It has frequently been alleged that the modern Turkish Republic
operates on two levels. It has a parliamentary democracy complete with a
constitution and regular elections, but there also exists a secret
government that has been referred to as the
“deep state,” in Turkish “Derin Devlet.”
The concept of “deep state” has recently
become fashionable
to a certain extent, particularly to explain the persistence of
traditional political alignments when confronted by the recent
revolutions in parts of the Middle East and Eastern Europe. For those
who believe in the existence of the deep state, there are a number of
institutional as well as extralegal relationships that might suggest its
presence.
Some believe that this deep state arose out of a secret NATO
operation called “Gladio,” which created an infrastructure for so-called
“stay behind operations” if Western Europe were to be overrun by the
Soviet Union and its allies. There is a certain logic to that
assumption, as a deep state has to be organized around a center of
official and publicly accepted power, which means it normally includes
senior officials of the police and intelligence services as well as the
military. For the police and intelligence agencies, the propensity to
operate in secret is a
sine qua non for the deep state, as it
provides cover for the maintenance of relationships that under other
circumstances would be considered suspect or even illegal.
In Turkey, the notion that there has to be an outside force
restraining dissent from political norms was, until recently, even given
a legal fig leaf through the
Constitution of 1982,
which granted to the military’s National Security Council authority to
intervene in developing political situations to “protect” the state.
There have, in fact, been four military coups in Turkey. But deep state
goes far beyond those overt interventions. It has been claimed that deep
state activities in Turkey are frequently conducted through connivance
with politicians who provide cover for the activity, with corporate
interests and with criminal groups who can operate across borders and
help in the mundane tasks of political corruption, including drug
trafficking and money laundering.
A number of senior Turkish politicians have spoken openly of the
existence of the deep state. Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit tried to learn
more about the organization and, for his pains, endured an
assassination attempt in 1977. Tansu Ciller
eulogized
“those who died for the state and those who killed for the state,”
referring to the assassinations of communists and Kurds. There have been
several significant exposures of Turkish deep state activities, most
notably an automobile accident in 1996 in Susurluk that killed the
Deputy Chief of the Istanbul Police and the leader of the
Grey Wolves
extreme right wing nationalist group. A member of parliament was also
in the car and a fake passport was discovered, tying together a criminal
group that had operated death squads with a senior security official
and an elected member of the legislature. A subsequent investigation
determined that the police had been using the criminals to support their
operations against leftist groups and other dissidents. Deep state
operatives have also been linked to assassinations of a judge, Kurds,
leftists, potential state witnesses, and an Armenian journalist. They
have also bombed a Kurdish bookstore and the offices of a leading
newspaper.
As all governments—sometimes for good reasons—engage in concealment
of their more questionable activities, or even resort to out and out
deception, one must ask how the deep state differs. While an elected
government might sometimes engage in activity that is legally
questionable, there is normally some plausible pretext employed to cover
up or explain the act.
But for players in the deep state, there is no accountability and no
legal limit. Everything is based on self-interest, justified through an
assertion of patriotism and the national interest. In Turkey, there is a
belief amongst senior officials who consider themselves to be parts of
the
status in statu that they are guardians of the constitution
and the true interests of the nation. In their own minds, they are
thereby not bound by the normal rules. Engagement in criminal activity
is fine as long as it is done to protect the Turkish people and to
covertly address errors made by the citizenry, which can easily be led
astray by political fads and charismatic leaders. When things go too far
in a certain direction, the deep state steps in to correct course.
And deep state players are to be rewarded for their patriotism. They
benefit materially from the criminal activity that they engage in,
including protecting Turkey’s role as a conduit for drugs heading to
Europe from Central Asia, but more recently involving the movement of
weapons and people to and from Syria. This has meant collaborating with
groups
like ISIS,
enabling militants to ignore borders and sell their stolen
archeological artifacts while also negotiating deals for the oil from
the fields in the areas that they occupy. All the transactions include a
large cut for the deep state.
If all this sounds familiar to an American reader, it should, and
given some local idiosyncrasies, it invites the question whether the
United States of America has its own deep state.
First of all, one should note that for the deep state to be
effective, it must be intimately associated with the development or
pre-existence of a national security state. There must also be a
perception that the nation is in peril, justifying extraordinary
measures undertaken by brave patriots to preserve life and property of
the citizenry. Those measures are generically conservative in nature,
intended to protect the
status quo with the implication that change is dangerous.
Those requirements certainly prevail in post 9/11 America, and also
feed the other essential component of the deep state: that the
intervening should work secretly or at least under the radar. Consider
for a moment how Washington operates. There is gridlock in Congress and
the legislature opposes nearly everything that the White House supports.
Nevertheless, certain things happen seemingly without any discussion:
Banks are bailed out and corporate interests are protected by law. Huge
multi-year defense contracts are approved. Citizens are assassinated by
drones, the public is routinely surveilled, people are imprisoned
without be charged, military action against “rogue” regimes is
authorized, and whistleblowers are punished with prison. The war crimes
committed by U.S. troops and contractors on far-flung battlefields, as
well as torture and rendition, are rarely investigated and punishment of
any kind is rare. America, the warlike predatory capitalist, might be
considered a virtual definition of deep state.
One critic
describes
deep state as driven by the “Washington Consensus,” a subset of the
“American exceptionalism” meme. It is plausible to consider it a
post-World War II creation, the end result of the “military industrial
complex” that Dwight Eisenhower warned about, but some believe its
infrastructure was actually put in place through the passage of the
Federal Reserve Act prior to the First World War. Several years after
signing the bill, Woodrow Wilson reportedly
lamented, “We
have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely
controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world, no longer a
government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government
by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.”
In truth America’s deep state is, not unlike Turkey’s, a hybrid
creature that operates along a New York to Washington axis. Where the
Turks engage in criminal activity to fund themselves, the Washington
elite instead turns to banksters, lobbyists, and defense contractors,
operating much more in the open and, ostensibly, legally. U.S.-style
deep state includes all the obvious parties, both public and private,
who benefit from the status quo: including key players in the police and
intelligence agencies, the military, the treasury and justice
departments, and the judiciary. It is structured to materially reward
those who play along with the charade, and the glue to accomplish that
ultimately comes from Wall Street. “Financial services” might well be
considered the epicenter of the entire process. Even though government
is needed to implement desired policies, the banksters comprise the
truly essential element, capable of providing genuine rewards for
compliance. As corporate interests increasingly own the media, little
dissent comes from the Fourth Estate as the process plays out, while
many of the proliferating Washington think tanks that provide deep state
“intellectual” credibility are similarly funded by defense contractors.
The cross fertilization that is essential to making the system work
takes place through the famous revolving door whereby senior government
officials enter the private sector at a high level. In some cases the
door revolves a number of times, with officials leaving government
before returning to an even more elevated position. Along the way, those
select individuals are protected, promoted, and groomed for bigger
things. And bigger things do occur that justify the considerable costs,
to include bank bailouts, tax breaks, and resistance to legislation that
would regulate Wall Street, political donors, and lobbyists. The senior
government officials, ex-generals, and high level intelligence
operatives who participate find themselves with multi-million dollar
homes in which to spend their retirement years, cushioned by a tidy pile
of investments.
America’s deep state is completely corrupt: it exists to sell out the
public interest, and includes both major political parties as well as
government officials. Politicians like the Clintons who leave the White
House “broke” and accumulate $100 million in a few years exemplify how
it rewards. A bloated Pentagon churns out hundreds of unneeded flag
officers who receive munificent pensions and benefits for the rest of
their lives. And no one is punished, ever. Disgraced former general and
CIA Director David Petraeus is now a partner at the KKR private equity
firm, even though he knows nothing about financial services. More
recently, former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell has become a Senior
Counselor at Beacon Global Strategies. Both are being rewarded for their
loyalty to the system and for providing current access to their
replacements in government.
What makes the deep state so successful? It wins no matter who is in
power, by creating bipartisan-supported money pits within the system.
Monetizing the completely unnecessary and hideously expensive global war
on terror benefits the senior government officials, beltway industries,
and financial services that feed off it. Because it is essential to
keep the money flowing, the deep state persists in promoting policies
that make no sense, to include the unwinnable wars currently enjoying
marquee status in Iraq/Syria and Afghanistan. The deep state knows that a
fearful public will buy its product and does not even have to make much
of an effort to sell it.
Of course I know that the United States of America is not Turkey. But
there are lessons to be learned from its example of how a democracy can
be subverted by particular interests hiding behind the mask of
patriotism. Ordinary Americans frequently ask why politicians and
government officials appear to be so obtuse, rarely recognizing what is
actually occurring in the country. That is partly due to the fact that
the political class lives in a bubble of its own creation, but it might
also be because many of America’s leaders actually accept that there is
an unelected, unappointed, and unaccountable presence within the system
that actually manages what is taking place behind the scenes. That would
be the American deep state.
Philip Giraldi is executive director of the Council for the National Interest.
Philip Giraldi is a recognized authority on international security
and counterterrorism issues. He is a former CIA counter-terrorism
specialist and military intelligence officer who served eighteen years
overseas in Turkey, Italy, Germany, and Spain. He was Chief of Base in
Barcelona from 1989 to 1992 designated as the Agency’s senior officer
for Olympic Games support. Since 1992 he consulted for a number of
Fortune 500 corporate clients.
Mr. Giraldi was awarded an MA and PhD from the University of London
in European History and holds a Bachelor of Arts with Honors from the
University of Chicago. He speaks Spanish, Italian, German, and Turkish.
His columns on terrorism, intelligence, and security issues regularly
appear in The American Conservative magazine, Huffington Post, and
Antiwar.com. He has written op-ed pieces for the Hearst Newspaper chain,
has appeared on “Good Morning America,” MSNBC, National Public Radio,
and local affiliates of ABC television. He has been a keynote speaker at
the Petroleum Industry Security Council annual meeting, has spoken
twice at the American Conservative Union’s annual CPAC convention in
Washington, and has addressed several World Affairs Council affiliates.
He has been interviewed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the
British Broadcasting Corporation, Britain’s Independent Television
Network, FOX News, Polish National Television, Croatian National
Television, al-Jazeera, al-Arabiya, 60 Minutes, and other international
and domestic broadcasters.
