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The Gülen Factor: Erdoğan, the Coup, and the United States
[Counter Punch] Engaged in his dirty spate of housecleaning under the auspices of protecting the constitution and the Turkish state, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues to insist on one vital scalp in his enterprise.Thus far, the cleric Fethullah Gulen has eluded Ankara from his abode in Pennsylvania. From his base, something of a global network has been constructed, one discernable through foundations and an assortment of endeavours pursued under the guise of a faith movement. These do not attest to the spirit of a pacifist warrior, averse to revolution. They suggest influence, and the markings of power. For the cleric’s enemies, there is much to be said that he has profited from the land of the free, seething about an individual he once desired to share power with. Notions of democracy are distant here; more significant is a distinct appraisal of power padded by such notions as "liberal" and "moderate". These are the necessary marketing tools for a political figure in exile. The cleric’s movement, Hizmet, prides itself on sponsoring education and running programs heavy with the anti-radicalization agenda. His opponents, such as attorney Robert Amsterdam, retained by Ankara to investigate alleged financial misconduct in the United States, suggest that the movement’s leader "is a money-laundering criminal" (Foreign Policy, Jul 18). Politics can be a dirty thing indeed, and in the case of Hizmet, education via some hundreds of charter schools in the United States has become an enterprise of channelling and re-directing to the Gulenistas. Posted by: Besoeker 2016-07-25 |
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