They have already broken the pen!

It emerged with Tayyip's speech.

“Who knows what these lieutenants, who committed acts of indiscipline despite the clear instructions of their commanders, might do tomorrow?” he said.

“Is there anyone who doesn't know what kind of civil war climate the coup plotters would have dragged the country into if they hadn't been thwarted by the will of the nation on July 15?” he asked, and then continued:

“While these truths stand as clear as day, what is the meaning of heroizing those who commit acts of indiscipline amidst the clashing of swords? For God's sake, what kind of lack of consciousness is this?”

We understand from the words of His Excellency that the verdict on the lieutenants has already been decided.

All that remains is to announce it.

Yet, the palace's orderly Yaşar Güler had previously pointed to November 25 as the date for the decision.

However, when there was no sound or news on that day, we wondered if the government was shifting into reverse. Moreover, the fact that the palace's tall-statured mouthpiece had written, “Erdoğan gave the instruction to Yaşar Güler: ‘Don't go too hard’,” had strengthened the possibility of a U-turn.

But, it turns out that was not the case.

Let's say Tayyip was just blowing hot air to consolidate his own voters.

But what is Yaşar Güler's problem!

Even though the investigation is still in the inquiry phase, how are we to interpret his statement: "The process regarding the lieutenants needs to be evaluated correctly. The goal is to examine the disciplinary offense rather than Atatürk. It is a deliberate, organized, and planned act of indiscipline despite warnings and orders. None of the lieutenants under disciplinary investigation were asked why they took the oath or why they said 'We are the soldiers of Mustafa Kemal.' By inviting the press, they wanted the action to be known, and the chain of command was deliberately disrupted"!

Could it be that he, too, is worried about the possibility of being demoted like his predecessor Hulusi Akar?

Anyone with enough intelligence to tie their own shoelaces or chew gum while walking can understand that these statements are a clear instruction to those conducting the investigation.

Although he says they were not asked why they said “We are the soldiers of Mustafa Kemal” or why they took the oath, everyone who knows the nature of political Islamists sees that this is the real source of the government's stomach ache.

Where this will end is more or less clear.

Let us write it once more.

The decision to be made regarding the lieutenants will be a critical threshold for Turkey.

If, one way or another, they are dismissed from the Turkish Armed Forces, then from now on, being a soldier of Mustafa Kemal—that is, defending the secular, democratic Republic—will become a crime.

They are trying to establish a precedent here.

On one side is the enlightenment paradigm of the Republican revolution, and on the other is neo-Hamidian sultanism.

They want to justify themselves by talking about indiscipline and such, but the problem goes far beyond that.

Let's come to the crux of the matter.

Will my fellow citizens be able to protect the lieutenants; or more accurately, the philosophy of Mustafa Kemal, the Republic, democracy, and secularism, which the lieutenants swore an oath upon?

Will they be able to stand against the constitutional amendment that will keep Tayyip in that seat until the end of his life, or the dirty bargains that could lead the country to fragmentation, through a strong opposition that will emerge from here?

Unfortunately, we do not know.

Let us acknowledge the efforts of those fighting tooth and nail on social media, but for instance, how wise would it be to pin one's hopes on Özgür Özel, who has occupied Atatürk's seat by chance!

Ever since he put on Tayyip's jacket and stood at attention before him, no matter what he says or how much he shouts, he has no credibility left.

I was working at the Cumhuriyet newspaper during the period when the Ergenekon and Balyoz plots were being set up.

What disappointed me the most was that while Atatürkist, patriotic officers were being dragged away with fake evidence, while CIA-fed FETÖ members were being placed in all levels of the Turkish Armed Forces, and while the Chief of General Staff was being imprisoned as a terrorist, the vast majority of my fellow citizens were busy cracking sunflower seeds as if they were at an outdoor cinema, watching what was happening and saying, “What will happen now?”

More painfully and gravely, after the political Islamists saw a path to power, they began to say without any compromise that “The Turkish army is godless”; and my fellow citizens, as if they were not the ones who applied henna to their children's hands and sent them to the military, believed this dirty propaganda and lined up behind those who were hostile to the military.

They kept those who sat at the table with a terrorist organization that put 40 thousand of its children into the black soil in power, and they applauded them.

When ISIS was burning two Turkish soldiers alive, no one made a sound.

Not only did they not make a sound, but they followed the man who called these brutal murderers “the angry children of the Middle East.”

They did not hold the person who put him in the Prime Minister's seat accountable.

On the contrary, they rewarded him by giving him sultan-like powers.

They thought the FETÖ members were purged on July 15, but every sect and cult that exists has settled into the Turkish Armed Forces in their place.

Even when military students were being strangled so that the one-man regime could have a clear path, when a turbaned admiral was showing off in one of the dervish lodges, and when a Greek Coast Guard boat was running wild on the Turkish coast, my fellow citizens did not make a sound.

There is more.

The military's food oath was changed, its hospitals were closed, and its high schools were locked down. They did not let anyone into the Military Academy who did not come with a reference from the AKP's provincial and district organizations.

Let's not go too far; last year on November 10, the lieutenants who reacted to those who did not wear Atatürk pins in Tuzla were dismissed without any mercy.

This was actually a signal flare.

Except for a few people, no one reacted. It didn't even become a significant agenda item! If my fellow citizens had stood up back then, they would not have dared to make the lieutenants who say “We are the soldiers of Mustafa Kemal” a subject of investigation today.

The matter has now come down to the statement to be made by the High Disciplinary Board, which will carry out the government's instructions.

Unfortunately, my fellow citizens have once again fallen into the silence of the lambs.

We had already given away the golden ox.

Since we have no other ox left to give, let us ask whether we will resign ourselves to our fate from now on, leave the answer to the wisdom of our readers, and put a period to our article.