Fethullah Gülen and last year's coup in Turkey

The European Council on Foreign Relations presents an essay by journalist Sedat Ergin of Hürriyet Daily about last year's attempted coup in Turkey, No question who planned and executed the attempted coup in Turkey 10/27/2017

From the start, Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan blamed the coup attempt on followers of Fethullah Gülen, an Islamist leader who has livedin the US since the late 1990s but was a supporter of Erdoğan's until 2013. (I wrote about it at the time in Turkish coup, Erdoğan and Gülen 08/05/2017; Turkey and the US War for the Greater Middle East 08/05/2017)

Gülen made his way into the endless and endlessly strange series of stories about the shady foreign ties of Donald Trump's closest collaborators just recently, as Carol Lee and Julia Ainsley reported for NBC News in Mueller Probing Possible Deal Between Turks, Flynn During Presidential Transition 11/10/2017:

Four people familiar with the investigation said Mueller is looking into whether [former National Security Adviser Michael] Flynn discussed in the late December meeting orchestrating the return to Turkey of a chief rival of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who lives in the U.S. Additionally, three people familiar with the probe said investigators are examining whether Flynn and other participants discussed a way to free a Turkish-Iranian gold trader, Reza Zarrab, who is jailed in the U.S. Zarrab is facing federal charges that he helped Iran skirt U.S. sanctions. ...

Erdoğan has repeatedly pressed U.S. officials to extradite the cleric, Fethullah Gülen, who lives in Pennsylvania. Turkey blames Gülen for the attempted coup in that country in July 2016. Erdoğan also has repeatedly raised Zarrab's case with U.S. officials. ...

NBC News reported Sunday that federal investigators were looking into whether Flynn tried to push for the return of Gülen to Turkey once in the White House in exchange for millions of dollars, and that Trump administration officials asked the FBI to review the Gülen case anew. Officials said the FBI denied the request because Turkey had not provided any new evidence in the case, which was reviewed by the Obama administration.

Newsweek's report was a bit sharper, saying that the investigation was about a Turkish offer to Flynn to kidnap Gülen and take him illegally back to Turkey. (Graham Lanktree, Mueller Investigating Michael Flynn for Plot to Kidnap Turkis Opposition 11/10/17)

Sedat Ergin notes that Turkish prosecutors cast a wide net and have brought charges against some soldiers who were ordered into action at the time without any actual knowledge that they were participating in a coup:

Among those tried are names known to be Gülenists in the military, as well as a considerable number of generals not thought to be pro-Gülen names. The existence of this second group of soldiers sometimes prompts questions in the West about whether the coup was primarily Gülenist enterprise.

But in fact the reason for their being on trial is that they had been selected by the Gülenists to fill certain military or bureaucratic positions after the putsch - as indicated in the assignment lists they prepared before the coup. Prosecutors linked the majority of the generals whose names appear in these lists to the coup, and subsequently arrested them even though they seem to have been unaware of their assignments. [my emphasis]

But as for the coup itself, based on the evidence and confessions so far, Ergin states confidently that there was "an extremely detailed, comprehensive coup plan that spread to all corners of Turkey, covering all branches of the military in the army, navy and the air force, as well as the gendarmerie." And:

As a journalist who witnessed the reality of Turkey’s July 15 coup attempt, and who has subsequently worked on this matter through many court files, it is quite incomprehensible that there is still debate in Western societies on the identity of the perpetrators of the coup – even calling into question the reality of the putsch itself.

The prevailing authoritarian trend in Turkey and the strict practices of the state under ongoing emergency rule likely play a role in such confusion. But the dust cloud brought about by these authoritarian practices - which require the harshest criticisms from the standpoint of democracy and the principle of the rule of law - should not be allowed to obscure the reality of the coup itself.

What we have before us is a coup attempt that was shaped over many months by civilian and military Gülenists, with the Akıncı air base in serving as the command centre in the execution phase. This can be documented with very credible evidence presented in countless ongoing lawsuits. Regardless of the events that have taken place since July 15, there can be no doubt whatsoever who planned and executed this attack on Turkish democracy.

US relations with Turkey have gotten more complicated and ambiguous in recent years, especially around the Syrian civil war and the status of the Kurds. So I've wondered since last year if the US government was involved in active monkey business of some kind around the coup.

On the other hand, even if that's the case, I wouldn't want to see Gülen kidnapped by whatever sort of goons a guy like Michael Flynn might hire to do the job and sent back to Turkey on the sly.

If there are legitimate reasons to extradite him and there is reasonable assurance he would receive a fair trial, that would be another story. And if he's been doing anything illegal here - like planning a coup in another country against the wishes of the US government - then some kind of US legal action against him is probably required.