Earthquake of Lieutenants at the Military Academy!..

Following the official graduation ceremony on August 30, the lieutenants who recited the Officer's Oath—which had been read for 28 years but for reasons still unknown was removed as of last year—and declared “We are the soldiers of Mustafa Kemal,” were targeted by the team of Adnan Tanrıverdi, the founder of SADAT and architect of the new Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) who passed away 3 months ago, more than anyone else, with the exception of Bahçeli and Erdoğan.

The attacks by this group were not limited to the lieutenants; they also demanded that those in the chain of command, primarily the Minister of National Defense, the Chief of General Staff, the Force Commander, and the Rector and Dean of the Ministry of National Defense, be held accountable. One member of that team described the sword-drawing act as a “mutiny” last month, claiming that if it weren't for Bahçeli and Erdoğan, it would have been covered up, stating, “This is not a simple act and it has the command echelon behind it; it should go all the way up to the Land Forces Commander, because an investigation should have been opened immediately following the act of mutiny and the perpetrators should have been apprehended.”

THE FIRST BILL HAS BEEN PAID

These messages, and of course Erdoğan's instructions such as, “We will clean these up... We will certainly not leave our country to the arena where these ignorant people play their games... Hopefully, we will bring this matter to a conclusion as soon as possible,” must have found their mark; because even before the process of taking the lieutenants' statements was completed, the first bill was paid by the commanders at the Military Academy.

According to the information we have obtained, the battalion, company, and platoon commanders at the school, numbering up to 40, were removed from their posts this week and placed under the command of the School Command. New appointments have been made in their place.

It has been learned that the reason these commanders, most of whom started their duties after August 30, were not reassigned but were initially placed under the School Command, is so that their statements can be taken here if deemed necessary after the lieutenants' statements are finished. In other words, it is understood that they were punished collectively and in advance, before any “crime” was determined.

Let us draw attention to one more name among those who were billed in this first operation.

It will be remembered; after the lieutenants incident, some former AKP deputies and writers brought up the claim that the school commander and some other high-ranking officers were on leave and did not attend the graduation ceremony, suggesting that this “showed that there might be some NATO-affiliated Western fingers and FETÖ behind the business.”

In response to this claim, we wrote the following:

“The Land Forces Academy Commander changed with the Supreme Military Council (YAŞ) decisions made on August 1 this year. The current Commander, Gültekin Yaralı, was promoted to Lieutenant General and appointed as the 7th Corps Commander in Diyarbakır. The new Land Forces Academy Commander became Brigadier General Levent Sabahattin Güldağı. In other words, Erdoğan appointed both the incoming and the outgoing. Since both commanders started their new duties as of August 30, Lieutenant General Yaralı was no longer the School Commander on the day the ceremony was held. The new Commander, Güldağı, did not take part in the ceremony area as he did not participate in the ceremony rehearsals that lasted about 20 days. Instead, the Acting Regiment Commander was present in the ceremony area. We learned that both the outgoing and incoming commanders watched the graduation ceremony from the stands, behind Erdoğan.”

To get to the point; it is stated that the Acting Regiment Commander, whom we pointed out here and who was present in the ceremony area, has also been dismissed.

ATATÜRK POSTER

Why do they want to punish these lieutenants and, even before them, the commanders at the school?

Is it not because they crossed swords among themselves and recited the officer's oath, saying, “We swear that we will be found before the hands that reach out to the independence of the secular, democratic Republic of Turkey, to the indivisible integrity of the country, to the honor and dignity of the supreme Turkish nation, and to every inch of the sacred homeland, and our swords will always be sharp and ready. We are the children of the Turkish future. We were born with honor, we will live with honor. How happy is the one who says I am a Turk!” and declared, “We are the soldiers of Mustafa Kemal”?

Look at the bitter irony; on Wednesday, there was the opening ceremony of the 2024-2025 Academic Year at the Military Academy. A giant Atatürk poster was hung on the school building on the occasion of the ceremony, which was attended by many officials, primarily Land Forces Commander General Selçuk Bayraktaroğlu.

There must be a reason for dealing with the lieutenants and their commanders to this extent while our problems have exceeded our height and society has reached the point of madness.

Let us listen to the words of Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmuş regarding the new constitution, who spoke yesterday at the Gazi University Academic Year opening ceremony.

He emphasized that “the coup-plotting spirit is still hidden in the constitution”...

He argued that these should be eliminated, saying, “The greatest enemy of democracy is privileges and exceptions.”...

He stated that the new constitution should be “participatory and inclusive”...

After stating, “An important issue within the new constitution is the relationship between the constitution and ideology... It is clear that there are hundreds of ideologies in Turkey,” he asked the question, “Whose ideology will we write into the Constitution?”

We could not quite understand whether Speaker Kurtulmuş meant the unchangeable articles in the Constitution and the inclusion of the expression 'Turkish Nation' by “privileges and exceptions”; but our answer to the question, “Whose ideology will we write into the Constitution?” which was brought to the agenda from out of nowhere, is this:

The Republic of Turkey has an unchangeable, immutable ideology; and that is the Principles and Reforms of Atatürk. Not the confederation of terrorist leader Abdullah Öcalan, the ASRİKA of Adnan Tanrıverdi, or the ideology of HÜDA-PAR!..

Müyesser YILDIZ

October 11, 2024