"A group of attorneys loyal to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have initiated legal action against US officers attached to the strategic Incirlik Air Base in Turkey for alleged ties with terrorists, according to a new report.
The Turkish attorneys want to temporarily halt all operations at the Incirlik base to execute a search warrant, Stars and Stripes reported Wednesday. The attorneys involved in the case are part of the Association for Social Justice and Aid, which comprises individuals who back Erdogan, the report said.
The criminal complaint says that scores of high-ranking US officers are linked to Fethullah Gulen, an Islamic cleric living in the US who Erdogan says was instrumental in the 2016 attempted coup against his government.
The attorneys seek the detention of US Cols. John Waler, Michael Manion, David Eaglen and David Trucksa; Lt. Cols.Tim Cook and Mack Coker; and Sgts. Thomas Cooper and Vegas Clark, according to Stars and Stripes. General Joseph Votel, head of US Central Command, is also named in the complaint." AMN
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This should be taken seriously. Erdogan is just mad enough to have his catspaws seize a number of US military personnel at the base in order to escalate the process that in his primitive mind will lead to US acceptance of his demands concerning Gulen and a Turkish banker convicted of criminal activity who is now in a US prison. Erdogan wants to establish the notion that he and the US have equal weight in the world. This is a typical Middle Eastern and North African fantasy. It is the delusion that imagines that the Donald and Melania wake every morning to inquire immediately as to what is happening in Ankara today.
It is past time to get all non-diplomatic official Americans out of Turkey and warn non-officials that if they go there they are risking detention as prisoners of the sultan. pl
