Trump, Flynn, Turkey and the Kidnapping Plot

by Burr Deming

A courtroom scolding of a decorated United States General, and President Trump’s promise about the extradition of a Muslim cleric to Turkey, echo a murder in Washington four decades ago.

The deadly explosion shook the street. The car was demolished, but Ronni Moffit seemed to be unhurt. Her husband Michael could hear nothing. His eardrums has been shattered by the blast. But he saw Ronni stand and walk away from the passenger side. He knew she was okay. And so he tried to help the Ambassador.

He was informed later that Ronni had been struck by shrapnel and had died on the sidewalk as he tried to help Ambassador Letelier. Letelier was beyond help. Most of the tissue in his legs had been destroyed in the explosion.

Orlando Letelier had been well known in Chile as an economist turned politician when he was appointed ambassador to Washington in 1971.

Salvador Allende had just been elected as President of Chile. Allende was a socialist and his election in 1970 alarmed the Nixon administration. One the facts that pretty much everyone knew but nobody could prove was President Nixon’s active role in the military overthrow of Allende in 1973. Chile’s democratically elected president was replaced by General Augusto Pinochet.

That is when the killings began. Allende was first. He was said by the coup leaders to have committed suicide just before they broke through to his office in the Presidential Palace. Over time, death squads killed hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands. In all, over 40,000 people were killed, many were tortured to death with nearly unimaginable inventiveness. In some cases, victims had to be reassembled for burial.

One documented method of execution, vuelos de la muerte, Death Flights, called for prisoners to be killed or simply drugged, then dropped from planes or helicopters into the ocean or over remote mountain sites. When today’s US conservatives, at least those more familiar than most with history, occasionally joke about the need for “free helicopter rides” for liberals, they are referring to General Pinochet and those programs of execution.

By 1976, three years after the coup, former Ambassador Letelier was aware of the death squads. He also knew of an assassination program called Operation Condor. Political opponents who had fled from Chile were secretly pursued. Agents of the Chilean secret police had assassinated several political figures by then.

But Orlando Letelier knew he was safe. A research aide to Letelier, Juan Gabriel Valdés, much later became Chile’s Ambassador to the United States. On that day in 1976, he was also supposed to be in that car, but was called away to watch his children at home. He remembers those years:

He made only one mistake. He was convinced that nothing like this could happen in Washington. He was absolutely sure that Pinochet wouldn’t dare to act here.

Juan Gabriel Valdés, interviewed by the BBC

I thought about the outrage in 1976 at the Letelier killing as I read about General Michael Flynn. His sentencing was postponed because of the unanticipated anger expressed by Judge Emmet G. Sullivan. Judge Sullivan was known to give prosecutors a hard time, so he had been expected to be gentle with General Flynn. Instead he roasted Michael Flynn harshly enough at sentencing time to motivate the General’s lawyers to beg: please, please, please move the sentencing to a later time. The general had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. Other charges had been put on hold while he cooperated with investigators.

Among the crimes for which General Flynn was not charged was conspiring to kidnap a Muslim cleric residing quietly in rural Pennsylvania.

Most of us have never heard of Fethullah Gülen. He is quite famous in other parts of the world, particularly in Turkey. He leads a conservative form of Islam that advocates respect for other religions. He has participated in forums with Christian and Jewish organizations. He has helped set up interfaith groups. He is considered to be among the two or three most influential religious leaders in the Islamic world. Islamic schools around the globe have been started by him and those who follow his example.

He has been resistant to past governments in Turkey when they attempted to impose religious restrictions on citizens. In politics, he seems to have restricted his participation to advocating tolerance and forgiveness.

But members of the Gülen movement in Turkey backed Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in his calls for a more secular government. When Erdoğan became President of Turkey, he considered the entire movement to be part of his core support. At least he did at first.

That changed after a few years. It seems that members of an Islamic movement that worked so hard for a government that did not try to control religion, a government that was not itself religious, also had little tolerance for governmental corruption. They pushed for anti-corruption trials that angered the President of Turkey.

When a coup nearly succeeded in 2016, it seems to have been the final straw. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused the Muslim cleric, who was quietly living in Pennsylvania, of organizing and carrying out the attempt to overthrow the government of Turkey.

One confrontation became famous. President Erdoğan demanded that Imam Gülen be extradited to Turkey to face legal charges. Presumably, the quiet cleric would be found guilty of treason. It is unclear whether what would follow would be execution or simply disappearance forever into Turkey’s prison system.

Joe Biden was Vice President and he told President Erdoğan that America does not extradite residents without some evidence of guilt. Erdoğan was said to be furious at the refusal. In essence, Joe Biden had heard the demand for the head of an innocent Muslim cleric and had, instead, suggested that the President of Turkey perform an anatomical improbability.

Which brings us, more recently, to the courtroom of Judge Emmet G. Sullivan. The Judge spoke harshly to defendant General Michael Flynn. He referred to compelling evidence of deliberate criminality that has not yet been made public, evidence that the General betrayed his country for a few hundred thousand dollars.

What we do know about just one charge is terrible enough. The man who was about to become President Trump’s National Security Advisor had secretly been hired by Erdoğan. The General conspired with others to kidnap cleric Fethullah Gülen from his home in Pennsylvania and ship him to Turkey for whatever fate President Erdoğan had in his angry mind.

Our world has changed in many ways.

The leader of Russia now invades other countries, interferes in US elections, and has people assassinated in London, all without retaliation or even active protest by the President of the United States. My President enjoys his friendship with Vladimir Putin and defends him from all charges. It is an interesting logical analogy. Trump is to Putin as Giuliani is to Trump as Baghdad Bob once was to Saddam.

A legal resident of the United States is enticed into a Saudi embassy and killed. My President puts aside evidence developed by our own intelligence experts and says it is unknown whether the clear culprit is clearly guilty.

Ironically, the most outraged leader is the President of Turkey.

The murder of legal US resident Jamal Khashoggi within a Saudi Embassy located in Turkey has put President Trump in a quandary. He likes the Saudi Prince who organized the murder. And he likes the very angry President of Turkey. He likes them both almost as much as he loves Vladimir Putin.

It reminds me of a story from many decades ago. Gracie Allen caught husband George Burns cheating on her. To earn her forgiveness, he bought her a dining room set. She speculated to a friend: Maybe she could catch him cheating again. After all, she needed a new living room.

Donald Trump knows Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is furious. We can’t just give him a dining room set. So my President has another idea.

Here are Andrea Mitchell and Carol Lee reporting for NBC News about Turkey and the United States:

Mitchell: But they also are getting something in response from the US, your exclusive reporting.

Lee: Yeah, that’s right. According to our reporting, the Turks have asked Secretary Pompeo, when he went to meet with President Erdoğan last month in Turkey, for the US to extradite this Turkish cleric, who’s been living in Pennsylvania, who Erdoğan blames for 2016 coup attempt.

Fethullah Gülen says he is not worried.

So I’m not worried about that possibility. I don’t think any Republican or Democratic President would risk tarnishing the US reputation around the world.

I am thinking about a similar faith expressed decades ago.

He was convinced that nothing like this could happen in Washington.

And I’m thinking about Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ response when she was asked whether my President had talked with Erdoğan about arresting and extraditing this cleric, a cleric living quietly in Pennsylvania:

The only thing he said is that we would take a look at it. Nothing further at this point, beyond that we would go look at it. But nothing committal at all at that process, just that he would look into it.

Values are changing.

My country is no longer as it so recently was.

Many thanks to our friends at FairandUnbalanced.com.

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