The Gülen movement receives hundreds of millions of dollars from American taxpayers to operate approximately 130 charter schools in America. Not surprisingly, they claim excellent test scores.
In defense of Gülen, it might be argued that he’s providing the Anatolian heartland with something that was extremely valuable to northern Europe: a business-oriented religious network in the Weberian mode. One reason Mexico is Mexico is because the Counter-Reformation kept Puritanism out of Latin America, and along with it the Protestant work ethic. Turkey, which has long been a sort of Mexico of Europe, could use an Anatolian business class. (…)
Why is Gülen in Pennsylvania, rather than his own country? When immigration bureaucrats asked that question in 2006, 29 influential Americans wrote in to vindicate Gülen. One of the most outspoken was Graham E. Fuller, the former CIA station chief in Afghanistan. (…)
Fuller came to my attention last spring when I wondered how the Tsarnaevs who blew up the Boston Marathon had gotten refugee status in America despite being Trouble with a Capital T. As I surmised, the Bomb Brothers’ uncle Ruslan Tsarni, a murky player in Beltway circles, pulled some strings.
Why did some Chechens have strings to pull in America? Beyond all the geopolitical raison d’État, Fuller’s daughter Samantha Ankara Fuller used to be married to Uncle Ruslan.
