Turkish military expels officers

Now here's an interesting situation. Turkey's army does not like islamists. And calls any form of islamist behaviour as treasonous and reactionary. And chucks them out with no further ado. On the other hand, we see a strange sort of similar behaviour in the US Army.

See what the Washington Post has to say about this and I quote, "A military watchdog group is asking the Defense Department to investigate whether seven Army and Air Force officers violated regulations by appearing in uniform in a promotional video for an evangelical Christian organization.In the video, much of which was filmed inside the Pentagon, four generals and three colonels praise the Christian Embassy, a group that evangelizes among military leaders, politicians and diplomats in Washington. Some of the officers describe their efforts to spread their faith within the military." Will these chaps be court martialled and chucked out for being reactionary? :) Same thing in Pakistan as well. That army's lead by people who dont really like islamists, the islamists have this sad tendency to try to knock off the Army leadership. But then people call the Pakistani Army leaders as liberals, which is at variance to what I think Liberalism is all about.

But here's a question for all who want to keep their armies firmly secular and rid of any of this religious nonsense. In USA, Pakistan and Turkey, the incidence of religious thought and fevrour is rabidly rising. So just HOW in the name of all that's holy do they expect their new soldiers and officers to be secular? Import them from Mars? This is a tough call and something that will keep on making waves in the future.

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Turkey's secular military expelled 10 officers for being "reactionary" — a euphemism for Islamist activities — along with 13 others accused of lack of discipline, an official said Sunday.

The military, a strong supporter of Turkey's secular standing, ousted the 10 officers for "reactionary activities," the military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to media.

The phrase "reactionary activities," usually refers to alleged ties to religious groups or a religious agenda seen as a threat to the nation's secularist tradition.

It was the first time the Higher Military Council disclosed the number of those expelled on that specific allegation. In the past, it only released the total number of dismissed officers and gave no other details, the Milliyet newspaper said.

The Zaman newspaper, known for its religious readership, reported that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul signed the council decision, but that they disagreed with it.

Erdogan's Justice and Development Party — which the opposition says has a secret Islamic agenda to scrap secularism — won more than 46 percent of votes in the July 22 elections.

Erdogan and other party officials have repeatedly denied the allegations made against them, pointing to entry talks with the European Union as proof.

The military dismissed 13 other officers because of behavior disrupting discipline which harms the military's prestige, newspapers reported.

The military has expelled hundreds of officers for alleged ties to leftist or Islamist groups since 1996.