Tag: Gulen

THE MAN WHO SNIFFED PARADISE

Some like the perfume from Spain

I’m sure that if,

I took even one sniff,

It would bore me terrifically, too,

Yet I get a kick out of you.

Cole Porter, I Get A Kick Out Of You

As a boy, he used to kiss his mother’s feet and it made her nervous.

No, no, Mama, the book says so.

Huh? What book? You shouldn’t read such things.

Yeah, it says heaven is under your feet.

My feet? Stop…this tickles. Stop! It’s like what the dog does.

Aw come on Mama, don’t be shy. I’m seeing Paradise.

Paradise? What Paradise? You’re seeing calluses and split toenails and a hole in my stockings.

Please, please, stop wiggling your toes, Mama. I’m having a spiritual experience. They smell like heaven.

Not with the feet! Not with the feet! Wait until I tell your father! You’ll be seeing the back of his hand!

Aw pleeeeze….Mamaaaaaa…..now I’m seeing a mosque in Havana. And Fidel abluting his cigar.

Allah! Allah! Why don’t you go out and play football like the rest of the boys, my son.

No, no, please Mama, those boys are different…

Many are criticizing the Turkish president for his remarks at a meeting of a group called, with great irony, the Women and Democracy Association. The name is like something they made up in the lobby. At the meeting the president again shared his wide-ranging, penetrating insights from his lifelong study of Anti-Feminology, namely that women are in no way, no how, equal to men. It’s “against nature,’ he said. Although he did offer the fascinating concept that women, if they tried real hard, could be “equivalent” to men. He also declared that feminists reject motherhood, adding something about breast-feeding women should not work in communist factories. Predictably, feminists and communists, and particularly feminist-communists, were unified in an outrage equivalent to the firestorm bombing of Dresden. As a male feminist, uncertain about motherhood issues, I find the president’s ideas inspirational, perplexing and perfectly suitable to his adoring audience. And his charm and sunny disposition have won my heart, perhaps forever.

Some people think that the Turkish president is a strident troublemaker. Not me!

Some say he is spiteful, hateful and full of anger, particularly towards breast-feeding mothers and their communist significant others. Not me!

Some even say that he is a complete……well……I can’t even think about this one, no less say it, no less write it.

I stridently, but respectfully, disagree with all of his critics.

The president of Turkey deserves our gushing respect and undivided attention.

Here’s why.

He said that the characters, habits and physiques of women are different from those of men. This is a brilliant insight! This is true! I hope his audience rose as one to render a standing ovation of loving applause. I immediately thought of Marilyn Monroe and Woody Allen. It would indeed be “against nature” to put these two on an “equal footing.” The president is correct in his assertion about character and habit, but especially about physique. I mean, whose feet would you rather kiss?

And as far as breastfeeding women and non-breastfeeding communists working together in some Soviet-era tractor factory, well, again the Turkish president is perfectly correct. Breastfeeding women couldn’t even hold the wrenches properly. Think about it and you will instantly grasp the president’s wisdom. Holding a baby to one’s breast is a completely different motion and habit than the complicated, manly habit of turning a wrench. And even if men could lactate, could they handle having a baby sucking at their breasts every few hours while those tractor axles kept on coming? No, of course not. And where would they stash the babies in between feeding time? It would be so unnaturally confusing, wouldn’t it? The commissar would send them all to Siberia. Besides, if I understand the Turkish president’s deeper meaning, communist men are always looking to start revolutions. It’s their nature. Just look at history! And to make revolutions they need free hands, that is, no screaming, hungry babies interfering with their secret meetings. This is what the clever Turkish president meant. And he is absolutely correct. And that’s why he buys more and more tear gas and more and more TOMA monsters. It all makes sense, doesn’t it? Thank you Mr. President! Your applauding audience is proud of you.

He also said that women being equal to men is “against nature.” Bravo! Brava! This is true too. I mean, what women would cultivate nature like the Turkish president, a man, does? He has leveled millions and millions of trees so that nature can breathe freely. No woman would dream of doing that. He has leveled mountains to free marble from its lifelong imprisonment so that villas and hotels and palaces can have shiny walls and slippery floors. And the president knows how women, by nature and habit, like to clean things. So women now have something to do. And marble also now has something to do, rather than just stay inside some dumb mountain. And women can clean and polish all of it, doing what comes naturally to them. No woman could even come close to thinking of such a perfectly complex idea. Only men can do that. The president of Turkey is very smart and deserves loud acclaim until the end of recorded time.

And I completely agree with the Turkish president that women should be equal among women and men should be equal among men. Such a great social philosophy, though it seems to border on that nasty communism thing. Nevertheless, I agree with the president. For example, when we are alone, my wife and I never argue unnaturally about whether we are equal to each other, she being a woman and I a man. I am perfectly content to be a man equal to myself and, so far, she is happy to be a woman equal to herself. It proves the president’s intelligently argued point regarding the natural law that men are men and women are women. On this issue, peace prevails. The argument as applied to gay couples has yet to be addressed. Perhaps at the next meeting of the Women and Democracy Association the brilliance of the Turkish president can enlighten us further.

The natures of men and women are different, too. Right again, Mr. President! And the following shows how true that is and how correct you are.

Who brought us religion? Men.

Who invented prostitution? Men.

Who spent millennia hunting and killing animals? Men.

Who spent millennia hunting and killing each other? Men.

Who invented armies? Men.

Who created historical catastrophes such as genocides? Men.

Who invented, and continue to invent, weapons of mass destruction? Men.

Who dropped the atomic bomb on innocent people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Men.

Who destroyed native populations in Africa and the Americas for profit and power? Men.

Who finance and organize bestial mercenary hordes to murder, rape and plunder? Men.

Who cannot produce children? Men.

Who are condemned to extinction because of their characters, habits, physiques and natures? Men.

Indeed, there is nothing like a man.

James C. Ryan

Istanbul

November 26, 2014

November 26, 2014
SOMETHING’S COMING

Could be!

Who knows?

There’s something due any day;

I will know right away

Soon as it shows.

It’s only just out of reach,

Down the block, on a beach,

Under a tree.

Stephen Sondheim, West Side Story

More deadly gas is coming. They’re buying those gas bombs again. 1.5 million more. They must have exhausted the 43 tons they bought from America last year at the height of their Gezi violence. Ten million dollars gone with the fascist wind. And the latest news says that the public-space-destroying Gezi Park shopping-center project is alive and quietly ticking. Those treacherous, revolutionary Gezi Park trees, like Carthage, must be totally destroyed!

And then there are the personal antics of you-know-who. Heisting more of the public’s money, he’s adding thousands more rooms to his royal roost. Painfully aware of his public, he has privatized his own Waffen-SS. It’s an especially loyal bunch, a comforting pious blend of Turkish police, the Gendarmes (easily appropriated from his ever-generous Turkish Army) and his ever-popular scimitar-waving street thugs. They will all emerge on call like mushrooms on a rainy day. Surely the blessings of safety and security will loom over the land forever.

And at last Turkish schoolchildren will be freed from all error and will finally learn the truth about just who discovered America. Oh, happy Turkish day! Perhaps they will learn that God is also a Muslim along with Fidel Castro.

Oh, the pope is coming. He is scheduled to meet and greet the new president at his new, illegal palace. How nice. Thus the pope will also be an accomplice-after-the-fact to a crime. This from a man considered by zillions of Catholics to be infallible in matters of faith and morals. But St Peter’s has such a suitable dome… for a mosque…or better, a shopping center. Let’s make a deal. Let’s have a conversion. So many things are coming…

One more thing is coming—the truth. Can you feel it? It’s just out of reach.

The truth is this. The Turkish people are fed up with the Turkish people. It’s as simple and as complicated as that.

These AKP people came to power—with a lot of help from their American friends in high places—following years of coalitional incompetence and corruption. The people were fed up then, too. And so came Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his friends, the self-proclaimed “pious” people. Surely they would clean up things. They sold everything leveraging it into a self-proclaimed “economic miracle.” Then came their true colors—repression, fascism and more corruption, all in the name of piety.

But as Cassius said to Brutus, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves.” And that’s why the Turkish people are fed up, particularly Turkish young people.

Turkey is the youngest country in Europe. 17% of its population is in the 18-24 age group. With a median age of 29.6 years, Turkey is far younger than the U.K. (40.4), France (40.9) and Germany (46.1). More importantly, half of Turkey’s eligible voters are in the 19-35 age group. And that means 26 million “young” voters! And this is why Turkish young people SHOULD be fed up.

They have virtually no political representation, particularly in the fossilized opposition parties. CHP, Turkey’s oldest political party dating from 1923, has only six members of parliament under the age of 40. While the average age of party members is 46.9 years, the average age of its parliamentarians is almost a decade more, 55.5 years. How political parties can ignore half of the voter base is a great mystery and a great shame. And a great tragedy for Turkish young people.

In the twisting and turnings and whims and whines of the opposition parties they have today maneuvered themselves into near irrelevance. The bizarre joint presidential candidacy of a 71-year-old Islamist no one knew named Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu may have been their final curtain. Predictably trounced by Erdoğan at the polls, almost as many voters stayed away (15.4 million) as voted for Ekmeleddin (15.6 million). And for those that did vote for him, how many held their noses and voted out of fast-fading party loyalty? The entire affair was unseemly and CHP continues to struggle with the implications.

Herein resides, in part, the disenfranchised voter base. There are others, women, for example. Workers, for another. Something’s coming. Not surprisingly, recent surveys suggest a large “undecided” category, as high as 25%. Something’s coming.

Turkish youth have seen what the political process has delivered for them. While they filled the streets in protest at Gezi Park, the opposition parties mostly dawdled. When America sold the AKP more tear gas bombs to bomb the kids, the opposition parties mostly watched. And when the opposition parties chose a 71-year-old unknown as a presidential candidate to face the ferocious Erdoğan, well, you know the rest.

This is why the young people are on the move and coming. Not only are they the soldiers of Mustafa Kemal, they are his youth, Atatürk-youth. Like him, unbounded by age, open-minded and open-hearted, holding real opinions and ideals worth fighting for. Falling in love with truth, with science and the modern way, living honorably with care and sensitivity. Upholding the law and defending the human right to live freely. In short, living as a true Turk, a modern Atatürk Turk.

There is also new political party coming, the Anatolia Party (Anadolu Partisi). A party of enlightenment, like the sun rising in its logo. A party for an anti-imperialist, sovereign nation, secular and tolerant, honest and hopeful. A party for Turkish youth of all ages.

Half the voters in Turkey are young people, 26 million of them. Let it begin with them.

James (Cem) Ryan

Istanbul

24 November 2014

November 24, 2014
AMERICAN BOYZ N THE HOOD

Turkish Soldiers Hooded by America
Sulaymaniyah, Iraq. 4 July 2003

Istanbul: 13 November 2014

Yesterday, three sailors from the uncontrollably violent neighborhood called America met the true face of Turkey. Poor boys, they don’t even know what they represent. They don’t even know that their so-called leaders have made them punching bags for its criminal enterprise called American imperialism. They don’t even know how America and its treasonous internal agents, in particular the Turkish government, are attempting to destroy the future of the Turkish youth.

Perhaps these American boys got a quick lesson in the true nature of Turkish-American relations yesterday? But, sadly, probably not. The American boys ran back to the false safety of their warship, re-entering their “safe” world of imperialist propaganda, economic excess and hypocrisy. But there is no safety anywhere any longer. That is the gift of America to Turkey, and to the world. As usual, America authorities and its treacherous collaborating Turkish puppets screamed in outrage. And, as usual, the youth of Turkey, the true defenders of the Republic of Turkey, went to jail for exercising their patriotic duty. Nothing has changed, except one thing. Turkish young people, the nation’s true patriotic voice, will not take American crap anymore. And America should understand that. Listen and learn, America. You owe it to your own youth. Think of it this way, think of it as a symbol.

That’s the way the resident American-imposed agent of destruction, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, thought about his hooding of Turkish women into a grotesque series of Middle Age costumes that squeeze feminine brains into numb submission. So what, declared the then prime minister, if the head scarf is a political symbol? So what, indeed! Erdoğan used his compliant covered women to destroy democracy in his own country. He and his collaborators hid behind their women’s headscarves to do America’s dirty work. And now they cannot safely visit any neighborhood in their own land. No “hood” is safe for the hoodlums. And now the new president hides in a billion-dollar illegal palace, his inadvertent monument to treason. So what if he and his ilk cannot appear in public! So what!

So what if in 1980 the American president celebrated the success of his CIA-engineered military coup by proclaiming “Our boys did it!” Yes, then his gangster BOYZ did it. And yesterday, today’s Turkish youth remembered. And yesterday, our Turkish boys did it to America, symbolically, of course, because Turkish youth is civilized. They can be no other way; they are the current-day “soldiers of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.” This is something that the treacherous opposition political polities can neither say nor understand. Yes, Turkish young people are civilized and enlightened by the patriotic principles of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. That’s why, yesterday, no one, neither American boy nor Turkish boy was hurt. No one was tortured. No one was hung. No one was shot, exploded, beaten, gassed, or otherwise maimed. And that’s a lot more than America can ever say about their overt and covert interventions in Turkey’s affairs.

So what if America and its craven ambassador, Francis Ricciardone, aided and abetted the Turkish government in its beating, gassing, maiming and murdering of democratically assembled Gezi Park protestors. “The Turkish government is having a conversation with its people,” said the deceitful ambassador, as he arranged to have more poisonous gas sold to Erdoğan and his hoodlum police. A “conversation?” So what!

So what if the same ambassador conspired with the main opposition party leader to assure the election of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to the presidency!

So what if yesterday the American boys’ heads momentarily felt the experience of being symbolically hooded! Symbolically hooded, not actually hung like so many patriotic Turkish young people have been. And by their own government! The Turkish people have been strangled and hooded by America, by its CIA meddlers and by its corrupt politicians for decades. And in the past decade of Erdoğan’s treacherous rule, America’s CIA “boys” have done it again. Or tried to.

So what if America has used its youth to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in its deceitful, illegal war of aggression!

So what if America has humiliated the Turkish military by hooding its soldiers in Iraq in July 2003!

So what if America has conspired with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan to kill hundreds of thousands of Syrians in its deceitful pretext of bringing democracy!

So what if America has supported the treasonous, under-educated, Islamic zealot, CIA-asset, Fethullah Gulen for decades in the Pennsylvania countryside!

So what if Gulen and Erdoğan have collaborated for decades in treacherous union to do America’s bidding in the subversion of the Turkish Republic! So what if the Turkish Army has been destroyed! So what if the independence of the Turkish judiciary has collapsed! So what if rivers have been stopped, farmers’ fields uprooted, forests felled, eternal olive trees murdered, lakes polluted, mountains plundered, the air made poisonous, all in pursuit of private profit, all indicative of massive governmental corruption! So what if the government has looted public funds! So what if the Turkish mass media slithers like a reptile on its overstuffed belly doing the bidding of its governmental master! So what if Turkey stinks from America’s subversion like a rotting corpse in the noonday sun!

Yes, SO WHAT?

Yesterday, clearly, directly, in a street-theater performance, Turkish “boyz” encountered American “boyz” in the Turkish “hood.” The US embassy in Turkey called the incident “appalling.” What is appalling is the embassy’s ignorance and arrogance. What is appalling is the criminal behavior of its criminal boss, the president of the United States. It is he and Erdoğan and all their co-conspirators, all the ones who need protection by regiments of armed-to-the-teeth goons, who deserve to be hooded. And now they can never step foot in our hood, ever again. Not ever! That’s the message from yesterday. Take your warships and your political puppets and go!

James C. Ryan

Istanbul

13 November 2014

November 13, 2014
KEYSTONE KOPISTAN

A Grim Non-Fairytale

Everything is unbelievable in the kingdom of Keystone Kopistan, located between Bulgaristan, Greekistan, Syrianistan, Irakistan, Iranistan, Devilistan and the deep blue sea. In fact, the most popular exclamation of astonishment in Keystone Kopistan, always used about the never-ending fraud called “Turkish Democracy,” is “Inanılmaz!” meaning “Unbelievable!” In reality, the unbelievable is always completely believable in K.K. This has been the case since 10 November 1938. Things always worsen and unbelievably so. For example, this is now one more unbelievable thing going from bad to worse: the police in Keystone Kopistan are now arresting the police, that is, each other. There is neither law or order nor order or law in the “advanced” democracy of Keystone Kopistan. Things there are always unbelievably true.

But a far more serious condition prevails. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, widely thought to have been the all-powerful prime minister of Keystone Kopistan never was. It seems that Erdoğan, the bad-boy, tough guy prime minister (and now president-in-waiting) discovered upon awakening on the morning of 17 December 2013 that he had only imagined he was prime minister, police chief, head of the Supreme Court, chief prosecuting attorney, chief destroyer of all military forces, chief economist, chief architect, chief paymaster, chief collector of receivables, chief subcontractor, and chief Chief. In fact, Erdoğan had been deep in a twelve-year dream about Yavuz Sultan Selim (1470-1520), known as Selim the Grim for his bloody-handed cruelty. These two sure make strange, grim bedfellows, don’t they?

On 17 December, the police came knocking on Erdoğan’s door looking for shoeboxes. Oh how they ran, these cops of Kopistan. And oh how Tayyip and the kids ran, ran, ran. And how all the ministers ran. And how all their children ran. And how the words flew. And how Erdoğan, thinking he was prime minister, fired all the cops and prosecutors and judges. And how four of the more corrupt ministers resigned and ran away to do house cleaning chores, so helpful did they become to their wives that day. Everyone was chasing everyone that day—fathers chased children, husbands chased wives, police chased thieves, helicopters flew, curses flew, shoeboxes and candy boxes flew and everyone and everything chased money, vast, countless amounts of money. So what should be done?

Well that was easy. Since everything is both believable and unbelievable in Keystone Kopistan, Erdoğan blamed the police, the newspapers, the Israelis, the American ambassador and the entire country’s population of stray cats. He even blamed Pennsylvania. Unbelievable, wouldn’t you agree? Yes, but…and “but” is a very important word in Keystone Kopistan. But… it is also believable. And since the media bosses are all corrupt, and most journalists are scribblers for Erdoğan’s interests, and since bribes and lies are the common means of discourse, all are made to believe that a “parallel” state did it. No one asks very much about what happened to all the money. No one asks very much where Erdoğan got all the good cops to replace the bad cops. No one asks much in Keystone Kopistan. And since half the voters are paid by the ruling party, they will also surely die for him and thus surely vote for him. And so these unquestioning incompetents made him president, with a lot of help from the equally incompetent political opposition. And Erdoğan laughingly tallied his winning votes and now, knowingly and safely, counts his unbelievably extraordinary assets.

Speaking of counting, Selim the Grim was also interested in counting. He specialized in the murderous mathematics of religion. So much so that he slaughtered 40,000 “heretical” Anatolian Alevites, having concluding that killing even one of these despicable heretics was functionally equivalent to the heavenly reward receivable for killing 70 detestable Christians. Obviously he couldn’t find such a concentration of Christians in those days so he invented the Alevite multiplier effect. Selim the Grim was pleased with his genius and continued with his math studies, adding other variables to his original deadly equation: 1A = 70C. Selim the Grim, soul brother for Tayyip the Grimmer…and the grim tale of Keystone Kopistan continues.

One can easily understand Tayyip the Grimmer’s fascination with this earlier Sultanic killing machine. After all, after his own interests everyone and everything else comes last. So in homage, Tayyip the Grimmer decided to build a third bridge over the Bosporus, naming it the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge. In perfect historical harmony, this bridge will slaughter millions of trees, plants, wildlife, rivers, streams and the Istanbul air, in short, the entire ecological system of Bosporus and Istanbul will enter a long, torturous death cycle. It is the mathematical, real world equivalent to billions of dollars of real estate speculation and undercover deals. Allah is indeed generous to pious believers. Selim the Grim proved that. And Tayyip the Grimmer reinforces Selim the Grim’s mathematical speculations proving that one shoebox packed with U.S. dollars equals $1 million. Unbelievable! Who needs shoes! Yes, unbelievable. So believe it! And be pious!

Last December 17, Tayyip the Grimmer awoke from his dream. What? he shouted, You mean I’m not the man in charge? It seems that the major arrest programs of the government’s plan to destroy the military—Ergenekon and Balyoz—happened, but the government didn’t do it. Huh? Yes, the army was destroyed, but not by Tayyip the Grimmer. Huh? Journalists and military officers had their careers and, in a few cases, their lives destroyed, but not by the government. Huh?

Then who did it? That’s easy, said Tayyip the Grimmer. It was all a sneaky trick done by that unspeakable, terrorist imam in Pennsylvania. He did it! Feto of Pennsylvania did it! My archenemy, my old friend and, until now, my co-conspirator and accomplice. He did it! Huh?

So while Feto the Unspeakable was doing all the secret dirty business under the blind eyes of a sleeping government, who raped environment? Who plundered the nation’s assets? Whose police maimed and murdered the nation’s youth during the Gezi Park Movement. Who insulted the mothers of dead children? Who continues to defame the dead children? Who arms and finances the ISID killers? Who supports these terrorist demons who consume the inner organs of their dying victims? Who fails to speak out when these sub-human insults to the animal world behead men, women, children and infants in the name of Allah? Who?

Why it’s the grim, soon-to-be-president of the Republic of Turkey. He and his truly unspeakable, unbelievable, fully believable supporters have brought hell to Keystone Kopistan. Believe it!

James (Cem) Ryan

Istanbul

19 August 2014

August 19, 2014
PENNSYLVANIA’S WAR NOW ON TWO FRONTS

Thursday, August 7, 2014

PENNSYLVANIA’S WAR NOW ON TWO FRONTS

Izmir beachhead established. PKK raids Gülen Gang in Saylorsburg, Pa.

Candy, flowers and laughing women. Weeping, cursing and shoeboxes.
A pre-raid aerial view of the Gülen Gang’s headquarters, Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania

Harrisburg, August 7, 2014

By Max Placid / McClatchy Newspapers

In a morning mist, Pennsylvania’s paramilitary forces landed on the Turkish coast at Izmir on August 4. They met no resistance but they did encounter a jubilant Turkish crowd who greeted the Pennsylvanians by bombarding them with Turkish delight candy and Atatürk flowers. As the Rocky Balboa Brigade, an elite unarmed (except for their fists) attack force, sprinted down Martyrs Street, hilariously laughing women streamed into the Kordon, Izmir’s magnificent seaside esplanade. “Go Rocky!” they screamed through tears of joy, “Get Bulent for us!” Of course, they werereferring to the hapless Turkish deputy prime minister who bizarrely admonished Turkish women for laughing in public. It seemed to the surprised Pennsylvanians that they were participating in some sort of weird liberation. As the Balboa Brigade veered left onto Kemalpasha Street tables of sliced melon, white cheese and glasses of rakı (the Turkish national beverage) appeared. But the highly disciplined Pennsylvanians ignored the temptation. “Yo Turks! On the way back! On the way back!” shouted Colonel Rocky Balboa, brigade commander. It was obvious that their immediate objective was not Izmir.

On the home front, on the same day as the Izmir landing, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett launched a pre-emptive pre-dawn raid on the CIA safe-house of an alleged imam, Fethullah Gülen. Gülen is a longtime, infamous ally of the Turkish prime minister. Both have been previously convicted—Gülen in absentia—of seditious behavior. Governor Corbett, now commander-in-chief of the hastily formed Pennsylvania Kombat Kommand (PKK), announced that he is fully aware of the conspiracy between the current Turkish government and what has been labeled the “Hey Pennsylvania” movement. “Gülen and Erdoğan are cut from the cloth,” said Corbett and elaborated in the following statement:

“Together they have conspired to destroy Turkish democracy. They have used the most disgusting, criminal methods in their treason. And I am ashamed to say that America’s CIA aided and abetted their crimes. Regardless of what others may think or say, the people of Pennsylvania have no place for these ‘religious’ two-faced criminals. An undercover gang in Pennsylvania will be quickly uprooted and brought to justice. And that’s the reason for the raid by the PKK.”

The Pennsylvania Kombat Kommand (PKK) is another quickly assembled strike team consisting of a highly-trained special weapons contingent of state policewomen, Pittsburgh Penguin hockey players and the starting lineup of the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team. All three groups are skilled in insertions, extractions and evacuations.
Jimmy Rollins
The raid of Gülen’s hideout at 1857 Mt. Eaton Road in Saylorsburg, often referred to as “Feto’s Farm,” was a complete success. Silence prevailed as the Kombat Kommand encircled the premises. Guards at the front gate were neutralized by Jimmy Rollins, the Phillies shortstop, who leveled his bat at the two gatekeepers. One of them, a Turk named Imdat Aptal, volunteered immediately to act as an interpreter. In appreciation, Rollins generously autographed Aptal’s copy of Pearls of Wisdom, by F. Gülen.

Thus having secured the entrance, a barrier of interlocking hockey sticks was implaced by the defensemen of the Pittsburgh Penguins. (Note: Being summer, the Penguins wore roller skates in this operation.)

“No one can pass!” ordered Rollins.

“Kimse geçemez!” echoed Aptal.

Immediately thereafter an impenetrable defensive perimeter was established by Rollins baseball teammates and the Penguins.

Meanwhile great wailing and lamentation came from the main house. Beddua this and beddua that, here a beddua, there a beddua, and every so often the word “parallel” was heard .

“What’s all this yelling about beddua?” asked A.J. Burnett, the Phillies big right-handed starting pitcher.

“The boss is angry again,” said Aptal. “He’s bedduaing, I mean, cursing and talking to Allah.”

“Yeah? Well you come with me and tell him that he better watch his mouth and that he’s being busted in the name of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”

“Of course,” said Aptal.

Behind the mansion a backhoe was digging huge holes in a green field. Inside the mansion, sobs were gushing from the main office, as smiling police women searched Gülen and his premises. The air was electric. The full horror story of religious intrigue, espionage, prostitution, forgery, blackmail, narcotics trafficking, judicial corruption and treason might soon be revealed.

It was. The bookcases in the main office were not bookcases at all. Officer Mary Jane Stonebreaker leaned against a copy of Love and Tolerance, also by F. Gülen. and—wow!—the bookshelves suddenly swung open to reveal a vast storage vault. Endless ranks and rows of boxes filled the space. A warehouse of shoeboxes!

“Who lives here, Imelda Marcos?” asked the astonished police officer. “What the heck is this place? A shoe factory or something?”

Ryan Howard

Ryan Howard, his 36-ounce Louisville Slugger bat acting as her backup weapon, opened one of the boxes, this one labeled T. Erdog.

“This is a money factory, Officer Stonebreaker.”

“Gee, I only touched the book,” said the policewomen with an ironic laugh. “What would have happen if I read it?”

“Yeah,” agreed Howard, “I make 25 million dollars a year with the Phillies. These guys make that much in a day. We’re both in the wrong business.”

“But at least we’re honest,” said Officer Stonebreaker.

“Yeah,” said the big first baseman, “Let’s find this creep so you can bust him.”

Meanwhile the results of the outside excavation and the inside investigation were being displayed in the lobby. In addition to firearms and enough explosive devices to launch Pennsylvania into the afterlife, evidence of the long-term, continuing connection of the subversive relationship between the Gülen movement and the Erdoğan government abounded, to wit:

A box of counterfeit Marmara University graduation diplomas.

30 years of handwritten correspondence, birthday cards, thank-you notes and travel post cards between Gülen and Erdoğan. The latest from Erdoğan, dated July 4, 2014 and encoded in Turkic-English as follows:

DEER ESTEAMED FRIEND FETO, WE SHURE FOOLING THEM NOW. ALL THINK PARRRALLLELLL STATES IS TROO. HA HA HA. TANKS A LOT FOR STASH FOR KASH. I WILL BE A PRECEDENT OF TURKEY SOON NOW FOR SHURE. YOU BETCHA IN VON MINIT OR TOO. PLEEZE GIVE RIGARDS TO LOAF OF BREAD FRIENDZ AT AGENTSY. HEH HEH HEH. MEANS CIA. RTE

Scores of video cassettes revealed the auditioning of Deniz Baykal body-doubles. Outtakes show Fethullah Gülen sitting in a director’s chair wearing a beret and smoking a cigar. Every time he yells “CUT!” he takes a drag on his stogie, blows smoke, then curses frantically.

Feto Inc. Listening Device

Listening devices.

15 automatic signature machines.

37 cash counting machines.

Barrels of dice. Cartons of playing cards. Cases of poker chips.

236 new copies of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Treason, Blackmail, Falsification of Evidence and Embezzlement.

7,698 copies of How to Fool All the People All the Time.

11 copies of The Joys of Montage, Subterfuge and Sabotage.

4,789 copies of How to Plant Evidence and Ruin People’s Lives.

A truckload of hypodermic syringes.

The search continues. “It is astonishing how these religious hypocrites use crime in the name of God,” said Governor Corbett. “We will continue to press the attack at home. And we are pleased to hear from Colonel Balboa that the Turks are with us. Pennsylvania Kombat Kommand! Your immediate objectives are Ankara, the parliament and the prime minister! Forward!”

All Gülen Gang personnel were booked at the Saylorsburg police station. Under the terms and provisions of the Patriot Act of 2001 and the Espionage Act of 1917, the accused gang members were remanded to the Monroe County Correctional Facility in Stroudsburg pending completion of the investigation.

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James (Cem) Ryan

Istanbul

8 August 2014

August 8, 2014
NO LAUGHS FOR TURKEY’S CRYBABY

Bülent Arınç weeping at a microphone

While violence consumes its neighbors, it’s holiday time in once secular Turkey, now under occupation by a religious fascist government, all praise to Allah and America. Celebratory candy and sweet pastry abound. And naturally Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç is worried about decay. No, not tooth decay, moral decay. And so he spoke out about moral decay, ignoring the fact that he and his American-puppet partners have destroyed any aspect of secular democracy in Turkey and in its neighbor countries. And that they sponsor one of the most brutal, barbaric gangs ever assembled to slaughter, rape, behead and crucify innocent people…well, it must have slipped the deputy prime minister’s mind. What also slipped his mind was the fact that his party members in general, and the prime minister and his cronies in particular, have surely set unofficial Guinness world records in immorality. But our intrepid deputy prime minister dropped neither tear nor syllable about these inconveniently immoral truths.

Instead he spoke of the moral decay caused by women laughing in front of anyone, that is, in public. What is indeed decadent is how this sanctimonious religion-mongering ruling party uses any excuse to give stupid advice. Not only shouldn’t women laugh in public, they should not display their attractiveness. “Their” women have certainly achieved the latter. As far as their laughter, who noticed? But laughing in public as being an offense? This is hilariously pathetic. Who writes the speeches for these people?

This deputy prime minister is famous for spewing crocodile tears at the hint that moisture might be required. He is also famous for his melodramatics in the hoax that was Ergenekon. His histrionics regarding imagined assassination attempts were epic. Adding further moral disgrace to his ill-repute, he had also given his moral judgment that in Ergenekon “Turkey is cleaning its intestines.” That the whole Ergenekon-Balyoz affair that destroyed the Turkish military and the nation’s security system was a phony also escaped his moral decay concerns. That his own party has admitted it, also eluded him. His no-laughing-in-public agenda item is the sickest joke of all. Except for the following.

That he lied…that he cooperated with the Gulen movement…that he was complicit in treason…that he collaborated with the CIA…all this has escaped his moral compass. And all this has escaped the moral compass of his “pious” followers who pride themselves on their religious piety. Such weirdness! To have a piety with so little to do with morality and so much to do with decay.

But take heart. The deputy prime minister also feels that teenage sex addiction is caused by certain TV programs. And that this causes violence to women. And therefore, women should never laugh in public and should look as ugly as possible in public. A brilliant policy indeed. In short, the deputy prime minister wants all of us to look like them…

Gentlemen! Ladies! Children of all ages! On the count of three, let us together give the deputy prime minister a great big public laugh. One…Two… THREE!

HA!

James (Cem) Ryan

Istanbul

29 July 2014

July 31, 2014