A mandate brings no good

A mandate...

It has always brought harm to the country..

It was accepted in Parliament on October 18, 2023.

According to the accepted articles, the term of duty for the Turkish Armed Forces in Iraq and Syria has been extended for another 2 years. May it be auspicious for the homeland and the nation.

A mandate brings no good, my friend...

Because there is a sentence in it that will not bring any good to the country.

This sentence is as follows: “The deployment of the Turkish Armed Forces to foreign countries to conduct cross-border operations and interventions when necessary, as deemed appropriate and determined by the President, and the presence of foreign armed forces in Turkey for the same purposes.”

In other words, this sentence says: “Foreign soldiers may be present in Turkey to the extent and for the purposes determined by the President.” It says so, but the presence of foreign soldiers in our country brings no good to our country.

So you might ask, what is wrong with this? Let's look at history to see what is and isn't there. What does it mean for foreign soldiers to come to help and be present on our soil for the purpose of fighting or security?

Let's take a look.

Do you know when the Straits Question first emerged?

In 1833.

When the Governor of Egypt, Kavalalı Mehmet Ali Pasha, rebelled and defeated the Ottoman soldiers in Konya, Sultan Mahmud II, panicked, issued a decree to ensure the security of Istanbul.

In other words, he issued a mandate.

As a result of this mandate, he allowed the Russian Navy to pass through the Straits on April 5, 1833, and 15,000 Russian soldiers to land in Anatolia. When this happened, the French and the British jumped up. They did not accept this situation.

The Ottoman Empire did not listen to them and signed the Treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi with the Russians. According to this treaty, the Straits would be closed to British and French ships, while Russian ships would be free to pass.

In short, when we could not resist our own internal rebellion and called foreign soldiers into our country, the Straits Question arose.

To take revenge for this, the British and the French began to stir up the minorities within us.

I cannot even bear to think of the end of this stirring. Because it became the end of the Ottoman Empire.

So, do you know how Cyprus slipped out of our hands?

Let me explain.

During the 1877-1878 Ottoman-Russian War, when the Russian army reached Yeşilköy from the west and Erzurum from the east, Abdulhamid asked the British for help and leased Cyprus to the British. When he could not bother to leave his palace and stop the Russian Army, he asked the British to stop them. He invited them to establish a military base in Cyprus. He leased it. So what did Britain do? It did not stay in Cyprus like a tenant. First, it settled in Cyprus, and over time it sent soldiers to Egypt. It also settled in Egypt.

To put it more accurately, it collapsed onto Cyprus and Egypt.

And Britain, moving from that Egypt, took Gaza, took Egypt. It caused the Arab geography to slip out of our hands.

Oh, speaking of Gaza and Jerusalem, when the British joined forces with the Arabs and advanced from Egypt, Gaza and Jerusalem fell. Because of the Germans. Because in 1913, Sultan Mehmed V Reşad issued a decree, a mandate, that is. We issued a mandate to have the Germans reform our soldiers. We invited them to Istanbul on December 13, 1913.

May God reform them.

What reform, brother? We invited the unsuccessful generals of the Germans to Turkey, made them Marshals, put them in charge of our own armies, and sent them to protect Syria, Gaza, and Jerusalem.

Forget Gaza and Jerusalem, the region up to Kilis slipped out of our hands.

The Germans to whom we gave the mandate knowingly and deliberately surrendered these places to the British. You keep saying Gaza, Gaza; we lost Gaza because of the mandate we issued for the German Army.

What about Vahdettin?

As soon as he became Sultan in 1918, he invited the British to Istanbul, that is, he gave a mandate, and he ruined the country.

In the end, he fled with them. Later, he wanted to go to England in exile, but the British did not accept him. They told him to suffer. This was a result of the mandate, it was no small matter.

The era of mandates ended with our War of Independence.

It was buried in history during the Republican era.

Because Atatürk and İnönü did not issue mandates. None were issued.

Until Özal. The conservative Özal Efendi, in order to overthrow Saddam, issued a mandate for American soldiers and invited them to our country. In 1990, American armored vehicles that landed in İskenderun formed long convoys through Diyarbakır to the Northern Iraq border. I still remember the spoiled state of an American soldier who had both his feet out of the window of a military truck passing through İslahiye. As if they had come not to help, but to occupy.

With the 1990 mandate, Özal was going to put in one and take out three in the Iraq War; he got nothing.

Beyond peace, it caused American soldiers to settle in Northern Iraq. Now, we are trying to prevent that America, to whom we gave the mandate, from establishing a Kurdistan corridor along the line stretching from Mosul to İskenderun. We send our soldiers across the border and organize the Claw-Lock Operation in Northern Syria. We are giving martyrs there because of this mandate. No one says which year's mandate these martyrs are the result of.

A mandate?

In the 2010s, we issued one for Syria this time, but in the end, we found all the Syrians in our lap. We had to feed and look after them. It's not a small number, you know, 13 million.

We must accept that a mandate is always issued before a war. It is issued for war. This word 'mandate' sounds pleasant to our ears, but this is not the 'discharge' (teskere) of our children who return from the military, whose palms we henna, and whom we are happy to have home once they finish their service.

This mandate is a war mandate. A mandate of never returning home again. This is not the discharge of our children whom we hug because they came back safe and sound. This is the mandate of our children whose coffins we will hug after they become martyrs. Because history shows us this.

You will say, 'God willing, nothing will happen to us.'

Now, the President will decide on the number of foreign soldiers and how they are used, right? Well, what if the President, who has the powers of a Sultan, Erdoğan I (if his son Bilal takes over after he dies, he will be Erdoğan II), is mistaken? What if he is deceived, what if he is misled?

Didn't Erdoğan himself say, 'I was deceived, I was misled'? And how many times at that.

A mandate is not something to joke about. If the President is mistaken, if he makes a mistake, what will we do then?

Will we rewind time?

When it couldn't even be understood that a President's aide was a FETÖ member, how will it be understood whose man some foreign soldier is?

As a nation, we have failed to understand the danger of this mandate, alas.

May God help us,

while watching fake Ottoman TV series with a pot for a helmet on our backs, a tin funnel on our heads, and a plastic sword in our hands, I hope what happened to the Ottomans because of this mandate does not happen to us.