Turkey Coup: Was Major General Jeff Taliaferro the Liaising Officer?

Inquiring minds are trying to figure out who the American general was, who liaised with the coup plotters at Incirlik Air Force Base, if this actually happened. The following is all speculation and therefore of no importance or validity whatsoever. The main criterion that I used in speculating was that it should be someone serving in Afghanistan, since reference was made to this by the Turks.

www.rt.com...

One candidate named, is Vice Chief of Staff of the United States Army (Ret.), General John F. Campbell.

General John F. Campbell, 59, was "one of the top figures who organized and managed the soldiers behind the failed coup attempt in Turkey," the conservative paper's English-language edition said on Monday.

The paper is known for its loyal support of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was the target of the coup attempt.

According to Yeni Safak, Campbell "also managed more than $2 billion in transactions via UBA Bank in Nigeria by using CIA links to distribute among the pro-coup military personnel in Turkey."

Fox News says that the general has an alibi.

The retired U.S. Army general and former NATO commander accused of masterminding the recent failed coup in Turkey has an alibi -- he was having a beer with Fox News Channel's Geraldo Rivera.

Yeni Safak, a Turkish tabloid known as friendly to the increasingly authoritarian regime in Ankara, hit newsstands Monday with a front-page blaring in Turkish “This man led the coup,” alongside a picture of U.S. Army Gen. J.F. Campbell.

It was news to Campbell, who retired in May after a distinguished, 37-year career that saw him most recently serve in both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Campbell served as commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force from August 2014 to earlier this year.

"I haven't traveled outside the U.S. since I came back from Afghanistan in March," Campbell told FoxNews.com. "I have no idea why they picked me for this headline.

"In fact, on the day of the coup I think I was in New York City with Geraldo having a beer," he added.

Sibel Edmunds of the Boiling Frogs Post website has named General Campbell as the most likely source of a news story disseminated by MSNBC to the effect that President Erdogan had fled Turkey during the coup and was seeking asylum abroad. The story turned out to be untrue.

So all eyes are on General Campbell.

I have to say, though, that when American involvement became the subject of rumor and mention was made of clandestine visits to Incirlik by an American General, in the lead up to the coup attempt, in the Turkish press, quoting a Turkish politician, I thought that, if this rumor were true, the general would not have been from the Army.

I thought he would be from the US Air Force, an AWACS and drone guy, because the particular American expertise required by the coup faction would be surveillance of the theatre of war, warning of Turkish government counter movements.

I started to look into this and found something interesting.

www.defensenews.com...

NATO Reconnaissance Plane Deployment to Turkey Irks German Lawmakers (Jan. 7, 2016)

ANKARA, Turkey — NATO will send a force of Airborne Early Warning and Control Systems (AWACS) reconnaissance planes, including personnel based in Germany, to Turkey to help augment the NATO ally's airspace from potential threats from Syria.

A London-based Turkey specialist said the move aims to deter primarily Russian aggression against Turkish aircraft patrolling the country's Syria border.

"This is a message to Russia in the aftermath of the crisis," the analyst said. "It is NATO's best interests if a potential Turkish-Russian conflict is prevented."

Russia pledged to take revenge — and "not just by means of commercial sanctions" — after two Turkish F-16s shot down a Russian SU-24 on Nov. 24, citing a brief violation of the Turkish airspace along the Syrian border.

Turkish diplomats said the German military would send more troops to operate NATO’s early warning aircraft there. . . .

In a letter to the Bundestag, the lower house of the German Parliament, the German government said NATO's AWACS aircraft would be temporarily moved to a Turkish air base in the central Anatolian province of Konya.

The plan drew ire from German politicians who said Sunday that they were not consulted.

"The government must immediately inform parliament of the details of this deployment, in particular what missions will be assigned to these planes and the destination of any data they collect," Tobias Lindner, the green party's head of defense matters, demanded in German daily Bild.

The Defense Ministry noted that the deployment was aimed at carrying out airspace surveillance, not armed operations.

It seems clear from this that the movement of AWACS aircraft and personnel from Germany to Turkey was regarded as highly irregular by German parliamentarians who made a formal issue of it in the Bundestag.

I don't know much about the air force command structure in Afghanistan, but if I had to name a likely nominee for an American general, serving in Afghanistan with the right credentials and background for the job of liaising with the coup plotters in this case, it would be Major General Scott D. West.

www.rs.nato.int...

Maj. Gen. Scott West is the Commander, 9th Air and Space Expeditionary Task Force-Afghanistan; Commander, NATO Air Command-Afghanistan; Director, AFCENT’s Air Component Coordination Element for U.S. Forces-Afghanistan & support of NATO’s Operation Resolute Support; and Deputy Commander-Air for U.S. Forces-Afghanistan. (ipsedixit note: April 2015 - present)

He is responsible for the integration of air and space power in support of NATO’s Operation Resolute Support and the U.S. Operation Freedom’s Sentinel. General West oversees two Air Expeditionary Wings, two Air Expeditionary Groups and two aerial ports of debarkation. Additionally, General West is responsible for supporting and coordinating development of the Afghan Air Force. . . .

It would be hard to come up with a more capable character for the role. Apologies to the general if this speculation is all hooey.

Moving along the chain of command we find another possibility,

Major General Jeff Taliaferro

www.rs.nato.int...

20. April 2016 - present, Commander, 9th Air and Space Expeditionary Task Force-Afghanistan; Commander, NATO Air Command-Afghanistan; Director, AFCENT’s Air Component Coordination Element for U.S. Forces-Afghanistan and NATO’s Operation Resolute Support; and Deputy Commander- Air for U.S. Forces-Afghanistan.

General Taliaferro seems to have arrived on the scene after General West, which begs the question, was he brought in specifically for this operation?

The paper is known for its loyal support of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was the target of the coup attempt.

in the Turkish press, quoting a Turkish politician,

Who are all running around, saying and doing anything they can think of to appear loyal, so they don't wind up in a prison camp. Or shot for treason.
Erdogan is nothing but a paranoid little dictator out of control.

a reply to: ipsedixit

A Coup plot wouldn't be run by the AF typically. It'd be an alphabet agency thing and would involve SF or Green Berets AKA the Army via SOCOM or some such. You should read up on the Green Berets and what they do on occasion.

The motto is De oppresso liber for a reason.

a reply to: ipsedixit

looking at Geraldo's tweets it seems he is just a parrot for tptb as he was bashing President Erdogan which is consistent with the western MSM after the apology to Russia and what seems to be renewing ties . Seems the Washington puppet was not going to go all the way .Expect for calls that Erdogen like Assaud must go . Its going to take a Russian diplomatic team to sort this out so that these Nations can keep their sovereignty and try and stabilize what has been brought to the brink of a all out war ...darn meddlers ...

a reply to: thesungod

I'm sure you are right but there has been no report of American troops on the ground. I don't think they would have needed such people (or maybe they did need them!), but they certainly would have wanted the AWACS capability and secure channels to it.

a reply to: ipsedixit

Well sure in regards to AWACS but that would be a secondary thing. You should definitely read up on the Green Berets. Pretty weird and amazing stuff. Contrary to public opinion SF are seals or raiders with PhD's in their art.

My main point will be this. If this was a US led and backed coup attempt with access to AWACS and many other toys, auch a secure radios/laptops and the like... Why did they use Whatsapp?

a reply to: thesungod

Perhaps it was just US backed and not led.

I haven't looked into the WhatsApp story. Frankly, despite supposed documentation, I have trouble taking it seriously. If it was used, I wonder if someone was trying to throw the game?

A couple points for now.......

1. I've been waiting for ever ( it seems like ) for some to start a thread on this.

2. If my memory serves me correctly, there are a couple of people here, who in the past, loaded and armed missiles on jet aircraft. Would you please describe that procedure ( In layman's terms ) for everyone.

Everything else is secondary to this one core event.

Buck

a reply to: ipsedixit

A US backed Coup would still infer some material support.

Did you know Erdogan used Facetime to help stop the Coup?

I personally think it was an organic coup attempt by some anti ISIS hardliners and that Russia saved Erdogan's butt with intel.

We have forces all over Turkey in NATO. If we, the US, wanted him dead, he'd be dead.

originally posted by: thesungod
a reply to: ipsedixit

A US backed Coup would still infer some material support.

Did you know Erdogan used Facetime to help stop the Coup?

True. Obviously, at that stage of things, he did not trust the military. An interesting side light on this is that in a video on the coup, Sibel Edmunds said that CNN was a tool of the CIA, but CNN was one of three private TV stations that played Erdogan's facetime message.

I mention this to show that despite received opinion on the subject, what happens is not always what is expected, i.e., CNN refusing to make the broadcast, and that can be for a variety of reasons, either deep or in the moment, that wouldn't necessarily negate what Ms. Edmunds said about CNN.

I personally think it was an organic coup attempt by some anti ISIS hardliners and that Russia saved Erdogan's butt with intel.

Isn't there a consensus that the Gulen network (CIA assets) were behind the coup? The Turks are convinced of this.

We have forces all over Turkey in NATO. If we, the US, wanted him dead, he'd be dead.

He almost was dead and could yet be dead. The American problem, if that is what was wanted, would be to make certain it did not look like they did it.

Another interesting side note to this is that somebody in Istanbul (Note: My mistake. It was Sibel Edmunds.) during the coup said that hundreds of mosques began broadcasting a special recorded message that is different from the call to prayer. This alerted the population at large that something was wrong and helped to get them out into the street to find out what was going on. That is the sort of thing that AWACS can't warn against.

a reply to: ipsedixit

See that's thing. Russia has investment in eroding anyone and everyone ties with NATO, which I don't blame them for. I'd take the same stance, but I'm an American so I have a vested interest in NATO. Also a lot of Turks are becoming pro-ISIS and anti-west.

If the enemy of my ally comes to my aid (Russia with intelligence) I might start listening to them more too. Propaganda or not.

As for the Gulan Network and CIA assets. I will simply say this. Maybe, but without evidence IDK. An asset does not the CIA or US government make. An asset is simply a tool, not even necessarily an ally.

originally posted by: thesungod

As for the Gulan Network and CIA assets. I will simply say this. Maybe, but without evidence IDK. An asset does not the CIA or US government make. An asset is simply a tool, not even necessarily an ally.

This is true,in theory, but given the magnitude of what was being attempted against the ally of one's protector, it is hard to imagine Gulen going it alone and not consulting the American government and really, at the highest level.

a reply to: ipsedixit

See that's anothrr thing. A lot of us don't know or even really understand Turkish politics.

Kenan Evren, the former Turkish president now facing charges in an Ankara court, is only the most recent in a long line of military officers to seize power in a coup.

The military has long seen itself as the "guardian of Turkish democracy", which it defines as the staunchly secular state created by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish republic. It has directly intervened three times in Turkish politics, and in 1997 it carried out what some scholars describe as a "postmodern coup".

Source and a good timeline of Turkish coups of the last 50 years. They operate a lot like the Egyptian military in that regard.

I'd more apt to claim Evren was simply doing what he did in 1980 again. No NATO back then either nor Gulan.

originally posted by: thesungod

I'd more apt to claim Evren was simply doing what he did in 1980 again. No NATO back then either nor Gulan.

You know he died in 2015, right?

I agree though that Turkish politics is convoluted. Gulen was around during the 1980 coup, but allied with Erdogan at the time.

I know pretty much everything that there is to know about this coup attempt .




August 9th is the deadline it seems ; in the words of Erdogan " We are racing against time " !!

a reply to: ipsedixit

Yes, on a cell sorry. Should have read Evren followers. I did not know Gulen was around back then. Got a link on that?

a reply to: 23432

Everything that happened can be read this way, I grant you that, but I lean to the idea that it was a real coup attempt, by Gulen.

If it were a fake coup attempt, all of the attempts to call for the extradition of Gulen would be without a foundation and not even entertained by the US. But it is a fine point and I think a good case can be made for a false flag operation. Obviously it would have been decided in advance that Turkey would split from the US and NATO, which is a huge given and hard to believe. There is no doubt however, that this provided a great opportunity for Turkey to remove the Gulen network from positions of influence in Turkey.

At this point I still think the coup was real.

a reply to: thesungod

en.wikipedia.org...(coup_plan)#Arrests

originally posted by: ipsedixit
a reply to: 23432

Everything that happened can be read this way, I grant you that, but I lean to the idea that it was a real coup attempt, by Gulen.

If it were a fake coup attempt, all of the attempts to call for the extradition of Gulen would be without a foundation and not even entertained by the US. But it is a fine point and I think a good case can be made for a false flag operation. Obviously it would have been decided in advance that Turkey would split from the US and NATO, which is a huge given and hard to believe. There is no doubt however, that this provided a great opportunity for Turkey to remove the Gulen network from positions of influence in Turkey.

At this point I still think the coup was real.

Mossad burnt Gulen for a reason , right ?

Except maybe it wasn't the Mossad operation but it was made to look that way ?

Gulen is Owned & Operated by Zionist NeoCons and Gulen could have had Erdogan killed anytime , anywhere but didn't .

I smell a rottten fish somewhere .

a reply to: ipsedixit

AWACS has been there since before the Russian aircraft was shot down by Turkey. They've been US aircraft until earlier this year when NATO took on some of the mission. The US aircraft were needed elsewhere (such as in their heavy maintenance periods) so NATO stepped up.

What Germany was upset about was that NATO told them they were deploying instead of having months of meetings prior, like they usually do.