Galloway

[1936]

Galloway set for Senate hearing

George Galloway has dismissed the allegations as ridiculous
George Galloway is preparing to appear before a US Senate committee that has accused him of receiving oil options from Saddam Hussein's regime.
The Respect MP for Bethnal Green & Bow has travelled to Washington for the hearing, but has dubbed the committee's report as "a schoolboy dossier".

The committee alleged Mr Galloway and French politician Charles Pasqua received oil rights from the Iraqis.

Respect has said a document used against Mr Galloway is forged.

Mr Galloway appeared relaxed and jovial when he arrived in the US, but made it clear he was going to go on the offensive.

"Get a ringside seat," was his advice to journalists.

'Full of holes'

Mr Galloway has said the Senate investigative committee's report is "full of holes, full of falsehoods".

"I am not expecting any justice from the innards of the US government but I want to appear not as the accused but as the accuser.

He is not expecting a sympathetic hearing but hopefully the truth will out

Mr Galloway's spokesman Ron McKay


Profile: George Galloway

"They seem blissfully unaware that for people in the rest of the world the villains in the piece in Iraq are them."

He said earlier: "The truth is I have never bought or sold a drop of oil from Iraq, or sold or bought a drop of oil from anybody.

"If I had, I would be a very rich man and the person who made me rich would already be in the public domain."

Russia allegation

The United Nations-backed oil for food scheme enabled Saddam Hussein to export oil to pay for essential humanitarian aid to help the Iraqi people cope with UN sanctions imposed in 1991.

The options to buy barrels of Iraqi oil were alleged to have been given as rewards for supporting Saddam Hussein.

All they have is a photocopy, handed over by an unnamed source

Respect spokesman

The former Iraqi leader sold the vouchers at below market prices to favoured parties, who were able to sell them on at profit.

On Monday Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky denied the committee's accusations that he accepted millions of dollars in Iraqi oil allocations.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Mr Galloway's Respect party told a press conference the document used by the Senate hearing was a forgery.

The spokesman said: "The actual first document, we don't know where it is, they don't know where it is and all they have is a photocopy handed over by an unnamed source."

Typographical analysis showed Mr Galloway's name was in a different typeface, a lighter shade and at a different angle to the rest of the document, he said.

The spokesman suggested Mr Galloway's name had been stuck to the bottom of the list, and the document photocopied.

He also cited testimony from an Iraqi who claimed he forged lists of people who profited from the oil for food scheme.

Vehement denial

In December, Mr Galloway won £150,000 in libel damages from the Daily Telegraph over its separate claims he had received money from Saddam's regime.

The MP had denied ever seeking or receiving money from Saddam's government, which he said he had long opposed.

Last month the newspaper won permission to appeal against the ruling to pay the damages, plus £1.2m in costs.

The Senate committee's report also accused Mr Pasqua of receiving oil rights from Iraq, something he has vehemently denied.

The report claims both he and Mr Galloway were given potentially lucrative oil allocations as a reward for their support in calling for sanctions against the regime to be loosened.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4553759.stm

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Oh the ultimate irony... The US charging someone for accepting deals on the oil they stole from the Iraqis...

Also, considering that Mr Hussein's government no longer exists, what's the fucking point?

[Sir Aunty Christ]

What do people generally think of Galloway anyway? I mean people on this board.

[Intifada]

Galloway says it like it is.

I like him for that reason.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Originally posted by Sir Aunty [email protected] 17 2005, 03:20 PM
What do people generally think of Galloway anyway? I mean people on this board.
IMO he's a reformist dweeb, but far from deserving this sort of accusation.

[Intifada]

Is anyone watching the hearing.

Galloway is brilliant.

[bolshevik butcher]

I'm rooting for him, the state did similar things to scargole as well. He may be a prick as an individual but he stands for a good cause.

[Sir Aunty Christ]

He may be a prick as an individual but he stands for a good cause.

Yes! I'm not the only one who thinks Galloway has prickish qualities.

[bolshevik butcher]

Originally posted by Sir Aunty [email protected] 17 2005, 06:23 PM

He may be a prick as an individual but he stands for a good cause.

Yes! I'm not the only one who thinks Galloway has prickish qualities.
I thought everyone did :o

[Sir Aunty Christ]

Can't think of too many socialists that I know lining up to tell him to shut the fuck up. But then again I'm SWP (Ireland) so for all I know we're a different breed.

[bolshevik butcher]

I wouldn't quite do that, i'd tell him he was an egotisitcal prick but to keep fighting and be a bit less of an arrogant fuck.

[Guerrilla22]

I saw the hearing on C-SPAN today, it was one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. Galloway went up there and said "I have never been an oil trader, never was an oil trader, nor will I ever be an oil trader," mimicking the infamous 50's Comittee on Un-American activities hearings.

[Bugalu Shrimp]

He stood up to every dumb charge and used the hearing as a platform to vehemently condemn Bush & Rummsfield and their whole bogus war. George is a street fighter and he gave them a good kick up the arse, I'm proud that he is my M.P.

I find all the sneering a bit sad really. Praise where it's due.

[Roses in the Hospital]

What do people generally think of Galloway anyway? I mean people on this board.

He's a bit shouty and arrogant. But having someone of such radical opinions in the commons has got to be a good thing...

[viva le revolution]

Well George Galloway did make the senator's look like folls, so i am happy.

[lvialviaquez]

I don't know much about Galloway in general, but I really do respect him for what he's fighting for.

[DaCuBaN]

I don't know if any of you read the document detailing the allegations against him, but here is a transcript of his response:


"Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader. and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one - and neither has anyone on my behalf.

"Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.

"Now I want to deal with the pages that relate to me in this dossier and I want to point out areas where there are - let's be charitable and say errors. Then I want to put this in the context where I believe it ought to be. On the very first page of your document about me you assert that I have had 'many meetings' with Saddam Hussein. This is false.

"I have had two meetings with Saddam Hussein, once in 1994 and once in August of 2002. By no stretch of the English language can that be described as "many meetings" with Saddam Hussein.

"As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war, and on the second of the two occasions, I met him to try and persuade him to let Dr Hans Blix and the United Nations weapons inspectors back into the country - a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam Hussein than your own Secretary of State for Defense made of his.

"I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and Americans governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas. I used to demonstrate outside the Iraqi embassy when British and American officials were going in and doing commerce.

"You will see from the official parliamentary record, Hansard, from the 15th March 1990 onwards, voluminous evidence that I have a rather better record of opposition to Saddam Hussein than you do and than any other member of the British or American governments do.

"Now you say in this document, you quote a source, you have the gall to quote a source, without ever having asked me whether the allegation from the source is true, that I am 'the owner of a company which has made substantial profits from trading in Iraqi oil'.

"Senator, I do not own any companies, beyond a small company whose entire purpose, whose sole purpose, is to receive the income from my journalistic earnings from my employer, Associated Newspapers, in London. I do not own a company that's been trading in Iraqi oil. And you have no business to carry a quotation, utterly unsubstantiated and false, implying otherwise.

"Now you have nothing on me, Senator, except my name on lists of names from Iraq, many of which have been drawn up after the installation of your puppet government in Baghdad. If you had any of the letters against me that you had against Zhirinovsky, and even Pasqua, they would have been up there in your slideshow for the members of your committee today.

"You have my name on lists provided to you by the Duelfer inquiry, provided to him by the convicted bank robber, and fraudster and conman Ahmed Chalabi who many people to their credit in your country now realize played a decisive role in leading your country into the disaster in Iraq.

"There were 270 names on that list originally. That's somehow been filleted down to the names you chose to deal with in this committee. Some of the names on that committee included the former secretary to his Holiness Pope John Paul II, the former head of the African National Congress Presidential office and many others who had one defining characteristic in common: they all stood against the policy of sanctions and war which you vociferously prosecuted and which has led us to this disaster.

"You quote Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Well, you have something on me, I've never met Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Your sub-committee apparently has. But I do know that he's your prisoner, I believe he's in Abu Ghraib prison. I believe he is facing war crimes charges, punishable by death. In these circumstances, knowing what the world knows about how you treat prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, in Bagram Airbase, in Guantanamo Bay, including I may say, British citizens being held in those places.

"I'm not sure how much credibility anyone would put on anything you manage to get from a prisoner in those circumstances. But you quote 13 words from Dahar Yassein Ramadan whom I have never met. If he said what he said, then he is wrong.

"And if you had any evidence that I had ever engaged in any actual oil transaction, if you had any evidence that anybody ever gave me any money, it would be before the public and before this committee today because I agreed with your Mr Greenblatt [Mark Greenblatt, legal counsel on the committee].

"Your Mr Greenblatt was absolutely correct. What counts is not the names on the paper, what counts is where's the money. Senator? Who paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars of money? The answer to that is nobody. And if you had anybody who ever paid me a penny, you would have produced them today.

"Now you refer at length to a company names in these documents as Aredio Petroleum. I say to you under oath here today: I have never heard of this company, I have never met anyone from this company. This company has never paid a penny to me and I'll tell you something else: I can assure you that Aredio Petroleum has never paid a single penny to the Mariam Appeal Campaign. Not a thin dime. I don't know who Aredio Petroleum are, but I daresay if you were to ask them they would confirm that they have never met me or ever paid me a penny.

"Whilst I'm on that subject, who is this senior former regime official that you spoke to yesterday? Don't you think I have a right to know? Don't you think the Committee and the public have a right to know who this senior former regime official you were quoting against me interviewed yesterday actually is?

"Now, one of the most serious of the mistakes you have made in this set of documents is, to be frank, such a schoolboy howler as to make a fool of the efforts that you have made. You assert on page 19, not once but twice, that the documents that you are referring to cover a different period in time from the documents covered by The Daily Telegraph which were a subject of a libel action won by me in the High Court in England late last year.

"You state that The Daily Telegraph article cited documents from 1992 and 1993 whilst you are dealing with documents dating from 2001. Senator, The Daily Telegraph's documents date identically to the documents that you were dealing with in your report here. None of The Daily Telegraph's documents dealt with a period of 1992, 1993. I had never set foot in Iraq until late in 1993 - never in my life. There could possibly be no documents relating to Oil-for-Food matters in 1992, 1993, for the Oil-for-Food scheme did not exist at that time.

"And yet you've allocated a full section of this document to claiming that your documents are from a different era to the Daily Telegraph documents when the opposite is true. Your documents and the Daily Telegraph documents deal with exactly the same period.

"But perhaps you were confusing the Daily Telegraph action with the Christian Science Monitor. The Christian Science Monitor did indeed publish on its front pages a set of allegations against me very similar to the ones that your committee have made. They did indeed rely on documents which started in 1992, 1993. These documents were unmasked by the Christian Science Monitor themselves as forgeries.

"Now, the neo-con websites and newspapers in which you're such a hero, senator, were all absolutely cock-a-hoop at the publication of the Christian Science Monitor documents, they were all absolutely convinced of their authenticity. They were all absolutely convinced that these documents showed me receiving $10 million from the Saddam regime. And they were all lies.

"In the same week as the Daily Telegraph published their documents against me, the Christian Science Monitor published theirs which turned out to be forgeries and the British newspaper, Mail on Sunday, purchased a third set of documents which also upon forensic examination turned out to be forgeries. So there's nothing fanciful about this. Nothing at all fanciful about it.

"The existence of forged documents implicating me in commercial activities with the Iraqi regime is a proven fact. It's a proven fact that these forged documents existed and were being circulated amongst right-wing newspapers in Baghdad and around the world in the immediate aftermath of the fall of the Iraqi regime.

"Now, Senator, I gave my heart and soul to oppose the policy that you promoted. I gave my political life's blood to try to stop the mass killing of Iraqis by the sanctions on Iraq which killed one million Iraqis, most of them children, most of them died before they even knew that they were Iraqis, but they died for no other reason other than that they were Iraqis with the misfortune to born at that time. I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq. And I told the world that your case for the war was a pack of lies.

“I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001. I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.

"Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.

If the world had listened to Kofi Annan, whose dismissal you demanded, if the world had listened to President Chirac who you want to paint as some kind of corrupt traitor, if the world had listened to me and the anti-war movement in Britain, we would not be in the disaster that we are in today. Senator, this is the mother of all smokescreens. You are trying to divert attention from the crimes that you supported, from the theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth.

"Have a look at the real Oil-for-Food scandal. Have a look at the 14 months you were in charge of Baghdad, the first 14 months when $8.8 billion of Iraq's wealth went missing on your watch. Have a look at Halliburton and other American corporations that stole not only Iraq's money, but the money of the American taxpayer.

"Have a look at the oil that you didn't even meter, that you were shipping out of the country and selling, the proceeds of which went who knows where? Have a look at the $800 million you gave to American military commanders to hand out around the country without even counting it or weighing it.

"Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own Government."

As has been mentioned before, he tells it like it is... although I still wouldn't "vote" for him.


I am on the anti-imperialist left." The Stalinist left? "I wouldn't define it that way because of the pejoratives loaded around it; that would be making a rod for your own back. If you are asking did I support the Soviet Union, yes I did. Yes, I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life. If there was a Soviet Union today, we would not be having this conversation about plunging into a new war in the Middle East, and the US would not be rampaging around the globe.

Here it seems, we see just hwo "right" he is. The Guardian today published the following article:


US 'backed illegal Iraqi oil deals'

Report claims blind eye was turned to sanctions busting by American firms

Julian Borger and Jamie Wilson in Washington
Tuesday May 17, 2005
The Guardian

The United States administration turned a blind eye to extensive sanctions-busting in the prewar sale of Iraqi oil, according to a new Senate investigation.

A report released last night by Democratic staff on a Senate investigations committee presents documentary evidence that the Bush administration was made aware of illegal oil sales and kickbacks paid to the Saddam Hussein regime but did nothing to stop them.

The scale of the shipments involved dwarfs those previously alleged by the Senate committee against UN staff and European politicians like the British MP, George Galloway, and the former French minister, Charles Pasqua.

Article continues
In fact, the Senate report found that US oil purchases accounted for 52% of the kickbacks paid to the regime in return for sales of cheap oil - more than the rest of the world put together.

"The United States was not only aware of Iraqi oil sales which violated UN sanctions and provided the bulk of the illicit money Saddam Hussein obtained from circumventing UN sanctions," the report said. "On occasion, the United States actually facilitated the illicit oil sales.

The report is likely to ease pressure from conservative Republicans on Kofi Annan to resign from his post as UN secretary general.

The new findings are also likely to be raised when Mr Galloway appears before the Senate subcommittee on investigations today.

The Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow arrived yesterday in Washington demanding an apology from the Senate for what he called the "schoolboy dossier" passed off as an investigation against him.

"It was full of holes, full of falsehoods and full of value judgments that are apparently only shared here in Washington," he said at Washington Dulles airport.

He told Reuters: "I have no expectation of justice ... I come not as the accused but as the accuser. I am [going] to show just how absurd this report is."

Mr Galloway has denied allegations that he profited from Iraqi oil sales and will come face to face with the committee in what promises to be one of the most highly charged pieces of political theatre seen in Washington for some time.

Yesterday's report makes two principal allegations against the Bush administration. Firstly, it found the US treasury failed to take action against a Texas oil company, Bayoil, which facilitated payment of "at least $37m in illegal surcharges to the Hussein regime".

The surcharges were a violation of the UN Oil For Food programme, by which Iraq was allowed to sell heavily discounted oil to raise money for food and humanitarian supplies. However, Saddam was allowed to choose which companies were given the highly lucrative oil contracts. Between September 2000 and September 2002 (when the practice was stopped) the regime demanded kickbacks of 10 to 30 US cents a barrel in return for oil allocations.

In its second main finding, the report said the US military and the state department gave a tacit green light for shipments of nearly 8m barrels of oil bought by Jordan, a vital American ally, entirely outside the UN-monitored Oil For Food system. Jordan was permitted to buy some oil directly under strict conditions but these purchases appeared to be under the counter.

The report details a series of efforts by UN monitors to obtain information about Bayoil's oil shipments in 2001 and 2002, and the lack of help provided by the US treasury.

After repeated requests over eight months from the UN and the US state department, the treasury's office of foreign as sets control wrote to Bayoil in May 2002, requesting a report on its transactions but did not "request specific information by UN or direct Bayoil to answer the UN's questions".

Bayoil's owner, David Chalmers, has been charged over the company's activities. His lawyer Catherine Recker told the Washington Post: "Bayoil and David Chalmers [said] they have done nothing illegal and will vigorously defend these reckless accusations."

The Jordanian oil purchases were shipped in the weeks before the war, out of the Iraqi port of Khor al-Amaya, which was operating without UN approval or surveillance.

Investigators found correspondence showing that Odin Marine Inc, the US company chartering the seven huge tankers which picked up the oil at Khor al-Amaya, repeatedly sought and received approval from US military and civilian officials that the ships would not be confiscated by US Navy vessels in the Maritime Interdiction Force (MIF) enforcing the embargo.

Odin was reassured by a state department official that the US "was aware of the shipments and has determined not to take action".

The company's vice president, David Young, told investigators that a US naval officer at MIF told him that he "had no objections" to the shipments. "He said that he was sorry he could not say anything more. I told him I completely understood and did not expect him to say anything more," Mr Young said.

An executive at Odin Maritime confirmed the senate account of the oil shipments as "correct" but declined to comment further.

It was not clear last night whether the Democratic report would be accepted by Republicans on the Senate investigations committee.

The Pentagon declined to comment. The US representative's office at the UN referred inquiries to the state department, which fail to return calls.


So it seems what we have here is a clear case of obfuscation from "persons unknown" within the US establishment. What better way to clear your own name than to finger a goose? It seems Galloway is determined not to be that goose - and judging by the above transcript and following article, he's gone some way to proving that.

Rather than flaming this poor wretch who goes to such great lengths to oppose imperialism, perhaps we should be expressing ourselves with one word? Solidarity!

[praxis1966]

No doubt. Galloway is ballsy at the least and incendiary at the most. Something sorely needed in our current sordid state of affairs. Fuck 'em up David! In refference to the report on U$ misdeeds, I believe Bill Shakespeare put it best, "O what a deadly web we weave when we practice to deceive."

[The Feral Underclass]

Yeah, Galloway did good

[h&s]

All that without any notes, you just have to admire him. Radio 5 broadcast the hearing live, as did half of all the US new netoworks - that can't be a bad thing.

[Dark Exodus]

Fox News Version (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,156854,00.html)

*Commence Laughter*

[1936]

He fuckin whiped the floor with the septic tanks.

[praxis1966]

Originally posted by Dark [email protected] 18 2005, 11:00 AM
Fox News Version (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,156854,00.html)

*Commence Laughter*
Too bad Gibson can't quantify any of those assertions. If I could retort to that article to his face, I believe I'd say something along the lines of "Don't piss on me and tell me it's raining."

[1936]

Too bad Gibson can't quantify any of those assertions. If I could retort to that article to his face, I believe I'd say something along the lines of "Don't piss on me and tell me it's raining."

Stop your *****ing. The man stood up to the united states of America senate. Hes a hero.

[SpeCtrE]

Originally posted by Roses in the [email protected] 18 2005, 07:09 AM
He's a bit shouty and arrogant. But having someone of such radical opinions in the commons has got to be a good thing...
I gotta agree with this too...

[redstar2000]

Credit where credit is due: high fives for the Scotsman! :D

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[bolshevik butcher]

Yeh., he ripped them apart, a real socialist in this case.

[praxis1966]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18 2005, 01:14 PM

Too bad Gibson can't quantify any of those assertions. If I could retort to that article to his face, I believe I'd say something along the lines of "Don't piss on me and tell me it's raining."

Stop your *****ing. The man stood up to the united states of America senate. Hes a hero.
I was talking about Gibson, the guy who wrote the article Dark Exodus linked to. Galloway's the hero you're referring to. Sheesh.

[Sir Aunty Christ]

Anyone see him on Question Time last night? Absolutely brilliant! If I met him, I may not like him as a person but I will agree with 99% of what he says.

[Intifada]

Anyone see him on Question Time last night? Absolutely brilliant! If I met him, I may not like him as a person but I will agree with 99% of what he says.

I liked his little rallying cry for the G8 Protest.

[redscot]

He describes or described himself as a bollinger bolshevik. Drives a mercedes.


He was on Question Time last night in Edinburgh and the whole audience applauded him.

Don't like him but he is a good alternative to the "yes" men and it has been fantastic to watch him in action against the Senate although general opinion appears to be the Senate could have been tougher on him but weren't.

One of the Senators I understand was a presidential hopeful but they reckon gorgeous has effectively finished him!!!

[mentalbunny]

Oh damn, I don't believe i missed QT with him on! Grrr.

I actually stayed up on election night to see what happened in Bethnal Green and Bow. Ok, I didn't stay up just for him, I was planning to go to bed when I knew whether it was a labour majority or a hung parliament but I stayed up a little longer to watch that one, and I have to say I was very pleased to see a Blairite had been kicked out for not listening to her constituents, that at least is some kind fo victory for democracy, even in a flawed system like the UK's. The commentators say Galloway got in by mobilising the young and the muslims, and to be quite frank, good for him.

I don't know an awful lot about him but most people I know don't like him (that said I am at a school where the fees are more than the median household income for a whole year!). One of my very good friends loathes him because of the whole "I salute your courage...." thing to Saddam, apparently that was taken out of context, could anyone please put it back into context for me?

And he did well with the US. He's already trounced the Torygraph in the libel case. hehe, always great! My dad (a confirmed lib dem) was actually going to write to Galloway and give him some tips over the whole accusation issue. The thing we forget is that Americans are foreigners. yes, here we're above national identity (or I damn well hope we are), but most of the world isn't, and if Galloway points this out my parents reckon it could swing public opinion in the UK his way.

To be honest, I'm not concerned with that, but I really can't wait to see what he does next. He's got 4 to 5 years minimum (unless someone bumps him off or something) to be serious thorn in the government's side, it would be great if he could make something of it.

[Sir Aunty Christ]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21 2005, 04:16 PM
One of my very good friends loathes him because of the whole "I salute your courage...." thing to Saddam, apparently that was taken out of context, could anyone please put it back into context for me?
He said (probably on Newsnight or Question Time, although it could have been Have I Got News For You) that he was saluting the courage of the Iraqi people.

[redscot]

I understand he is now considering a money spinning speaking tour of American colleges, he could charge £5k per speech and would earn as much as he was accused of making in oil deals!!!!!!

[comrademunch]

Galloway ousted a good local Labour candidate on an international issue. He has a ton of bluster about him, but i've yet to hear him say anything of substance. Would you pay as much as I would to see him in the ring with the Deputy Prime Minister? I reckon those tickets would be priceless!

[bolshevik butcher]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23 2005, 06:01 PM
Galloway ousted a good local Labour candidate on an international issue. He has a ton of bluster about him, but i've yet to hear him say anything of substance. Would you pay as much as I would to see him in the ring with the Deputy Prime Minister? I reckon those tickets would be priceless!
Oona king? She voted witht he government on every issue that there was clearley opposition to in the constitiuency. She was a typical bliarite, like my MP.

[redstar2000]

A North American speaking tour for Galloway is a terrific idea! A generous splash of cold water in the face might do wonders for people over here! :D

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[redscot]

Couldn't care less about Oona King or any other Blairites. Glad to see any of them given the boot (apart from where tory scum pick up the seat).

As for Galloway V Prescot - Well that would be one hell of a brawl which I would definately pay to see!

What must br remembered as one of his classic putdowns when being accosted by transatlntic polemist Christopher Hitchens at the Senate:
"You're a drink soaked former Trotskyist popinjay, your hands are shaking, you badly need another drink"

Top that!!!

[Che1990]

I personally thought the Galloway thing was fantastic! Someone has finally told the US where they can shove it! It was so hypocritical! Galloway is accused of buying oil that the USA went in and stole in the Iraq war anyway! Plus the US sold arms to Iraq (something that Galloway mentioned in front of the sennators). I mean, I'm British and I'm the most unpatriotic person in the country, I hate Britain, but Galloway shitting all over the USA made me proud to be British!

[Che1990]

Fox News Version

*Commence Laughter*

My god! That is so typically fascist USA! Just what I've come to expect really! And you're right, it is laughable because they are such hypocrites! God they make me angry! :angry:

[mentalbunny]

Originally posted by Sir Aunty [email protected] 21 2005, 04:52 PM
He said (probably on Newsnight or Question Time, although it could have been Have I Got News For You) that he was saluting the courage of the Iraqi people.
Ah, interesting. Thanks. I'll check that one up, it'd be good to tell my friend he's wrong! haha!!

[mentalbunny]

It appears to be Galloway's word against appearances I'm afraid. It's all about whether you believe him or you think it is how it looks. Tough one. I'd love to believe him but I find it hard.

[DaCuBaN]

It appears to be Galloway's word against appearances I'm afraid. It's all about whether you believe him or you think it is how it looks. Tough one. I'd love to believe him but I find it hard.

Did you listen to him? Have you read the laughable documents that attempt to discredit him? For crying out loud, if he'd done wrong, don't you think Fox News would have had something to say about it rather than merely shuffling their feet and shouting at the republican senator for not grilling him?

It's not Galloway's word against appearance's - it's an old-time Socialist against the US senate - who do you think is more likely to fabricate evidence: The man who stands up to be counted and freely admits to being a former supporter of the Soviet Union in a day and age where the large socialist experiment is largely discredited even by so-called "socialists"; the man who relinquishes his place in the ruling party of the United Kingdom for his political beliefs to stand against an unjust war, or the US Senate....

No fucking contest.


A North American speaking tour for Galloway is a terrific idea! A generous splash of cold water in the face might do wonders for people over here!

I concur - it seems even our "own" are more willing to side with the representatives of the most corrupt war-mongering nation on the planet over a socialist legend. I don't like Galloway - I think he's an arse - but the man's got a point.

[Bugalu Shrimp]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23 2005, 06:01 PM
Galloway ousted a good local Labour candidate on an international issue.

"I think they were aimed at me but the sheer ignorance never mind the lack of respect is shocking. They have no idea where their freedom came from and who gave it to them.

"They don't know they are lucky to be here. That is truly one of the saddest things that I have ever seen. - Oona King on Muslim egg throwers.

If that's a good Labour M.P then we are truly fucked.

[YKTMX]

Oona King is a detestable pro-genocide apparatchik. I couldn't care a less about her race or her sex - like every M.P. who voted for the war, she has blood dripping from her hands. It absolutely amazes me that anybody serious about socialism or even being anti-war could describe her defeat by Galloway as anything but a complete triumph. Still, I'm never suprised by the actions of the ultra left sects and their supporters. :)


As for Galloway, the performance at the Senate was brilliant.

[bunk]

'a working class wideboy' ;)

[YKTMX]

Please don't quote Hitchens...he's a bloated ex-Trotskyist popinjay.

[Andy Bowden]

I think Galloway's allright - but i'd love to be insulted by him, it would just be so eloquent and have all these archaic English words like "indefatigability", "lickspittle" and "popinjay" :lol:


What was Hitchens asking Galloway anyway?

[MiniOswald]

Why is it im not suprised that it would be a Scot to take on the senate in such a way?

I missed the live thing, but i watched it on the bbc news site, good ole george, I gotta give him credit, he's definatly got balls and he blew their arguements outta the water

[YKTMX]

What was Hitchens asking Galloway anyway?


Oh, some rubbish about 'being an apologist for islamo-fascism' or crap like that.

[Andy Bowden]

Aren't there 2 Hitchens brothers - one right wing and one that was left wing but is now right wing :lol:

But I know one of the two did the "trial of Henry Kissinger", which Kissinger found "contemptible" so they can't be that bad :P

[mentalbunny]

Dacuban, I was talking about the Saddam/Iraqis "I salute your courage" thing.

Galloway's a champagne socialist, a bit of an arse if you ask me. Sure he says some good things, he's fantastic for soundbytes, but has he got anything more to offer? I'm cancelling my standing order to the SWP (part of the respect coalition).