Newsweek reports that one of Donald Trump top advisors wants to return cleric Fetullah Gulen to Turkey, which seeks his extradition in connection with a failed coup attempt. Gulen is associated with or controls about 160 publicly funded charter schools in the U.S., many of whose teachers are Turkish nationals and all of whose boards are led by Turkish men.
““We need to adjust our foreign policy to recognize Turkey as a priority. We need to see the world from Turkey’s perspective,” retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn wrote for the conservative news website The Hill.
“What would we have done if right after 9/11 we heard the news that Osama bin Laden lives in a nice villa at a Turkish resort while running 160 charter schools funded by the Turkish taxpayers?”
Sharon Higgins, a parent activist in Oakland, keeps a list of Gulen charters.
Mark Hall’s documentary “Killing Ed,” focuses on Gulen charter schools.
If Trump were to extradite Gulen, it is not clear who would take charge of the charter schools opened by his allies.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I doubt this has anything to with Gulen or his schools. This is about appeasing another autocratic leader of a democracy: Erdogan. A bad move with a tiny possibility of a good by-product, if the schools lose support–not really likely since they don’t require his presence.
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Agree with you Russell…the extradition would appease Erdogan. The schools take in about $500,000,000 a year and would probably be taken over by another source should Gulen be jailed in Turkey…which is a good bet…or he may be executed there. Maybe Eli Broad and Clarice Young, or even Erdogan, would figure out a way to swoop in and buy them in a forced sale.
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That deal is probably already in the works.
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Erdogan will not be appeased by this move, at this point it’s more of a sop to his ego than anything else. Gulen would serve as a trophy to be displayed to the masses as further proof of his power over the USA, an assertion he can only maintain by continuing to distance himself from us.
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Rarely do I disagree with you, Jon, but the Gulen extradition, and Erdogan resultant behavior, is not the issue as you are determining.
Gulen has been a wanted fugitive from justice in Turkey since 1999. Three US administrations have given him shelter seemingly because the CIA and others in our government have been led to believe Gulen is the lesser of the dangerous Sharia obsessives in Turkey
Although Erdogan was/is the democratically elected leader of ‘used to be’ secular and democratic Turkey, and has been for many years, and although he has actually proved to be a dictatorial strongman and a firm Sharia believer who has turned his country away from secularism, he is still their elected leader.
Is it the role of the US to police all countries and determine their leadership choices? We did this with Mossadegh and with Allende, and we see the results.
Studying the attitudes of Turks world wide, and particularly in the US, we learn that many are part of the Gulen Movement and want to follow Gulen’s leadership. Part of his plan for the large group of charter schools he directs in the US, is to teach solely Turkish language, take students, parents, and legislators to visit Turkey, and with hope that all Turks in this diaspora will follow him back to settle in Turkey when his group takes control and can accomplish a successful coup. His followers there are in the military, the police, and though this time the coup failed, there will probably another coup in time. He is vocal that he wants a Sharia state, and his long term goal is to establish a second Ottoman Empire….all this is the mirror image of Erdogan.
He has not kept any of this secret. Extensive reading of his and Erdogan’s history shows them to be similar in their goals.
But now the question are…
Is it fair that American taxpayers should pay for this international politicking???
Is it legal to use American taxpayer money from his schools to foment revolution, which the Turkish public and scholars make clear is the result of his garnering billions of dollars from his US charter schools?
Should foreign nationals be allowed to run schools in America that are clearly used for political purposes?
Should the US defy allied governments extradition law?
And, in light of history since 9/11….
Should Middle Eastern men be allowed to come to the US ostensibly as teachers on Green Cards, with Gulen stating that US teachers cannot teach math, only to disappear into the country with no oversight by the INS or Homeland Security?
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Fordham Institute is fighting hard to take over the Charters. I say Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is involved and have a big interest in public $$$$
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What can we predict the aphorism “good deed returns good deed and evil follows evil”?
I let the universal law of Cause and effect to take over and to auto-correct in God’s Eyes.
How long and how much American Public tax fund has been looted by this typical exiled foreigner? Should we shoulder his malicious scheme of ‘to rob Paul and to give to Pete?” Back2basic
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Sounds like a plan. Why wouldn’t being a public servant in charge of millions of dollars of public funds require being a U.S. citizen?
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Since Gulen has been in the US since 1999, his fortune is in the multi billions, not the mere multi millions of dollars. Turks and Daniel Pipes Middle East Report indicate that he has used much of this to foment wars and destabilize the Middle East and Turkey.Some think he is a hero, but most think he is a traitor.
Many of the approximately 3,000 Middle Eastern men he arranged to bring here to be teachers and administrators of his schools, on Green Cards also on our taxpayers dime, have disappeared into the fabric of our society…so where they are what the are doing is a mystery.
Seems like a bad situation to me.
You might want to read my article in CityWatchToday.com from some years ago entitiled, “Fetullah Gulen, Phantom of Poconos”, particularly to see the many comments from Turkish citizens who reside IN Turkey. This article was picked up by the Turkish News Agency, and some of the natives still write to me.
The information that Susan Higgins has on her site is far more accurate than folks guess-timating here. Susan testified on it all before Congress, and she was interviewed on 60 Minutes…better than speculating.
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Thanks for the info, will check it out.
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FYI, the Replutocrat party platform explicitly defends anonymous dark money being used for political campaigns in the USA. They do not want you to be allowed to know who gave it, where it came from, anything. Practically speaking, this means foreign governments, corporations and oligarchs can influence our political system with no accountability whatsoever. What does this have to do with Gulen? Cry me a river because one Turkish expat runs a charter chain, one that no one in power cared to criticize until now. Gulen is a political enemy of Erdogan who made specious claims of involvement in coup of suspect origins. As much as I dislike Gulens charters, when it comes to his homeland, he and his organization have never given the slightest indication that they support violent regime change, the opposite in fact. This offer to turn him over to Erdogan is a chump change bribe, nothing more, one that Erdogan doesn’t particularly place a lot of political value on since his purge of all enemies, real or imagined, is all but complete. He had a list of people and a plan to get at them as he deemed appropriate that was ready to go from well before the coup and moved with alacrity before the dust settled. Handing over Gulen is an empty gesture by fools who have no clue as to the operating environment they are attempting to influence. All they’ll get is a thanks, don’t call us we’ll call you response that Trumps fools will use to declare victory with. Attention must be paid to who ends up in control of the lucrative Gulen chain since this has all of the indications of a hostile takeover made possible by Erdogan. That’s probably the real payoff here, not any reconciliation with Turkey.
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I bet Erdogan will be real happy when Trump pulls plug on NATO and he is left to deal with Putin 24/7.
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Never okay: links to charter chains or assassination attempts. Make Gulen go face Turkish court.
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The only proof of Gulens involvement is Erdogans claim that he was involved. Had real proof been presented, Gulen would already be in Turkey.
Not defending Gulens charters, just the rule of law. Assassinations are bad, using innocent people as political pawns is worse.
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We don’t have proof Gulen funds any charters either. All this dark money is floating around nowadays. We have proof certain powerful foundations have taken Gulen $$$, don’t we? Or do we? I don’t know. I’m not an expert on the subject– just a teacher, not an international spy. Whether or not Gulen gave money to coup conspirators is unclear to me. I’m not sure harboring foreign nationals wanted by foreign governments is protecting innocent people from political gamesmanship. It seems to me more like letting justice systems do their work. I would feel better if I knew dark money was being much better investigated and regulated in general.
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Sorry, that should have read, “letting justice systems do their work would be best.”
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Agree with John Lubar. Gulen would be dead, and likely with plenty of publicity to send messages to any Gulen supporters not yet killed or put in jail by Erdogan. This is not to say that I support the protection of Gulen’s charter school operations from serious scrutiny. The proliferation of these charters and the absence of transparency about financing and visas should be investigated. There are lawyers working on behalf of Erdogan trying to extract this information.
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Green-card-holders like Gulen have most of the same rights as citizens (except voting), e.g. Starting/ owning a corporation, mortgaging/ purchasing property. However they can lose their green card if convicted of most crimes (including terrorism)– & in some cases, e.g. drug trafficking/ use/ addiction, do not even have to be charged, e.g., a simple admission of drug addiction is sufficient to lose green card.
Gulen has apparently kept his nose clean as regards the green card. Many of us are unhappy with his having been allowed to establish a large chain of charter schools here as an alien resident, primarily because (1)he & employees have sponsored other Turkish nationals for teaching positions that could be held by Americans, and (2)due to potentially unstable US-Turkey relations, anticipating a situation like this one where home country demands his extradition.
The problems we anti-privatized-ed folks have with Gulen’s schools are really problems with our own state & national laws re: unvetted charters (e.g., shouldn’t state law require charter-school owners to be US citizens??). Not to mention another national peeve w/ immigration laws which allow folks to come in & take jobs for which an ample US labor pool exists. [sidebar: it was not always thus! I had a gf from Bombay, a math teacher who happened to be partially deaf, who had to re-train as a teacher of the deaf for green-card: 1970’s immigration law allowed only applicats for positions US labor pool could not fil!]
Bottom line: regardless of our issues w/ Gulen schools, extradition is a separate issue relating to Dept of State.
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bethree5…have missed you this last week…so glad to see your words.
Gulen lives in a huge estate in the Poconos guarded day and night by his own police force with military weapons…again I suggest everyone read Sharon Higgins for facts, not speculation.
Erdogan has tried to exctradite him since he got protection from Bill Clinton. He is close friends with Sheldon Adelson, and also has the protection of many US legislators whom he nurtured for many years.
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Hi Ellen! I have to say, the additional comments added since mine certainly give me pause. It is chilling to think that this hatched cuckoo egg was laid in our very own nest by the same kind of politics with which we have historically, time and again, backed the wrong horse in dicey situations abroad. And here he is, free to amass a fortune for his anti-Western cause via our swiss-cheese legal system which incentivizes dark-money-guided policy and privatization of public goods. Just to add another metaphor to the mix, he is the viper we’ve warmed in our coat. Can’t imagine that he will be extradited, nor that that would undo the damage.
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I’m thoroughly convinced now that extradition is not the due course, but then, I’m not a military adviser to the president elect. And I haven’t gained any sympathy today for any wealthy charter funders, especially not Gulen. I’ll just root a little more quietly for him to get some kind of comeuppance for his ways, including possibly influencing American establishment leaders and/or Turkish military fringe leaders with his money, of which I am very suspicious. After all, believing any charter chain owners are clean nosed philanthropists who don’t influence politics seems not the way to go.
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St. Louis is not the only place so engulfed with ignorance regarding charter schools that they would be shocked to hear anything about Gulen and charter schools……anything that can cause anyone anywhere to say “Huh?” has the potential for improved coverage of education by the American press.
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The national media have covered Gulen schools, but local St Louis media have not. Many St Louisans have no idea about the FBI raids on the headquarters of the three Gateway Science Academy schools in St Louis, unless they read the Chicago Sun Times Dan Mihalopoulos coverage. Chicago has a free press, St Louis does not. At least Mayor Slay, strong supporter of Gateway Science Academy will only be mayor for a few more months.
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Thank you Chris….it gets lonely sometimes.
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Bet there won’t be anyone from the Gateway Science Academies at today’s Metropolitan Congregation United event about out of school suspensions. Glad you post, too.
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I have long wondered why conservatives don’t take up the cause of fighting the Gulen charter schools. Maybe Flynn is the start of it.
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We Parents and Grand Parents alike have been fighting the Common Core tangled mess which is obviously tied to many of these go called foundations including Bill Gates and the like. They have been pushing their agenda for many years. And as a grandmother who has been watching it unfold with many hours of researching. It sickens me to think the our most vulnerable will be left to deal with this evil , when we are gone. Yes I am a conservative.
And have many conservative friends who have been to the meetings with our Board of Education Committee to protest and plead to no avail. It frustrates me to realize how the Web of deceit is so entangled, starting with Government Board of Educations ties to many of the foreign policy. The whole Globalization thing is looking more and more like a Scheme for the powerful and rich. Unfortunately our children are being used to shuffle that money around. They should all be ashamed.
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How and why have Turkish Gulen Charter Schools been allowed to form and expand under our United States Government?
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