“The love of money is the root of all evil.” Who knew that a first or second century letter by the Apostle Paul could so accurately describe the Trump administration.
‘Gulen has used the coup as cover to fire and jail his political opponents and consolidate power.’
You mean Erdogan, right?
Thank you for this informative piece. Much appreciated. But, yes, do fix that last sentence under your number 4. Erdogan not Gulen.
What a tale!
I have taught many students from Gulenist schools. I can attest thst they receive a solid education in the sciences, although that is hardly rare in Kazakhstan.
I think those students are more religiously conservative , but that is harder to say. I think it’s fair to say that the Gulenist schools are not more liberal. Kazakhstan has been a fairly moderate country; those schools don’t make it more moderate, IMO.
The point is that what someone in Turkey calls moderate, may hardly be that, by our standards.
Calling Gulen a moderate is like calling Jeff Sessions a moderate, since he is not as crazy as Moore. Just because Gulen is not the violent crazy type, he is still an islamist.
A pic from my September 2015 trip to Istanbul and Turkey…a truly mesmerizing experience. I’m sad that Erdogan plus other violent incidents that happened in the aftermath of my visit are keeping so many tourists away.
You being paid by Erdogan, or by Flynn? Or maybe Vlad?
Oh and then there’s this…
If you suspect, as I suspect you do, that this is Ukie miraculously returned to us, I have to say I’ve wondered if he really was paid after all. Sometimes I imagined he was fairly close to what he claimed, something like a Brit perennial grad student, hard-lefty politically, going along with the Putin program on his own for the larfs and to do what he could to help bring down the “hegemonic American empire” or some such. Reason I say is because he seemed genuinely impressed with himself and surprised, even a bit hurt, to be treated with so much contempt. He’s a lefty version of your typical alt-right loser, the kind who’s had access to education and ought to know better but is deeply maladjusted and has no normal social life. Just spitballin’ here but that was one of my thoughts on the whole Ukiegenesis question.
that would also be consistent with my observations also. I don’t discuss religion with students.
For those of you who listen to podcasts, Lawfare put out an excellent podcast on this exact subject last Friday.
Listen to Special Edition: A Person of Flynnterest from The Lawfare Podcast in Podcasts. https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lawfare-podcast/id498897343?mt=2&i=1000394666045
There’s more here than people may realize.
Gulen, whether he is an Islamist or not, is a political opponent of Erdogan (formerly an ally). Erdogan believed Gulen is strong enough to unseat him from power. That makes getting him a high priority. Zarrab is close with the Erdogan family. He’s an ally and it looks like a line connecting Turkey and Iran (Zarrab is half-Iranian), two countries which have many common interests, despite being on opposite sides of US goodwill. Turkey had deals with ISIS for oil. It seems that Zarrab was doing a similar thing with Iran. Oil/gas are key for the working classes. It is priced in dollars making it more expensive for other countries. Keeping that cost and inflation low are key.
Erdogan wants what he wants when he wants it. The Obama gov’t rejected his extrajudicial overtures. He then turned to Flynn, who was eager to make some money and he’s also a radical anti-Islamist.
But for Erdogan to make these demands, he would’ve had to given Trump something. One is laying off the Trump Tower Istanbul. Trump was unpopular in Turkey during the campaign and Erdogan threatened to take away branding rights. It seems now that Erdogan used that threat as leverage to get Trump to do what he wanted.
Did Erdogan petition Trump to remove Preet Bharara to get Zarrab released? Did he try to get Trump to put in a favorable US Atty to maybe push the extradition of Gulen? Did Trump fire Bharara in order to help Erdogan out? What else did Trump get in return? Loans/money for casinos, hotels? More projects in Turkey or Central Asia?
The point I’m exploring is that to date people have viewed the Flynn-Turkey track as a separate offshoot of #trumprussia and not necessarily connected to Trump or Russia. But what if that’s not the case? What if Trump had arrangements with Turkey with Flynn as his intermediary? What if Russia also greased those wheels a bit?
Didn’t Trump welcome Erdogan at the White House:
Attaturk is turning over in his grave.
But Trump (as above) probably thinks attaturk is something you say when someone like Erdogan roughs more people up.
I wonder how Zarrab as a money launderer with ties to Iran connects to Trump’s corrupt hotel project in Baku, Azerbaijan? The money being sanitized through that convoluted deal led straight back to the Iranian revolutionary guard so as always where Trump is involved it’s prudent to assume the worst.
and, that is bad? How?
If you look at the behavior of the Gulenists when they were sharing power in Turkey with Erdogan, you see a pattern of abuse and persecution. So,while it is one thing to describe, “a moderate, pro-market version of Islam through a worldwide network of well-funded schools and charitable institutions,” it is another to do so while ignoring a documented pattern of behavior.
Both things can be true.
These things are important because the inner-circle of this moment runs some 160 American charter schools, although yes they deny doing so. It is objectively true that they run these schools, that the schools are all interconnected, and that the movement uses any number of opaque relationships between boards, nonprofits, and related-party contractors to further its purpose. You may discredit the many complaints about the improper profiteering that goes on in the Gulen-linked charter sector, but they are easy to document, and they are abundant.
I understand that people want to keep the charter school issue out of the discussion, but it properly belongs there. Erdogan and Gulen are two sides of the same coin. Whatever happens to the bilateral relationship, it is absolutely clear to me that the US needs to address the inappropriateness of a publicly funded charter school network being so deeply connected to a political player in a foreign drama.
I am no fan of Erdogan, but it cannot be denied that we fund the Gulen movement through these charter schools, so minimally, we should refer to the Gulen Movement as, “the American-financed Gulen Movement.”
Treason is his job, like, probably similar to what the billionaires did to get “their” money’s.
Zarrab is on trial as a money laundering conduit for many folks, including reportedly, people connected with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Once he got that money into an account accessible from Turkey he could’ve directed it anywhere, including Azerbaijan.