Galloway / Hitchens Debate

[baxter]

Ok you're right enough and to be frank I wash my hands of this individual. To be honest with you, I have never paid much attention to him, other than recently.
I have dismissed him since his infamous statements.
Time will tell whether he is sincere.
Maybe you are right and he genuinely cares, maybe I am right and he just wishes to promote his own political career.
Either way we should to agree to disagree and see how it pans out

 

[SAJ]

Baxter, truly it was not my intention to wind you up in any way.
My interest in this is ; why is it that in thread about Hitchens and Galloway, that there are only posts critical(to put it mildly) of Galloway?
The pattern is unmistakable across the vast majority of mass-media. Hitchens is outspoken and vindictive in his writings to an amazing degree, but because his views and the subjects of his attacks are in accordance with those in power , he is given a free hand(compare and contrast with Galloway).
It seems that permission to smear certain figures is given or withheld ,depending on how their public behaviour agrees or disagrees with the political and corporate elites.
The public(as demonstrated in this thread for example) act on the perceived label of "person-non-grata", with great glee and enthusiasm.

 

[Solaris]

Hes opposed Sadam sincethe beggining of his career, hes always voiced his anger at our government selling him weapons. He camppained against the sanctions. Hes always been anti-sadam, the lies your quoting, are just propoganda, and no site youve given me can show any evidence of him saying he salutes Sadam.

 

[Kangy]

Solaris, he's linked to several sites now. You're just sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting over everyone else.

 

[baxter]

Saj, it's ok you're not winding me. I have posted my reasons for disliking this individual and links to my reasons.

This is the last link I will post.

The Times of London, January 20, 1994. The headline was "I greet you in the name of thousands of Britons." The Times' source was a transcript of a broadcast on Baghdad radio, recorded by the BBC monitoring service. Galloway spoke in English, followed by a translation into Arabic.

Whether you wish to believe this or as Solaris pounds on, it is simply just propaganda is now simply a matter of opinion.
For the record I oppose this war but my opposition does not sit comfortable with this statement, sorry alleged statement nor this individual.
If he didn't say it, could somebody post a Galloway denial?

Edit.
The point I would like to make is that to give a voice to any form to an antiwar movement, the voice must be that of reason.
If Galloway did salute and suck up to Saddam, then that voice is diminished simply by the virtue that a leading advocate of this movement is seen to have double standards.
For anybody to listen to any form of opposition to the dreadful events in Iraq, the opposition has to come from reason and not blinding faith in this individual.
Galloway is not out of the woods with his dealing inside Iraq and many questions are still being raised about exactly what he did.
If this guy falls the resultant fallout would play straight into the hands of the Prowar lobbyists

 

[Solaris]

Question
As an Iraqi I find your words to the man who personifies evil very difficult to fathom: "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability and I want you to know that we are with you." Would you please clarify to me, the average Iraqi who you claim to fight for yet feels completely alienated, just what inspired you to say these words to the murderous despot?

Answer [george galloway]
I rather doubt your feelings about me are those of the "average Iraqi;" that is not my experience. By the way are you on-line from Iraq?

For the record (for the millionth time)I was adressing the Iraqi people not their President, as you can clearly hear in Arabic.

http://www.islamonline.net/livedialogue/english/Browse.asp?hGuestID=QmRN2n

There, I much rather belive him than right wing rubbish.

 

[baxter]

Wow now there's a surprise, he's denied it “a million " times.

Caught red handled blowing kisses up a tyrants backside, believe what you want pal.

"Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability and I want you to know that we are with you."
Galloway speaking to Iraq ( via Saddam).

 

[Solaris]

Its a blatent lie, to turn the working class against the revolutionarys.

We will ave our time comrades.

 

[Kangy]

Solaris, you're hilarious. Considering that this has all been verified, you're still claiming that it's a lie? Galloway is no revolutionary, he's just an exploitative dirt bag who preys on the ignorant.

 

[No Limit]

Of course he was, actually here is the full text.

“Sir, I salute your courage, your strength your indefatigability. And I want you to know that we are with you until victory, until victory, until Jerusalem.”

http://www.guerrillanews.com/articles/1678/What_s_Left

Like I said "I certainly don't believe in blowing kisses up a tyrants arse" and that includes the picture of Rumsfeld.

seems his words were very specific.

“Your Excellency, … I thought the president would appreciate to know that even today, three years after the war, I still meet families who are calling their newborn sons Saddam.”

Baxter, I respect most of your opinions and I am not an apologist for Galloway but I will have to disagree. Saddam, was not a good guy but you bet your ass I would be blowing kissed up his arse if it meant it could stop Bush going bat-shit crazy and killing hundreds of thousands of people in an unjust war. Everyone knows Saddam was a horrible guy, but when you compare what Saddam did to what Bush did you always side with Saddam in the end.

I just went over the transcript and I think that Galloway went a little over the top in kissing Saddam's ass, but you have to understand, this was at a time when our sanctions were killing thousands upon thousands of Iraqi children on a monthly basis. Again, Saddam did some shit but you compare him to what we were doing to his people he almost looks like a saint. Galloway made this pretty clear:

"It is my belief that we must convey the very clear picture that 1994 has to be the year of the ending of the embargo against Iraq. Otherwise, famine and all the awful consequences, including acts of despair by Iraqis, will be the result. And this is the message we must convey to civilized opinion in Europe."

And finally, this might have been mentioned but he was talking about the people, not Saddam:

"Sir: I salute your peoples courage, your strength, your indefatigability. And I want you to know that we are with you, hatta al-nasr, hatta al-nasr, hatta al-Quds [until victory, until victory, until Jerusalem]."

 

[baxter]

OK I can respect your point of view.
This guy does front very well the all caring, upstanding anti war politician and with that in mind I post this link.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Galloway#John_Malkovich_incident

It's quite a lengthy read and simply chronicles his history, political views etc, but please take the time to read it.

Galloway is the Vice-President of the Stop the War Coalition. He promotes himself as the maverick voice that campaigns endlessly for the victims.
This guy as got rich by his views and there is genuine concern that his bubble will burst and bring into question the credibility of any antiwar movement.
This guy should go, there really does seem to be a lot of mud out there and eventually some of it will stick.
My views on this individual are not driven by some sort of need to destroy him, my views are driven by the fact he really could undermine and damage genuine anti war sentiment.

 

[Solaris]

He went to the senate and exposed thoose neo cons on International television, he did the same against hitchens.

He is an excellant asset to the movement.

 

[who]

Galloway is the Vice-President of the Stop the War Coalition. He promotes himself as the maverick voice that campaigns endlessly for the victims.
This guy as got rich by his views and there is genuine concern that his bubble will burst and bring into question the credibility of any antiwar movement.
This guy should go, there really does seem to be a lot of mud out there and eventually some of it will stick.
My views on this individual are not driven by some sort of need to destroy him, my views are driven by the fact he really could undermine and damage genuine anti war sentiment.

you may be right, until he makes a mistake tho he is worth having as an antiwar protestor, taking into account that his stance on the iraq war is keeping him out of trouble its best if us anti war protesters allow him to continue until we can politically dump him.

he has talked his way out of massive problems, better an ally than in the shit

 

[gick]

I tend to agree with Galloway on quite a few things (mainly in terms of domestic policy) and it was awesome when he wiped the floor with those Senators. However, that does not change the fact that he is undeniably a twat and a self-righteous arsehole.

 

[Solaris]

Sigh you agree with him, but you continue to belive these lies portrayed by right wing media.

Can you give me one reason why he is a self rightous ass?
Give me one reason why a man who goes to Washington and puns everyone is not on our side?

You have to accept he is an enemy of the ruling elite, the papers continualy slander him to stop him getting anymore power. Think for yourself.

Ive seen what hes done;

In the late 1970s, Galloway was a founding member of the Campaign Against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq (CARDRI), which campaigned against Saddam Hussein's regime in response to its suppression of the Iraqi Communist Party.

So he did oppose Sadam

alloway opposed the 1991 Gulf War and was critical of the effect the subsequent sanctions had on the people of Iraq. He visited Iraq several times and met senior government figures. His involvement earned him the nickname the "member for Baghdad Central". In 1994, Galloway faced some of his strongest criticism on his return from a Middle-Eastern visit during which he had met Saddam Hussein ostensibly "to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war".

He was there to save lives


Hes a great man.

All anyone can say is that:

Hes Selfrightous
Hes scum
Hes fat ect

These arn't arguments.

Say something with some wait behind it or say nothing.
Slander proves nothing.


Solaris