If General Tells Your Media "Comply or else!", What Would You Do?
DEAR BABELIANS, let's imagine, how would you react if top general of your countries army shouts press, threats, tells them to choose their front, just after his mistakes revealed by an newspaper? Please read our article on http://istanbul.cafebabel./en/ and tell us what would be possible reactions of your officers and citizen? We would like know what would be European reaction? Please write your comments below with the name of your country, Cafebabel Istanbul will inform Turkish press about European reactions. 
Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ spoke at a hastily arranged press conference yesterday in the northwestern province of Balıkesir. Başbuğ’s unusually strong words against the media sparked criticism from many circles across the country.
Flanked by four top generals, Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ lashed out at the media for publishing confidential information revealing that the army had known in advance about a deadly attack on a military outpost, sparking an outcry that media freedoms are under attack. Liberal newspaper Taraf published classified aerial images on Tuesday showing outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorists preparing for the attack hours before they hit the outpost with heavy weaponry.
“This is my last word: I invite everyone to be careful and to stand in the right position,” Başbuğ told a hastily arranged press conference in the northwestern province of Balıkesir, where he was attending a routine military ceremony. Journalists were flown to Balıkesir from Ankara on two planes, and the brief conference was broadcast live on television. “Those who present the actions of the separatist terrorist organization as successful acts are responsible for the blood that has been shed and will be shed.”
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Comments
Dear özcan
The reaction in Germany, the country where I am living at the moment, would be completly...against the militar voice, I can imagine. And in the
spanish country where I was born...it would be...against the militar voice, also, no doubt.
The problem is out of my reach, I have tried to make a little research about this man, in wikipedia and so, but I do not have clear so many things, I can not make an opinion with fundament. Anyway, I can tell you that the journalism is the way to make public this kind of acts, and I would like to tell you congratulations, for making it public. But, sorry, my answer does not make you wiser or better. I am living in Berlin, after my research in Denmark finished, I moved here. All the best, from a cloudly and tired sunday afternoon.
merce.
babelian! achtung!
hey Ozcan,
In France, such attitude wouldn't be allowed. The Army doesn't have the right to do something like that. She has to be neutral.
For example, we are doing a big reform in the army : less soldiers and better organization and materials. The decision has been taken in july. Then, few days later, an open later has been published in a newspaper, signed by some unknown officers, saying : we are against this reform. It was a big scandal because it's completely forbidden for any soldiers or officers to talk to the press. And now there is an internal investigation in the army to find those people (don't know if they got them).
And in august, after the death of 10 soldiers in Afghanistan, the press debated a lot about the army, our place in Afghanistan, asking a lot of questions about what happened during this attack and if we are prepared for this war etc...And the army didn't say anything, just answering to the questions. And the debate took place in our Parliament because the army is not independent : under control of the political power.
For french people, an attitude like that would remember us the Algerian war when the army was really powerful and organized a Coup d'Etat when the political power decided to stop the war.
Hope that the situation will change in Turkey,
All the best my friend,
JSeb
The statement of Başbuğ is an open threat and he should know that a country which wants to be part of the European Union can't tolerate or obey such a threat. His words should be an even bigger incentive for the media to write the truth and the facts about the military and its high generals who are so afraid of losing their power.
In Austria, where I am from, generals don't have any power. We are neutral and not part of the NATO. If the head of the military (hardly anybody in Austria knows his name) would want to limit the freedom of speech he would probably lose his job.
I think nobody in Turkey should listen to Başbuğ and his supporters. People of Turkey are strong together and if everybody fights against such a limitation of speech these "brave" guys will be powerless one day.
Commentators not familiar with Turkey's ever-delicate situation fail to grasp the reality of issues that it confronts. For example, a coup was recently averted because the chief of staff was "brave" enough to oppose the plans of his subordinates, who feared that the country was in danger from Islamists: http://www.newsweek.com/id/43940
How realistic are their fears? Are they overreacting? Perhaps. But if they are right, will we be able to live with the price of making a mistake? According to a conversation between two Turkish-Iranian generals (cited above):
"I asked the Iranian generals after the 1979 revolution why they had done nothing to stop it. By the time they realized how far the Islamists had come, they replied, it was too late," he told me. "We will never let that happen in Turkey."
The military is the last bulwark against Sharia, so they take their seriously. I believe that if the prosperity of the country were improved, and political Islam disavowed by the people, then the army would not be so anxious.
Unfortunately, it is not just a conspiracy theory that Islamism is being promoted at a grassroots level. Some say that these people would not hesitate to use democracy as a means. I believe the German Minister of Defence said he found the developments worrisome; a citation escapes me.
Rude generals are bad, but there are worse things still.
Turkish generals needs to improve their PR skills; when to smile, when to be firm, when to say sorry. One sometimes thinks that their only mode of communication is lecturing. People don't stand for that any more, and the military has not grasped this.