American Foreign policy Adrift -Pompeo is Calling for Realism - Trump is not delivering

Wednesday, June 5, 2019 - 12:00am

American Foreign Policy Adrift

Pompeo Is Calling for Realism—Trump Isn’t Delivering

Brett McGurk

BRETT MCGURK is Payne Distinguished Lecturer at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute. He served in senior foreign policy positions under Presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump, most recently as Special Presidential Envoy for the Campaign to Defeat ISIS.

"The policies of Trump and his administration often bear little resemblance to those outlined by Pompeo."

In a May 11 speech at the Claremont Institute in Beverly Hills, entitled “A Foreign Policy from the Founding,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo quoted John Quincy Adams to explain how Donald Trump’s foreign policy is grounded in a “realism” that eluded his predecessors, particularly George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Adams, then Secretary of State, wrote in 1821 that America “goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.”

According to Pompeo, Trump’s foreign policy is grounded in this prudent tradition of the United States’ founding generation, with an emphasis on “realism, restraint, and respect.” Trump, Pompeo said, “has no aspiration to use force to spread the American model.” Instead, he aims to lead by example. “The unsurpassed attractiveness of the American experiment is something I market every day,” Pompeo said, describing his role as America’s top diplomat. He then quoted George Washington, who predicted that the United States’ democracy might ultimately inspire “the applause, the affection, and the adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to it.”

This is the true model for Trump’s foreign policy, Pompeo says. We do not seek monsters to destroy. We seek to renew ourselves at home, and lead by example.

Pompeo’s speech, if one removes the partisan jabs, outlines a foreign policy based on realism and a careful articulation of American interests. It suggests that Trump is acting in good caution against overextension abroad. “No more,” according to Pompeo, will the United States “engage in conflicts without a clear sense of mission.” Quoting Washington again, he said that Trump is building alliances based upon “humanity and interest” to serve his country’s fundamental values.

Full disclosure: between April and December of last year, I worked for Pompeo at the State Department as a Special Presidential Envoy. I like him. That may be enough for some to stop reading. But he offered me full support both in private and public when I was a diplomat with a difficult overseas mission. Pompeo cares about those serving under him. And he cares greatly about the United States. That comes through in the Claremont speech.

Unfortunately, the policies of Trump and his administration often bear little resemblance to those outlined by Pompeo. A true return to first principles in foreign policy would be welcome, and would perhaps enjoy bipartisan support. In reality, however, Trump’s national security team risks doubling down on what Pompeo himself identifies as the worst excesses of U.S. foreign policy over the last 18 years.

REALITY CHECK

Since 9/11, Washington has pursued grand foreign policy objectives that cannot be met with any reasonable level of investment, let alone one acceptable to the American people. President George W. Bush embarked on wars that began with clear objectives (remove the Taliban from Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein from Iraq) but then morphed into multi-decade campaigns to democratize societies that U.S. leaders at first barely understood. Today, Iraq may be emerging as a success story, but one that few Americans would say justified the cost. President Barack Obama set an ambitious goal—regime change—from the outset in Syria and later in Libya but gave little thought as to how and at what cost it might be achieved, or, most important, to what might come next. Today, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is still in power and Libya is a complete mess.

Listening to Pompeo, one might believe the United States is done with grandiose objectives of regime change and societal transformation. His words suggest that it is time for the United States to harness its own resources to prepare for a new era of great-power competition against China and Russia. Unlike his boss, Pompeo rightly pulls no punches on Russia: “The Putin regime slays dissidents in cold blood and invades its neighbors.” Nor on China: “The Chinese Communist Party has detained more than one million Chinese Muslims in labor camps, and it uses coercion and corruption as its primary tools of statecraft.” Pompeo warned that both countries are “intent on eroding American power,” and that Washington can no longer be “untethered from common sense” in confronting them.

This emphasis on realism and restraint, however, does not reflect Trump’s foreign policy. Trump may not even realize it, but particularly since the arrival of John Bolton as national security adviser last year, his administration has been pursuing what are effectively regime-change policies in not one but three countries: Venezuela, Syria, and Iran.

In Venezuela, the administration set a zero-sum objective—“Maduro must go”—with no credible plan other than sanctions and tweets to bring it about. Sanctions are an effective tool when tied to limited political aims, but they have never succeeded in changing a regime. Given the stated objective, moreover, for every day that Maduro remains in power, the United States looks weak and feckless, particularly compared to Russia and China, both backers of the Maduro regime. What the White House had initially touted as a likely near-term win in Venezuela now looks as if it will turn into a protracted struggle, with little chance of Washington achieving its stated objective short of a U.S. military intervention that few seem to want. Last month, Pompeo threatened [1] U.S. military action if Maduro refused to step aside; in Beverly Hills, he never mentioned Venezuela, and Trump is reportedly souring on the entire enterprise.

Although the United States is not explicitly calling for regime change in Iran and Syria, it is pursuing policies in both countries that, if carried to their logical conclusion, necessitate a change of government. In Syria, U.S. policy objectives have grown so expansive as to be nonsensical, given Washington’s low level of investment in the country and Trump’s repeatedly stated desire to leave altogether. American officials recently confirmed that U.S. objectives in Syria include ejecting “all Iranian-led forces” and completing a dormant political process through which Assad would be held accountable for war crimes. Neither of those objectives has any realistic chance of being met, even if the United States massively increases its commitment of troops and resources to Syria, which it will not do. Thus Trump is pursuing a policy dead end—one that advantages China and Russia, who seem to have far more discipline in declaring realistic near-term objectives and far less scruple in ensuring they are achieved. (I outlined a more realistic Syria strategy [2] in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs.) 

In Iran, the administration cannot seem to agree on an objective even as it seeks to implode the country through “maximum pressure” and sanctions. 

Pompeo says he wants Iran to be “a normal country” and has issued a list of 12 maximalist demands (adding a 13th later) that no expert says Iran can ever hope to meet. Bolton last month warned Iran’s leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, after the 40th anniversary of Iran’s 1979 revolution, that he should not expect “many more to enjoy” (suggesting that Khamenei may be gone in a year). Trump, on the other hand, has repeatedly asked Iran to call him directly and reportedly passed through the Swiss a private White House phone number [3]. With seemingly nobody in charge of U.S. Iran policy, the net result is a policy of ever-increasing sanctions, imposed without the support of allies and with no plausible on-ramp for Iran to enter negotiations, since nobody, including the Iranians, knows what Iran is supposed to negotiate about. Without prospect for talks, pressure becomes an end in itself, which begets counter-pressure—and an increasing risk of conflict.

A NEW CONSENSUS?

Trump hates looking weak, but that is how his foreign policy is making him look. My office on the Stanford University campus is across the road from that of George Shultz, the 98-year-old veteran of the Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan administrations. In a recent discussion, an energetic and fully engaged Shultz recounted an anecdote from his first day in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1942. “When I was issued my rifle,” he said, “the first rule was never to point it at anyone unless I was prepared to pull the trigger.” The lesson as applied to grand strategy: stop declaring national objectives that we are either unable or unwilling to achieve.

Sound strategy requires leaders to prioritize objectives, carefully align them with available resources, and develop some idea as to how those resources might be effectively marshaled. By this standard, U.S. foreign policy today is by definition nonstrategic, as it continually states objectives with no consideration as to whether or how they might realistically be achieved. The result is that tactics substitute for strategy.

Most American commentators would agree that the world would be far better if Maduro, Assad, and Khamenei were replaced by moderate leaders friendly to the United States. Hoping for their replacement, however, is very different than declaring such hopes official U.S. policy and then embarking on a fruitless and costly course of action in order to turn those hopes into reality. The road to folly in foreign affairs is paved by setting ambitious goals without an honest consideration of the means required to achieve them. Regime change policies in particular are costly, expensive, protracted, and uncertain. They rarely produce declared objectives, and even when they do, the benefits to the United States often outweigh their costs in blood, treasure, and unintended consequence.

The American people seem wise to this conundrum. Trump, like Obama, promised during his presidential campaign to reduce the United States’ overseas commitments, and few of the candidates now seeking the Democratic nomination in 2020 advocate for regime change or new military interventions abroad. A recent poll [4] from the Center for American Progress suggests that although the American people are not isolationist, they want their leaders to focus on building strength at home (shoring up U.S. infrastructure, health care, and education) while acting with “restrained engagement” around the world. Such a formula is consistent with the core theme of Pompeo’s speech, even if contrary to the day-to-day workings of the Trump administration. Importantly, a policy of “restrained engagement” is also consistent with the policies advanced by Democratic candidates seeking to challenge Trump, to the extent that foreign policy is being discussed at all on the campaign trail.

Therein lies some hope. In his “long telegram [5]” sent from Moscow in 1947, George Kennan, one of the great diplomat-intellectuals of the last century, focused as much on the domestic situation in the United States as he did on the internal situation within Russia in order to articulate his doctrine of containing Soviet expansion. For strategies in international affairs to succeed, he wrote, they must rest on “the point at which domestic and foreign policies meet.” Whatever might be stated in speeches, or diplomatic communiqués, or inside the White House, the ultimate success or failure of a strategy “depends on the health and vigor of our own society.”

The essence of Pompeo’s speech—a principled foreign policy grounded in humility and restraint—may point ultimately, and contrary to his intent, toward a new bipartisan consensus on the United States’ role in the world. This would be the point at which domestic and foreign policies meet: a policy anchored on building strength at home, aligning ends with means, being prudent in the use of force, and mending relations with allies who also confront a rising China and revanchist Russia. Trump and those working for him might believe they are stewards of such a policy, but Trump seems to have little control over his own national security team, and his impulsive tweeting together with the lack of strategic deliberation or process makes any coherence in foreign affairs impossible. The net result is that Washington’s adversaries are growing emboldened, its allies bewildered, and its alliances frayed, as observers around the world see the “health and vigor” of U.S. society depleting month by month.

One framing quote not cited by Pompeo happens to be from the most famous Founding Father of our time, Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton was the author of Federalist 70 [6], which outlined the powers granted to the president in Article II of the Constitution, and a keen observer of the United States’ earliest presidents, whom he measured by the standard set in the founding charter. Writing in 1800 about the attributes necessary to guide our country, Hamilton pointed to [7] the “modest and sage” Washington, who as president “consulted much, pondered much, resolved slowly, resolved wisely.”

Trump could not be more different. He rarely consults. Never ponders. Barely resolves. Does little wisely. His is a foreign policy of chaos, not the prudence and restraint envisioned by Pompeo and demanded by a significant majority of the American people. The opportunity for those now seeking the presidency, or who are prepared to contest Trump on the merits of his foreign policy, is to capture this emerging consensus and articulate a smarter role for America abroad grounded in the true meaning of Pompeo’s triptych: “realism, restraint, and respect.”

Republicans and Democrats might even come to agree on such a formula. The United States will be far stronger if they do.

The fate of western jihadists

Thursday, June 6, 2019 - 12:00am

Jihadists Head Home

Thousands of Westerners Joined ISIS. Should They Be Allowed to Return?

Jytte Klausen

JYTTE KLAUSEN is Lawrence A. Wien Professor of International Cooperation at Brandeis University and a Local Affiliate at Harvard’s Center for European Studies.

When Westerners arrived in the caliphate, they would burn their passports, ceremonially rejecting their national identity, and brag of the act on Twitter. Now that the Islamic State, or ISIS, has lost its last stretches of land in Iraq and Syria, hundreds of these Westerners and their children are stuck in camps and prisons in northern Syria and Iraq, often hoping to return to their home countries. Their governments, however, don’t want to take the jihadists back—and are resorting to dubious measures to keep them out.

Take the case of Shamima Begum. In 2015, at the age of 15, Begum and two school friends, both also teenagers, ran away from home in east London and flew to Istanbul. From there, they took a bus to the Syrian border, eventually reaching Raqqa, where they joined ISIS. At the time, the girls epitomized the phenomenon of “jihadi brides:” vulnerable young women groomed by online recruiters to marry Islamist fighters in Syria.

A different picture emerged of Begum and her motives in an interview [1] she gave to The Times this February, after a journalist tracked her down at a sprawling UN camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in eastern Syria. Begum explained that she had run away in search of a “perfect family” in ISIS and that she regretted nothing. She also volunteered that having seen a decapitated head in a trash can “didn’t faze” her and, in a later interview [2] with the BBC, suggested that the 2017 Manchester bombing was a “kind of retaliation” for the West’s attacks on ISIS.

Ten days after arriving in Raqqa in 2015, Begum married a Dutch man who had converted to Islam and become an ISIS fighter. The young couple had three children, all of whom soon died, the third shortly after birth in the camp where Begum landed after fleeing the last remaining ISIS enclave. Begum’s partner, Yago Riedijk, now 27, is being held in a Kurdish detention camp in northern Syria. In an interview with the BBC [3], Riedijk sent his love to Begum and said that he hoped they would be allowed to return to the Netherlands together.

But that prospect is unlikely. The Dutch government has convicted Riedijk in absentia of joining a terrorist organization, and he is a suspect in a foiled Paris-style terrorist attack on his home city in 2018. His pseudo-marriage to Begum, like all such unions administered by ISIS, isn’t legally valid, so Riedijk and Begum are almost certainly not entitled to family reunification in the Netherlands or anywhere else.

A number of the women known as jihadist brides have witnessed horrific violence and lost children and husbands. Some suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder and other ailments. Many are pregnant or have multiple children born in ISIS-held territory. But among these women are also many who have looted the property of people fleeing ISIS or joined the female hesba—ISIS’ religious police—and tyrannized other Muslim women. Some have bragged about taking women into slavery. In April, a German ISIS returnee, Jennifer Wenisch, who allegedly was a member of the morality police in Fallujah and Mosul, went on trial[4] in Germany for war crimes and the murder of a five-year-old Yazidi girl, whom she and her husband held as a slave in Syria. Begum and others like her now claim that they were mere housewives in Syria, but their social media accounts [5] suggest that some of them may have committed crimes even beyond the act of joining a murderous terrorist organization.  

By some estimates, U.S.-backed Kurdish forces across eastern Syria now hold more than a thousand Western men and women like Begum and her partner, along with many children, in prisons and camps. The United States has pressured its European allies to put these detainees on trial in their home countries. Earlier this year, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted [6] that France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and others should repatriate and prosecute the 800 men from Europe who are among the detained fighters. Otherwise, Trump warned, the men would be freed and likely make their way back to Europe to commit new atrocities there. (Trump, for his part, opposes the repatriation of 24-year-old Hoda Muthana, who traveled to Syria from Alabama in 2014 and whose passport was revoked by the Obama administration in 2016.)

European governments were unmoved, not least because the process of bringing ISIS returnees to trial at home is far from straightforward. In some countries, traveling abroad to join insurgencies in Syria and North Africa was not always a criminal act. Sweden, for example, criminalized such travel only in 2016, which means that any Swedish resident who traveled before then could be charged only for specific crimes committed in the conflict zone. But proof of offenses committed in the conflict zone is difficult to collect, despite the increasing use of refugee testimony and evidence gathered from social media accounts. Most European countries do not allow pretrial detention for more than two to 14 days, and monitoring large numbers of free suspects for extended periods of time has proven difficult. And even when ISIS volunteers are convicted, they pose a problem for European prisons, which must then manage a population of proselytizing fanatics.

For all these reasons, European governments prefer to outsource the prosecutions whenever possible. “Foreign fighters should be brought to justice in accordance with due legal process in the most appropriate jurisdiction,” said [7] a spokesperson for British Prime Minister Theresa May—in other words, not in the United Kingdom. Germany’s Foreign Ministry has acknowledged that German citizens stranded in Syria should, in principle, be brought home, but Heiko Maas, the country’s foreign minister, said [8] that given the unstable security situation, repatriating the detainees would be “extremely difficult” to organize. Austrian authorities have declared it too risky [9] to send consular employees to collect Austrian citizens from detention centers and IDP camps in Syria. In February, France announced that 14 French ISIS combatants taken into custody in eastern Syria would be sent to Iraq for trial.

But outsourcing justice in this manner is problematic. European law prohibits the extradition of suspects to stand trial in countries where they may face the death penalty or be subjected to inhumane prison conditions. No clear statistics exist for how many Western citizens have been tried in Iraq or what sentences they received, but journalists who have attended court proceedings in Baghdad report [10] rushed trials lasting just ten minutes. Men and women sentenced to death are executed on the spot. Three Belgians and at least 11 French citizens [11] have been sentenced to death by hanging. The French government in January promised to intervene to avoid capital punishment for its citizens but continues to insist they must stand trial where their crimes were committed. The German government, meanwhile, managed to get one woman’s death sentence commuted [12] to life in prison. Authorities in Kurdish-administered northeastern Syria, where there is no death penalty, have also prosecuted [13] thousands of captured ISIS fighters but warn that they lack the capacity to deal with so many prisoners.

Alternative proposals raise their own problems. The Swedish government has suggested [14] establishing an international tribunal specifically for ISIS fighters. But it is not clear where such a tribunal would be located, how suspects would be transferred to stand trial, or whether the court could deal with a caseload of several thousand suspects accused of crimes against humanity. The experience of similar tribunals for crimes against humanity in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia indicates that the trial process would be time-consuming and expensive.

For good measure, European governments have begun to strip ISIS travelers of their citizenship to prevent them from coming home. A week after Shamima Begum was found in a Syrian IDP camp, British Home Secretary Sajid Javid revoked her passport. Javid claimed that Begum was eligible for Bangladeshi citizenship, since her mother had a Bangladeshi passport, and would therefore not become stateless. Bangladeshi officials, however, denied that Begum was entitled to citizenship. Even if Begum were able to move to Bangladesh, she would likely face the death penalty [15] for having joined ISIS. Two more British jihadist brides who left to marry ISIS fighters, sisters Reema and Zara Iqbal, have also had their passports revoked. The sisters may be eligible for Pakistani citizenship, but their five children, born under ISIS rule, are likely stateless.

According to The Independent [16], at least 150 British people have been stripped of their citizenship since 2010, although it is unclear how many cases were directly connected to the Syrian conflict. Australia, Belgium, Denmark, and the United States are also known to have revoked the citizenship of ISIS members and recruiters; several other countries, including Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, have either considered applying the measure or passed laws allowing them to do so.

Stripping ISIS travelers of their passports serves two purposes. The first is revenge. “These people have gone to fight against democracy, freedom and everything Denmark stands for, and they do not belong in Denmark,” Inger Stojberg, the Danish minister for immigration, said [17] in March. That sentiment is shared across much of Europe. The second advantage is caseload control, as the cost of monitoring the returnees already strains the resources of European probation and counterterrorism agencies.

To be sure, courts in Europe have often revoked the citizenship of people convicted of grave crimes such as terrorism, provided the convicted were dual nationals. In cases such as Begum’s, however, states are applying the measure preemptively to avoid having to put the suspects on trial at all.

Revoking the citizenship of ISIS travelers raises legal questions and is bad policy. International human rights law provides that everyone has the right to a nationality and that no person may be deprived of citizenship if that would render him or her stateless. Most national laws, moreover, don’t allow stripping people of their nationality by simple administrative order. In some cases, authorities have been less than diligent about making sure the individual in question has a valid claim to citizenship elsewhere. In late 2018, for instance, a British judge blocked the government’s decision to strip two jihadists of their passports, finding that they had no valid alternative citizenship. As a result, European and U.S. courts may well block or overturn the measure in other cases.

Moreover, blocking the return of ISIS travelers by revoking their citizenship does nothing to bring to justice the estimated [18] 1,200 European Union citizens who fought in Syria and Iraq and have already returned home. Few of these returnees have been prosecuted. Last year, a Yazidi refugee who had been held as a sex slave by ISIS told the BBC [19] that she had run into her former tormentor outside a supermarket in Germany.

Nor does stripping people of their passports address the plight of the children they bore while in ISIS-controlled territory. ISIS issued no valid passports, and children born in its territory are de facto stateless. None of the births were legally registered, and many orphaned children are in the care of women who are not their mothers. Polygamous and serial marriages make it difficult to establish parentage, without which claims to citizenship cannot be determined.

Still, Sweden recently repatriated the seven orphaned children of a notorious ISIS fighter, Michael Skramo, giving in to pressure from the children’s grandparents. France initially planned [20] to repatriate some 150 children of French jihadists from Syria and Iraq, but the government, possibly fearing a public outcry, has admitted only a handful of them. Other governments have been even less forgiving. ISIS recruits “turned their backs on Denmark,” said [17] Inger Stojberg, the Danish immigration minister, “so there is no reason for their children to be citizens.”

No easy solutions exist for dealing with the countless ISIS fighters—from Europe and elsewhere—now in the custody of U.S.-backed Kurdish forces. But the situation is highly unstable, and leaving ISIS families in camps and prisons or handing them over to Iraq for execution may not be a viable tactic for much longer. In the Syrian province of Idlib, jihadist groups—including some that are aligned with ISIS—are still waging a guerrilla war against the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and may decide to fill their ranks by freeing ISIS fighters from Kurdish prisons. U.S. troop numbers in Syria have reportedly decreased [21], and in the event of a U.S. withdrawal, Turkey and the Assad regime may attack the Kurdish forces, which might no longer be able to keep watch over the detainees.

Leaving children behind in what remains a war zone is not an acceptable option. At least in this case, Trump was right: European governments should bring their citizens back home and prosecute those who committed crimes and atrocities.

Sinan Meydan yeni askerlik kanununu eleştiriyor

Sinan Meydan -03 Haziran 2019

Farkında mısınız? Sevr'i Uyguluyorsunuz!

Sevr Antlaşması 152-155 arası maddelere göre; 50 bin kişilik bir askeri birlik dışındaki tüm ordu terhis ediliyordu. 168. maddeye göre tüm askeri okullar kapatılıyordu. “Askere Alma” başlığını taşıyan 165. maddeye göre “zorunlu askerlik” kaldırılıyor ve askerlik süresi 12 aya indiriliyordu.

Yeni askerlik kanununa göre bedelli askerlik süreklilik kazanacak; parası olanlar, 30 bin TL vererek askerlik yapmayacak, parası olmayanlar ise sadece 6 ay askerlik yapacak. Bu kanun kabul edildiğinde askerlik yapmakta olanlardan 6 aylık askerliğini tamamlamış olanlar üç ay içinde terhis edilecek. Böylece mevcut ordunun dörtte üçü terhis edilmiş olacak. Bugün dört bir yandan kuşatılmış Türkiye bir anda neredeyse “ordusuz” kalacak. İşte o zaman, ciddi bir “beka” sorunumuz olacak!

Peki, neler oluyor?

Türkiye'nin “ordusuzlaştırılması” ne anlama geliyor?

Cevap, “seçmeli ders” yapılan tarihte gizli!

Image resized to : 83 % of its original size [ 600 x 721 ]

YENİ ASKERLİK KANUNUYLA ESKİYE DÖNÜŞ

Başkanlık sistemiyle (anayasa+meclis+saray düzeniyle) fiilen cumhuriyetten meşrutiyete dönen Türkiye, bu yeni askerlik kanunuyla meşrutiyetin de gerisine, Tanzimat'a dönüyor. Anlayacağınız, nerede biteceği belli olmayan geri dönüş tüm hızıyla sürüyor.

Şöyle ki, Osmanlı'da 1846'da “Bedel-i Şahsi” uygulamasına geçildi. Buna göre “kura” çıkıp 5 yıllık zorunlu askerlik yapmak istemeyenler bedel parası ödeyerek kendilerinin yerine bir başkasını askere gönderebilecekti. 1865'te “Bedel-i Şahsi” kaldırılıp “Bedel-i Nakdi”ye geçildi. Böylece zorunlu askerlik yapmak istemeyen Osmanlı zenginleri “bedel akçesi” ödeyerek askerlikten kurtuldu. Osmanlı'da askerlik, fakir Anadolu delikanlılarının, Türk çocuklarının işi haline geldi.

İkinci Meşrutiyet'ten sonra 1909'da çıkarılan askere alma kanunuyla askerlikten muaf olan İstanbul halkının ve Müslüman olmayanların da askerlik yapması zorunlu hale getirildi. Mart 1914'te çıkarılan askerlik kanununa göre ise 18 yaşını dolduran her erkek askerlik yapacaktı.

Cumhuriyet döneminde, 1927'de 1111 Sayılı Askerlik Kanunu çıkarıldı. Bu kanuna göre askerlik “bir vatan görevi” kabul edildi. Bu kanun, sadece -askerlik süreleri değiştirilerek- bugüne kadar geldi. Bu yeni askerlik kanunu ise sadece askerlik süresini değil, cumhuriyetin askerlik sistemini tamamen değiştiriyor.

Bu yeni askerlik kanunu bir geriye dönüştür. Öyle ki, Osmanlı'nın 1846 Askerlik Kanunnamesi'ne göre padişahın özel ferman çıkararak “askerlikten muaftır” dediği kişiler askerlik yapmıyordu. Yeni askerlik kanununun 45. maddesinde de aynen şöyle denilmektedir: “Cumhurbaşkanınca gerekli görülen sahalarda özel olarak görevlendirilen gönüllüler, Cumhurbaşkanınca belirlenen şartlara uydukları takdirde askerlik hizmetinden muaf tutulur.”

Yani, 1846'da “padişaha” verilen yetkinin bir benzeri, 173 yıl sonra, 2019'da “cumhurbaşkanına” veriliyor.

ÖNCE ORDUYU BİTİRMEK İSTEDİLER

1. Dünya Savaşı'nda yenilen Osmanlı'ya 30 Ekim 1918'de imzalatılan Mondros Ateşkes Antlaşması aslında orduyu bitirme planıydı. Antlaşmaya göre Osmanlı ordusu dağıtılacaktı. Düzeni sağlamak için sınırlı sayıdaki geçici birlikler dışındaki tüm ordu silahlarıyla birlikte İtilaf devletlerine teslim olacaktı.

Padişah Vahdettin, Mondros'tan hemen sonra, 5 Kasım 1918'de, “İngilizleri memnun etme politikası gereği” ordunun onda dokuzunun terhis edilerek erlerin memleketlerine gönderilmesine ilişkin kararnameyi, hiç itiraz etmeden, imzaladı. (Tarih Vesikaları Dergisi, 3387, Harp Tarihi Vesikaları Dergisi, S.29, Belge, 745.)

Mondros'tan sonra İngilizler büyük bir hızla Türk ordularını dağıtıp, ordu komutanlarını tutuklayıp silah ve cephaneye el koymaya başladılar.

O günlerde Konya'da Kolordu Komutanı Fahrettin Altay Paşa anılarında şöyle diyor: “Konya'ya bir İngiliz subayı gelip demiryolunun denetimini eline aldı, bütün cephane ve silah depolarının kapısına kilit taktırdı. Silahların mekanizmalarını toplayıp bir sandığın içine doldurttu. Ve üzerine işgalin mührünü bastı.”

YERLİ İŞBİRLİKÇİLERİN ORDU DÜŞMANLIĞI

Padişah Vahdettin'in vazgeçemediği Sadrazam Damat Ferit, İstanbul'daki İngiliz Yüksek Komiser Vekili Amiral Webb'e, aralarında Ahmet İzzet, Mustafa Kemal, Kazım Karabekir ve Ali Fuat paşaların da bulunduğu gizli bir liste vererek “siyasi düşmanlarım” diye nitelediği bu kişilerin tutuklanarak Malta'ya sürgün edilmelerini istedi.

İngilizler, Medine Müdafii Fahrettin Paşa'yı, Irak Cephesi komutanlarından Ali İhsan Paşa'yı ve Kafkas Cephesi komutanlarından Yakup Şevki Paşa'yı tutuklayıp Malta'ya sürdü. Kafkasya'da başarılı işler yapan Nuri Paşa'yı, Albay Mürsel Bey'i ve Albay Rıfat Bey'i hapsettiler. Kut Zaferi'nin kahraman komutanı Halil Paşa'yı da tutukladılar.

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Osmanlı Genelkurmayı'nda “İtilaf devletlerine güçlük çıkaracak” ne kadar gözü pek general varsa hepsi görevden alınıp tutuklandı.

Damat Ferit, “Kuvayı Milliye'nin hakkından ben gelirim” diyen emekli Süleyman Şefik Paşa'yı Harbiye Nazırı yaptı. 14 Ağustos 1919'da Harbiye Nazırı olan Süleyman Şefik Paşa, Vahdettin'in, Kuvayı Milliye'yi ezmek için kurduğu Kuvayı İnzibatiye'nin başına geçmekle kalmadı, Türk ordusunun kalburüstü birçok komutanını da görevden aldı.

Vahdettin'in Şeyhülislamı Mustafa Sabri, ordunun tasfiye edildiği o günlerde, üstelik İzmir'in işgalinden 15 gün sonra, “Ordunun görevi oruç tutmaktır!” diye bir açıklama yaptı. 
Şeyhülislamın bu açıklamasından üç ay sonra, 27 Ağustos 1919'da Alemdar Gazetesi'nde çıkan bir yazıda, “Ordunun beş vakit namazda padişaha duadan gayrı bir şey bilmemesi lazımdır!” deniliyordu. İstanbul Müftüsü Dürrizade de 11 Nisan 1920'de yayınladığı fetvada, “Millici paşaların öldürülmelerinin dinen caiz olduğunu” bildiriyordu.

Yerli işbirlikçilerin ordu düşmanlığı İngilizleri aratmıyordu.

ORDUSUZ TÜRKİYE PROJESİ: SEVR

Saray hükümetinin görevlendirdiği Osmanlı heyeti, 10 Ağustos 1920'de Paris'te Sevr'i imzaladı. Atatürk'ün önderliğinde Milli Mücadele kazanıldı. Emperyalist paylaşım planı Sevr, tarihin çöplüğüne atıldı. Lozan imzalandı. Ancak emperyalizmin Sevr hayali hiç bitmedi.

433 maddelik “idam fermanı” Sevr, Anadolu'nun ortasına sıkıştırılmış ve iyice küçültülmüş Türkiye'nin aynı zamanda “ordusuz bir Türkiye” olmasını amaçlıyordu.

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İngiltere Dışişleri Bakanı Lord Curzon, Sevr Antlaşması öncesinde, 20 Mart 1920'de “Türklere askerliği yasaklayacaklarını” söylüyordu: “Türkler için askerlik mesleği tümüyle kapanmıştır. Kuşkusuz, Türkler askerlik yapmak isterlerse, başka bir yere gidebilirler. Fransız lejyonu onları kabul edecektir. Ancak, İngiltere buna bile karşıdır. Çünkü Türkler öteki düşmanlarımızdan farklıdır, başka bir yerde bile askerlik yapmaları iyi değildir. Türkiye'ye dönüp yeni bir askeri dönem başlatabilirler.” (Doğan Avcıoğlu, Milli Kurtuluş Tarihi, C.1, İstanbul, 1998, s. 106.)

Gerçekten de Sevr'in 152'den 208'e kadar, tam 56 maddesi “Ordusuz Türkiye” projesine yönelikti.

Sevr'in 152-155 arası maddeleri, Türk ordusunu dağıtırken, silahlı güç olarak, yalnızca üç küçük yapı bırakıyordu. Bunlar: 1. Padişahın güvenliğini sağlayacak 700 kişilik özel koruma birliği (hassa alayı), 2. İçeride düzen ve güvenliği sağlayacak 35 bin kişilik jandarma birlikleri, 3. Jandarma birliklerini destekleyecek 15 bin kişiyi aşmayacak özel birlikler. Toplam 50 bin kişi civarındaki bu askeri birlik dışında kalan tüm ordu 6 ay içinde terhis edilecekti.

Sevr'in 168. maddesi; tüm askeri okulları kapatıyordu. Sadece izin verilen birlikler için 1 subay okulu ve her yersel bölgede 1'er küçük astsubay okulunun açılmasına izin veriyordu.

Sevr'in “Askere Alma” başlığını taşıyan 165. maddesi zorunlu askerliği kaldırıyor, barış döneminde 36 ay olan askerlik süresini 12 aya indiriyordu.

Sevr, Türkiye'nin kara, deniz ve hava gücünü tamamen yok ediyor, hava sahasını yabancılara açıyordu: 184. madde, “Türkiye'de yapılmakta olan -denizaltılar da dâhil- bütün gemiler yok edilecektir” diyor; 188. madde, Deniz Kuvvetleri'ne alınacak subay ve erlerin sayı ve niteliğine, Müttefiklerarası Deniz Kuvvetleri Denetleme Komisyonu'nun karar vereceğini söylüyor; 191.madde, “Türkiye'nin askeri kuvvetlerinde hiçbir kara, deniz, hava kuvveti bulunmayacaktır” diyor; 192. madde “işbu antlaşma yürürlüğe girişinden başlayarak iki ay içinde Türk kara ve deniz kuvvetlerinde kadrolu olan bütün havacı personel terhis edilecektir” diyor; 193. madde, “Müttefik devletlerin uçakları, Türkiye'nin tümünde; havadan transit geçiş ve iniş özgürlüğüne sahip olacaktır” diyordu.

Sevr'in 207. maddesi Türkiye'nin herhangi bir yabancı ülkeden askeri destek veya askeri eğitim almasını yasaklıyordu. Ayrıca Müttefik Devletlerin de kendi ordularına hiçbir Osmanlı uyruğunu almayacakları belirtiliyordu. Böylece Lord Curzon'un istediği gibi Türklere askerlik yasaklanmak isteniyordu.

Atatürk'ün önderliğinde Milli Mücadele kazanılıp Lozan imzalanmasaydı, işte Sevr'in bu maddeleriyle “Ordusuz Türkiye” projesi hayata geçirilecekti.

SEVR'E UYGUN ADIMLAR

Benim gördüğüm şu: Önce NATO, sonra FETÖ eliyle TSK zayıflatıldı. Son 15 yılda Sevr'in askeri maddeleri tek tek hayata geçirildi, geçiriliyor.

Önce 2007'den itibaren TSK'ya yönelik Ergenekon, Balyoz ve Askeri Casusluk gibi FETÖ kumpasları başladı. TSK sanık, PKK tanık yapıldı. Bu süreçte ordunun “Kozmik Oda”sına bile girildi. Özellikle “MİLGEM” gibi projelerle güçlenen Deniz Kuvvetleri bitirilmek istendi?

15 Temmuz sonrası OHAL kararlarıyla Jandarma, İçişleri Bakanlığı'na, kuvvet komutanlıkları Milli Savunma Bakanlığı'na bağlandı. Sivillerin Jandarma Genel Komutanı olabilmesine olanak sağlandı. Genelkurmay Başkanı, sivil dönemlerde ordu komutanı olmaktan çıkarıldı. Böylece Sevr'in 152. maddesinde istenildiği gibi ordunun adeta bir polis gücüne dönüştürülme yolu açıldı.

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15 Temmuz sonrasında OHAL kararlarıyla 1800'lerde kurulan askeri liseler, Kara Harp Okulu, Deniz Harp Okulu ve Harp Akademisi kapatıldı. Böylece Sevr'in 168. maddesinde istenildiği şekilde askeri okullar kapatılmış oldu. Sevr'in 168. maddesinde askeri okullar kapatıldıktan sonra 1 subay ve her yersel bölgede 1'er astsubay okulu açılması istenmişti. Bilindiği gibi! 15 Temmuz sonrasında Milli Savunma Üniversitesi açıldı.

Son olarak da yeni askerlik kanunuyla Atatürk'ün 1111 Sayılı Askerlik Kanunu değiştirilerek askerlik, parası olan için bedelli, parası olmayan için 6 aya indirildi. Böylece Sevr'in “Askere Alma” başlığını taşıyan 165. maddesinin istediği biçimde “zorunlu askerliğin kaldırılması” yolunda önemli bir adım atıldı.

Şimdi soruyorum; Türkiye, üstelik dört bir yandan kuşatılmışken, neden anayasadaki ifadesiyle “hak ve ödev” olan askerlik “hak ve ödev” olmaktan çıkarılmak isteniyor? Neden ordunun büyük bir bölümü terhis ediliyor? Askeri okullar niye kapatıldı?

İktidar, son yıllarda yapılan askeri düzenlemelerle Sevr'e uygun adımlar atıldığını görmüyor mu?

Sinan MEYDAN, 3 Haziran 2019