George Galloway

[Toontown]

Slowly but surely the truth oozes out from between the cracks in the lies...


http://www.slate.com/id/2170981

Hitchens:

"Just look at the gang that strove to prevent the United Nations from enforcing its library of resolutions on Saddam Hussein. Where are they now? Gerhard Schroeder, ex-chancellor of Germany, has gone straight to work for a Russian oil-and-gas consortium. Vladimir Putin, master of such consortia and their manipulation, is undisguised in his thirst to re-establish a one-party state. Jacques Chirac, who only avoided prosecution for corruption by getting himself immunized by re-election (and who had Saddam's sons as his personal guests while in office, and built Saddam Hussein a nuclear reactor while knowing what he wanted it for), is now undergoing some unpleasant interviews with the Paris police. So is his cynical understudy Dominique de Villepin, once the glamour-boy of the "European" school of diplomacy without force. What a crew! Galloway is the most sordid of this group because he managed to be a pimp for, as well as a prostitute of, one of the foulest dictatorships of modern times. But the taint of collusion and corruption extends much further than his pathetic figure, and one day, slowly but surely, we shall find out the whole disgusting thing."


Every day the bucket goes to the well. One day the bottom will drop out.

[Pappa]

Toontown, you almost make Galloway sound like he's a man of some standing and power. He isn't.

[Toontown]

Toontown, you almost make Galloway sound like he's a man of some standing and power. He isn't.

Who me? I don't care how microscopic his weenie is.

He's also a bald headed pig. So what? He still needs to be in prison for taking money suborned from the oil-for-food program, and then having the unmitigated dishonesty, hypocrisy, and meanness of spirit to denounce the U.S. for the U.N. sanctions.

Oil-for-food was supposed to bypass the sanctions to get aid to the needy in Iraq. But it never could get past the grasping, greedy paws of Galloway and his stinking kind. They all deserve to drop through the same hole Saddam dropped through.

Things fall apart. The center cannot hold. And what rough beast slouches toward Baghdad to be bribed?

[Hermit]

What a complete and utter tool. I can't comprehend how anyone can consider this traitor a democrat or some crusader for eastern peace. On British TV he's the most moderate MP you could possibly imagine, often favoring the liberal side of the political equation. When he travels to the east, he stirs up the Muslims with the type of resolve that would bring a tear to the eye of any 20th century despot.



Watch it, he's a fool.

You forgot the Youtube link his accomplice, Barrack Obama, the notorious muslim sympathiser, who is undoubtedly white-anting the governments of the FREE WORLD as we speak.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCAffMSW ... yer_popout#![/youtube]

Amazing what one can do with copious amounts of judicious slicing and splicing, innit?

[Hermit]

Saddam's regime was a monstrosity which had elected itself through its own actions to be a subject of international concern. The US acted on the egalitarian principles it was founded upon, and swiftly deposed a tyrant which had held dominion for too long on the people of Iraq.

Iraq is even worse off since the regime change, especially so from the fundamentalist islamic perspective. Kudos for the US administration's invasion? I think not. Was it even motivated by a desire to liberate the oppressed people there? Don't mention the oil, k? Or it's financial and diplomatic support of Hussein and the Mujaheddin during the Soviet-Afghan war.

[Beatsong]

He's also a bald headed pig. So what? He still needs to be in prison for taking money suborned from the oil-for-food program,

Wow. In prison DESPITE the fact that he has never been found guilty of such a thing, and the High Court ruled that the Daily Telegraph's accusations to that effect, based upon some documents supposedly found in a bombed out building in Baghdad, were defamatory and worthy of £150,000 damages to Galloway.

That's some concept of justice you got there.

[Trolldor]

and what gives the US the right to decide who stays or doesn't stay in power?

Right? It's their responsibility given that the US under the Reagan administration helped arm Suddam, and the First Bush administration left him in power after the first gulf war when they had the opportunity to depose him but decided not to. The CIA helped push Suddam in to power. Kissinger turned his backs on the Iraqi Kurds after promising them support when they rose up against Suddam.
The US is as equally responsible for every action he committed, and for every action he would have committed in the future, as they are for all the results of their liberating Iraq.

At least, by this method, Iraq has a chance and a hope of autonomy.

[Trolldor]

So you oppose the removal of a maniacal, homocidal tyrant on what grounds?

Keep indulging the adjectives.

It's not a question of my grounds for opposing it. International law says that countries don't have the right to unilaterally invade other countries when those other countries have not attacked them. If you want to introduce an exception to that in the form of invasion justified by how much we dislike a particular leader's domestic policies, then it's up to you to explain why you're selectively applying that principle to Saddam only, instead of to ALL the tyrants in the world who have committed human rights abuses - ie most of the middle east and Africa, and a good deal else besides. Starting maybe with Saudi Arabia, the Americans' oil buddies.

Besides which, the opinion that Saddam was a "maniacal, homocidal tyrant" was never put forward as sufficient reason for invading Iraq in the first place. That reason was the magic WMDs - remember those? And there's a good reason for having to invent such a fiction - the fact that there is simply no precedent in international law or diplomacy for taking over other countries because "we don't like the people currently running them", and everyone knows full well that if we were to apply such a precedent with any honesty or consistency, we would need to take over half the world.

If you look at the Galloway-Hitchens debate, Galloway is actually pretty straight on this. He DOESN'T actually laud Saddam and say what a great guy he was, he describes him as a "tin pot dictator". But he asks which is the lesser evil - the existence of such a tin pot dictator within one contained country (in a region where, let's face it, practically everywhere is run by tin pot dictators too); or the violation of the most basic principle of international sovereignty via a country unilaterally annexing another, massacring thousands of that country's military and plenty of civilians in the process, bringing the country to the absolute nadir of violent civil chaos, massively increasing resentment and the drive towards radicalisation throughout the muslim world, giving every muslim with a grievance and his dog reason to go to Iraq and fight them, and then not even being able to control the forces they've unleashed and reconstruct any kind of peaceful, stable society anyway.

Nice to see your selective history there. Maybe, next time, you can actually research the reasons that Iraq was invaded instead of relying the propoganda of once-left now-right supporters of Suddam's Fascist regime.

[Hermit]

Maybe, next time, you can actually research the reasons that Iraq was invaded

What are your reasons for supporting the invasion?

WMDs? What a ruse that turned out to be.
Liberating the oppressed Iraqis? If so, it would have happened at the time the US administration supported the tin-pot dictator instead.
The threat of muslim fundamentalism? Hussein did that without US intervention - unlike Pakistan, which the US deemed unnecessary to invade.
Iraqis are better off now than before the invasion? That is yet to happen, and if it does, it won't be on account of what the US is doing.




Also, I wish people wouldn't keep confusing criticism of US policy regarding Iraq with support for Hussein. Claiming that one party did the wrong thing does not equal asserting that the other one was ok.

[Toontown]

Since we're telling each other what to stop doing...

Stop pretending the Hussein family had "sovereignty". What a fucking sick joke. Sovereignty? The Husseins?

The Husseins were the brutish seizers of the Iraqis' sovereignty, nothing more. The Iraqis' had no sovereignty until the Husseins were overthrown.

The regime change in Iraq was a liberation, nothing less. The average chimpanzee could figure this out. I can't believe it continues to be necessary to keep explaining this utter simplicity to legions of supposed adult humans of presumably average intelligence, who keep popping up like fucking whack-a-moles.

[sandinista]

funny post. Anyway, if it was a "liberation"..of course it wasn't, but for the sake of fun...whatever. Why was it not advertised to the public as a liberation from the beginning. Why the lying about WMD's? Why even mention that? Simply announce the beginning of the great liberation of the Iraqi people to the american public.

[Trolldor]

Maybe, next time, you can actually research the reasons that Iraq was invaded

What are your reasons for supporting the invasion?

WMDs? What a ruse that turned out to be.
Liberating the oppressed Iraqis? If so, it would have happened at the time the US administration supported the tin-pot dictator instead.
The threat of muslim fundamentalism? Hussein did that without US intervention - unlike Pakistan, which the US deemed unnecessary to invade.
Iraqis are better off now than before the invasion? That is yet to happen, and if it does, it won't be on account of what the US is doing.




Also, I wish people wouldn't keep confusing criticism of US policy regarding Iraq with support for Hussein. Claiming that one party did the wrong thing does not equal asserting that the other one was ok.

Actually, it's a matter of preference.

Either you support the war or you don't. If you don't to the extent that you believe it never should have happened means you prefer that Suddam remained in power over a US invasion. That is what it means.
Do I think the war is a perfectly executed, brilliantly strategised? Fuck no.
Do I prefer a US invasion over the US-caused Suddam regime? Fuck yes.

Sanctions did not work against Suddam. The Oil-for-Food scheme did not feed the Iraqi people. When offered a chance to surrender he refused.

Secondly, only a fool would claim that the war was only about the liberation of the Iraqi people, but if it were simply about Oil interests or control of the region then why, in 1994 when they had the chance to sieze power, did they not take it? Why did George Bush senior decide that it was against his best interests to overthrow Suddam?

[Toontown]

funny post. Anyway, if it was a "liberation"..of course it wasn't, but for the sake of fun...whatever. Why was it not advertised to the public as a liberation from the beginning. Why the lying about WMD's? Why even mention that? Simply announce the beginning of the great liberation of the Iraqi people to the american public.

1. It was presented as a liberation, from the beginning. Google "Iraq Liberation Resolution".

2. They believed he had a clandestine WMD program, including a clandestine nuclear bomb program. He led them to believe that.

3. The Ba'ath regime did have WMD, produced large amounts of WMD, and used large amounts. Do you think they suddenly forgot how to make WMD? There was a demonstrated propensity and ability to make and use WMD. They just didn't happen to have any at the time of the invasion. Imagine that. They only had months of advance warning.

4. The liberation of Iraq was announced. "The liberation of Iraq has begun", Bush intoned.

5. How did you get into this universe? You're supposed to be in the one where Saddam was a peaceful, elected leader who didn't seize and hold power for 30 years by brute force and never had or used WMD. You're supposed to be in the universe where there was no invasion of Kuwait, no Gulf war, no UNSCR 678, no UNSCR 687, no Iraq Liberation Resolution, no UNSCR 1441, no liberation of Iraq, no democratic elections. You're supposed to be in the universe where a group of thuggish tyrants simply assaulted a blameless, hapless Iraq, just to get the oil, and brutally hanged the noble Saddam. And the noble, incorruptible Germans, French, and Russians didn't do anything about it, because they were too afraid. But they did protest, and said they didn't think the brutal gang of tyrannical oil-seizers should do it.

Dude, you're not supposed to be here. You're going to cause some kind of quantum paradox situation if you don't GTF out of here.

[sandinista]

funny post. Anyway, if it was a "liberation"..of course it wasn't, but for the sake of fun...whatever. Why was it not advertised to the public as a liberation from the beginning. Why the lying about WMD's? Why even mention that? Simply announce the beginning of the great liberation of the Iraqi people to the american public.

1. It was presented as a liberation, from the beginning. Google "Iraq Liberation Resolution".

2. They believed he had a clandestine WMD program, including a clandestine nuclear bomb program. He led them to believe that.

3. The Ba'ath regime did have WMD, produced large amounts of WMD, and used large amounts. Do you think they suddenly forgot how to make WMD? There was a demonstrated propensity and ability to make and use WMD. They just didn't happen to have any at the time of the invasion. Imagine that. They only had months of advance warning.

4. The liberation of Iraq was announced. "The liberation of Iraq has begun", Bush intoned.

5. How did you get into this universe? You're supposed to be in the one where Saddam was a peaceful, elected leader who didn't seize and hold power for 30 years by brute force and never had or used WMD. You're supposed to be in the universe where there was no invasion of Kuwait, no Gulf war, no UNSCR 678, no UNSCR 687, no Iraq Liberation Resolution, no UNSCR 1441, no liberation of Iraq, no democratic elections. You're supposed to be in the universe where a group of thuggish tyrants simply assaulted a blameless, hapless Iraq, just to get the oil, and brutally hanged the noble Saddam. And the noble, incorruptible Germans, French, and Russians didn't do anything about it, because they were too afraid. But they did protest, and said they didn't think the brutal gang of tyrannical oil-seizers should do it.

Dude, you're not supposed to be here. You're going to cause some kind of quantum paradox situation if you don't GTF out of here.

[Hermit]

Maybe, next time, you can actually research the reasons that Iraq was invaded

What are your reasons for supporting the invasion?

WMDs? What a ruse that turned out to be.
Liberating the oppressed Iraqis? If so, it would have happened at the time the US administration supported the tin-pot dictator instead.
The threat of muslim fundamentalism? Hussein did that without US intervention - unlike Pakistan, which the US deemed unnecessary to invade.
Iraqis are better off now than before the invasion? That is yet to happen, and if it does, it won't be on account of what the US is doing.




Also, I wish people wouldn't keep confusing criticism of US policy regarding Iraq with support for Hussein. Claiming that one party did the wrong thing does not equal asserting that the other one was ok.

Actually, it's a matter of preference.

Either you support the war or you don't. If you don't to the extent that you believe it never should have happened means you prefer that Suddam remained in power over a US invasion. That is what it means.
Do I think the war is a perfectly executed, brilliantly strategised? Fuck no.
Do I prefer a US invasion over the US-caused Suddam regime? Fuck yes.

Sanctions did not work against Suddam. The Oil-for-Food scheme did not feed the Iraqi people. When offered a chance to surrender he refused.

Secondly, only a fool would claim that the war was only about the liberation of the Iraqi people, but if it were simply about Oil interests or control of the region then why, in 1994 when they had the chance to sieze power, did they not take it? Why did George Bush senior decide that it was against his best interests to overthrow Suddam?

Considering the US administration's motives for its invasion , the state of turmoil Iraq is in now, the repercussions the war had vis-à-vis within that country as well as the rest of the world, I wish the US had never gone ahead with it. The net effect, when weighed up against the status quo ante, is negative. That does not mean I approve of Saddam Hussein's regime.