This

is Frank Gaffney with the Secure Freedom Minute.

Turkish

President Recep Tayyep Erdogan once described democracy as a bus you disembark

upon reaching your destination. Erdogan is now forcing his country out of the

bus.  

In

the aftermath of a short-lived and hapless coup attempt, he has declared a

three-month state of emergency, facilitating his purge of political opponents

and consolidation of power.  It will also

help Erdogan complete his fundamental transformation of Turkey, from a secular

Muslim nation into a sharia-adherent and brutally repressive Islamic Caliphate. 

One

of those political opponents is Fethullah Gulen, another Turkish Islamist who runs

a global cult and business empire from an armed camp in Pennsylvania’s Poconos

mountains. Erdogan wants him extradited on the grounds that Gulen was behind

the coup.  Washington is investigating

those charges.  It should also

investigate – and shut down – Gulen’s 150-plus problematic charter schools in this country. 

This

is Frank Gaffney.