Turkey: Army fires ”Islamist” officers

al Bawaba ^ | August 05 2007

[knighthawk]

Turkey's military expelled 10 officers for being "reactionary" along with 13 others accused of lack of discipline, an official said Sunday. The military, a strong supporter of Turkey's secular standing, ousted the 10 officers for "reactionary activities," the military official said, according to the AP.

The phrase "reactionary activities," usually refers to alleged ties to religious groups or a religious agenda seen as a threat to the nation's secularist tradition.

It was the first time the Higher Military Council disclosed the number of those expelled on that specific allegation. In the past, it only released the total number of dismissed officers and gave no other details, the Milliyet newspaper said. The Zaman newspaper reported that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul signed the council decision.

The military dismissed 13 other officers because of behavior disrupting discipline which harms the military's prestige, newspapers reported.

[knighthawk]

Ping

[rlmorel]

This is a good thing. Turkey was the first somewhat secularized muslim country...we should support them in attempting to stay that way.

[Valin]

Secular or Islamist still on Turks’ minds: Interview with Prof. Barry Rubin
GP Interviews - 8/4/2007
* Is the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) going to make Turkey Islamist or not?
http://globalpolitician.com/articledes.asp?ID=3207&cid=2&sid=3

The thing is (and Turkey is a classic example) things are often alot more complacated than they appear looking in.

[rlmorel]

On this, I would not disagree one iota.

Especially when dealing with Islam.

[Valin]

Watch it! Those kind of comments will get you in trouble with the Nuke Mecca crowd.

[Polybius]

This is a good thing. Turkey was the first somewhat secularized muslim country...we should support them in attempting to stay that way.

Turkey was secularized when Mustafa Kemal Atatürk established the Republic of Turkey in 1923 and Turkey has been fighting Islamists long before America knew what the word "Islamist" meant.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk dancing with one of his adopted daughter at her wedding in 1929

In 1936, Atatürk urged one of his adopted daughters, Sabiha Gökçen, to follow her passion for aviation and she went on to get her wings in the Turkish Air Force. She went on to become the world's fist female combat pilot and eventually flew 22 different types of aircraft for more than 8000 hours, 32 hours of which were active combat hours.

Atatürk was a "Muslim" man WAY ahead of his time, even by 21st Century American standards.

In the 1500's in Europe, our ancestors were warring upon each other and burning each other at the stake because some of our ancestors were Protestants and some were Catholics and some were what both Catholics and Protestants considered heretics.

Northern Ireland has been stuck in that mentality to this day while America has gotten beyond that. Today in America, our neighbor's religion of birth matters little to us as long as he is not pushing his religion agenda on us.

By lashing out at all "Muslims", be they religious fanatics like the Iranian mullahs or men like Atatürk who was as "Muslim" as Ted Kennedy is "Catholic", we too get stuck in the past along with the Islamist nutjobs.

A "Catholic" that has not set foot inside a Catholic Church in years will fight back when Catholics are attacked simply for being Catholics.

Yes, yes, I know all about the dangers of radical religious Islam. My family has a very long military tradition dating back many, many centuries and my ancestors were fighting Muslims ever since they landed in Spain in 711 A.D. and, in the 1500's during the reigns of Charles V and his son Phillip II, my ancestors were fighting both the Muslims and the Protestants ..... and, of course, the French regardless of their religion.

In the end, the Muslims were driven out of Spain, the Battle of Lepanto broke the back of Ottoman sea power in the Mediterranean but only a secular Muslim like Atatürk was able to break the back Islamic religious fanaticism in what is now Turkey.

We will never win against the Islamist religious nutjobs by waging war against all the "Muslims" in the World. There are more than one billion of them and lashing out at all one billion of them is totally counter-productive.

We will win our war against the Islamist religious nutjobs by seeking out our secularized Muslim allies, waging the war against the religious nutjobs that want to impose their religious tyranny and then celebrate the victory with our secularized Muslim allies like Atatürk liked to celebrate ... with a good stiff drink.

[rlmorel]

I agree. Attaturk was who I had in mind.

[denydenydeny]

Gettin’ ready for a coup, if you ask me, per the requirements of the Turkish Constitution.

[montag813]

I fail to see how Turkey can avoid a civil war in the next 20 years.

[Veto!]

I think Turkey can avoid a civil war altogether by continuing to grow their economy and educating the islamobumpkins moving from very religious, conservative villages into cities to take newly created jobs. Secularists in Turkey run everything and are quite forward thinking. There may be intramural scrapping but a civil war just isn’t in the cards. At the end of the day, Turks — especially women — enjoy the Western lifestyle and are not about to give it up.