In recent years, Turkey has been fighting a battle against coup plotters within the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) at a great cost. Things got a lot more difficult when members of the terrorist group led by Fetullah Gülen, commonly known as the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), replaced traditional putschists.

Needless to say, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's determination, coupled with the efforts of patriots within the military, the resistance of law enforcement and the judiciary's diligent work, made valuable contributions to the fight against coup plotters. But it is not possible to conclude today that FETÖ no longer poses a threat to Turkey or that the group's members have been completely dismissed from public service. An ongoing smear campaign against the Turkish military attests to that fact.

As Turkey goes through this difficult period, the Republican People's Party's (CHP) presidential candidate, Muharrem İnce, who carefully avoided the subject on the campaign trail, shocked everyone by targeting a senior military commander for applauding the Turkish president. It doesn't help that the CHP was either complicit in past military interventions or kept its silence during such periods. The Turkish people remember how CHP members hailed the Feb. 28 process as a reaction by the "civil society" against the government and claimed that the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) "deserved" the April 2007 e-memorandum.

To be clear, the CHP leadership's decision to keep silent when the military meddles in politics and to target the Armed Forces when it concentrates on its job plays right into the hands of extra-parliamentary forces. Ironically, this has been the main opposition party's modus operandi since Fetullah Gülen revealed his true face on Feb. 7, 2012 by trying to have Turkey's intelligence chief arrested. Since then, the CHP leadership considered the AK Party its archenemy and FETÖ, a powerful ally. Birgül Ayman Güler, a former CHP parliamentarian, repeatedly made this point in public – before being sacked.

To make matters worse, the CHP didn't stop there. Upon shaking hands with the Gülenists, it proceeded to blame all the destruction caused by FETÖ on the AK Party government. The organization, however, was not born under the AK Party.

In truth, Gülen started conspiring a violent takeover of the Turkish government some 40 years ago. His organization managed to gain more power under every new government – especially when the military had a lot more influence over politics. It was therefore that the generals, who joined the Turkish Armed Forces back in the early 1990s, ended up carrying out a coup attempt in July 2016.

Investigative journalist Nedim Şener talks about Gülen's criminal empire in his new book, "The Heroic Traitors." Unfortunately, not enough attention has been paid by the public to the relationship between FETÖ and the Turkish military. Blaming everything on politicians was always the go-to option. Sadly enough, even high-ranking military officials, who should have been more careful, were unable to wake up to the FETÖ threat in due time.

Mr. Şener discusses in great detail Gülen's relationship with the Turkish Armed Forces and provides some interesting examples. The following section is particularly noteworthy: "In 1982, when the initial investigation started, some officers were dismissed from the military. Others, who were younger, were allowed to stay in the hopes that they could be saved. Some of those individuals ended up carrying out the July 15 coup attempt as three-star generals."

As the quote suggests, many people unwittingly supported Gülen's organization. Today, however, the situation is completely different, as the main opposition party is willing to turn a blind eye to FETÖ, which attempted to overthrow Turkey's democratically elected government.