Turkish security quashes demonstrators

OPINION:

Two times in two years, Turkish President Reycep Tayyip Erdogan visited our nation’s capital, and two times in two years his armed thugs attacked peaceful people on our streets. This time, his people sent nine Americans to the hospital.

While the injured were being treated at local hospitals, the Turkish ambassador issued a statement claiming the members of Mr. Erdogan’s security detail acted in self-defense against terrorists. According to the ambassador, to defend themselves, Mr. Erdogan’s people had to charge around a D.C. Metropolitan Police line that separated them from a group of peaceful demonstrators so they could put an end to an “unpermitted provocative demonstration.” If nothing else, the suggestion that terrorists are demonstrating on Washington’s streets, instead of trying to blow them up, is novel, sufficiently so as to make one nostalgic for the Soviets. At least they didn’t operate in some sort of alternative reality.

The U.S. Secret Service arrested two Turkish security officers, but let them go at the behest of the State Department because of an “informal” custom that allows delegation members accompanying visiting heads of state to do pretty much as they please. State assured the Secret Service that they would take care of it and they did promptly, issuing a statement, expressing their concern. Tsk, tsk, the State Department said, “in the strongest possible terms.” That’ll show them.

Not missing an opportunity for news face time, congressional politicians went immediately into high dudgeon, expressing their righteous indignation, for every television camera to see. “Unacceptable,” they shouted. That triggered the reflexes of both the State Department and the Secret Service. We’ll conduct investigations, they cried, we’ll get to the bottom of it, as if the public had not seen multiple videos of the brutality. The State Department proclaimed its “dismay,” as if its consternation should be enough to satisfy the attack’s innocent victims.

The so-called investigation is likely to become more of a study than a criminal inquiry. People contemplating their own shortcomings will play for time so that things will cool down and give Washington’s subject matter experts time to opine about how complex it all is. You see, we’re not really talking about diplomatic immunity. A review of that issue is likely to show the Turks who did the actual beatings were subject to arrest and prosecution had anyone been really interested in doing so. We’re talking about something much more important, an unwritten custom among diplomats, a perquisite of being important, involving comity among nations, well above the reach of mere citizens.

The striped pants crowd in Foggy Bottom believes strongly that no one must interfere with the delegation members of a visiting head of state, regardless of what they do. If a little blood drips onto American streets, it’s for a good cause, the comity of nations. The saber clankers at the White House and Pentagon will also weigh in on how complicated it all is, afraid that if we hold Mr. Erdogan and his security thugs accountable in this country for something they do so freely in their own, they might retaliate by restricting U.S. access to Incerlik Airbase in Turkey. That air base, they say, is critical to the defeat of ISIS in Syria. Unfortunately, following that argument to its logical conclusion suggests a little violence at the hands of foreign thugs on U.S. soil is probably OK as long as it doesn’t inconvenience the military.

So innocent people have been brutalized in our nation’s capital, twice in two years, by armed diplomatically protected thugs, the Turks say it’s our fault for not preventing a “provocative demonstration,” politicians pronounce it “unacceptable,” the Secret Service yawns, the State Department expresses its “dismay in the strongest possible terms,” of course, and the upshot is that we’re going to have an inquiry, despite extensive video recordings of the incident, including shots of Mr. Erdogan watching his security detail beat peaceful protesters. Who says this isn’t Turkey?

Perhaps it wouldn’t be so complicated if the political elite chose to look at it from the perspective of what Peggy Noonan calls, so insightfully, the “unprotected,” ordinary people who don’t have the power or the resources to challenge decrees of the ruling elite. Let’s demand the “investigators” or “researchers” answer a few questions on behalf of the people who bore the brunt of Turkey’s latest hooliganism.

For example, under what authority is the State Department or the U.S. Secret Service able to prioritize a diplomatic custom over protecting our rights of free speech, free press and free assembly under the First Amendment? Or our right to be secure in our persons under the Fourth Amendment? Or our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness under the Fifth Amendment? After all, if Mr. Erdogan’s people keep kicking peaceful demonstrators in the head it’s only a matter of time until one of them dies. And at a time when Washington does so much to suppress the Second Amendment rights of U.S. citizens, why do these foreign thugs have unrestricted access to firearms on the streets of our nation’s capital?

Maybe it’s not so complex after all. Maybe it’s one simple question: Who will protect us, “We the People” from the State Department and the Secret Service during the next official visit of President Erdogan and Turkey’s presidential goon squad?

• Bruce M. Lawlor, a retired U.S. Army major general, is a former member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council and chief of staff of the Department of Homeland Security.