Island Dog

Join Date 06/2003

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George Galloway - Saddam'sf friend + Bush hater (like there's a difference)

That day has now been brought measurably closer by the publication of the report of the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. This report, which comes with a vast archive of supporting material, was embargoed until 10 p.m. Monday and contains the "smoking gun" evidence that Galloway, along with his wife and his chief business associate, were consistent profiteers from Saddam Hussein's regime and its criminal exploitation of the "Oil for Food" program. In particular:

1) Between 1999 and 2003, Galloway personally solicited and received eight oil "allocations" totaling 23 million barrels, which went either to him or to a politicized "charity" of his named the Mariam Appeal.

2) In connection with just one of these allocations, Galloway's wife, Amineh Abu-Zayyad, received about $150,000 directly.

3) A minimum of $446,000 was directed to the Mariam Appeal, which campaigned against the very sanctions from which it was secretly benefiting.

4) Through the connections established by the Galloway and "Mariam" allocations, the Saddam Hussein regime was enabled to reap $1,642,000 in kickbacks or "surcharge" payments.

(For a highly readable explanation of how the Oil-for-Food racket actually worked, see the Adobe Acrobat file on the site www.hitchensweb.com prepared by my brilliant comrade Michael Weiss and distributed as a leaflet outside the debate in New York.)
These and other findings by the subcommittee, which appear to demonstrate beyond doubt that Galloway lied under oath, are supported by one witness in particular whose name will cause pain in the Galloway camp. This is Tariq Aziz, longtime henchman of Saddam Hussein and at different times the foreign minister and deputy prime minister of the Baathist dictatorship. Galloway has often referred in moist terms to his friend Aziz, and now this is his reward. I do not think—in case anyone tries such an innuendo—that there is the smallest possibility that Aziz's testimony was coerced. For one thing, he was confronted by Senate investigators who already knew a great deal of the story and who possessed authenticated documents from Iraqi ministries. For another, he continues, through his lawyers, to deny what is also certainly true, namely that he personally offered a $2 million bribe to Rolf Ekeus, then the head of the U.N. weapons inspectors.

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Island Dog

Join Date 06/2003

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Galloway: Charge me with perjury

George Galloway has challenged US senators to charge him with perjury over claims that he solicited money from Saddam Hussein's oil-for-food programme and lied about it under oath.

The US Senate committee investigating the Respect MP's alleged involvement in the saga claims to have discovered £85,000 (150,000 dollars) in Iraqi oil money in his estranged wife's bank account.

And its chairman, Republican Senator Norm Coleman, says this means Mr Galloway lied under oath when giving evidence to the Senate Permanent Sub-committee on Investigations on May 17 this year, when he offered a passionate defence against similar claims

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Did anyone else catch the Galloway/Christopher Hitchens debate? I've never beena huge fan of Hitchens, but I have to say I am impressed with his attitude on Iraq. He's been treated like a traitor by the left of late, but he sure brought out the worst in Galloway.

My question is why England isn't the one putting this guy on the rack for his oil-for-food stuff. It seems like he could be prosecuted in the UK for the real acts instead of being extradited here on perjury charges.

P.S. Here's a transcript if anyone is interested in reading it.

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Good article dog, and now we will get to see all the SADDAM supporters for what they truly are, money grubbing thieves stealing the food out of innocent Iraqi peoples mouths for their own gain.

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My question is why England isn't the one putting this guy on the rack for his oil-for-food stuff.

Good question. Well, he was kicked out of the ruling Labour Party. However he then went on and stood for election for 'Respect' - a hard left anti-Iraq war grouping - for the parliamentary seat of Bethnal Green and Bow, and took it from Labour at the last General Election.

It's not strictly true that Galloway isn't being put on the rack 'by England'. Most of the press is hostile. The Daily Telegraph published an article concerning documents found in the post-invasion Iraqi Foreign Ministry naming Galloway as someone who had received £375,000 per year from the proceeds of the Oil for Food programme. Galloway sued and won (reminding me a little of Liberace's libel suit against the Daily Mirror which merely inferred that he might be a homosexual. Liberace also sued, and he also won).

There is also such a thing as giving someone enough rope they may hang themselves as in this interview with The Guardian newspaper (September 16, 2002):
" 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."

He's been treated like a traitor by the left of late.

Actually in the UK there are quite a number of liberals (in our meaning of the word

) who have taken a similar stand in support of the war (Nick Cohen of The Guardian immediately comes to mind). Clearly with a left of centre government sending troops to fight in Iraq, and some senior Tories (conservatives) believing that the whole thing is folly, the issue does not follow the same left/right faultline as in the US, which I find very interesting.

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There is also such a thing as giving someone enough rope they may hang themselves as in this interview with The Guardian newspaper (September 16, 2002):
" 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."

So you got your clowns too. Sorry about that! Major sleeze here, and I guess some here will play it up big (the american liberals).

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Island Dog

Join Date 06/2003

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Good article dog, and now we will get to see all the SADDAM supporters for what they truly are, money grubbing thieves stealing the food out of innocent Iraqi peoples mouths for their own gain.

I wonder why the left didn't have a count of the people who starved and were killed because of the oil for food scandals? When someone like the radical leftists here complain about what the "world" thinks of us, these are the people they are referring to.

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Obviously, if one is a "Bush hater" they are Saddam's friend.

Christ.

Help, Critical Minds Needed at JU!

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#7 by Deference
Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Obviously, if one is a "Bush hater" they are Saddam's friend.

Christ.

Help, Critical Minds Needed at JU!

not true at all def. SOME bush haters are Saddams friend, but not all bush haters. ok? clear?

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not true at all def. SOME bush haters are Saddams friend, but not all bush haters. ok?

Now that's a 'Go'.

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not true at all def. SOME bush haters are Saddams friend, but not all bush haters. ok?

Now that's a 'Go'.

And a good call. The title is wrong - not all 'Bush haters' are 'Saddam's friends'. It's fairly typical of the rhetoric of the American far right, to try and paint all who opposed the Iraq war, for whatever reason as "Saddam's friends"

However, there is good reason to suppose that Galloway at one stage was both. In 1994 Galloway greeted Saddam with the words, "I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability." He also wrote admiringly of Saddam having a "gentle" handshake, being "surprisingly diffident" and "glancing shyly downwards".

Today Galloway claims that he had always made clear his belief that Saddam was a brutal dictator, but frankly that is less clear than it ought to be.

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Island Dog

Join Date 06/2003

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And a good call. The title is wrong - not all 'Bush haters' are 'Saddam's friends'. It's fairly typical of the rhetoric of the American far right, to try and paint all who opposed the Iraq war, for whatever reason as "Saddam's friends"

Not all, but most.

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It's fairly typical of the rhetoric of the American far right, to try and paint all who opposed the Iraq war, for whatever reason as "Saddam's friends"

I think you should clarify that to "Continued Opposition". Many who opposed the war are not Bush Haters, but those like Cindy Sheehan that want us to cut and run, are. Similarly, some who do not support the "cut and Run" approach are Bush haters as well (Clinton and Kerry).

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