And those (ships), sailing with ease…

Since violence resumed in July 2015, according to Turkish officials, nearly 600 police officers and troops and over 200 civilians have been killed, while the government claims to have killed nearly 8,000 PKK fighters. That makes nearly 9,000 killed in less than a year. This is the death toll several years after the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) proposed a miracle panacea to the country’s Kurdish dispute; Islam as a wonder glue solution to keep Turkey’s Turks and Kurds united (on top of that “glue solution,” one AKP mayor, some years ago, proposed that the Kurdish problem would fade away if the country’s Turkish men took Kurdish brides). 

Even in these dark days when gloomy news brings boredom and sorrow Turkey’s fanatically pro-president, Islamist newspapers can offer their readers the best of amusement. 

One recent headline read: “The most punitive warning to the PKK comes from Mehmet Görmez.” Mehmet Görmez in this headline is Professor Mehmet Görmez, head of the Religious Affairs General Directorate, or Diyanet. 

Now the top clergy is in the battle against the PKK? The Diyanet Forces Command? An elite unit of Diyanet’s special forces? Professor Görmez’s most punitive warning was: “Those who choose the path of violence and terror will face the most raging pain in the afterlife.” Thrilling. We do not know how many PKK militants abandoned their units after the warning, in deep fear of most raging pain in the afterlife. But some surely must have suffered powerful spasms of laughter. 

Another headline: “Diyanet moves to fight terror.” This story is about a new campaign of clerics who will travel to all corners of the country to preach to Muslims about how bad terror is. Once again, Islam will be the “glue.” 

-       “Good afternoon, folks. We are coming from Diyanet.”

-       “Welcome to our village.”

-       “Surrender your arms if you do not want to burn in hell.”

-       “No sir, we do not want to burn in hell. Here, take our weapons and bombs. This is all we have.”
Why did we not think of this solution before? 

Islam, according to the Islamist press, also has a semantic/alchemy role in our military’s conventional weaponry. Take the newly-launched Navy corvette, for instance, which has a hull classification of “F513.” What does that mean? A lot, according to one Islamist newspaper. 

The Navy had deliberately chosen the number 513, in an encrypted reference to the Quranic verse 51:3: “And those [ships], sailing with ease…” Lucky ship, but it’s a pity that the Navy’s other ships are exposed to the risk of enemy fire since there are not enough Quranic verses referring to all the ships in the Navy’s inventory. 

All the same the Turkish Army and Air Force can always get Diyanet’s support for better protection against PKK rockets targeting Turkish aerial platforms (one downed a helicopter recently). 

This columnist suggests that all army attack helicopters sent on anti-terror missions should have the same tail number, 6719. This will be an encrypted reference to the Quranic verse 67:19: “Do they not see the birds above them spreading and contracting [their wings]? Naught upholds them save the Beneficent. Surely He is Seer of all things.” 

Since Turkey is also building 100 percent Turkish submarines (from German designs with German engineering and engines), an ideal hull classification for them could be 1861, as in the verse 18:61: “But when they reached the junction of the two seas, they forgot their fish, and it took its way through the sea as in a tunnel.”