Turkey's military in turmoil as top brass quit

Turkey faced turmoil within its military on Saturday after the country's four most senior commanders quit in protest over the detention of 250 officers on charges of conspiring against Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government.

Chief of General Staff General Isik Kosaner stepped down on Friday evening along with the army, navy and air force commanders, plunging NATO's second largest armed forces into uncertainty shortly before a senior promotions board convenes.

In a farewell message to "brothers in arms," Kosaner said it was impossible to continue in his job as he could not defend the rights of men who had been detained as a consequence of a flawed judicial process.

Relations between the secularist military and Erdogan's socially conservative Justice and Development Party (AK) have been fraught since it first won power in 2002, due to mistrust of the AK's Islamist roots.

Though the sudden departures are embarrassing, they could give Erdogan a decisive victory over a military that sees itself as guardian of the secularist state envisioned by the soldier statesman and founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Analysts see little political threat to Erdogan's supremacy.
AK won a third consecutive term, taking 50 percent of the vote in a parliamentary election in June.

Erdogan marked out Kosaner's successor on Friday, as his office put out a statement naming paramilitary Gendarmerie commander General Necdet Ozel as new head of land forces, and acting deputy chief of general staff, effectively making him next in line when Kosaner handed over the baton.

FOUR-STAR EARTHQUAKE
"Four-star earthquake," a headline in Sabah newspaper said of the generals' decision, while papers also highlighted Kosaner's criticism of media reporting on the military.
"They tried to create the impression that the Turkish Armed Forces was a criminal organization and ... the biased media encouraged this with all kinds of false stories, smears and allegations," Kosaner's statement said.

In years gone by, Turkey's generals were more likely to stage a coup than quit, but Erdogan has ended the military's dominance through a series of reforms aimed at advancing Turkey's chances of joining the European Union.

On Istanbul's streets, views of the issue reflected Turkey's polarization between government supporters and opponents.

"This is a move to place AK Party supporters in the army. There was only the army to protect secularism but they took that as well," said retired 54-year-old Perihan Guclu.

"This has been a good development. We have got one of the biggest numbers of generals in the world but we are becoming a democracy slowly," said a 52-year-old who gave his name only as

Dursun.

The subordination of the generals was starkly demonstrated last year when police began detaining scores of officers over "Operation Sledgehammer," an alleged plot against Erdogan's government discussed at a military seminar in 2003.

The officers say Sledgehammer was merely a war game exercise and the evidence against them has been fabricated. About 250 military personnel are in jail, including 173 serving and 77 retired staff. Most are charged in relation to Sledgehammer.

MILITARY MORALE SAPPED

A court accepted on Friday an indictment on another alleged military plot, known as the "Internet Memorandum" case, and prosecutors sought the arrest of 22 people including the Aegean army commander and six other serving generals and admirals.

Aksam newspaper described this as "the indictment which triggered a crisis" in a case where the military is accused of setting up anti-government websites. Papers said disagreements over new senior appointments also prompted the generals to quit.

The detentions have sapped morale and spread mistrust and suspicion among the officer corps, and many had been looking for Kosaner to take a stand since his appointment last August.More...

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NATO bombs Libyan state TV transmitters

NATO warplanes bombed Libyan state TV satellite transmitters in Tripoli overnight because they were being used to incite violence and threaten civilians, the military alliance said Saturday.

A series of loud explosions echoed across the capital before dawn. There was no immediate comment from Libyan officials on what had been hit, but state TV was still on the air in Tripoli on Saturday morning.

NATO said the airstrikes aimed to degrade Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's "use of satellite television as a means to intimidate the Libyan people and incite acts of violence against them."

"Striking specifically these critical satellite dishes will reduce the regime's ability to oppress civilians while (preserving) television broadcast infrastructure that will be needed after the conflict," the alliance said in a statement posted on its website.

It said Gadhafi's inflammatory TV broadcasts were intended to mobilize his supporters.

The attempt to silence the government's TV broadcasts comes at a sensitive time for the rebels, who appeared to be in disarray after the mysterious death of their chief military commander. Abdel-Fattah Younis' body was found Thursday, dumped outside the rebels' de facto capital of Benghazi, along with the bodies of two colonels who were his top aides. They had been shot and their bodies burned.

NATO too has been increasingly embarrassed by the failure of its bombing campaign, now in its fifth month, to dislodge Gadhafi's regime. With the fasting month of Ramadan due to start in August, there is growing realization within the alliance that the costly campaign will drag on into the autumn and possibly longer.

NATO had originally hoped that a series of quick, sharp strikes would quickly force Gadhafi to give up power.More...

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Budget, debt worries plague troops

A half a world away from the Capitol Hill deadlock, the economy and debt crisis are weighing heavily on U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

And the top question on their minds Saturday even as bombings rocked the city around them, was one the top U.S. military officer couldn't answer.

Will we get paid?

"I actually don't know the answer to that question," Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a group of troops, while at the same time telling them they will continue to go to work each day.

But he offered a bit more optimism than defense officials have acknowledged when those questions have come up in recent weeks.

"I have confidence that at some point in time, whatever compensation you are owed, you will be given," said Mullen, who is making his 15th trip to Afghanistan, just two months before he retires. But, he noted, "There are plenty of you living paycheck to paycheck so if paychecks were stopped it would have a devastating impact very quickly."

Questions on military spending and how the ongoing budget struggles will impact them dominated the morning meeting at the Kandahar base, and it was the first one Marines asked when he moved on to Camp Leatherneck later..

Troops pressed Mullen on how much the Pentagon is spending on contractors, when many tasks could be done by military members. They questioned whether the budget pressures will focus on pay or equipment and other acquisition. They bemoaned what it could cost to implement the new policy repealing the ban on openly gay men and women serving in the military. And they wondered if their retirement pay was safe.

For his part, Mullen said the cost of repealing the gay ban was very limited. And he said there were no immediate plans to affect retirement benefits.

Mullen was visiting troops across southern Afghanistan on Saturday, a region that has been pummeled by violence and suicide attacks in recent weeks.

But there were only a smattering of questions on the military strategy or the planned withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, which is beginning with a 10,000 drawdown by the end of this year.

Instead, it was all about money and job.

Mullen warned the troops that as time goes on, budget restrictions will pare down the size of the military, and he told them to keep that in mind as they pursue their education and try to further their careers so they will have a better chance of re-enlisting.More...

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AP Exclusive: Ouattara: no knowledge of massacre

Ivory Coast's president said he knows nothing about brutal killings committed by his forces the day after his inauguration and defended a senior officer accused of separate atrocities as one of the country's best soldiers.

President Alassane Ouattara, whose election victory in November was followed by a violent, four-month-long standoff with the country's former ruler, told The Associated Press in an interview Friday that all those found to have committed atrocities would be punished, no matter their position.

"I am against impunity," he said.

But a report by Amnesty International released Wednesday accuses Ouattara's Republican Forces of continuing to carry out violence and intimidation against ethnic groups perceived as having supported his predecessor, Laurent Gbagbo. A different report by Human Rights Watch released in June alleges that forces loyal to Ouattara killed up to 149 people believed to be Gbagbo supporters.

The rights group cited a witness who said that a commander loyal to Ouattara, Cherif Ousmane, ordered the execution of 29 detainees. Two others said they saw Ousmane in a car that "disposed of the tortured and executed body of an infamous militia leader."

"This cannot be true," Ouattara said Friday. "Cherif Ousmane is one of the best soldiers."

In fact, he added, soldiers who serve under Ousmane are known for being well-trained, polite and helpful.

"In any case, if we discover that anyone has committed atrocities, that person will be properly judged and sanctions will be taken," the president said. Ouattara added that he believed the report was based on interviews with mercenaries.

But recent violence, including the separate massacre of 47 people on the banks of the Cavally River at the very least raises the question of whether Ouattara has any control over the forces that helped put him in office.

"If President Ouattara is serious about impartial justice, he needs to better ensure that leaders of his security forces don't have blood on their hands," said Matthew Wells, who authored the report by Human Rights Watch.

Ouattara's victory in the West African country's first free and fair election in a decade was perceived as a turning point. But the outgoing president, Gbagbo, refused to leave. Ouattara was only able to take office after he enlisted the help of a rebel army that helped him seize control of the country.

Almost 700,000 people remain in camps for displaced people in the country's remote far west and in refugee camps across the porous jungle border in Liberia and Guinea.

The brutal killings documented by the AP took place deep into Gbagbo land on the river bank on the border with Liberia the day after Ouattara's May 21 inauguration.More...

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Congressman responds to child support report

CHICAGO (AP) — Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh, a rising star in the Tea Party movement best known for his blistering lectures of President Barack Obama for "spending like a drunken sailor," is now being peppered with questions about his own financial responsibility after reports surfaced that he's being sued for more than $100,000 in unpaid child support.

Experts say whatever political star power the 49-year-old Republican previously emanated has been dimmed, if not extinguished, because for at least the immediate future it will be impossible for him to talk about anything other than his personal problems.

"Whenever he wants to go out and talk about the debt limit, they are going to want to talk about whether (he) is a deadbeat dad," said Kent Redfield, a professor emeritus of politics at the University of Illinois-Springfield. "His individual problems become the story and he never gets to another issue."

That means that whenever he appears on cable and network television shows to talk about the increasingly rancorous debt ceiling debate, the hosts now will invariably want to know about what is in his thick divorce file, Redfield said.

Redfield and others say it is all but impossible for politician to shake questions about whether or not they've provided for their families once a story like the one in Thursday's Chicago Sun-Times is published.

"Child support is always devastating to politicians when it (such a story) comes out, because the public says, 'How can you manage our finances when you can't manage your own?'" said Larry Sabato, a political scientist and director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.

One Tea Party activist, though, said the story will not hurt Walsh in the movement because they will simply see it as a politically motivated attack.

"The public understands this, they see Joe Walsh stick up for people and now all of a sudden this appears in a newspaper," said Catherina Wojtowicz, of the Chicago Tea Patriots. "It's a smear piece because he's speaking out on behalf of the people."

That was Walsh's point when in a prepared statement he characterized the story about his ex-wife's effort seeking $117,437 in back child support and interest as a "hit piece."

He suggested it was no accident that the paper would run the story about a marriage that ended eight years ago and a court case filed nearly eight months ago just as lawmakers are in the middle of contentious debate over the debt ceiling.

"I am the tip of the spear in this current debate, and I will be attacked," he wrote in a statement issued Thursday morning.

Walsh, whose campaign was marked by allegations of financial mismanagement, said he thought he and his ex-wife were coming to an agreement on the money owed, according to a February court filing. And in the statement, he said he has been "trying to resolve this issue since January in a court of law ..."

The statement does not include any mention of how much he has paid in child support, only that he has "always given everything I have to meet my financial obligations to my children ..."

Nor does Walsh, whose website includes a video in which he accuses Obama of spending money "like a drunken sailor for three years," address allegations made by his ex-wife that at the time Walsh was not keeping up with his child support he took two international vacations with his girlfriend.

Walsh's attorney, R. Steven Polachek, denied that the congressman owed $117,437 in back child support and interest and said the amount was much less.

"I dispute that he owes the child support that she's claiming or anywhere near that amount," Polachek told the paper. "Joe Walsh hasn't been a big-time wage-earner politician until recently — he's had no more problems with child support than any other average guy."

But Laura Walsh's attorney, Jack Coladarci, said that Walsh was paying about $1,000 less than he was ordered to between November 2005 and March 2008, and then stopped paying the entire $2,135 he owed every month from April 2008 until December 2010.

He said once Walsh began serving in Congress, earning $175,000 a year, he started making payments of $2,164 a month — after Coladarci contacted the congressional office to advise the office of a court order to withhold that amount from his paycheck.More....

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