APPEARANCES

"In Spain, the 28 murders committed by the GAL have become a matter of concern at the highest government level, whereas in Turkey, which likes to present itself as a law-abiding state and which is seeking admission to the European Union, not one single perpetrator of more than 4,500 unsolved murders carried out since 1991 - the so-called ’faili mesul cinayetleri’- has thus far been arrested. In my country, the murderers are on the streets and the intellectuals are behind bars."
~ Akın Birdal.

With the recent Ergenekon arrests, one should bear in mind that things are not always what they appear to be in Turkey. As one anonymous commenter remarked [emphasis Mizgîn's]:

Ergenekon was a part of the Turkish deep state. The Turkish state didn´t make a move against the deep state, there motive was against this fraction that operate independent. This was a clear message from the Turkish deep state. This was only matter of time. Our freedom movement PKK told the media many times in the past of the fractions inside the Turkish deep state. This is evidence!

As I mentioned, "we should not expect too much from this so-called 'operation'". It's very likely that Veli Küçük's Ergenekon gang will take the fall for purposes unclear at this moment. Remember, nature abhors a vacuum even in connection with the Deep State and their Islamist brothers. Let no one mistake the Ergenekon arrests for an exercise in the practice of democracy on the part of the AKP government, a government that is carefully controlled by the real rulers of the Ankara regime--the Paşas.

Reality is explained well by a heval at Kleine Kurdistan-Kolumne:

But appearances can be vastly misleading. Members of paramilitary terror gangs are arrested and released often. Most of those now arrested already appeared in the 1996 Susurluk scandal, and remained unmolested. Especially Veli Küçük, the imagined mighty founder of JITEM, the worst state-terrorism group of the'90s, enjoyed a hitherto unprecedented immunity. It remains to be seen whether that immunity for the obvious sponsors of the "Ergenekon" and likely perpetrators of the murder of Hrant Dink, now gets more than just a few scratches himself.

The "deep state" is unfortunately more than just a gang of 30 ultra-nationalists. It is based on a broad ideological consensus against Kurds, Christians and Left, and its ramifications extend far into bureaucracy, security apparatus and politics. To render the deep state unworkable requires a little more than a few media arrests. As long as Erdogan rides on the wave of nationalism, the shock of his police against a few excesses, especially anti-government, remains implausible.

Vahe Balabanian at Hyelog carries a portion of an article from Sabah which mentions some of the assassinations ordered by Küçük. In another article from Sabah, Abdullah Gül is quoted as saying "There will be no unresolved murders," except in The Southeast, naturally.

Meanwhile, Zaman outlines some of the charges against the Ergenekon gang:

Evidence so far also suggests that 700 kilograms of explosives found loaded on a van in İstanbul belonged to this gang. An attack against the Association for the Union of Patriotic Forces (VKGB), also a murky group with shadowy affiliations, in Diyarbakır was actually staged by the VKGB itself, according the investigation. The attack had then been blamed on the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) organization.

Ah, yes, false flag operations . . . the hallmark of Gladio. It's odd, isn't it, that with all the talk of the alleged "War on Terror," that guys like those in the Ergenekon gang are never referred to as terrorists?

Now why is that?