Remember “Sledgehammer”? Is Someone Preparing Turkey for Yet Another a Military Coup?

by Scott Creighton

About a month after the AFP paid off the IMF and refused to take out another loan, the new EMASYA protocol was signed into law (allowing for a military coup if Turkey descends into chaos)

How’s that for obvious?

As many of you know, I am wondering if the beginnings of a regime change operation in Turkey haven’t already started.

Today I found something rather amazing that I thought you should pay attention to. It involves something like the old Operation Northwoods plan called Sledgehammer and an emergency provision for the military to take over the country if it descends into chaos.

The plan is almost a mirror image of what has been developing in Turkey. Curious, huh?

Anyone starting to see a little chaos developing in Turkey right about now?

As I have pointed out recently, the Justice and Development (AK) Party won another election in Turkey and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced just last week they had formed the new government.

That new government does not include many of the West/NATO favored neoliberal cabinet ministers and specifically, it doesn’t include Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babacan.

Babacan had the duty to steer a painful economic reform program, which was backed by multi-billion-dollar IMF loans…He stayed always away from the rough-and-tumble of the Turkish political arena and focused solely on the economic reform, acting rather as a technocrat without indulging into populism…

As government minister Babacan has attended several international meetings including the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and the Bilderberg Group.

The Justice and Development (AK) Party has been in power since 2002 and it’s leadership, for the most part, has been steadily undoing years of austerity and neoliberal economic policies set in place by previous leadership and even Erdogan himself.

In fact, Erdoğan helped steer the nation further away from the painful economic austerity reforms to the point where in 2013, they were able to pay off all IMF debt and then refuse the IMF’s last loan offer, thus freeing their people from the crushing debt cycle the IMF loves to impose on nations across the world.

It’s also important to note, Turkey (or more specifically, the AKP) does not support the sanctions leveled against Russia which are certainly favored by the US and NATO.

Turkey did not join Europe, the United States and other Western countries in imposing economic sanctions on Russia over its role in the crisis in Ukraine. The NATO country was actually planning to boost the volume of trade with Russia threefold to $100 billion by 2020. CNN

And… there was the deal the AKP signed with Russia in Dec. of 2014 regarding the creation of the Turkish Stream pipeline.

In the midst of all of this, an election just took place in Turkey and the ruling party has been reelected. That’s understandable considering the fact that for most Turks, life is somewhat better than it was under the previous management. There are more universities and better education for the average Turk. Access to healthcare has been improved. Though the unemployment rate is still around 9%, that’s a real 9% and not the fictitious kind of unemployment numbers we here in the States have been accustomed to seeing.

However… over the last year, things have been spiraling out of control in Turkey.

• There are terrorist bombings of peaceful demonstrations.
• The PKK violated a peace agreement reached between them and Erdoğan which spurred the Turkish president into attacking Kurds in Iraq.
• A Turkish military jet then attacked a Russian fighter which was engaged in bombing Russian terrorists inside Syria. In spite of what the MSM is trying to tell you, that attack was not a reaction to the Russian jet “invading” Turkish airspace for 17 seconds. It was planned and the Turkish fighters were waiting for the Russian jet so they could shoot it down. Russia had provided the flight path to NATO prior to the mission being launched. There just happens to have been someone there to film the incident as it happened.
• And now a rather staged looking video comes out from a “news” service that is dedicated to undermining Erdoğan at every turn. The video is of the reported assassination of a popular Kurdish activist/lawyer who also just happens to want to see an end to the Erdoğan era. This video seems to have been created with the intention of causing increased instability inside Turkey. One writer even said he hopes that it will cause people to go out and protest so the government can crack down on them and cause even bigger protests and higher body counts. In other words, he hopes it creates chaos in Turkey.

Unfortunately, not many alternative investigative journalists out there have made the connection between these decidedly anti-Western actions taken by the AKP and the sudden rise in instability in the country. Instead, they simply regurgitate the same old tired “Erdoğan supports ISIS” bullshit we’ve heard from such stellar “news” services as the Guardian and Fox “News”

And unfortunately, I seem to be having a hard time convincing my own readership that there seems  to be something like a regime change or a full-on coup taking shape in Turkey these days.

Well, that may change a little today.

Does anyone here remember “Sledgehammer”?

No. Not the song.

“Sledgehammer’ was the code name for a Turkish military plan discovered a couple years ago that would set in motion a number of events that would lead to the destabilization of Turkey and the AKP government, and ultimately serve as the pretext for the military to have to stage a coup in order to stabilize the nation.

Anyone remember that? Here’s a little info on those plans from the Economist in 2010:

BOMBS target the faithful in Istanbul’s busiest mosques; a Turkish air force jet is shot down over the Aegean, provoking a war with Greece. Chaos descends over Turkey. The army steps in, overthrows the mildly Islamist Justice and Development (AK) Party that has governed Turkey since 2002, and takes control.

This plan, codenamed “Sledgehammer” and hidden among 5,000 pages of army documents, was exposed in January by a small independent newspaper, Taraf. It caused a storm. The army said it was just a “simulation exercise”. How, thundered General Ilker Basbug, the chief of the general staff, could Turkish soldiers, who charge into battle crying “Allah, Allah”, bomb a mosque? It is a question which civilian and military prosecutors are now attempting to answer.

“Sledgehammer” is only the latest in a string of alleged coup plots to have been exposed in recent years. That helps explain why, on February 4th, Turkey’s government scrapped the controversial security and public order (“Emasya”) protocol, which lets the army choose to take charge in the provinces when law and order breaks down. Critics argued that Emasya’s real purpose was to provide the legal framework for a future coup. Economist

Is it just me, or are the recent events sounding a little like the “Sledgehammer” plan? There is certainly some instability developing in Turkey right now and if that one writer’s hopes and dreams come true, there may be a lot more in the next few weeks.

Some here might want to argue that even if someone in the military (which is loyal to US and NATO and infiltrated by Gulen supporters) had dusted off the old “Sledgehammer” plan, it wouldn’t make a difference because the EMASYA protocol has been repealed and the military doesn’t have the authority to step in and take over.

Some would be wrong.

A new protocol has been signed between the Interior Ministry and the General Staff that gives the authority to governors to call for military units in the event of social incidents in a province, Milliyet daily reported on Friday.

The new protocol is said to be the “civilian” version of the now-abolished and controversial Protocol on Cooperation for Security and Public Order (EMASYA), which gave the military the authority to gather intelligence against internal threats and conduct operations in cities without the approval of the civilian administration…

The new protocol, according to Milliyet, was signed on April 18 and has 14 articles. According to the protocol, military units will intervene in social incidents upon a written demand from governors. In cases of emergency, the governors will be able to make an oral demand. Today’s Zaman, June 2013

About a month after the AFP paid off the IMF and refused to take out another loan, the new EMASYA protocol was signed into law.

How’s that for obvious?

Yes. The Turkish military can step in during internal chaos in the country and take over the entire country, one province at a time and in all cases, all they need to do is say the leadership of the province told them they could. No written proof needed.

Is Turkey currently being destabilized? You bet it is.

Is this someone using “Sledgehammer” to force a regime change in the country? Hard to know. I guess if the body count starts rising and the military steps in, we’ll know at that point.

My guess is, the Gulenists, the debt pushers and those opposed to the Turkish Stream project have hired themselves a few Turkish generals.

And for the record, it’s the Turkish military and intelligence services that are supporting NATO’s “moderate” terrorists in Syria, isn’t it? The same Turkish military that’s in bed with the US and NATO and the intelligence services that are practically run by the CIA.

Is this the threat that keeps Erdogan and the Turkish Prime Minister behaving as they should and not apologizing for the downing of the Russian plane?

I guess we will all know soon enough.

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