My eleven o’clock consultation on Friday morning was with Vice President Joe Biden. He’s a very busy fellow, of course, and it’s hardly practical for him to visit my office, what with the Secret Service detail and all of the security issues involved. So he called, naturally.
Biden: Hello, Tom?
Tom: Good morning, Mr. Vice President.
Biden: Oh, come on, Tom, call me Joe.
Tom: Okay. Hi, Joe. What’s up?
Biden: Ah, the usual routine for a campaign, you know – fund raisers, that sort of thing. Lots of speeches, too. Reminding the voters what an unstable, dangerous [expletive] hole Donald Trump is, mostly. Plus all the rest of that vice-presidential stuff, like presiding over the Senate. That’s been kinda slow lately; mostly pro forma sessions.
Tom: Typical for this time of year.
Biden: Yeah.
Tom: So – how can I help you out today, Joe?
Biden: Well, as usual, Barack’s got me doing a lot of foreign policy chores. I suppose you’ve heard that I’m scheduled to visit Turkey on the twenty-fourth.
Tom: Yes, that I have.
Biden: That’s what I’d like to talk to you about. I’ve been over there plenty of times before, of course. Usually, it hasn’t been too much of a pain in the [expletive]; pretty straightforward, really. I’d talk to President Erdoğan about how much more military foreign aid we’re going to give him next year, what we need in return, what to do about Syria, how much more money we should give Turkey to take care of all those refugees, what are we going to do next to get Turkey into the EU, what a bunch of [expletive]-heads the Greeks are, that sort of [expletive]. Piece of cake, actually – just never mention the [expletive] Armenians to him, of course, because he’ll turn red as a beet and start ranting and raving all kinds of demented [expletive], just like any Turk does. Or Cyprus. Or the [expletive] Kurds, of course. It’s been the same old same old, mostly. But now, that attempted coup last month – Jesus Christ on a [expletive] crutch, know what I mean? This is a really big [expletive] deal!
Tom: I can certainly imagine. The whole nation of Turkey is pretty much a dumpster fire at the moment.
Biden: Damn straight. They’re saying Erdoğan’s [expletive] lost it – my people tell me he’s more or less gone off the deep end. I mean, forget about jailing his opposition, arresting half the [expletive] Turkish army, having his thugs drag judges out of their beds at three in the morning and making hundreds of journalists mysteriously disappear – the crazy son of a [expletive] is running around locking up school teachers, for Christ’s sake. He’s turned into a complete [expletive] lunatic, imagining assassins under his [expletive] bed!
Tom: That meeting with Putin in St. Petersburg earlier this month seems to have taken everybody by surprise, too.
Biden: Oh, God, yeah. Now Barack and his entire cabinet are [expletive] and moaning about a Turkish pivot to Russia, and expecting me to do something to stop it.
Tom: Alas, the lot of the American Vice President is not an easy one.
Biden: Yeah, well, whoever it was that said the job isn’t worth a bucket of warm [expletive] didn’t know the half of it.
Tom: That was John “Cactus Jack” Nance Garner, thirty-second Vice President of the United States during FDR’s first and second terms.
Biden: I bet after eight years on the job, he was damn sick and tired of it, too.
Tom: I’m sure he was.
Biden: Like me.
Tom: Right.
Biden: Damn straight. So, anywho, here I am, off to Turkey to talk with Erdoğan next week, and he’s behaving like a total [expletive] psychotic, accusing the United States of engineering the coup attempt.
Tom: Well, you know, Joe, like they say – just because you’re paranoid, that doesn’t mean nobody’s out to get you. It just means you’re more likely to be suspicious of the wrong people, that’s all.
Biden: Yeah, good point, I guess.
Tom: I mean, he’s wrong, isn’t he? I should hope the CIA had some serious lessons learned meetings about the 1953 coup that overthrew the elected government in Iran, the 1961 coup in the Dominican Republic where they assassinated Rafael Trujillo, the 1963 coup in Ecuador, the 1964 coup in Brazil, the 1965 coup in Indonesia that overthrew Sukarno, the 1967 military coup in Greece, the 1970 coup in Cambodia, the 1971 coup in Bolivia, and the 1973 coup in Chile where they assassinated Salvador Allende, the…
Biden: You know, Tom, sometimes that photographic memory of yours can be a real [expletive] nuisance.
Tom: Oh, sorry. But anyway, Erdoğan is… wrong… about the US fomenting this coup attempt in Turkey, isn’t he?
Biden: Uh… sure… of course he is.
Tom: Is he wrong about Fethullah Gülen, too?
Biden: Ah, gee, I donno. Not directly, I’m sure. Maybe a lot of the coup plotters agree with him about various things – science, education, secularism, women’s rights, religious tolerance, stuff like that. But that’s another problem, see? Because Gülen’s living here – in the [expletive] Poconos, can you believe that? And Erdoğan’s been yelling about us extraditing him back to Turkey. But if we do, Gülen’s as good as dead, and we look like the bad guys for sending him back to Turkey. The British, the Germans, the Belgians, Jesus Christ, the [expletive] French – we’d never hear the [expletive] end of it, that’s for sure. Not that Gülen isn’t to blame for the [expletive] mess he’s in. He and Erdoğan used to be tight, but then Gülen started [expletive] about corruption and got an investigation going. It fingered Erdoğan, naturally, which accomplished nothing but getting Gülen and his entire organization declared a bunch of terrorists by the Turkish government! Damn it, this [expletive] Gülen’s a [expletive] Turk himself! If anybody knows what you or I would call rampant graft and bribery is just business as usual there, he should! I mean, [expletive], Tom, it’s like if some self-righteous college professor from Amherst, Massachusetts was to go to Chicago and try to clean the place up! Except that Gülen’s got no excuses for behaving like such a clueless [expletive] idiot! So that’s [expletive]-buster Number One I have to deal with next week, Tom. Maybe you could help me out with it?
Tom: Okay – first of all, I assume the United States is willing to apply liberal amounts of the Universal Solvent to the Gülen extradition issue?
Biden: Uh… you mean money?
Tom: Cash. I’m talking small, unmarked bills, random serial numbers, delivered in appropriately sized suitcases, to Erdoğan and his cronies, all strictly under the table.
Biden: Oh, [expletive], Tom, I could never condone something like that.
Tom: Nobody’s saying you should. I’m suggesting that the United States of America see to the plentiful and effective bribery of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his associates in order to make this Fethullah Gülen extradition issue go away, not you.
Biden: But… but… I can’t just waltz into a [expletive] foreign policy briefing and say, “Hey, why don’t we just give this [expletive]-hole Erdoğan and his accomplices a [expletive]-load of laundered cash to forget about that [expletive] troublemaker Gülen?”
Tom: Of course not. What you need to do is, wait while everybody fruitlessly discusses the situation for half an hour, coming up with nothing. Then you say, “Well, golly gosh, guys, why don’t we suggest a compromise? Instead of extraditing Gülen to Turkey, we’ll extradite him to the Hague for a trial before the International Criminal Court of Justice on charges of terrorism.” Then wait until somebody breaks the stunned silence and makes a statement along the lines of, “Granted, that would satisfy everybody in NATO except Turkey, but what could we possibly offer Erdoğan and that bunch of crooks he hangs around with that would get the Turkish government to go along with it?” Then you say, “Oh, I’m sure we can think of something” and leave it at that.
Biden: Oh, okay. And maybe I could… wink or smile when I say it?
Tom: Better to scratch your head with your right hand and look up slightly to the left, as if the answer was written up there on the ceiling, if only the moron who asked the question would look. It’s more subtle that way.
Biden: Oh, yeah. Subtle does the trick, no [expletive] doubt about that.
Tom: It does, indeed. And after that, if the Gülen flap doesn’t subside immediately, it certainly won’t be your fault.
Biden: But… um… if we hand Gülen over to the ICC in the Hague, won’t that kind of be like admitting we agree with Erdoğan that there’s something to this terrorism bull-[expletive] he’s been spouting? I mean, dragging Gülen out of his home, locking him up over there in the Hague, that’s some terrible [expletive] to do to a seventy-five year old guy, don’t you think?
Tom: On the contrary, I think Gülen will take it as a consummate opportunity to engage in the most significant and adventurous act of his entire career.
Biden: Really? How so?
Tom: Gülen will use the prevailing situation to his advantage as he has never done before. He will seize the opportunity not only to conclusively demonstrate his innocence, but also to completely deconstruct the Erdoğan government in the eyes of the international community while doing so.
Biden: You sure he can afford it? Monetarily, that is.
Tom: Gülen has an extensive organization that will fervently back him with all the necessary resources, and there’s a pretty good chance that plenty of others like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the United Nations Foundation, not to mention wealthy donors like George Soros and his ilk will chip in to fund a dream team of international lawyers, researchers and investigators. Don’t forget – ICC trials in the Hague take years, and over the entire length of the trial, Gülen will have constant worldwide press coverage, with which he can expose every ugly aspect of the Erdoğan regime.
Biden: [Expletive]! If that happens, Erdoğan will be [expletive] toast! What if he figures that out?
Tom: Oh, I’m quite certain he will.
Biden: When?
Tom: About five minutes after he hears the proposal, I’d imagine.
Biden: Then why would he accept it?
Tom: Allow me to explain. What will happen is, Erdoğan will realize that the US proposal to extradite Gülen to the Hague is airtight. It satisfies his demand that Gülen be tried for terrorism, so he can’t object on those grounds. And if Erdoğan is as blameless as he pretends to be, he should have no problem with what might be revealed during such a trial. He will be checkmated, pure and simple. If he keeps bellyaching about Gülen, all we have to do is keep repeating that we’re prepared to extradite him to the Hague and consider that to be a satisfactory US response to Turkey’s demands. And the more Erdoğan complains after that, the more countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan will worry about what Gülen’s fair and open trial before the ICC might reveal about them, which, given all the oil in Saudi Arabia and all the fanatics in Pakistan, for example, is not likely to lead to any positive developments for Turkey.
Biden: So what do you figure Erdoğan will do?
Tom: Shut up about extraditing Gülen and find a suitable hiding place for that suitcase full of money somebody made sure he got.
Biden: But won’t backing down on the extradition issue make him look bad?
Tom: He can make an angry speech denouncing the US for failing to cooperate, then convene a show trial in Turkey where Gülen will be tried in absentia and sentenced to death. Big deal – like you said, Gülen’s seventy-five years old already, and besides, he’s got a nice place to live in the Poconos.
Biden: Holy [expletive] [expletive], Tom! That’s [expletive] brilliant! And let me tell you, this [expletive] Gülen [expletive] was the worst thing bothering me about going to Turkey this time. Now that you’ve got that out of the way, the rest of the trip should be a [expletive] slam-dunk for my staff, or if it isn’t, I’m sure [expletive] gonna want to know why!
Tom: Glad I could be of assistance. If you have any further thorny issues to sort out, just give me a call.
Biden: Yeah, well, damn it, Tom, I sure will. You’re really [expletive] expensive, but you’re [expletive] worth it!
Tom: Gee, thanks, Joe.
Biden: You’re welcome. ‘Bye.