Turkish Imam Fethullah Gulen Subject of 2009 Wikileaks Cable

In late December 2009, U.S. Ambassador to Turkey James Jeffrey authored a cable regarding the extremely controversial - and dangerous - Turkish Imam Fethullah Gulen who currently resides in eastern Pennsylvania. Based on the content found in the cable, our State Department knows all about Gulen's attempts to drive the Turkish government to being more Islamist. That goal has been all but realized with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as the Prime Minister and Abdullah Gül as the president. Both are Gulen sympathizers.

Via Wikileaks:

1. (C) SUMMARY: Fethullah Gulen remains a political phenomenon in Turkey. Although "exiled" in Pennsylvania for the past decade, Gulen's impact continues to expand, aided by legions of loyalist supporters and a network of elite schools. The Gulen Movement's purported goals focus on interfaith dialogue and tolerance, but in the current AKP-secularists schism, many Turks believe Gulen has a deeper and possibly insidious political agenda, and even some Islamist groups criticize Gulen's lack of transparency, which they say creates doubts about his motives. END SUMMARY.

Keep reading because the State Department obviously knows quite a bit about Gulen and his intentions. Yet, at the end of the cable, Jeffrey recommends covering up for his government's outright refusal to do anything about Gulen despite grave concern about him. Here is his comment about those concerns followed by what he believes should be the official government response.

12. (C) Given the current AKP-secularist schism in Turkey today, it should not be surprising that any Islamist movement in Turkey would choose to be circumspect about its intentions. Unfortunately, this simply feeds the reflexive tendency in Turkish society for conspiracy theories, and magnifies suspicions about the Gulen movement itself. While the purported Gulen goals of interfaith dialogue and tolerance are beyond reproach, we see aspects of concern in the allegations that the USG is somehow behind the Gulen movement. Accordingly, we would recommend the following standard press guidance:

Q: Why is the U.S. sheltering Fethullah Gulen and doesn't this mean that the US is promoting a non-secular Turkey?

A: -- The U.S. is not "sheltering" Mr. Gulen and his presence in the U.S. is not based on any political decision.

-- Mr. Gulen applied for, and received, permanent residence in the U.S. after a lengthy process which ended in 2008 when a Federal Court ruled that he deserved to be viewed as an "alien of extraordinary ability" based on his extensive writings and his leadership of a worldwide religious organization.

It is beyond outrageous that our government would take this stand in light of everything Gulen's movement is doing right here in the United States. Here is an excerpt from a sermon Gulen gave in Turkey in 1999:

You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centers... Until that time, any step taken would be too early—like breaking an egg without waiting the full forty days for it to hatch. It would be like killing the chick inside.

Read more about this HERE and HERE.

Donna Garner has more.