By Nikolaj Nielsen
The EU is unable to verify with certainty how over €1bn of European taxpayer money was spent on Syrian refugees in Turkey because of Ankara’s data protection laws.
“I can say that this is a serious situation,” chief European auditor Bettina Jakobsen told reporters in Brussels on Monday (12 November).
By Selcuk Gultasli and Andrew Rettman
The failed coup in Turkey in 2016 transformed its internal politics and EU relations.
But two and half years later, evidence is trickling out to support what the EU initially suspected – that president Recep Tayyip Erdogan knew what was going to happen and let it go ahead as a pretext to create one-man rule.
The new evidence recently came in the form of a document written by a Turkish prosecutor on 16 July 2016, and obtained by an investigative journalist, Ahmet Donmez, who lives in exile in Sweden.
The document is a detailed record of events which took place between the start of the coup and 5AM and 7AM that morning.
It said that putschists in the Turkish air force had bombed the parliament and the garden of the presidential palace, for instance.
They did so. But oddly enough, the prosecutor who minuted the events, Serdar Coskun, dated his record as having been written at 1AM – four hours before it all happened.
Coskun at first kept silent about the revelation.
He then gave an interview to a pro-government journalist in which he confirmed the authenticity of the document, but in which he also said he had made a mistake on the timing.
He had started writing at 1AM, he said, but finished at 7AM and indicated that he forgot to change the time.
Coskun’s explanation lacked credibility because some of the things he minuted as having just taken place never did take place, however.
The non-events he recorded included a siege of the MIT (the national intelligence service), the bombing of the special forces command HQ, and the bombing of the police intelligence bureau.
The Turkish embassy to the EU in Brussels declined to comment when asked by EUobserver.
But for one Turkey expert, the minutes indicate that Erdogan’s people knew exactly what was going to happen, let some of the events unfold in a controlled way as a pretext for the ensuing crackdown, and even began drafting papers beforehand that they would later use in trials against his political opponents.
“Finally, we now know how Erdogan exploited the so-called coup so quickly and ruthlessly … my suspicions are even more aroused,” Andrew Duff, a British former MEP who now works at the European Policy Centre, a think-tank in Brussels, told this website.
Recalling the events of July 2016, Duff said that even back then the coup appeared to contain bogus incidents.
“From watching on TV and social media the events of that night, I was suspicious that all was not as it seemed. I couldn’t understand, for example, how the seizure of the Bosporus bridges by the armed forces could fit into the pattern of a genuine coup d’etat,” he said.
The fact that Erdogan himself was not captured or harmed also looked odd, Duff added.
“In a proper coup, he [Erdogan] would have been the main and possibly only target of the plotters,” he said.
“On speaking to several very well informed sources after the event, I am more than ever puzzled why the coup – if it was a proper coup – failed. The Turkish military have never failed in a coup before…why would they do so now?,” Duff asked.
He is not alone in his suspicions.
The leader of Turkey’s main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), Kemal Kilicdaroglu, has called the failed putsch “a controlled coup”.
The former president of the European Parliament, German politician Martin Schulz, has said that while the preparations for the coup looked amateurish, the measures taken against it were extremely professional.
The EU foreign service’s intelligence branch, IntCen, which compiles information from EU states’ spy services, also echoed the politicians.
Erdogan blamed the coup on Fethullah Gulen, the head of a religious movement who lives in exile in the US and who is one of his main political opponents.
But the IntCen report on the coup, dated 24 August 2016, and seen by this website, said it was “unlikely that Gulen had the abilities and the capacities to take such steps”, even if some individual Gulenists were involved in the attempted overthrow.
“According to available information, a far-reaching purge of the GM’s [Gulen movement’s] followers in the armed forces and the gendarmerie was planned for early August 2016 based on lists produced by the MIT. Some arrests were already planned for 16 July, the day after the coup attempt”, the EU report added.
“The coup was just the catalyst for the crackdown prepared in advance,” the IntCen report said.
Much has happened since Coskun drafted his fateful minutes back at 1AM on 16 July 2016.
Erdogan has detained over 70,000 people, including opposition MPs, 110 journalists, and human rights defenders.
He has sacked 150,000 public officials and shut down all government-critical media.
He also rammed through constitutional changes under a post-coup state of emergency that gave himself new powers amounting to one-man rule.
Drilling into the events of 16 July and into Coskun’s minutes might seem like political archeology two and half years down the line.
But those events transformed Turkey in ways which continue to shape its foreign relations and the lives of Turkish people to this day.
The idea that Turkey might one day join the EU has evaporated no matter how much it helps Europe to control flows of refugees.
Erdogan’s decision, last weekend, to expel three German journalists, shows that his contempt for Europe has continued to deepen.
“The Turkish government managed to more or less silence the national media, and they are now trying to do it with the international media,” Joerg Brase, the head of German broadcaster ZDF’s Istanbul bureau, who was given 10 days to leave the country, said.
“It cannot be ruled out … that the Turkish government will take further action against representatives of German media and civil society organisations,” the German foreign ministry added in an update to its Turkey travel advice.
“Statements, which are covered by the German legal understanding of the freedom of expression, can lead in Turkey to … criminal proceedings,” it also said.
Meanwhile, Coskun has been promoted to become a member of one of Turkey’ highest courts, the court of cassation.
At the same time, many military officers are behind bars on the basis of trials which referenced his strange minutes in official court records.
Erdogan has also instituted 15 July as a national holiday, called the Democracy and National Unity Day of Turkey, in commemoration of the national resistance against the coup.
But documents such as Coskun’s minutes help suggest that holiday is a gross falsification of Turkish history.
“Deploying the coup as a pretext, Erdogan … rammed through his own version of a constitutional coup d’etat to aggrandise and protect himself, to weaken the armed forces and to silence or force into exile Turkey’s intelligentsia,” Duff said
With the United States on the cusp of a significant withdrawal from northern Syria and Turkey continuing to court better relations with Russia, Ankara is gearing up to cross its southern border to pursue its cherished goal of taking on the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). But even as Turkey might soon enjoy clear sailing into northeastern Syria to seek to drive the SDF away from key positions, particularly around the Euphrates, pitfalls remain. From remaining U.S. forces to possible Russian resistance, Ankara’s likely offensive into the area could even drag it into a dangerous conflict with the numerous other countries involved in Syria.
In our 2019 Annual Forecast, we highlighted the increased risk of clashes between regional and global powers in Syria. The U.S. decision to draw down its forces from Syria has galvanized Turkey to fulfill its goal of launching a military operation against the Syrian Democratic Forces. Such an assault, however, raises the possibility of clashes between Turkey and the other countries operating in the area.
Ever since the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a mostly Kurdish militia, emerged as a significant force in Syria, the Turks have been focused on ensuring their ultimate defeat. Fearing the YPG’s ties with Ankara’s archenemy, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) — particularly the prospect that the latter could use northeastern Syria as a platform to launch potential attacks into Turkey — Ankara has prioritized its efforts to eradicate the YPG above all others in Syria, even over the removal of its main ostensible foe in the country, President Bashar al Assad. Turkey’s August 2016 Operation Euphrates Shield to capture parts of northern Syria like Azaz and al-Bab, for instance, came at the cost of supporting the Syrian rebel battle for Aleppo, as Turkey drew a number of rebel forces away from that fight and limited its assistance to the insurgents in the city in exchange for a Russian green light for the operation. Last year, Turkey’s Operation Olive Branch dealt a further blow to the YPG by seizing the group’s longtime stronghold in Afrin. With the announcement that the United States is drawing down its forces, Turkey’s goal of staging another military operation, this time a decisive one east of the Euphrates River to extend Turkey’s buffer in Syria, finally appears to be on the cards.
Still, the picture is not entirely rosy for the Turks. Aware of the U.S. penchant for abrupt strategy changes in Syria, Ankara has remained cautious following U.S. President Donald Trump’s sudden announcement that he was initiating a full withdrawal of troops from the country pending imminent victory over the Islamic State. As it is, Trump gave Turkey more cause for caution after threatening to “devastate Turkey economically” if it attacked the YPG after the U.S. withdrawal. Indeed, the United States has once again retracted its decision to withdraw all of its forces from the area; instead, it now plans to keep a residual force of 400 personnel in Syria, 200 of whom will remain in SDF areas in the northeast.
Other U.S. allies like France and the United Kingdom could bolster these U.S. forces with their own troops, even if these countries could be wary about deploying significant forces in the absence of a larger U.S. presence on the ground. A few hundred American and allied troops are unlikely to deter Turkish military operations against the SDF in such a large area, but their presence could still throw a wrench into Turkey’s plans, as Ankara will strive to avoid moving into specific areas where they are present. More important, the presence of such troops in the vicinity of Turkish military operations raises the risk of miscalculations or accidental clashes that could lead to a rapid escalation in tensions between Turkey and the United States and other NATO members.
But other NATO members are not the only countries Ankara will have to worry about. Although Turkish-Russian relations have undergone a remarkable improvement in the last few years, the two nations do not entirely see eye to eye in Syria. Russia remains wary of Turkey’s further expansion in the country, especially if it impinges on the Syrian government, which Moscow is attempting to prop up. While Russia is unlikely to block all Turkish operations in the northeast, it will seek to discourage Turkey from pushing too deep into Syrian territory. And because the SDF is likely to turn to Damascus for assistance in the face of a Turkish assault, Ankara will also have to factor in the potential that it will end up battling Syrian government forces and associated militias — many of which also enjoy Iranian or Russian backing.
Yet another potential Russian stumbling block to Turkey’s operations in the northeast lies far in Syria’s west. In line with the Astana process, in which Russia, Turkey and Iran have sought to manage aspects of Syria’s war, Ankara and Moscow have succeeded in handling the rebel-controlled western province of Idlib, but the countries remain deeply divided on policy in the area — something that could obstruct future cooperation.
Previous agreements between Turkey and Russia facilitated the creation of a so-called de-escalation zone in Idlib, as well as the establishment of a dozen observation posts manned by Turkish forces. Turkey agreed to the arrangement to forestall further Russian-backed Syrian government offensives that would have further weakened Turkish-backed rebel groups in the province, driven further waves of refugees into Turkey and eroded Ankara’s attempts to establish an expansive buffer zone in northern Syria. For its part, Russia was happy to avoid additional military commitments in Syria, both because it wished to draw down its forces in the country and because it did not want to endanger its relations with Turkey. Moscow, however, always intended for the Idlib arrangement to be temporary; what’s more, the agreement stipulated that Turkey would move to dismantle the more extreme rebel groups in the province, such as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the latest incarnation of Jabhat al-Nusra.
The situation in Idlib is a potential flashpoint that could seriously undermine not just Turkey’s position in Syria, but also its wider relationship with Russia.
But Russian patience has been wearing thin over the last six months as Turkey has not just failed to crack down on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, but failed to contain it to the extent that it has driven other rebel groups, including Turkish-backed groups, from key positions in the province. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its allies have also continued to conduct attacks on Syrian government forces along the provincial border in response to cease-fire violations by Damascus, which has never been particularly enthused by the Russian-Turkish arrangement.
Distracted as it is by its primary focus on northeastern Syria, Turkey is now unlikely to stage a significant crackdown on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. And as the extremist group further entrenches itself in the province, Russia, Iran and the Syrian government might give the go-ahead for an offensive. Naturally, such an assault could have far-reaching consequences. Lodged between the rebels and Syrian government forces, Turkish troops could find themselves under fire. And because Turkey has shown no inclination to abandon its rebel allies in Idlib, it could well choose to reinforce them if they came under heavy attack. Accordingly, the situation in the province is a potential flashpoint that could seriously test and undermine not just Turkey’s position in Syria, but also its wider relationship with Russia.
The U.S. decision to draw down its forces in Syria (even if pared down from the initially declared full withdrawal) will likely pave the way for more Turkish incursions into northern Syria. But as Turkey gears up for military operations against the SDF, it will run the risk of a confrontation with residual U.S. and other NATO forces in the area, along with Russian- and Iranian-backed Syrian government forces that will likely seek to forestall Turkish gains by coming to the YPG’s defense. An attack on Turkey’s rebel allies far to the west could also divert Turkey’s attention from any offensive on Kurdish areas in the northeast. In such a situation, Ankara’s road south may be open, but it will have more than a few bumps.
Walt Garlington
President Trump got a lot of cheers when he said the following during his State of the Union address:
There could be no greater contrast to the beautiful image of a mother holding her infant child than the chilling displays our nation saw in recent days. Lawmakers in New York cheered with delight upon the passage of legislation that would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments before birth.
These are living, feeling, beautiful babies who will never get the chance to share their love and dreams with the world. And then, we had the case of the governor of Virginia where he stated he would execute a baby after birth. To defend the dignity of every person, I am asking the Congress to pass legislation to prohibit the late-term abortion of children who can feel pain in the mother’s womb. Let us work together to build a culture that cherishes innocent life.
And let us reaffirm a fundamental truth — all children — born and unborn — are made in the holy image of God.
—Nicole Fallert, https://www.vox.com/2019/2/5/18212533/president-trump-state-of-the-union-address-live-transcript
But are the sentiments expressed here about protecting innocent life, about affirming the truth that man is made in the image of God, consistent with the aspirations and history of the American project, or with non-Orthodox Western civilization in general? Unfortunately, they are not.
Charles in Charge of the West
No, not that Charles:
This one:
Since Western Europe first began to conceive of herself in the eighth century as an entity apart from the worldwide Orthodox Christian Empire, the innocent have suffered greatly. This process began when Charlemagne (742-814) set up his heretical version of the Christian Empire in Aachen, heretical because he denied the validity of the Seventh Ecumenical Council’s teachings on the necessity to venerate the holy icons of the Lord Jesus Christ, His Most Pure Mother, and the other saints and angels; and because of his addition of the Filioque to the Nicene Creed. Given this auspicious beginning, it is unsurprising to find in the history of his reign that he caused much blood to flow in the expansion of his ‘Holy Roman Empire’, including the 4,500 Saxons slaughtered at Verden:
—http://www.medievalists.net/2014/02/was-charlemagne-a-mass-murderer/
Yet this is the same Charlemagne whom Pope Benedict XIV saw fit to beatify in the 18th century. The Roman Catholic faithful are to address him as ‘Blessed Charlemagne’:
—https://catholicsaints.info/blessed-charlemagne/
Roman Catholic West
That beatification by the Pope is quite fitting, however. For with Charlemagne’s death in 814, his false empire collapsed, and the next attempt at Western self-exaltation, at setting up a false Christian Empire in opposition to the Orthodox Empire, came from the bishops of Rome themselves, beginning officially in 1054 and lasting to this very day. Following this sundering came, predictably, more needless bloodshed. The Roman Catholic Norman Invasion of the Orthodox kingdom of England took place in short order (1066) with the blessing of Pope Alexander II. William the Conqueror’s own words tell how grisly this early attempt at papal conquest was:
I have persecuted the natives of England beyond all reason. Whether gentle or simple I have cruelly oppressed them; many I unjustly disinherited; innumerable multitudes perished through me by famine or the sword … I fell on the English of the northern shires like a ravening lion. I commanded their houses and corn, with all their implements and chattels, to be burnt without distinction, and great herds of cattle and beasts of burden to be butchered wherever they are found. In this way I took revenge on multitudes of both sexes by subjecting them to the calamity of a cruel famine, and so became the barbarous murderer of many thousands, both young and old, of that fine race of people.
William’s death-bed confession, according to Ordericus Vitalis, c. AD 1130
—Quoted in Fr Andrew Phillips, Orthodox Christianity and the Old English Church, p. 23 of PDF,
Fr Andrew continues,
It has been estimated that during William I’s reign up to one in five of the English population died by the sword or in famineslxii. This does not include the deaths of the non-English population in Wales or Scotland, nor the civil war deaths in the reign of Stephen, nor the deaths resulting from the Papally-sponsored Norman invasion of Ireland, nor those of the One Hundred Years War which was provoked by the territorial claims to France of the Anglo-Norman kings. Even if the figure of one in five is exaggerated and it can be halved, one in ten is equivalent today to over five million deaths – fifteen times the number of British deaths resulting from the Second World War. The account of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is unambiguous: ‘And they built castles far and wide throughout the land, oppressing the unhappy people, and things went ever from bad to worse’. ‘Only amongst the monks, where they lived virtuously was righteousness to be found in the land.’ Of William ‘the Bastard’, the Chronicle says the following: ‘Assuredly in his time men suffered grievous oppression and manifold injuries … he was sunk in greed and utterly given up to avarice. He was too relentless to care even though all might hate him … Alas! That any man should bear himself so proudly and deem himself exalted above all other men.lxiii’ Of the tortures inflicted on captives and the gruesome account of William’s funeral, when his stomach burst open in stinking putrefaction, one can read elsewhere (pgs. 25-6).
Not too long after the Norman Invasion, the Crusades were launched by Pope Urban II in 1095. Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153) justified the killing this way in his work In Praise of the New Knighthood:
To be sure, precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his holy ones, whether they die in battle or in bed, but death in battle is more precious as it is the more glorious (Ch. I, section 2). . . .
BUT THE KNIGHTS OF CHRIST may safely fight the battles of their Lord, fearing neither sin if they smite the enemy, nor danger at their own death; since to inflict death or to die for Christ is no sin, but rather, an abundant claim to glory. In the first case one gains for Christ, and in the second one gains Christ himself. The Lord freely accepts the death of the foe who has offended him, and yet more freely gives himself for the consolation of his fallen knight.
The knight of Christ, I say, may strike with confidence and die yet more confidently, for he serves Christ when he strikes, and serves himself when he falls. Neither does he bear the sword in vain, for he is God’s minister, for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of the good. If he kills an evildoer, he is not a mankiller, but, if I may so put it, a killer of evil. He is evidently the avenger of Christ towards evildoers and he is rightly considered a defender of Christians. Should he be killed himself, we know that he has not perished, but has come safely into port. When he inflicts death it is to Christ’s profit, and when he suffers death, it is for his own gain. The Christian glories in the death of the pagan, because Christ is glorified; while the death of the Christian gives occasion for the King to show his liberality in the rewarding of his knight. In the one case the just shall rejoice when he sees justice done, and in the other man shall say, truly there is a reward for the just; truly it is God who judges the earth.
I do not mean to say that the pagans are to be slaughtered when there is any other way to prevent them from harassing and persecuting the faithful, but only that it now seems better to destroy them than that the rod of sinners be lifted over the lot of the just, and the righteous perhaps put forth their hands unto iniquity (Ch. 3). . . .
—https://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/344bern2.html
Note the utter dehumanization by Bernard of the Muslims. They are no longer men but simply ‘evil’ itself, confounding person and attribute. No wonder that upwards of 1,000,000 are estimated to have died in the Crusades ). This sort of mindset has remained typical of the post-Schism West in her wars of righteousness against those she believes to be ‘evildoers’. And let us also recall that Bernard has been not simply beatified like Charlemagne but fully canonized as a saint of the Roman Catholic congregation.
—https://catholicsaints.info/saint-bernard-of-clairvaux/
Protestant West
When the peoples of Western Europe democratized the papist principle (that one man, instead of a council of bishops guided by the Holy Ghost, can determine what is and is not the True Faith), applying it to themselves one and all, then the Protestant Reformation was born, and the shadow which lay across that part of the Eurasian land grew darker. Delusional apocalyptic fervor grew, and along with it the flow of blood. A couple of ensamples will suffice.
The actions of Martin Luther, who began the Reformation in earnest in 1517, during the Peasants’ War in Germany is the first. He wrote,
I will not oppose a ruler who, even though he does not tolerate the gospel, will smite and punish these peasants without first offering to submit the case to judgment (quoted in Archpriest Josiah Trenham, Rock and Sand, Newrome Press, 2015, p. 98).
Fr Josiah goes on to relate the consequences of such statements:
On May 15, Müntzer’s forces were slaughtered by the nobility at Frankenhausen. Some 6000 peasants were killed, with only some six casualties on the side of the princes. Müntzer was captured and beheaded twelve days later. In upper Germany alone, it is estimated that some 130,000 peasants were slaughtered. . . . Luther was sharply criticized by many for his position, and was called “the hammer of the poor” by Hermann Mühlpfort, the mayor of Zwickau (Ibid.).
The next, which would decisively cripple what was left of Christianity in Western Europe, is the Thirty Years’ War (1618-48), which was fought between various Roman Catholic and Protestant countries for the supremacy of their creeds over Western Europe. There were upwards of 8,000,000 casualties due to the fighting of these ‘Christian nations’, which included death by hunger and disease of many civilians ).
During the Thirty Years’ War, many of the contending armies were mercenaries, many of whom could not collect their pay. This threw them on the countryside for their supplies, and thus began the “wolf-strategy” that typified this war. The armies of both sides plundered as they marched, leaving cities, towns, villages, and farms ravaged.
—https://www.britannica.com/event/Thirty-Years-War
Enlightenment West
From here onwards, Western Europe and her children became the breeding ground for all manner of utopian (i.e., demonic) ideologies meant to replace the simulacrums of Christianity they had experienced, but sometimes still masquerading in the costume of Christianity. But this would not end the bloodletting in the West, but only increase it exponentially. From the French Revolution to the Russian Revolution, from the War of Northern Aggression against Dixie to the War on Terror, Western wars of ideology have resulted in the deaths of tens of millions, with millions more suffering besides.
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s famous quote about sanctions on Iraq from 1996 show that the Western soul hasn’t much changed since Bernard’s propaganda of the 12th century:
Correspondent Leslie Stahl said to Albright, “We have heard that a half-million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And — and, you know, is the price worth it?”
Madeleine Albright replied, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price — we think the price is worth it.”
—https://www.democracynow.org/2004/7/30/democracy_now_confronts_madeline_albright_on
The U.S./NATO bombing of Serbia during the holy seasons of Easter and Pentecost in 1999 shows the same:
According to the estimates of the government of Serbia, at least 2,500 people, of whom 89 children, were killed during the attacks (according to some sources, the total death toll was nearly 4,000), while more than 12,500 people were wounded and injured.
. . .
Almost every town in Serbia had been targeted during the 11 weeks of the air strikes.
The bombing destroyed and damaged 25,000 housing units, 470 km of roads and 595 kilometers of railways.
The attacks also damaged 14 airports, 19 hospitals, 20 health centers, 18 kindergartens, 69 schools, 176 cultural monuments and 44 bridges, while 38 were destroyed.
During the aggression NATO carried out a total of 2,300 airs trikes on 995 facilities across the country, while 1,150 combat aircraft launched nearly 420,000 missiles.
NATO also launched 1,300 cruise missiles, dropped over 37,000 cluster bombs, which killed some 200 people and wounded hundreds, and used prohibited ammunition with depleted uranium.
A third of the electrical power capacity of the country was destroyed, two oil refineries, in Pancevo and Novi Sad bombed, while NATO forces used the opportunity to for the first time deploy the so-called graphite bombs to disable the power system.
. . .
—https://www.b92.net/eng/news/society.php?yyyy=2016&mm=03&dd=24&nav_id=97466
This same grisly barbarity is still on display by the Most Christian Country, The Holy Republic of America, the greatest country that ever was, is, or is to come. Venezuela is a telling example:
This is unprecedented—Bolton publicly announcing a military coup (usually with hundreds if not thousands of deaths). He deliberately showed off his notebook with scribbled invasion plans, so there would be no question about the agenda.
But that’s how the neocons operate. Lies, falsifications, grandiose claims, and invasions to forcibly install “democracy,” which is nothing of the sort.
Bolton’s “democracy” is doublespeak in action. It’s a thinly disguised euphemism used to obscure the actual objective—the destruction of entire nations, cultures, and societies at the cost of hundreds of thousands if not millions of lives. Untold millions of lives have been destroyed by the sort of “democracy” Bolton is talking about. It was put into action when Bolton was a toddler.
Let’s get real. Bolton doesn’t care about the people of Venezuela. If he did the US would not be imposing harsh sanctions that are resulting in malnutrition and starvation. Bolton is using the age-old technique of starving and depriving people so they will overthrow the government (this tactic rarely works—leading me to believe it is inflicted out of pure sadism—leading to the exact opposite reaction).
—Kurt Nimmo, https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/02/no_author/john-boltons-plan-to-starve-millions-of-venezuelans-into-submission/
One could substitute ‘Iran’ or ‘Yemen’ for ‘Venezuela’ and have largely the same essay.
All of this seems to sit just fine with the Evangelicals in the States (just listen to Frank Gaffney sometime, ; Thomas DiLorenzo offers this description of them, together with some of their backstory:
These are the people whose churches are littered with gigantic American flags that dwarf any Christian icons; who routinely ask anyone who owns a military uniform to wear it to church; who sing the state’s war anthems at their services; who divert their Sunday offerings away from the poor and needy in their communities so that the money can be sent to grossly-overpaid military bureaucrats; and who can never stop thanking, thanking, thanking, and thanking “soldiers” for their “service” in murdering foreigners and bombing and destroying their cities – if not their entire societies – in the state’s aggressive, non-defensive, foreign wars.
Where did this very un-Christian “religion” of violence come from? The answer to this question is that it first developed as a part of New England’s neo-Puritanical “Yankees” in the early and mid-nineteenth century. It reached its zenith in the 1860s when, finally in control of the entire federal government, the New England Yankees waged total war on the civilian population of a large part of their own country, mass murdering fellow Americans by the hundreds of thousands, and then singing a “religious” song that described it all as “the glory of the coming of the Lord.”
As Murray Rothbard described them in his essay, “Just War”:
The North’s driving force, the ‘Yankees’ – that ethnocultural group who either lived in New England or migrated from there to upstate New York, northern and eastern Ohio, northern Indiana, and northern Illinois – had been swept by . . . a fanatical and emotional neo-Puritanism driven by a fervent ‘postmillenialism’ which held that as a precondition of the Second Advent of Jesus Christ, man must set up a thousand-year-Kingdom of God on Earth. The Kingdom is to be a perfect society. In order to be perfect, of course, this Kingdom must be free of sin . . . . If you didn’t stamp out sin by force you yourself would not be saved.
This is why “the Northern war against slavery partook of a fanatical millenialist fervor, of a cheerful willingness to uproot institutions, to commit mayhem and mass murder, to plunder and loot and destroy, all in the name of high moral principle,” wrote Rothbard. They were “humanitarians with the guillotine,” the “Jacobins, the Bolsheviks of their era.”
Clyde Wilson described these neo-Puritanical zealots in a similar manner in his essay, “The Yankee Problem in America”:
Abolitionism, despite what has been said later, was not based on sympathy for the black people nor on an ideal of natural rights. It was based on the hysterical conviction that Southern slaveholders were evil sinners who stood in the way of fulfillment of America’s driving mission to establish Heaven on Earth . . . . [M]any abolitionists expected that evil Southern whites and Blacks would disappear and the land repopulated by virtuous Yankees” (emphasis added).
—https://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/07/thomas-dilorenzo/the-american-religion-of-violence/
And here we are, awaiting still the final grand unveiling of the Yankee/Western Millennium.
The Genocide of the Saints
As horrendous as the foregoing has been, there is still a crime of the apostate post-Schism West that we have not yet spoken of which we consider more hideous than all of that: the desecration of the saints, whether their bodily relics, representations, or shrines. More depraved than the slaughter of innocent children? Yes. A little child does indeed bear the image of God and is innocent of any purposeful wrongdoing, has not yet known the fall into the knowledge of evil. The saint, on the other hand, while retaining the image of God, has nevertheless cooperated with the Grace of God to such a degree that he has attained the likeness of God as well (see Gen. 1:26), overcoming his fallen, sinful nature and uniting with the Holy Ghost. Therefore, the saints are the most innocent, the most guileless, moreso than even children.
But this did not matter to the West. In her self-righteous zeal she sought to brutalize the saints as well. We have already mentioned very briefly Charlemagne’s effort at this. His rejection of the Seventh Ecumenical Council’s command to venerate images of the saints is already a rejection by the West of the Holy Ghost, Who resides in the images and shrines of the saints, and also especially in their incorrupt relics, with which He remains united as a foretelling to man of the Resurrection to come.
The Roman Catholic Normans who invaded Orthodox England in 1066 went further. Fr Andrew Phillips writes,
The record of the losses of Old English art and architecture is heart-rending. Today we have little more than fragments of Old English architecture. Of course much was built of wood and could not have lasted, but nevertheless the story of the Norman destruction of Old English church buildings is too much like barbarian vandalism to be excused. When they came to demolish the Cathedral in Worcester in 1086, the saintly Bishop Wulfstan remarked: ‘The men of old may not have had stately edifices, but they were themselves a sacrifice to God, whereas now they pile up stones, but forget the soul’lxiv. It is more distressing to read of the destruction of the European treasurehouse of church art which Old England was. If the churches were razed, leaving us with a pitiful idea of what the former architecture was really like, then, what can we say of Old English Art?
‘Nowhere in Europe, even in Byzantium itself, was there a more advanced conception of manuscript illustration and decoration than in Britain. Nowhere, even in Persia, were finer textiles embroidered; nowhere was finer sculpture in stone executed nowhere were finer ivories carved … they are all quite easy to distinguish as English. They stand out, moreover, by virtue of their quality.’ So speaks the art historian, Talbot-Ricelxv. Indeed the English were renowned for the quality of their embroidery and we know of a school of embroidery at Ely, though doubtless there were many others. The Winchester School of manuscript illumination was widely known and represented the spiritual and artistic flowering of the tenth century English Renaissance.
The destruction of nearly all of this heritage makes lugubrious reading. ‘In the spring of the year (1070), the King had all the monasteries in England plunderedlxvi’. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries there are unending lists of gold crucifixes, vestments of woven gold, silver and gold sacred vessels and censers, chalices and patens, shrines and altars with their embroidered hangings, silver and gilt ewers of Byzantine work, Gospel-books adorned with precious stones, gold reliquaries and the holy relics contained within, silks and precious hangings, ornaments which in the words of William of Poitiers, ‘Byzantium would hold very dear.’ In the twelfth century he wrote: ‘A Greek or Arab visitor would have been carried away by delight’ at the sight of the treasures melted down or sent to France by William. From one church alone he stole treasures worth £6,000, a colossal sum in modern termslxvii.
All this was pillaged; the Old English Church was raped and ravaged. The depths of blasphemy and sacrilege were reached when the Norman clergy began burning the relics of the Old English saints to see if they were authentic; their doubts sometimes seem to have been founded merely on the Norman inability to pronounce the Old English names. Such barbarian acts were not to be seen again until the sack of Christian Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Later we shall see the Old English connection even here. The accounts of the sack of Old English art are among the most shameful in Western history. After William and his descendants, then the fires of the Middle Ages, followed by the syphilitic frenzy of greed of Henry VIII and the outbursts of the Puritans, then the vandalism of the Victorians, it comes as no surprise when we realise that what we possess of a half-millennium of Old English Art and Architecture is nothing but a single crumb from a huge but ever lost royal banquet. It is an immensely sobering but nonetheless true fact that there is a part of human nature that delights in the destruction of everything beautiful, be it the creation of God or of man.
—Orthodox Christianity and the Old English Church, pgs. 26-7
As Fr Andrew indicates, the Protestants too would take part in this genocide against the holy saints and their memory.
Motadel writes that,
“The prototype of all modern forms of iconoclasm [Noyes] found in Calvin’s Geneva and Ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s Mecca. Sixteenth-century Geneva witnessed one of the most devastating waves of religious image-breaking in history. Incited by a group of charismatic theologians – among them John Calvin himself – mobs raged against objects associated with miracles, magic and the supernatural, destroying some of the city’s most precious pieces of Christian art. Invoking the Second Commandment, they denounced these works as idols, and as remnants of a rural, feudal and superstitious world, a world corrupted by Satan.” The Western Assault on Innocent Life
Nor was Geneva unusual. In Basel in 1529, widespread iconoclastic riots destroyed virtually all the material tokens of traditional Catholic worship and devotion in the cathedral and the city’s leading churches. Even these German and Swiss manifestations were dwarfed by the devastating Storm of Images (Beeldenstorm) that swept over the Netherlands in 1566.
This movement was directed against any and all Catholic material symbols — against stained glass windows, statues of the Virgin and saints, holy medals and tokens.
Such stories of image-breaking (iconoclasm) are familiar enough to anyone who knows about the Reformation, and there are plenty of scholarly studies.
Recent works, though, highlight two features of the movement that often get underplayed:
1. Iconoclasm was central to the Reformation experience, not marginal, and not just a regrettable extravagance.
Historians of the Reformation tend to be bookish people interested in books, so they focus on aspects of literacy and translation, with the spread of the vernacular Bible as the centerpiece of the story. The idea of the Reformation as a “media revolution” is common enough.
Yes, we do read of outbreaks of destructive violence and iconoclasm, but these are usually presented as marginal excesses, or understandable instances of popular fury against church abuses. Once we get those unfortunate riots out of the way, we can get back to the main story of tracing the process of Bible translation.
That’s very misleading. For anyone living at the time, including educated elites, the iconoclasm was not just an incidental breakdown of law and order, it was the core of the whole movement, the necessary other side of the coin to the growth of literacy. Those visual and symbolic representations of the Christian story had to decrease, in order for the world of the published Bible to increase. The Western Assault on Innocent Life
In terms of the lived experience of people at the time, the image-breaking is the key component of the Reformation. In the rioting and mayhem, a millennium-old religious order was visibly and comprehensively smashed.
In words adapted from the Vulgate version of Job, the Calvinist motto proclaimed, Post Tenebras Lux: After darkness, Light. (And that is still Geneva’s motto).
. . .
—Philip Jenkins, https://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousbench/2014/07/the-breaking-of-images/
One would think such crimes as these might cause Protestants to have some hesitation about judging the sins of others, but it has not. Regarding China, for example, they say,
WASHINGTON — The Chinese government is supervising a five-year plan to make Christianity more compatible with socialism in which there will be a “rewrite” of the Bible, a prominent religious freedom activist has told Congress.
The Rev. Bob Fu, a former Chinese house church leader who immigrated to the United States in 1997 and founded the persecution watchdog organization China Aid, provided great detail during a House hearing Thursday about a plan enacted by leading state-sanctioned denominations in China to “Sincize” Christianity.
As China’s crackdown on religion has seen many house churches demolished and thousands of crosses removed from churches nationwide, Fu warned upfront that what is happening right now in China represents the highest degree of persecution for independent faith groups the country has seen in decades.
—Samuel Smith, https://www.christianpost.com/news/china-trying-to-rewrite-the-bible-force-churches-sing-communist-anthems-227664/
Yet in all three areas they raise in criticism of China – rewriting the Bible, tearing down churches, and destroying Crosses – Protestants are guilty themselves. The Protestants removed several books from the Old Testament canon of the Bible, and Martin Luther himself added ‘alone’ to his translation of Romans 3:28 (‘man is justified by faith alone’) and also wanted to throw out the Book of James because it contradicted the theological system he created. See, e. g.,
http://www.bible-researcher.com/antilegomena.html
Of the other two, it is enough to recall Mr Jenkins’s article just above as well as the quote of Bishop Joseph Hall shown in the linked section of this article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconoclasm#Reformation_era.
This in no way excuses China’s repressive measures, but the Protestant hypocrisy is extraordinary. For these children of the Chinese Communist revolutionaries (and their forebears in France, Russia, etc.) are, in the end, only carrying on the legacy of the Protestants (and the Roman Catholic popes) by overturning the received traditions and replacing them with new, self-created ones.
The Future of the West
How does one even begin to close an essay like this, cataloguing such inhuman evil in the West? Only one word seems appropriate: Repent.
Most popular
Mar 4, 2019 1:00 am 13309 The Western Assault on Innocent Life
Mar 5, 2019 3:39 pm 11403 Washington Post: Driver of Non-Checking Information. Part 1
Mar 6, 2019 1:00 am 9630 Washington Post: Driver of Non-Checking Information. Part 2
Mar 6, 2019 5:19 am 7038 More Than Half of Americans Say Trump Is Dishonest Author: Walt Garlington
“The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming” is the name of a comedy film (1966) that reflects the fear of Western people from the Soviet threat during the Cold War. The main point of the film is the mockery of Westerners’ panic at that time.
It’s not known whether this fear of the USSR was justified or exaggerated–that is a topic for another article. However, today if they were to make a film, not a comedy, but a horror flick in Europe with the name “The Yankees Are Coming, the Yankees Are Coming,” it wouldn’t be surprising.
Yes, you read that right. Neither in the Middle East, nor in Russia, nor in China, nor in Venezuela or in Africa, but in Europe. Europeans’ fear of the United States and the attentive attitude of European capitals towards Washington is very clearly shown by recent polls and the semi-official European media.
Let’s have a look at some examples over the past year:
– Data from a controversial Pew Research Center study, which was published in February 2018, showed that the two allies, Germany and the USA, face the threat of separation. More than half of Germans (56%) described German-American relations as bad. And the common defense effort is considered urgent by only a small proportion of Germans (16%). (https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article174067166/Bilaterales-Verhaeltnis-Entfremdung-zwischen-Deutschland-und-den-USA.html)
– The results of a public opinion poll conducted by the Allensbach Institute for the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine on May 16, 2018 showed that the German population follows the course of the United States with growing concern. The U.S., which for decades has been the Germans’ most important and most reliable ally and friend, is suddenly becoming foreign, even threatening. The overwhelming majority have the impression that Europe and the United States are drifting apart; for decades this was the opinion of a minority in Germany; now 70% are convinced of it. German-American relations are perceived as profoundly disturbed. Just under two-thirds of the population ranked relations as good or very good three years ago; now it is only 20%; 71% consider German-American relations to be tense. At the same time, more and more Germans treat the United States as a state that is “ruthless” in pursuing its interests. Five years ago, 24% of respondents negatively assessed the influence of Washington on events in the world; in the beginning of 2018 – 54%. (https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/allensbach-umfrage-zeigt-entfremdung-deutscher-von-amerika-15593293.html)
– The results of a Politbarometer poll, conducted by the research group “Elections” (Wahlen) from May 15 to 17, 2018 for the TV channel ZDF showed that according to 82% of respondents, the United States is not a trustworthy partner for Germany when it comes to political cooperation. Only 14% viewed the United States as a reliable partner. )
– The German Der Spiegel of May 28, 2018 depicted the relationship of the Trump administration to Europe with this cover:
– A YouGov survey in July 2018, commissioned by the German Press Agency DPA, found 42% of respondents want U.S. troops out, while 37% want them to stay and 21% are undecided or didn’t answer. Nearly one in two Germans want U.S. troops to retreat. (https://www.stripes.com/news/poll-42-of-germans-want-us-troops-out-of-country-1.537230) According to a YouGov poll in June 2018, the majority of Germans (59%) and French people (51%) negatively evaluate the U.S.
– A survey of 25 nations, conducted between May and August 2018 by the Pew Research Center, showed that America’s image continued to deteriorate in many countries during Trump’s first year in office, particularly in Europe. Only 30% of Germans have a favourable view of the United States, down five points from the previous year–the lowest score in the entire survey after Russi (26%). Only 38% of French said they had a positive view of the United States, down from last year. (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-image-survey/americas-image-worsens-under-trump-idUSKCN1MB3V9)
– A representative study carried out by Atlantik-Brücke and Civey in Germany in November and December 2018 shows the dwindling confidence in transatlantic cooperation and the USA. In the representative survey of 5,000 people who attended the panel, 85% rated the relationship as negative or very negative. In addition, a significant part of the respondents believes that now China is a more reliable partner for the Federal Republic of Germany than the United States and that it is necessary to distance itself even more from American partners. (https://www.atlantik-bruecke.org/wp-content/uploads/AtlantikBrueckeUmfrage2019.pdf)
– According to a poll conducted and published in February 2019 by the Pew Research Center, 49% of Germans (in 2013 — %9, in 2017 — 35%) and French (in 2013 — 20%, in 2017 — 36%) see the U.S.’s power and influence as a greater threat in 2018. )
– The Security Report 2019 of the Center for Strategy and Higher Leadership, which was published in February 2019, shows that the Germans see the U.S. as the biggest threat to peace. “The Security Report 2019 clearly shows that there is a central factor of uncertainty among Germans that scares them. And that is the USA under the leadership of Donald Trump” said Professor Klaus Schweinsberg of the Center for Strategy and Higher Leadership. (https://www.sicherheitsreport.net/wp-content/uploads/PM_Sicherheitsreport_2019.pdf)
The recent picture of the last Munich Conference confirms the above facts. Deutsche Welle, referring to the former president of Estonia and one of the old-timers of the Munich security conference Toomas Hendrik Ilves and the head of the Munich Conference Wolfgang Ischinger, writes the following:
“‘The division lines between the Atlantic have become more rigid,’ the politician said in an interview with DW. The Munich Conference is, first of all, a demonstration of what is called the transatlantic partnership of the United States and Germany, as well as the United States and the European Union. But the partnership that developed after World War II was started to be questioning from the beginning of Donald Trump presidency. ‘The current administration has destroyed the basic trust in the United States,’ says Ilves. ‘It will have to be built in a new way.’
Similar, although more restrained statements were made by the head of the Munich Conference, Wolfgang Ischinger. ‘If we called our conference ‘To the brink of the abyss and back,’ in previous years, it might be an exaggeration we would think, now, after many conversations, the majority of the participants say that there really is a problem,’ the former German diplomat said summing up the meeting.” (https://www.dw.com/ru/%D0%B3%D1%80%D1%83%D1%81%D1%82%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B5-%D0%B8%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%B8-%D0%BC%D1%8E%D0%BD%D1%85%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B9-%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D1%84%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%B8-%D0%BF%D0%BE-%D0%B1%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%BE%D0%BF%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%BD%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8/a-47556723)
And the results of the conference are reported by Der Spiegel in the following way:
“America does not lead, it retreats. Others are pushing into the vacuum left by Trump’s erratic ‘America First’ policy. China, Russia but also Iran. And the U.S. does not lead, they give instructions.” )
As we can see from these examples, the whole world suffers from Washington’s aggression. It is not just Asia, Middle Eastern countries, Russia, China or Venezuela. The U.S. used to isolate other countries with its aggressive policies; now it’s isolating itself. It’s losing its closest allies. The reckless and barbaric aggression of the U.S. has been a problem for Europe too. The U.S. has no respect for its so-called allies Germany and France.
In the film “The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming,” the main idea was expressed in the words of the sailor Alexei Kolchin, who told a local girl: “I do not want to hate.” But the whole world has begun to hate the American aggressors. Thus, restraints on the U.S. relieve everyone.
(CN) – Yalcin Ayasli, a Turkish-American entrepreneur who founded the now-defunct airline BoraJet, amassed a personal fortune that made him a formidable power broker in both his birth and adoptive countries.
That was before he crossed paths with Turkish businessman Sezgin Baran Korkmaz. Korkmaz has ties to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but he is known in the United States for giving testimony in the investigation of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
On Tuesday, in a federal racketeering complaint replete with globe-spanning intrigue, Ayasli accused Korkmaz of taking over his airline through a campaign of violence, extortion and financial crime.
Korkmaz’s labyrinthine ties to the Turkish elite and the murky underworld of American financing can be encapsulated in a picture.
Taken in 2017, the same year Mueller subpoenaed him for a grand jury in Washington, the photograph shows Korkmaz standing between Erdogan and an accused white-collar criminal.
Along with his brother Isaiah, with whom he leads a polygamist Mormon sect, Jacob Kingston is awaiting trial on allegations that he cheated the U.S. Treasury out of more than half a billion dollars worth of tax credits, at least $210 million of which he allegedly funneled into Turkey.
Represented in his 127-page lawsuit by the law firms Jones Day and Sheehan Phinney, Ayasli accuses Korkmaz of running a thuggish campaign to devalue Borajet and then buy out the company with the illicit proceeds at a “fire sale” price using his Istanbul-based SBK Holdings.
The suit is filed in New Hampshire, where Ayasli says he maintains his primary residence in Hillsborough County. Contacted in Turkey via social media, Korkmaz defended his dealings with the now-indicted Kingston clan.
I will disgrace you before the eyes of the whole world.”
AYASLI V. KORKMAZ
“My local bank verified the source of the accounts through the U.S. Federal Reserve,” Korkmaz said. “I invested that money in completely legal companies in Turkey and took every precaution that can be reasonably expected to make sure everything was above board.”
For Korkmaz, the lawsuit against him is “transparent” payback by ex-BoraJet executives. “I have done absolutely nothing wrong other than objecting against being embezzled,” he insisted.
Sheehan Phinney attorney Robert Miller declined to comment on his suit with Ayasli, which accuses Korkmaz of assault, attempted bribery, and threatening to rape and murder Ayasli’s female executive.
Within a span of six months, Ayasli alleges that Korkmaz sent him 137 text messages, including WhatsApp warnings that “You and your wife will look for a place to hide” and “I will disgrace you before the eyes of the whole world.”
The tale told in Ayasli’s lawsuit intersects with two high-profile U.S. criminal cases, hopping across Istanbul, Utah and Virginia.
Born in Turkey’s capital of Ankara, Ayasli studied electrical engineering in his home city before obtaining advanced degrees at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1973. He would live in Massachusetts for about three decades and make his fortune founding Hittite Microwave Corp., a public company that he later sold for $2.45 billion.
“Dr. Ayasli is an individual with a deep sense of pride in his Turkish heritage,” his lawsuit states. “Accordingly, after selling his technology company, Dr. Ayasli invested substantial portions of the proceeds of that sale in domestic and foreign non-profit entities and businesses. He did this in pursuit of his overarching goals of promoting and educating people about Turkish culture worldwide and supporting friendly relations between Turkey and the United States.”
Those nonprofits, the Turkish Cultural Foundation and Turkish Coalition of America, remain among the most prominent charities of their kind in the United States. BoraJet had been intended as an expression of Ayasli’s national pride as well, connecting the world to parts of Turkey rarely accessible through air travel.
In the wake of the coup, the RICO enterprise used the Turkish media to spread lies, rumors, and accusations claiming that Dr. Ayasli had treasonous and conspiratorial ties to FETO and Gulen himself.”
Ayasli v. Korkmaz
Ayasli explains in his lawsuit how his circumstances turned dramatically around the time that roughly 250 people were killed on July 15, 2016, in attempted coup d’etat in Turkey.
Korkmaz and his coterie of associates and linked entities are described in this section of the complaint as the “RICO enterprise,” an abbreviation for the U.S. law passed to break up organized crime syndicates.
“Taking advantage of a deeply suspicious public and the ‘State of Emergency’ declared by the government, the RICO enterprise capitalized on its connections to and influence over various Turkish media outlets,” the complaint states.
Erdogan blamed the bloodshed on Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish-born Islamic preacher living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania, and Gulen’s movement has been rebranded in Turkey as the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization, often abbreviated as FETO.
Reflecting on the violence later, Erdogan would say that the aborted putsch was a “gift from God” that allowed him to purge his perceived political opponents. Korkmaz’s reaction was allegedly just as opportunistic.
“In the wake of the coup, the RICO enterprise used the Turkish media to spread lies, rumors, and accusations in the media linking Dr. Ayasli to the coup attempt, and claiming that Dr. Ayasli, and his business and charitable interests had treasonous and conspiratorial ties to FETO and Gulen himself,” the complaint states.
The lawsuit details how Korkmaz filed a criminal complaint that accused Ayasli, falsely he says, of Gulenist ties, and planted a series of outlandish stories in Turkey’s state-aligned press. One article claimed that Ayasli used a BoraJet aircraft to secretly fly Gulen into Turkey to plan the coup, and another splashed a photograph of a man identified as Ayasli on its front page.
“The man pictured in the photograph was not Dr. Ayasli,” the complaint says.
Amid this disinformation campaign, threats from angry readers allegedly forced Ayasli to shutter the Istanbul offices of one of his charities. Physical threats occurred as well: the lawsuit says Korkmaz threatened and assaulted Ayasli’s associates and attorneys, including a rape threat against BoraJet’s former chief financial officer Zahide Uner.
“You can’t escape me,” Korkmaz told Uner, according to the complaint. “I will fuck you, and then I will kill you.”
In another portion of the lawsuit, Korkmaz bragged to Ayasli’s attorney about bashing the face of BoraJet’s former chairman of Fatih Akol with an iron ashtray before saying: “I have beaten many people.”
Akol is named in the lawsuit as Korkmaz’s co-conspirator, abusing his position of trust to assist in BoraJet’s buyout.
How Korkmaz came to become a figure into the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election remains a mystery, but he has had a documented, if aborted, business dealing in Russia via his company SBK Holdings, which describes itself as a distressed-debt investment firm.
Though the deal ultimately went to a company owned by Vladimir Putin’s childhood friend Arkady Rotenberg, SBK signed a $850 million preliminary agreement in 2014 to help build a bridge across the Kerch Strait between Russia and freshly annexed Crimea.
Mueller subpoenaed Korkmaz’s grand jury testimony three years later, as reported by ProPublica, in association with an investigation involving possible violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Though the nature of that testimony remains unclear, Ayasli asserts in his complaint that Korkmaz used that subpoena to bully him.
“Korkmaz sent this document to Dr. Ayasli in an effort to further intimidate Dr. Ayasli and give him the false impression that defendant Korkmaz was politically connected to the Mueller Investigation and as such, could exert political influence over Dr. Ayasli in the United States as well as in Turkey,” the complaint states.
Late last year, federal prosecutors charged Korkmaz’s associate Ekim Alptekin and Bijan Kian, a member of President Donald Trump’s transition team, with failing to disclose a foreign-influence campaign that snared Michael Flynn, the disgraced ex-national security adviser who admitting to acting as a secret agent for Turkey.
The racketeering complaint against Korkmaz lists Alptekin, who remains a fugitive from U.S. criminal charges, as a nonparty co-conspirator.
“Alptekin witnessed defendant Korkmaz assault Dr. Ayasli’s female CFO, Zahide Uner, and heard defendant Korkmaz threaten to stalk, rape, and then murder her,” the complaint says.
The day you pay will come. Don’t you worry, I am aware of your games, and plots against me.”
@sbarankorkmaz
Korkmaz denied the allegations against him in an online interview.
“There is no basis for these allegations,” Korkmaz said. “Mr. Ayasli has engaged in multiple illegal activities for which he is officially charged in Turkey.”
In Turkey, where the justice system allows citizens to file criminal complaints against defendants, Korkmaz has filed criminal complaints against Ayasli and Uner. Ayasli describes these filings as “sham litigation” in his U.S. lawsuit, but Korkmaz noted that Ayasli’s associate was arrested last week in Turkey.
“His co-conspirator Zahide Uner was caught by authorities while trying to flee the country last week, and this lawsuit is nothing more than an effort to cover up his own fraudulent and illegal actions,” Korkmaz said.
Half a world away, Ayasli says that Korkmaz’s influence is not confined to Turkish borders. His lawsuit accuses Korkmaz of attempting unsuccessfully to bribe Hakan Yavuz, a professor at the University of Utah and noted scholar on the Gulen movement.
“Yavuz felt threatened by defendant Korkmaz and immediately informed Dr. Ayasli of the details surrounding defendant Korkmaz’s unannounced visit to his office,” the complaint states.
The professor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last week on Twitter, Korkmaz appeared to threaten prominent Turkish journalist Razi Canikligil for his investigative reporting.
“The day you pay will come,” Korkmaz tweeted at him on Feb. 13. “Don’t you worry, I am aware of your games, and plots against me.”
Two days after receiving these messages, Canikligil said that he refused to be intimidated.
“I am glad they saw his threats and put it in the complaint,” Canikligil told Courthouse News, referring to Ayasli’s attorneys.
“I guess I am the only Turkish journalist writing about this case. And that makes him worry,” he continued. “That’s why he started character assassinations against me. But, when it comes to character, I am tough as a rock. I am just doing my job as a journalist.”
For three years running, Turkey has led the world in jailing reporters. Prosecutors routinely brand journalists critical of the Erdogan government and its allies as terrorists.
