must be «cleansed» from the Turkish body. He has urged his supporters to remain on the streets until those suspected of being associated with the coup are completely «uprooted». And, perhaps most disturbingly, Erdogan is whipping up public support for a return of the death penalty to be used against the plotters. Turkey abolished capital punishment in 2004 – two years after Erdogan’s AKP was first elected – in an effort to appease the EU for its ongoing accession to the bloc.

The German government this week said that no country that applies the death penalty could ever become a member of the EU. If Erdogan proceeds with his plans to impose capital punishment on hundreds of indicted traitors from mass trials, that would suggest a collision course with the EU.

Ankara’s testy demands for Washington to extradite the cleric Gulen also suggest another collision course in the offing. Erdogan’s prime minister Binali Yildirim said that any country affording support to the coup plotters is «at war with Turkey». Erdogan has made a direct public demand on Obama to hand over the cleric.

So far, Washington has played down the extradition requests. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said this week: «If and when we receive a request, we will evaluate that request based on the extradition treaty that was signed by the US and Turkey nearly 30 years ago».

A further significant development this week were reports that Erdogan informed Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in a phone call that «Turkey was ready to work with Iran and Russia to restore peace and stability in the region».

Erdogan’s conciliatory overtures to both Iran and Russia have been building over recent weeks. His overdue apology to Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this month for the fatal shoot-down of a Russian fighter jet in November last year by Turkish forces was the clearest signal yet of a desired rapprochement. Erdogan’s government has fallen foul of Moscow and Tehran over its support for regime-change proxy militants in Syria since 2011 – a long-time regional ally of both Russia and Iran.

Some observers have even suggested that Erdogan’s apparent desire for rapprochement with Russia and Iran may have prompted the US to trigger the latest coup against his government. Such a short time-line for such a mobilization does not seem plausible.

In any case, on the matter of Syria, Washington has in recent months seemed more accommodating to Moscow than either of its two regional partners, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. After all, that’s why Kerry was in Moscow last week, seeking apparently to join US and Russian forces in Syria to «combat terrorism».

Washington has also been far more keen to push a political track for its objective of regime change in Damascus. Indeed, at times it is Turkey and Saudi Arabia who have voiced anger and frustration at Washington for not being more confrontational in Syria, by not creating no-fly zones and increasing supply of weapons to the anti-government militants.

The idea that Erdogan was «going AWOL» from the US regime-change camp on Syria – and courting Russia and Iran – does not ring true. If anything, the Turkish leader appears to be reacting to Washington’s gradual shift away from covert war in Syria to a more political track. Sensing that the covert war using terror proxies was coming to a dead-end, Erdogan seems to be casting around to mend fences with Moscow and Tehran.

So, what can we conclude?

The coup in Turkey follows a long tradition of such revolts by the military. There have been at least six since 1960. The latest attempt most likely was a genuine uprising from within the Turkish ranks by elements not happy with Erdogan’s drift towards Islamist rule. It seems counter-intuitive that a US-based, and rather mild, Islamist scholar would have inspired a bloody uprising, whose stated objective was to install secularist governance.

Washington, although a past-master at orchestrating foreign coups, most probably had nothing to do with the putsch on July 15. Relations with Erdogan have certainly become increasingly strained over the differing tactics on how to prosecute the regime-change operation in Syria. That is, whether to pursue military or political tracks.

Nevertheless, Washington has a much bigger goal and transcendent priority than either Turkey or Syria. It is Russia. Washington has clearly demonstrated and explicitly stated over recent years that its top global challenge is Russia. The US needs NATO cohesion more than ever to pursue that strategic objective.

It would seem patently counter-productive for Washington to alienate Turkey and the dominant ruling AKP of Recep Tayyip Erdogan at this strategic juncture. That would only lead to a crisis within the NATO alliance and thereby a setback to Washington’s more important anti-Russia project.

Erdogan will continue to strain relations with Washington and the EU over his increasing move towards autocratic rule and his brazen exploitation of the coup crackdown to curtail democratic freedoms in Turkey. That repressive trajectory has been underway for several years under Erdogan and neither the US nor EU have expressed any meaningful protest.

In the end, the EU and Washington need Erdogan more than he needs them. The EU and Germany in particular are beholden to Ankara to stem the flow of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan; and Washington needs Turkey to maintain its NATO spearhead against Russia.

Erdogan has, in effect, latitude to pursue even more dictatorial powers in Turkey. And while the EU and Washington may issue the odd verbal admonishment over his draconian demagoguery, neither will want to estrange the Sultan in Ankara owing to their sensitive, paramount strategic needs. Getting rid of Erdogan would be just too wild a card to play.

Of course, a converse question could be: will Erdogan ditch the US and EU? And embrace Russia and Iran?

Erdogan has shown himself to be incorrigibly maverick, deceptive and unscrupulous to make that a realistic outcome.

Russia and Iran might enjoy, even partially benefit from, the tensions between Turkey and the US. But the latter’s NATO orbit and strategic imperative towards Moscow will over-ride a major geopolitical shift with Turkey.

Washington is not going to go cold Turkey. It’s got a more pressing addiction regarding how it deals with Russia. 

Let’s start from here. Assuming the existence of a manual of the ‘Perfect Coup’, it is very likely it would thoroughly explain the importance of the first goals to pull off for the success of a government overthrow:

1. The arrest of the head of State.
2. The nomination of a representative for the coup, presented through a press conference on national media to reassure the population.
3. Controlling all the information/communication sources.
4. The support of at least a substantial part of the police.
5. Control of ministries.
6. Taking under civil and military airports.
7. Controlling the parliament.
8. Full control of the skies.
9. Installing a Curfew.

The radar track of Erdogan in his Erdogan’s flight TK8456, the night of the coup

Failure to arrest Erdogan is a very important indication of the real intentions to overthrow the government. The president was on vacation in a resort on the Mediterranean, as soon as he learned about the coup, he immediately took off in his private jet and urgently released the famous message via FaceTime, echoed by CNN Turk where he called on people to take to the streets in order to defend democracy. While he continued to fly unobstructed in the Turkish skies, many mosques in Ankara and Istanbul began to convey similar messages calling on the population to take to the streets. A few minutes later around 1:00 AM, most of the Turkish people were receiving an SMS message that again urged the population to take to the streets and protest the ‘revolution’. Just when the situation seemed to be solved, around 3AM Erdogan landed in Istanbul.

Notably, more than four F-16s were flying over Ankara in the hands of rebel forces. It still remains incomprehensible, for the success of the coup, why the pilots did not try to at least intercept Erdogan’s flight (the transponder was on all the time, the plane was visible on Flightradar). It was precisely the vision of Erdogan on TV and the reassurance that he was still alive that triggered his supporters to pour into the streets. Moreover, the bombing of the presidential palace in Bodrum by rebel forces, while Erdogan was in an entirely different location, still makes no sense.

The failure to appoint a credible representative may be attributable to poor planning and experience, or something deeper, perhaps linked to a sabotage of the coup. Forces and political representatives probably withdrew at the last moment. We can continue speculating on this aspect, but for the meantime this decision remains simply a big mistake made by the military junta.

The third, fifth and sixth points are most likely related to a strong unwillingness of men and inexperience (only 3 generals and 29 colonels). The bulk of the troops, made up of simple soldiers and tanks were deployed around the parliament (the seventh point) and in the vicinity of two bridges very strategic in the city of Ankara. A lot of speculation still remains on the reasons regarding the enormous lack of availability in terms of resources. Probably this can be explained by withdrawal of some participants at the last moment. The same can be said about the statements of some soldiers arrested after the government overthrow who claimed in many cases to not know why they were there and claiming they had only obeyed the orders from above (it’s also a great excuse to put out during a failed coup). Another common excuse mentions soldiers believing to be part of an exercise.

Another decisive element is the one listed at fourth and ninth points. Erdogan, during the course of his years as a president, transformed the police into his personal guard thanks to impunity, wage increases and an American style of law enforcement militarization with the excuse of fighting terrorism (strictly Kurdish). The move paid off: it was the police who arrested and disarmed most of the military. Soldiers, defeated, simply laid down their arms without engaging in a shootout. The outcome is attributable to a lack of men and perhaps also to a lack of will in transforming a defeat into a civil war, with deaths on both sides. The more or less peaceful outcome of the failed coup is a strong argument against the hypothesis that Gülen and the CIA were behind it.

The eighth point is particularly interesting. Initially the NFZ was achieved by rebel forces but in the course of the evening a No-Fly-Zone was declared above Ankara by the loyalist forces, ending the government overthrow. The most spectacular aspect of the coup is 4 F-16 jets shown in numerous videos hitting the parliament, Erdogan’s presidential residence and shooting down of two police helicopters. Instead of using air power to neutralize the deposed president, they preferred to show a senseless use of force that did not help their cause at all.

The answer to one of the initial questions is therefore ‘Yes’, there was a real intention and will to overrun the government but many questions remain on how it was executed, prepared and the choices made during the coup. For these reasons and in light of all this information, it is important to state:

In all probability, someone pulled back at the last moment, sending out a small group, badly organized, unprepared and without adequate command structure or plan of action. It may have been a skillfully maneuvered tactic by Erdogan, starting the coup and then letting it fail, or even a disagreement inside the military. It is unlikely, however, that an external planner, such as NATO / CIA, after organizing the coup in a hurry would draw back. They would fight until the last Turk standing. However, the sensation remains that someone failed to appear at the crucial moment.

The plot was probably authentic in its intent and the words used by military in their press releases seem to confirm this impression. They attributed the coup to the lack of freedom in the country and a foreign policy conduct that has disintegrated the pillars on which Turkey relies. It’s a sensation and a feeling that has historically been very important within the Turkish military. This is not something that Erdogan discovered recently. It remains to be seen whether these impressions are correct. A good chance could present itself during the military trial of the coup leaders.

Bottom line is, there is no evidence that shows an external involvement of the United States as many speculate. Erdogan mentioned Gülen (his bitter rival) as the leader of the revolt demonstrating nothing, since everyone knows that the 75-year-old is linked to the CIA. His accusations do not automatically imply that he is right or is telling the truth.

Soldiers surrendering, beaten up by supporters of Erdogan

Combining the previous points with a simplistic explanation that Erdogan would have foiled a CIA coup organized by Gülen for his recent change of opinions on Syria and Putin is wrong, in my view, for the following reasons:

A. A coup organized by the CIA resembles what we have sadly seen in Ukraine: death and the incessant chaos until the collapse of the nation. Nothing comparable to what we saw in Istanbul or Ankara. The military in this case laid down their arms, they didn’t kill the population with snipers as seen in the Maidan square, wreaking havoc.

B. Erdogan's plane was in the air for hours, undisturbed. If this had been organized by Gülen/CIA, with 4 F-16 available, it is incomprehensible why not to shoot down the plane or take Erdogan into custody.

C. A coup cannot be organized in two weeks. And it’s far-fetched to assume that Washington created this situation within a few days, to stop a rapprochement between Erdogan, Putin and Assad.

D. Erdogan has every incentive to get the best outcome from this situation. He immediately closed the American air base in Incirlik and asked Washington that Gülen be returned. He said that any country that hosts Gülen, directly mentioning Obama and the United States, is an enemy of Turkey.

E. As soon as he took back his office, he began to arrest thousands of judges and military, starting an internal purge that had to be in the preparations for months. This would explain the possible meddling of Erdogan in the coup. He could have allowed, ignored, or even encouraged the preparation of the coup in order to call out all the "traitors" and then act even harder and with impunity, arresting them all.

F. If the coup had been created overseas, the media and Western governments would have immediately sided with the military. Even Erdogan himself used with great effectiveness a FaceTime connection and Turkey CNN to talk to the population. CNN, a pillar of the US soft-power strategy. Something that Washington could have easily been prevented, if wanted.

So what is the most likely scenario, excluding an external intervention?

Erdogan's political decisions have split Turkeys society in two parts. Although AKP is the first party and the president himself enjoys strong popularity among his followers, social tensions have only increased recently. The sense of dissatisfaction within the armed forces is something real, tangible and historically consistent with events in the country since the 60s'. Erdogan is aware that an Islamization of the country though Muslim Brothers (Qatar more than Saudi Arabia) has led the nation's choices in terms of foreign policy to a dead end in both Syria and Iraq. Another big issue is the total impunity of many elements inside his government and security forces towards Daesh (if not complete complicity). All these elements have exacerbated rivalry with Syria, Iran, Russia and even with some Western and European partners.

The real balance of power shifted when the largely hostile policies kicked in against Damascus and Tehran initially, Moscow later (the shooting down of the SU-24 and the consequent sanctions imposed by Russia). These situations quickly escalated reaching a tipping point. It’s more than likely that a coup had been in preparation since long time ago and it’s safe to say, that Erdogan probably discovered the initiative and perhaps used it to his own advantage (in what manner and how remains pure speculation at this time). Another plausible explanation for his recent statements in favor of Moscow and Damascus could be a direct consequence of an impending coup and time running out for him.

Cause and effect of the failure coup

Regional and international repercussions are all to decipher. There are several testimonies of authoritative sources who indicate a quick escape of Turkish military instructors from Aleppo, under direct orders coming from Ankara. A major coincidence remains, while Turkey was in the midst of a coup, Friday night, in Moscow Kerry and Putin were discussing Syria. Curious fact. The Russian president was one of the first heads of state to call Erdogan to show his support, as reported by the Kremlin. A few minutes before this conversation, and almost simultaneously, the Arab Syrian Army sealed, apparently permanently, Aleppo, isolating it from external supplies in what could prove to be a decisive event in the beginning of the end of Syrian conflict.

Even with many uncertainties that remain uncovered, we can already conclude that the Turkish political aims on the region have changed significantly and realign now with more common interests with Moscow, Tehran and Damascus, rather than Riyadh, Doha and Washington.

The words of the Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif have been supporting Erdogan since the beginning of the coup and blamed the petro monarchies, implicitly highlighting once again the absurdity of Ankara alliance with Riyadh and Doha. It's likely that the Kurdish issue will become, with the domestic political sweep, Erdogan's primary focus and that the unity of Syria will be the perfect expedient to prevent the unification of the Kurdish territory in the south of Turkey. A clear strategic commonality with Assad that would explain the renewed dialogue with Damascus. An attitude on a collision course with the United States that has always protected, armed and financed the Kurds.

Moscow is becoming more and more a leading partner in this situation. The Sultan can give the impression of living in a situation of apparent strength (the domestic sweep was inevitable), but the truth is that in terms of international relations he has the absolute need to cooperate with nations that until recently he considered his sworn enemies.

How regional tensions could have influenced or led up to the coup remain to be measured and undiscovered. The immediate certainty are the consequences that the coup will have on the future of the Middle East. That the coup in Turkey accelerated certain events in the region is yet to be understood, what is already clear though is the incoming victory of the Syrian-Iranian-Russian axle in Syria.

Erdogan got lucky this time, maybe he knew how to make the most out of the situation. This still does not change the price he will have to pay for protecting his power. News coming from Aleppo indicates that he is bargaining his strategic advantages to remain in charge of his country, whatever the cost be. What repercussions this will have on the relationship between MIT (secret service) and Daesh is to be seen. His promises to focus on preventing the rise of a Kurdish unified state is another core issue. Also in this case, we will see how this may influence a serious future dialogue with Damascus.

Ultimately, the coup failed and has left us with an Erdogan that to survive as president is obligated to decide on changing his policy towards Syria and the region. Unfortunately for him, the only way to do so is to say goodbye to his glorious dreams, shared with Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United States. Will the Sultan put aside his ego and obey the new rules?

Erdogan was generally applauded by many Turks when he decided to go on the offensive against Ergenekon, rooting out many of its key players and sacking them from the military and Turkey’s intelligence service, the MIT. But Erdogan did not stop with the military and MIT in finding Ergenekon conspirators. Increasingly becoming paranoid about secret plots against him and his government, Erdogan began accusing all of his political opponents of being Ergenekon cabalists. The increasingly Islamist AKP government began charging journalists, Kurds, Armenians, academics, non-Ergenekon members of the military, members of the Constitutional Court, and leaders of the opposition parties with being part of Ergenekon. Soon, Erdogan turned his conspiracy-ridden eyes toward his erstwhile political ally Gulen and his followers known as Gulenists.

After the 2007 presidential election, Erdogan and his ally Gulen charged that Ergenekon plotters were planning to overthrow the government in an operation code named Sledgehammer. Over 300 military officers were rounded up and charged with treason. The Sledgehammer computer documents were dated 2003, but they were written in Word 2007. Although it was clear that the documents were forgeries, likely written by Erdogan’s supporters, the Erdogan government began accumulating more undemocratic power. In a few years, the relationship between Erdogan and Gulen began to fracture.

By 2013, the alliance between Erdogan and Gulen ended. Gulen withdrew his support from Erdogan. The Turkish prime minister responded by purging his government, including Cabinet ministers. Erdogan accused them of being Gulenists and of being members of a «parallel government». Arrests of «secret government» operatives increased. Erdogan, totally suffering from delusional paranoia, was instituting the same type of «deep state» he believed was a threat to him.

It is clear that the July 15 attempted coup by a small sector of the Turkish military was directed by members of Erdogan’s own «deep state,» which can be called «Ergenekon II». The coup attempt, which made every possible mistake by design, had several goals. The first was that Erdogan was able to flush out his remaining opponents in the military by waiting to see who rallied to the side of the coup plotters. Second, Erdogan used the coup attempt to seize even more power by, among other things, firing over 2700 judges across Turkey. Third, in urging his supporters to go to the streets, Erdogan was able to reinvigorate flagging support for his AKP agenda. Imams exhorted Turks to rally to Erdogan’s side in messages amplified by speakers atop mosque minarets across Turkey, the orders having come from Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate, a cipher for Sunni radicalism.

The July 15 coup was doomed to fail, by Erdogan’s own hand. Although the coup began as a classic military overthrow of a civilian government, with strategic points – the two cross-Bosporus bridges, Istanbul’s international airport, the state broadcast network TRT, and the General Staff headquarters in Ankara – all being taken by the coup leaders, it was engineered to fail and give Erdogan a needed boost in popular support.

It also remains a mystery how the coup plotters, who strangely limited their actions to seizing a few, but not all strategic centers, could, at the same time, manage to shut down most social media in Turkey, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. And there is the nagging issue of why the coup plotters did not move to arrest Erdogan at his holiday location on the Aegean Sea. In fact, after Erdogan left his seaside holiday hotel in Marmaris, his plane was reportedly refused landing at Istanbul’s Ataturk International Airport, which was reported to be in rebel hands. Erdogan’s propaganda operation then began to put out false information that Erdogan, who was in the air on his presidential plane, was seeking asylum in Germany. The truth is that Erdogan’s plane never strayed far from Turkish airspace. Although major social media was shut down, Erdogan appeared on FaceTime from his iPhone on CNN Turk, which had not yet been seized by the rebel military forces.

If the coup had been a serious attempt at changing the government, FaceTime would have also been shut down. CNN Turk, the affiliate of the American Cable News Network (CNN), would have been taken off the air immediately, as was the TRT state broadcaster. Also, the state-run Anadolu news agency continued to issue statements from Prime Minister Binali Yildirim claiming that the coup had been put down just after it started. An actual coup would have seen the news agency also shut down.

After Erdogan supporters took over Ataturk International Airport, Erdogan landed at the domestic terminal during the early morning hours of July 16 to be met by cheering crowds. These diehard supporters of Erdogan had been with him since his days as mayor of Istanbul. Erdogan’s plane landed without incident. In an actual coup, Erdogan’s plane would have been surrounded by the military and he would have been placed under arrest. Or, if the presidential plane insisted on landing against the military’s orders, it would have been shot down.

Generating even more sympathy for himself, Erdogan claimed that his hotel in Marmaris was bombed after he left after learning of the coup. It would also be in Erdogan’s interest to order the bombing of the hotel, as well as his massive presidential palace in Ankara, as a way to garner even greater popular sympathy and support.

The coup «plotters» also chose to strike at a time when massive traffic jams would result from highway closures in Istanbul, a sprawling metropolis of 15 million people. By closing all lanes on the cross-Bosporus bridges and not keeping one lane open so people could get home from work, the population grew angry at the «coup» and the alleged «leaders».

If the coup attempt had been an actual one, Erdogan would have been arrested and jailed with no possibility of broadcasting a message to the Turkish people. The Turks, more than anyone, know about the collapse of the Greek Cypriot coup against Cypriot President Archbishop Makarios in 1974. After a Greek Cypriot junta announced that Makarios was ousted and was killed during the coup, Makarios turned up speaking to the nation from a low-wattage radio station in Paphos, Cyprus. Makarios announced that the coup leaders would never rule Cyprus. The coup failed. The Turkish military is well-aware of this history because they used the attempted Greek Cypriot coup to invade and occupy northern Cyprus, ostensibly to protect the Turkish Cypriot population.

Erdogan was also met at the airport by a crowd waving brand new Turkish flags, the folds still visible. This is always a sign of George Soros’s involvement in themed revolutions, with protesters always waving factory-fresh flags. Some Erdogan supporters were also seen waving brand new flags representing the Muslim separatist group of East Turkestan in western China, a group supported by Soros. Soros’s Open Society Institute operates freely in Istanbul and Soros is on friendly terms with Erdogan. It is also noteworthy that US Secretary of State John Kerry, a Soros acolyte, indicated he would recommend extraditing Gulen from exile in Pennsylvania if it was determined that the cleric was behind the coup. Erdogan could not have asked for any more support for his false flag coup, which had two major goals: ramming through a new Constitution for Turkey that will give Erdogan near-dictatorial powers and grabbing Gulen and putting him in prison or worse. Kerry’s statements were as inane as has been Barack Obama’s constant use of Erdogan as a consultant on Middle East and Islamic issues. Obama could do no worse by seeking the advice of the head caliph of the Islamic State.

The coup attempt in Turkey was a combination of the Nazi-orchestrated Reichstag fire in Germany in 1933, an event blamed on Communists in order for Adolf Hitler to scrap the German Constitution, and Operation Valkyrie, the military plot to kill Hitler at his East Prussian lair in 1944. By waiting long enough to see who joined the false flag coup in Turkey, Erdogan borrowed a page from Hitler, who waited to address the German nation until all the supporters of Valkyrie made themselves known. It was then that Hitler ordered the arrests and executions of the coup plotters. After the collapse of the Turkish coup, Erdogan immediately moved to arrest actual and suspected coup plotters who had been caught in a classic «fly paper» operation.

Erdogan fancies himself as a modern-day Ottoman sultan. He now sees himself as a besieged leader. Erdogan is more dangerous than ever and Turkey is in store for a very bleak future, indeed.

Prior to that, the two top people at Turkey’s other independent newspaper, Cumhuriyet, were arrested and now face charges of treason for having reported that the Turkish government was shipping weapons to jihadists in Syria.

On March 11th, Israel shut down and arrested the top people at Palestine Today TV, but, because that station has offices not only in Ramallah in the West Bank but in Lebanon, it continues broadcasting despite the Israeli regime’s efforts.

Journalists are hired by aristocrats (actually by the news executives who in turn hire the reporters), and so these types of clamp-downs occur when a minority faction within the aristocracy challenges the majority faction for control of the public. The news media are the eyes and ears of the public, and so anytime that the regime acts to suppress dissident journalistic organizations (such as Zaman or Palestine Today), reflects a civil war within the aristocracy.

By contrast, during periods when the aristocracy are united – such, for example, as they were in US the wake of the 9/11 attacks – there’s virtually no dissenting news media, and the regime faces no effective domestic opposition: when the aristocracy is united, the country can function as a dictatorship and the press will go along with it as being ‘its patriotic duty’, which it never actually is; it’s actually traitorous against the public; but, when the aristocracy is united, the government itself is traitorous – that’s a dictatorship, sometimes called «perpetual war for perpetual peace» or especially America’s continuation of the Cold War even after the Soviet Union and its communism and its Warsaw Pact ended in 1991.

Throughout history, contending aristocracies have craved for war to determine their respective dominance-submission relationships; it has always been what aristocracies do; it’s «in the DNA» of any nation’s aristocracy. If one nation’s aristocracy insists upon being independent of other nations’, then the dominant aristocracy will ceaselessly try to conquer it, no matter what. Because today’s dominant aristocracy is America’s, America invades, overthrows and perpetrates coups in more countries than any other. That’s nothing unique about America; it’s unique about the dominant aristocracy in every era: the dominant aristocracy in any time-period claims to be ‘the one indispensable nation’ – all other nations are ‘dispensable’ to it. The message to all other aristocracies is always: submit, or else be conquered. America’s ‘exceptionalism’ used to be Britain’s ‘exceptionalism’, and Rome’s ‘exceptionalism’ before that. All that it really ever has been is the dominant aristocracy’s DNA, always. The dominant aristocracy is always the most-evil one of them all, which perpetrates the most bloodshed and misery, of all aristocracies. And always with hypocritical claims of:

We are the hub of alliances unrivaled in the history of nations. America continues to attract striving immigrants. The values of our founding inspire leaders in parliaments and new movements in public squares around the globe. And when a typhoon hits the Philippines, or schoolgirls are kidnapped in Nigeria, or masked men occupy a building in Ukraine [the Obama regime actually hired them; those masked men were agents hired by the US, and the EU diplomats were shocked to discover this, but the coup had been planned a year in advance], it is America that the world looks to for help. (Applause.) So the United States is and remains the one indispensable nation. That has been true for the century passed and it will be true for the century to come.

Turkey, like Israel, is part of that alliance. So is Saudi Arabia. So is Qatar. So is UAE. So is Kuwait. So too is the EU.

The conflict within Turkey’s aristocracy is between the Tayyip Erdogan faction versus the Fethullah Gulen faction; and the latter favors separation of church-and-state, whereas the former favors control of the state by Turkey’s fundamentalist-Sunni Islamic (majority) clergy who are allied with the fundamentalist-Sunni Saud family that owns Saudi Arabia, and the fundamentalist-Sunni Thani family that owns Qatar – those nations being respectively the world’s top sellers of oil and gas. Zaman is owned by Gulen, but the (CIA-edited) Wikipedia excludes even mentioning the newspaper’s owner. (Wikipedia’s article on Gulen, however, buries its mention of his Zaman under the «Influence» section where it says, «his movement controls the widely-read Islamic conservative Zaman newspaper, the private Bank Asya bank, the Samanyolu TV television station, and many other media and business organizations, including the Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists».

That’s false; Zaman is actually Islamic liberal, not ‘Islamic conservative’: Gulen represents the clerical faction that favors restoration of the Kemal Ataturk separation of church and state – the former Turkey, Ataturk’s, was the one on the basis of which Turkey had been admitted into NATO in 1952 and subsequently became considered for membership in the EU. Erdogan favors restoration of the Turkish-led Ottoman Empire, which, prior to Ataturk, had unified church with state.

The conflict within Israel’s aristocracy is between the majority-non-religious English and German aristocratic faction that founded the Israeli state in the 1940s and ’50s, versus today’s majority-fundamentalist-Jewish aristocratic faction (dominated by American aristocrats and rabidly anti-Russian East-European émigré Israeli aristocrats), such as Sheldon and Miriam Adelson (owners of several major Israeli news media that solidly back the theocratic Israeli politician, Benjamin Netanyahu).

Today’s United States (ever since US President George Herbert Walker Bush double-crossed Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1990) has a unified aristocracy and therefore has no need to shut down or replace top management at its news media; they represent different factions of the aristocracy but all of America’s aristocratic factions support the agenda that GHW Bush put into place when the Soviet Union ended in 1990-91.

So, whereas in Turkey and Israel, the sham of ‘democracy’ now requires the government to control the ‘news’ media (to report on the ‘democracy’); in America, the ‘news’ media don’t even need to be controlled by the government, because those media are instead controlled by a unified aristocracy, which also controls the government. While there are Republican aristocrats and Democratic aristocrats, both of the political parties share a common core agenda, which transcends such lesser disagreements and dissensions. In such an environment, «bipartisanship» means government in which all factions of the aristocracy are being served to their satisfaction. It’s government by compromise, though not government by the people, and for the people. Instead, it’s simply government of the people, by the aristocracy, and for the aristocracy. Even when a dictatorship contains vigorously competing internal factions, it’s no democracy. And – at least since 1980 – America certainly isn’t. No imperial regime ever is, nor can be. It can be hypocritical – that’s normal. But it can’t be democratic. An imperial regime is necessarily dictatorial: that’s in its very «DNA».

The scandal poses the greatest threat to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan, the leader of the AKP. He has always taken the position of an uncompromising fighter against corruption within the government system and outside of it, and now he himself has been affected by the corruption investigations. 

Commentators have proposed various explanations for the surfacing of a topic which compromises Erdogan and his party. They name a flare-up in the relations between two old friends (or rather, former friends) as the most likely detonator for the scandal. This refers to Erdogan and Fetullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric and founder of the Hizmet movement. The latter now lives in the American state of Pennsylvania, from which he continues to rule his «mini-empire», which includes media outlets and educational institutions (1), and influence social and political processes in Turkey. 

At the dawn of Erdogan's political career, as he was just starting to ascend the Olympus of power, there was complete harmony between him and Gulen. Gulen is an advocate of the systematic Islamicization of Turkey. His theological views combined with the ambitions of a political leader appealed to Erdogan. Gulen supported Erdogan in all the previous national elections. The flare-up in relations, Turkish commentators note, became noticeable in the first few months of 2012, when Erdogan and Gulen disagreed over several issues at once. The most sensitive among these for the «Gulenites» was the government's intention to close private schools. Approximately a quarter of such educational institutions in Turkey are closely tied with the Hizmet movement (they are often called «Gulen schools»). By autumn 2013 things had come to the point of direct confrontation. The Erdogan government moved from words to actions; several schools were forced to close their doors. This was a direct challenge to Erdogan's former ally. In response, the «Pennsylvania exile» brought all his influence to bear. Warnings to those in power appeared on the pages of Zaman, one of the most-read newspapers in Turkey, which is under Gulen's control. 

There are plenty of Gulen supporters in the ruling party, the corridors of power, and especially in the judicial and law enforcement systems of Turkey. If one is to believe Turkish journalists, it was pro-Gulen public prosecutors who initiated the corruption investigation. After Erdogan came to power in 2003, he promoted an entire cohort of personnel to responsible posts, including in the law enforcement system.  For all these years Erdogan's appointees have given no cause to doubt their loyalty to him. However, the flare-up between the prime minister and the influential Islamic authority figure has shown that the vector of loyalty can change.

At the same time, the agitation in the system of power built by Erdogan cannot be explained only by the conflict between Erdogan and Gulen. On the lower levels of the AKP there are growing sentiments in favor of a generational change in party leaders. In addition, some party members support the nomination of Abdullah Gul, the current president of Turkey, for another presidential term next year. The coming elections are to be held by direct voting for the first time (previously the president of Turkey was elected by the parliament). This part of the political elite sees Gul as a more level-headed statesman than the impulsive Erdogan, whose emotional disposition has recently led to several incidents in Turkey's relations with foreign partners.

The nascent opposition to Erdogan and his circle has become especially difficult to restrain since summer 2013, when a wave of protests swept across the largest Turkish cities. The trigger was the clearing of Istanbul's Gezi Park and the building of a new shopping center on its territory. The authorities were able to localize the protests and prevent them from expanding beyond large cities. However, the demonstrations had deeper causes than environmental protection. Amid the complete removal of the Turkish army from positions of power and a series of prosecutions against senior generals, forces for which Erdogan's name was associated with total control over the media, a simulation of democratic reforms, and most importantly, the creeping Islamicization of Turkey, the aims and implementation of which has caused sharp disagreement even in the ranks of the ruling AKP, have become more active. 

The army returned to its barracks, and civilian activists took to the streets; fertile ground appeared for all the conflicts in society and the government to come to the surface. Up until then Gulen and his followers had been opposing Erdogan tacitly; the corruption scandal essentially was the first real manifestation of this group's capabilities. They sent Erdogan the signal that if he wants a «smear war», he'll get it. But first, let him think about what he will bring to the new elections next year (municipal and presidential). This is the somewhat simplified, but enlightening leitmotif of the current conflict between the prime minister and the preacher. The opinion of Turkish analyst Murat Yetkin is also worthy of attention: Gulen's supporters in the AKP are irritated by Erdogan's claims to ideological monopoly in the party and sole authority in the country.  

Erdogan reacted to the attacks on him and his team in his typical harsh style. The wave of arrests initiated by pro-Gulen public prosecutors was followed by a counter-wave of indictments. Now the public prosecutors and policemen themselves have fallen afoul of Turkish justice. Five Istanbul police officials were relieved of their duties a day after their subordinates made arrests on suspicion of corruption. Something similar could be observed in the «challenge-response» actions of Erdogan and his cabinet at the very beginning of the demonstrations in defense of Gezi Park in Istanbul. First Erdogan brought down the full force of Istanbul's police on the demonstrators, but then moved away from repressions. He started to hold a dialog with the protestors, albeit only in the intervals between firing water cannons at them and attacking them with tear gas. Something tells me that this time, too, after the energy of the conflict has dropped off, the various groups in power will start to resolve the conflicts through negotiation. Essentially, Erdogan has no other option, considering the upcoming elections; escalation of the conflict is not in his interests. 

Much will become clearer closer to the elections for the head of Turkey's largest city in March 2014. The country's main financial streams are concentrated in Istanbul, and over 18% of Turkey's 75 million people live there. Along with other metropolises of Western Turkey, the city has become a hotbed for protest sentiments with an anti-Erdogan tone. Victory in the Istanbul elections would serve as a stimulus for the current prime minister and his team to strengthen their power in the country. And then Gulen and his mudslinging will move to the ranks of less dangerous opponents to the impulsive yet charismatic Erdogan. 

(1) According to Turkish sources, Gulen's «mini-empire» includes 18 places of worship, 89 specialized religious schools, 207 trading companies, 373 teacher's colleges and around 500 dormitories in Turkey. Outside of Turkey there are 6 religious universities, 236 high schools, 2 elementary schools, 2 Turkish language study centers, 6 university preparation courses and 21 dormitories operating under the auspices of Gulen and his movement. They also publish 14 journals and broadcast on 2 national radio stations and the satellite television channel Samanyolu TV.

«Pan-Turanianism» was a concept originally developed by the British Foreign Secretary and Prime Minister Lord Palmerston as a way to destroy the Russian empire and replace it with Turkic and Mongol vassal states that would answer to the Ottoman sultan and ultimately, to the British crown. Pan-Turanianism influenced the «Young Turks» movement of Kemal Ataturk and was conceived, along with «pan-Arabism» that would eventually destroy the Ottoman Empire, by Wilfred Blunt, a British intelligence officer who headed the Secret Intelligence Service’s Cairo office.

The idea of a restored pan-Turan empire and a single Arab nation, or «Ummah», also influenced the Zionist movement, which saw a future for a Jewish and nationalistic «Greater Israel». The Nazi plan for pan-Turania was tempered by the realization that the Turkish nationalist had no wish to rule over a decentralized empire that would include an Arab Ummah and pockets of self-governing Christians, including Russian and Greek Orthodox.

The blueprint for pan-Turania, referred to by the German Turcologist, was written by Turkish author Halide Edip Adivar, described as the «greatest author of modern Turkey» and who advocated pan-Turania in her novel, «Yeni Turan» (The New Turan).

The German Nazis, according to the Pan-Turania paper, established contacts before the outbreak of World War II with «Turkic peoples in Romania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia, and in the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the Crimean Tatars (ASSR Tartary) in the USSR. Attempts by the Germans to establish contacts in the Central Asian constituent Kazakh and Uzbek republics were unsuccessful because, as the German Turcologist explained, there were «‘no Intourist bases’ there».

The German Turkish expert states in his report that Nazi Germany set up «puppet governments» on German soil that published newspapers in the «various languages in order to exert an influence on these groups and prepare them for possible collaboration if the attempt were made to partition Russia on the basis of national states». After the German invasion of the USSR on June 22, 1941, the German command, according to the plan «commenced segregating the non-Russian among the captured formations of the Red Army» and formed them into nationalist-based «legions». Even more amazing, the Pan-Turania paper reveals that the Turkic puppet governments on German soil were permitted to maintain contact with similar groups based in neutral Turkey and Germany’s wartime enemy, Britain.

The Nazis helped establish a Greater Turkestan «exile committee» in Berlin and funded the Turan nationalist newspaper «Naher Osten/Yakin Sark», or «Near East». Berlin hosted a Turanian political leader named Mustafa-bij-Choqai-ogli who told his fellow Turanians in Berlin, «All six countries, Kazakhstan, Kirghizistan, Karakalpakistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, as well as Tajikistan, are to form one state; Turkestan». The blueprint of the Turanian’s Nazi benefactors for the future of the USSR became clear. The Nazis is Berlin also managed to convince the Azerbaijanis and some non-Turkic Armenians, Georgians, and north Caucasus minorities, including the Mongolian Kalmyks, to support the Turanian cause and eventually form a Caucasus Federation with the Chechens, and other Turkic minorities after the foreseen defeat by Germany of the Soviet Union. 

One pan-Turania advocate who bridged the span between German Nazi support for a Turan empire taking over much of central Asia from the Soviet Union to the post-war CIA-supported Anti-Bolshevik Bloc of Nations (ABN) fascist alliance in Eastern Europe was the head of the Turkish Nationalist Action Party, Alparslan Turkes. Razi Nazar, a leader of the Munich-based ABN, also worked for the CIA-supported Radio Free Europe during the Cold War. Nazar was close to Turkes. After the fall of the USSR, Turkes visited Baku, Azerbaijan where he was given a hero’s reception. Turkes endorsed Abulfaz Elchibey for president of Azerbaijan.

At the onset of the Cold War, the CIA and NATO established a series of «stay behind» networks in Western Europe. These networks were to serve as anti-Soviet underground guerrillas movements to attack Soviet forces in the event of a Soviet invasion and occupation of Western Europe. In Italy, the underground movement became known as «Gladio». In Turkey, it became «Ergenekon», named after the storied city in Mongolia from where the Turan people, the forerunners of the Turkish people, are said to have originated. Pan-Turania is more of an idea than an actual historical and mighty empire. However, Turkish nationalists of both the secular Ataturk and followers of Turkish tycoon and Islamist leader Fethullah Gulen, currently exiled in Pennsylvania under the auspice of the CIA, have relied upon. It is Gulen, with his network of madrassas across central Asia, the Middle East, and even the United States, who now espouses the closest thing to pan-Turanism. And the CIA’s support for Gulen’s pan-Turania is a direct result of the agency’s embracing of the Nazi ideas of pan-Turania. CIA support, through Gulen’s non-governmental organizations (NGOs), as well as those supported by George Soros and Freedom House, for Chechen terrorists is part of the pan-Turania concept.

It was Gulen who was the impetus behind sweeping into power the Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has made no secret of his desire for a non-European Union Turkey heading up a Turkic commonwealth stretching from Albania to the central Asian border of China. Gulen's brand of Islam is adamantly opposed to Saudi Wahhabism and Salafism and appears to be a recreation of the original Young Turks and Ataturk’s idea of melding pan-Turania and pan-Islamic nationalism. 

Many countries, including Russia, Egypt, and Syria, see no difference in the goals of the Sunni Muslim Salafists and Gulenists. It was through Gulenist operations, such as madrassa schools and "civil society" organizations, that the CIA, Saudis, and Qataris were able to gain an entreé with Islamist radicals in Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia, and the independent "stans" of central Asia. In fact, Gulen's movement was accused of arranging for CIA weapons sales to Albanian Muslim guerrillas fighting against Serbian forces in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. Gulen has also been tied to CIA operations in Chechnya/ Turkey was used by the CIA as a base for the Balkans and Caucasus operations in support of Muslim radical insurgents fighting the Serbs and Russians, including the elements that spawned Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the brothers accused of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombing. The brothers’ uncle, Ruslan Tsarni (aka Tsarnaev), is a longtime agent-of-influence for CIA operations in the pan-Turan region.

The Ergenekon Turkish military-intelligence network was centered around the Grey Wolves, an extreme right-wing group that has pushed for the creation of a pan-Turkic Turan Empire that would include what the Turkish expansionist call East Turkestan, China's Xinjiang province, as well as the central Asian republics of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and a number of Russian autonomous republics like Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Tuva, all nexuses of Soros non-governmental organization (NGO) destabilization activities. Some pan-Turan plans included Finno-Ugric peoples in the Turan empire, including Finns, Hungarians, the Komi, Udmurt, and Mari peoples of Russia, as well as Mongolians, Koreans, and even the Japanese and Tibetans. The Nazi pan-Turan concept also included Native North American peoples in their post-war plan for world domination.

The CIA's control officer for the Wolves during the 1960s and 1970s was reportedly the CIA's station chief in Ankara, former National Intelligence Council vice chairman Graham Fuller, who was also assigned as a CIA chief in Afghanistan, Lebanon, and north Yemen, and who is the former father-in-law of Ruslan Tsarni, the uncle of the alleged Boston bombers. It was a member of the Wolves, Turkish national Mehmet Ali Agca, who tried to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981, an event the CIA tried to pin on the governments of the Soviet Union and Bulgaria. Turkes also promoted the ideology of the Wolves. Another promoter of the Wolves was Samuel Huntington, the neocon darling and author of the book "Clash of Civilizations," the "bible" for western military attacks on and occupation of Muslim nations. Huntington, who received his inspiration from Zionist intellectual guru Bernard Lewis, is evidence of the link between Zionism and pan-Turania. 

In fact, the idea of the recreation of the Turan Empire also has a major Hollywood connection, where the CIA has maintained a liaison office since the days of the Cold War to influence major films. The pan-Asian Turan Empire was the inspiration for the movie "Conan the Barbarian," which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger in the lead role. The pan-Turan Turks were also the role models for J.R.R. Tolkien's fearsome Orks, named after the Orkhun Valley, homeland of the Turks in Outer Mongolia. Rebiya Kadeer, the wealthy former Chinese Politburo member who is now the head of the Soros- and Gulen-backed World Uighur Conference seeking independence for China’s majority Muslim Xinjiang province, has also taken on mythic powers. Kadeer is now known as the "Dragon Fighter," which is also the title of her book, the introduction for which was written by the Dalai Lama of Tibet. Kadeer’s title and book are the same as a 2003 movie about a battle against a dragon created from genetic cloning. Kadeer’s husband Sidiq Rouzi is linked to the CIA through his employment with Radio Free Asia and the Voice of America. 

Kadeer’s independence movement is a direct outgrowth of Nazi plans for pan-Turania. The German pan-Turania report author states that General Ma Chung-ying, who attempted to declare an independent Chinese Turkestan in 1928 until his rebellion was suppressed in 1937 by Soviet intervention on behalf of the Chinese nationalist government, wanted to see Nazi Germany win a war against Russia in order to secure East Turkestan’s independence. This was yet another indication of the ties between pan-Turania and Nazi Germany.

The neo-conservatives and neo-Cold Warriors of Freedom House, Soros’s Open Society Institute, the CIA’s National Endowment for Democracy have dusted off the «Pan-Turania Idea», which was kept under lock and key by the CIA for over 50 years, in an attempt to split the Russian Federation and China into a mosaic of independent statelets all committed to a pan-Turania federation with its capital in Istanbul but its true masters in Washington, London, and New York…