Dar Al Hayat (Lebanon)
January 5, 2010 Tuesday
International Edition
Struggle in the " Land of the Wolves "
by Mostafa Zain
Israel complained to the Turkish government when it allowed the airing
of a television series called "Land of the Wolves," which is being
followed by Arab viewers, as a smear because it portrays the
involvement of Israeli intelligence in murders and conspiracies by
domestic organizations in a bid to rid themselves of their enemies.
The show, which has been running for more than a year, portrays a
struggle among secret organizations. Each one claims that it seeks to
preserve the secular order and prevent the dissolution of the state.
Some groups are leftist, others are right-wing, and a third group are
ultra-nationalists. They wage wars in the streets of cities, using
mafia tactics, and they have external linkages to similar
organizations and agencies in other countries, such as Israel, whose
intelligence agencies are always trying to foment this struggle by
supporting the ultra-right, the furthest from Turkey’s Islamic spirit.
The organizations also have extensions into the leadership of the army
and security agencies, and their commercial and industrial
establishments. It is a "covert state within a state," as Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has put it.
Viewers of the show thought they were seeing a mere fictional tale, or
imitation of American mafia movies, until Erdogan revealed plans by
the so-called Ergenekon conspiracy, with acted in cooperation with
high-ranking officers, to oust him from power, either by assassination
or military coup, or through banning his party from politics, in the
manner of Rafah and its leader, Najmeddin Erbakan, in 1997.
The investigations have also shown that Ergenekon was involved in
assassinating the Armenian writer Hrant Dink, and planning to kill the
Nobel Prize winner for literature, Orhan Pamuk, while it framed the
two incidents on Islamists. The suspects did this in order to harm the
public image of Islamists in Turkey and keep the Armenian and Kurdish
minorities distant from the ruling Justice and Development Party
(AKP). The AKP has been trying to conduct a historic reconciliation
with Armenia, and a settlement of the Kurdish question that enjoys the
support of many Kurdish leaders. By killing the two, Ergenekon would
have gotten rid of two opponents of ultranationalist policies, and
portrayed the Islamists as anti-freedom of expression.
In fact, Ergenekon would not have enjoyed this scope of influence and
ability to act freely, were it not for the support of the military.
The Turkish army has constitutional veto power over political life, a
right that was gained when Ataturk re-formed the institution and
authored its guiding doctrine, making it the protector of secularism
and nationalist principles following the fall of the Ottoman Empire in
World War I. This right has been enshrined in laws authored by
military men, after each coup. However, it is another matter for there
to be a secret organization (a state within a state) supported and
protected by the army command. This involves the corruption of this
army leadership, which is even worse than the corruption of the
civilian façade that ruled Turkey over those decades, and was a reason
for the coups?
Exploiting the discovery of the Ergenekon conspiracy, Erdogan managed
to get a bill through Parliament that would submit military personnel
to civilian tribunals, since military courts would find them innocent
of charges for merely showing up. But this law might not be
implemented; it might share the fate of another law, passed in 2005,
which stipulated that the army’s budget be put under civilian
oversight, and this has yet to be applied.
Thus, the confrontation between the ruling AKP and the army is one in
which the European Union is involved, as it asks Ankara to apply EU
criteria to the military and keep it out of politics, and hopes that
this will take place simultaneously with the exclusion of Islamists.
The US is also involved, as it wants to see a strong Turkish army, one
that remains in alliance with Israel, which is involved in activities
with secret organizations, and angry about Erdogan and his party.
The struggle in the "Land of Wolves" goes on. And Israel is at the heart of it.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
