Just got back from the training session, and let’s just say I am in my normal mood. Therefore, this post is dedicated to Andrei.
I present you, George Galloway, hero to the people:
MP George Galloway has defended comments referring to insurgents in Iraq as “martyrs”, saying he has not put British troops at risk.
During a tour of the Middle East, Mr Galloway spoke of “poor Iraqis” using the most basic weapons to write the names of their towns “in the stars”.
The Respect MP accused the UK and America of “raping” Baghdad and said the US was losing the war.
Labour MP Eric Joyce said the comments endangered UK troops “in a small way”.
But he said Mr Galloway held little influence.
The former Labour renegade said the only people putting troops at risk were in Mr Blair’s government.
“I said countries occupied by UK and US troops are being raped by them. Jerusalem and Baghdad are in the hands of foreigners who are doing their will.
“The people stirring up hatred for our troops are those who put them in Iraq, not the likes of us who want to bring them home to their families.
“The people who put our troops at risk are the people who put them abroad.”
George Galloway, lying, putrid, sack-o-shit. Take it away, Goldstein.
For you, Georgie-boy:
Watch the video and tell me what you think.
I hate this man, and Daniel Davies is right:
If someone wants to express the vilest of views, they ought to be entitled to do so in the same public fora as the rest of us. But always with the caveat that you’re not allowed to directly incite violent or socially destructive behaviour. You can preach from the pulpit or publish in your newspaper that group X are the spawn of Satan and that God abominates their presence. But when you start wheeling out the metaphors and stirring up the crowd, then you’ve crossed a line my friend; the line between trying to convince people by argument and trying to force them into your view of the world by things that are not arguments. Galloway isn’t speaking truth to power on Al-Jazeera like he was in the House of Representatives; he’s speaking untruths to the powerless. And if you’re doing that, you mind your language or you start undercutting the basis of your right to free speech. This is hardly a first offence too, but it’s the most egregious one I’ve seen (the “wolves” comment that got him chucked out the Labour Party was of a piece, but less obviously likely to stir up terrorist violence). This bugger ought to have been kept at arms’ length from the get-go and now that he’s won his seat and made the anti-war points, I would suggest that the rest of the RESPECT (George Galloway) coalition might want to consider whether the parenthetical part of their party’s name is on balance worth the trouble he causes.
This is the guy Democrats were cheering because he ‘smacked down’ Norm Coleman.
demimondian
I tried to chase the link, John. I take it that’s a comment you took down?
BinkyBoy
Santorum could turn around and hand it to the Bushies and we’d cheer him as well. If he has something intelligent to say (omg, that would be a miracle) then many on the left will listen. Just because Galloway was a hero for a day doesn’t make him a de-facto hero tomorrow. Get over it, the left has no hero worship, we probably hate each other just as much as we hate Conservatives. We just use duller knives on each other.
demimondian
BinkyBoy burbles bullsh?t:
You’re wrong. There are a number of lefties who won’t hear a thing against GG, MPSOS.
GG is a loathesome pustule on the face of the Earth. His ability to dissect Norm Coleman has made him a hero to the same fools who worship other plausible thugs (Noam Chomsky, anyone?). I’ve got no time for either.
(Then again, I wasn’t as entertained as others by GG’s performance with COleman. I oppose bullying of the cognitively disabled in all scenarios, even in Senate Committee hearings.)
John Cole
Is this where we insert the Godwin-defying ‘and Hitler made the trains run on time?’
BinkyBoy
I look at Galloway’s performance as an opportunity for our representatives to learn to break out the big guns now and then. If they are passionate about something they believe in, then they should speak out, rip the idiots a new a-hole and smile as they walk away. Coleman was made to look like the ass he is, and I wish more people would keep doing it to him until his own state disowns him. Would I feel the same if it had been a democrat? If the man is an idiot, the country is better of without him.
Galloway knows how to attack with a smile on his face, how many of our US reps can say that?
Defense Guy
Galloway is an asshat and should be driven out of the UK on a rail. The man is actively rooting for the enemy, with no sense of shame.
I also find it interesting that Binkyboy can charecterize lying passionately as ripping Coleman a new one.
BinkyBoy
Ah, calling people liars without any evidence to back it up, isn’t that just a grand example of your worthiness to ridicule?
Geek, Esq.
John:
Most Democrats are not Galloway fans. True, some enjoyed his drubbing of Normie Coleman, but so did John Derbyshire.
Don’t forget that it was a liberal, antiwar Democrat, Carl Levin, who was most effective at nailing Galloway’s slimy hide during that hearing.
Galloway is slime, and his admirers are either slime or profoundly stupid.
SamAm
Would that Oona King and Paul Wellstone were in Parliament and the Senate.
(and yes, Galloway is worse than Coleman)
mike famie
I’m one of those Democrats who cheered when he smacked down Norm Coleman, because, well, it was fun seeing Norm Coleman get smacked down, I mean, c’mon! Other than that I don’t support the crazy shit he says and yes he appears to be a world class scum bag. I think 99% of Democrats who enjoyed his colorful appearance would agree. Maybe it wasn’t the most intellectually honest enjoyment, cause this guy is messed up, but let’s not pretend most people’s like for this guy is anything more than that.
mike famie
Most Democrats are not Galloway fans. True, some enjoyed his drubbing of Normie Coleman..”
I actually missed this comment before I posted mine, but yes, exactly.
mac Buckets
Furious George’s appearance in Congress taught us nothing except that if a loudmouth is unfettered by regard for the truth, and is disrespectful of the process, it’s pretty easy to run rhetorical smack.
I think Coleman said it correctly: “I don’t think he’s a credible witness.”
Tulie
Why the hell is it so hard to understand that someone finding Galloway’s manner of speaking on one day funny and noteworthy IS NOT a wholesale endorsement of everything Galloway ever said or did before, or would ever say or do in the future? Come on, get real. Galloway is an ass. Doesn’t mean his treatment of Coleman wasn’t funny. You know what? I like Picasso paintings, too – and he was an asshole of epic proportions. I like a Tom Cruise movie or two, as well, and he definitely deserves a seat in the Assclown Hall of Fame.
This sounds like nothing so much as a bunch of right-wingers on the playground, with their fingers in their ears singing “Lefties and Galloway, sitting in a tree….”.
demimondian
John Cole asks:
D’oh. I forgot that. Sorry.
GG is a loathesome pustule on the face of the Earth, and Mussolini made the trains run on time.
Is that better?
jg
When will people stop trying to restrict free speech by saying its giving aid to the enemy?
Steve
There’s no question lefties loved Galloway’s testimony to Congress, but he’s rapidly approaching Ward Churchill atop the list of “People the Right Likes to Claim Speak for the Left.”
I hope we all understand by now that while there is a segment of the US population that believes the invasion of Afghanistan was evil and unjustified, that segment has absolutely zero political power.
Mark
John, you’re dead WRONG.
Davies’ rhetoric is dangerous. His message is just that same old propogandist’s tool: Some speech is okay, some is not. That’s as unamerican as it gets. I thought we’d been down that road and resolved these questions long ago. This is approaching the level of Ann Coulter and Joe McCarthy.
From this post, I have to conclude that you are in favor of restricting speech. I thought you were a social libertarian.
Gary Farber
Galloway is slime and scum, of course, but that’s “some” Democrats, to be sure. Most mainstream Democrats recognize him as the foul thing that he is, if they notice him at all, my biases tend to suggest.
John Cole
Mark- I am all in favor of letting Galloway go all over the world and call Bush and Blair a filthy pig-f**ker for all I care, but Galloway is crossing a damned line with speeches inciting people to violence.
If that makes me a damned hypocrite, so be it. I will deal with my otherwise pretty damned good record of defending people and their civil liberties. But I draw the line at people actively trying to get more innocents and more of our military killed.
Rome Again
Funny, I’ve been aware of another list too, “People the Right Likes To Claim the Left Will Vote For”. The Right says Hillary is my preferred choice of candidate, but I wouldn’t vote for her. It amazes me how they think they have my preferences pinned down.
Galloway is not a god of the left, never was, never will be. We don’t use loyalty oaths, we can like what someone says one day and be utterly disgusted by them the next.
Doug
Heck, George W. taught us that on his way into that yellowcake laden nuclear powerhouse of Iraq.
demimondian
John —
Seriously, do you read the transcript as direct incitement? I saw a lot of praise for swine, and denigration of Bush and Blair, but I don’t see any direct incitement. Where did he directly call for violence?
If there’s no incitement, do you still think that it isn’t protected?
StupidityRules
As for speeches inciting people to violence I’m guessing nothing will beat ‘Bring it on’ seeing as the person who uttered it is the POTUS…
Just because people might approve some things a person has done it doesn’t necessary mean that they support everything he/she has done, for example I’m guessing a lot of Democrats support Bill Frist new stand on stem cells but I doubt they are very supportive of the rest of his views.
Bob
If we’re still talking about the eight-minute clip BJuice linked to yesterday, I am wondering what the outrage is about. We invaded another country. Are you fools angry that the Iraqis didn’t greet us with candies and flowers? We invaded their country in the course of which destroyed much of their infrastructure, left a significant percentage without job, water or power, killed bunches of people. Offended their religious sensibilities. Stole their oil. For what? To give them a brand of democracy which looks like it will fracture the country and leave the country in a civil war. Democracy by the barrel of our M-16.
All this was done on the basis of lies perpetrated by Bush and Blair.
You guys have heard of the concept of imperialism, right?
So you’re angry because Galloway says the obvious? Because he speaks to Arabs?
Okay, it’s because he LIES, at least according to the title of this string. So what was the lie? My guess is that we aren’t talking about lies, but rather about opinions. Galloway thinks it’s wrong that we invaded Iraq. A group of people here favoring our military adventurism thought it was quite alright to invade a country that was never a threat to us.
By the way, Galloway really did kick Coleman’s ass. I haven’t heard any charges being brought against Galloway by Coleman’s Senate committee.
Mark
John,
I don’t know GG’s stuff too well, but I do know the writings of another lefty who gets called all sorts of nasty things along the same lines: Noam Chomsky.
I’m curious, do you think Chomsky intends to incite violence through his criticsms of the US post-9/11?
There’s a line drawing problem here, because your idea of what qualifies as “incitement” is a lot different than mine.
And does anyone honestly think that the type of people who commit terrorist acts are really thinking deeply about what people like GG say? I thought they were pretty motivated already.
And to play devil’s advocate, can’t this type of inflammatory rhetoric work the opposite way? If those who support acts of terrorism against us see some of our public figures critical of the American response to 9/11, doesn’t that blunt their image of the West as anti-Islamic crusaders?
John Cole
Chomsky is just a crank. Galloway is inciting violence.
Watch the clip I linked to…
And take into consideration that translatuions become even more dramatic in Arabic. Claiming your daughters are being raped, glorifying the cretins killing innocents, and the calls for martyrdom are clear, explicit, and obvious calls for violence.
frontinus
Glowing examples of exactly what is wrong with the anti-war left. Even when there’s objective, documentary evidence of incitement by a citizen against their country’s armed forces they will equivocate. If you people don’t think it’s explicitly incitement to use rape imagery followed by a polemic against Western perfidy and jihadi hagiography then there is no hope. Politics uber alles. Galloway can serve a purpose toward your political goals so you’ll gladly cheerlead him when he does so then excuse yourselves from the party when he reads your script on Arabic television. What’s wrong? I can go through his speeches line by line and correlate them to an American that is championed routinely. Is it just the dubbing of a foreign language that makes it beyond the pale…today…this time?
mac Buckets
Top of my head:
He lied about the Senate Committee being a mob of Republican lickspittles (Henry Waxman? He must’ve been shocked)… but George wants to make everyone feel like it’s HIM against THEM. He feels more heroic that way.
He lied about the previous bribery charges against him, seeking to pretend that the Senate’s investigation was superfluous because “he’d already won x amount of pounds” in lawsuits against the levellers of this charge. Of course, he knew that this charge was entirely different and separate to the cash bribe charges made and settled previously.
He lied about his long-ago-closed website openly declaring that he knew Galloway’s funder was trading oil for Saddam, when in fact, a search of his archived pages (didn’t know we could do that, eh, George?) revealed that he did no such thing.
George took money in one form or another from Saddam. His name showed up on multiple bribelists. But they weren’t really “quid pro quo” bribes as much as they were rewards by Saddam for Furious George’s past support of his anti-west cause.
demimondian
No, actually, I don’t think that’s explicit incitement. You know what? It is entirely legal for me to say “I think we should burn down the white house!” (which is a great deal worse than what even Galloway said) and mean it. It’s legal to say it in front of a crowd of like thinkers. It’s legal to give reasons, however nasueous, that they and I find compelling.
It only crosses the line to illegal incitement if I start planning to do it. Up until then, it’s bad and it’s wrong…but it is not, and should not be, illegal.
I guess that there’s no hope for me, though. St. Peter don’t ya call me, etc.
frontinus
Ahh, so we’re back to legal definitions? Rove can be traitorous without committing legal treason but Galloway can’t incite without a direct link to a crime resulting? It’s so hard to keep up these days.
Burning down a house is worse? You may just be too far gone, demi. Besides, it’s an absurd comparison. Why don’t you stand on Penn Avenue and tell people Bush is killing babies in “That white house there!” If anyone starts climbing a fence get back to me if you are able. Galloway went to Syria, the MiniMe to Iranian terrorism, and said what he said. It’s incitement. End of story. He used rape imagery(intending to incite). He said Arabs were too weak to come to the defense of Iraq(inciting to an action). And he said it in a terrorist state(likely to elicit said action). So even by your legalistic shadow boxing I stand by what I said.
Not if you advocate a specific action that will likely follow.
Go talk to Metzger or Hale maybe they’ll hire you as counsel.
Don’t worry. People have recovered from stupidity given enough patience and persistence.
John S.
One can gather from your post how highly you think of your own opinions, but your grand finalé really is way over the top.
Arrogance and narcissism are forgivable, but your blatant display of sciolism may be untenable.
Stormy70
Galloway is scum and he sounds like a radical Iman inciting terrorism. He is in Syria for God’s sake, hanging with the Baathists, who like to keep women in subjigation and topple walls on gay people. Then he brings in the rape word, that is incitement, especially since a raped women deserves death in their eyes. No excuse, he is a Sack Of Shit!
JonBuck
I often wonder why these discussions degenerate so quickly into ad hominem attacks. Are there any fact at all that we can agree on, even if we don’t draw the same conclusions from them? As a for instance, I refer to Cole’s admirable attempt to find concensus on the facts surrounding the Plame scandal.
I am sick and tired of partisan sniping. It gets in the way of the facts.
John S.
Jon, I think you will often find that these charming little threads often resemble a schoolyard fight more than an organized academic debate. Therefore, the rules seem to apply accordingly.
frontinus
Inciteful, John S. No…really.
demimondian
You know that I agree with everything you say here — with one possible exception. If you’d said “Then he brings in the rape word, that is inflammatory“, in fact, I’d agree with absolutely everything.
The question I’m worried about is the stronger claim that Davies made:
The implication I take from that is that legal restraint is necessary and called for. I’m sketical about that.
demimondian
frontinus spews
Well, I’m impressed. The juxtaposition of a series of paragraphs impugning my patriotism is crowned with this gem:
I gather that frontinus is more concerned about intelligence than disloyalty.
frontinus, I toast your unique priorities. You will no doubt go far in this life.
Stormy70
What gets me past the inflammatory is the fact he did it in Syria, not back home in Britain.
frontinus
Impugning your patriotism? Point it out please.
demimondian
Why? The people who blew up the Underground were Brits, after all. Wouldn’t what he said have been every bit as much incitement in London or New York as it is in Damascus?
(And be careful about the rape analogy. It was not to people’s sisters, remember, but to the cities of Baghdad and Jerusalem, “the daughters of Islam”. That’s a significant difference.)
It’s easy to believe that GG, MPSOS is stupid as well as a fool. I don’t think he is — I will bet you that he titrated his words extremely carefully. Loathesome? You betcha. But inciteful? Not so clear.
frontinus
Anything yet, demi? Surely it doesn’t take very long to parse a few dozen words to find the point where I impugned your patriotism. Just to make things as easy as possible here’s the post where you say it happened.
I’ll keep an eye out for another hour or two. G’luck.
Bob
Mark, Chomsky doesn’t incite violence, he brings about drowsiness. I have never heard a speaker with a more boring delivery.
mac Buckets, not personally excluding Waxman from the Rethug lickspittles is doesn’t constitute a lie. I believe the Senate hearing was in May, maybe early June, and not a peep from Coleman since. My presumption until you or the Senate committee show some more evidence is that Galloway didn’t lie in front of them and didn’t do anything prosecutable. As far as an oil trader who donated to his charity doing business with Saddam, if you recall there was a report that said 52% of the dirty business done during oil-for-food was by American companies, the biggest being a Houston-based firm. My guess is that George Bush had more cocktails with those folks than George Galloway. Unless you can come up with better, you are just repeating stale right-wing lies that were crushed during Galloway’s appearance.
Stormy70, the Baathists are fascists, you can draw a line straight from the Nazi penetration of Allied territories in the Middle East during WWII to the creation of the Syrian and Iraqi Baath Parties. However, they are secular and have been, ironically, better for equality issues involving women than most of their neighbors. Of course, when you’re comparing them to countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, our buddies in the region, there is a pretty low bar.
demimondian
Bob, you’ve been responded to on several posts. Galloway did lie about his relatinship to Fawaz Zureikat, and he lied in his teeth. He said that Iraq’s relationship to Zureikat had been publicized on the Mariam Appeal’s web site (http://www.mariamappeal.com). In fact, the Appeal’s web site never mentioned Zureikat’s relationship to Iraq. You can chase the links in the internet archive yourself, if you want, by chasing through Wikipedia if you want.
Sorry. GG, MPSOS is a liar. (As well as an anti-Semitic slime, and a general pustule on the face on the Earth.)
Sinequanon
John,
It wasn’t because it was Galloway doing the smacking down, it could have been ANYBODY, and I personally would have been delighted. I don’t care a rats ass about Galloway…I don’t however care for half of what he says…not that I’m keeping up, I’m not.
Stormy70
I wanted to mention the Nazi link, but I figured I’d get drummed out for using Godwin’s law. However, if it is a direct link to the Nazis, does it still apply? The entire Middle East needs to stop treating half the population like cattle, that is a point we all agree on, I’m sure.
John S.
To quote a line from a movie:
“I do not think that word thinks what you think it means.”
Either that, or this was some misguided attempt to play off the word ‘insightful’. Mainly because ‘inciteful’ isn’t actually a word – unless you prescribe to the school of thought that if you use it, then it’s a word.
John S.
Edit:
“I do not think that word means what you think it means.”
BinkyBoy
Stormy, should force be used to make them stop treating women poorly, in your opinion? Can you change a culture overnight with bullets?
Stormy70
The fall of the Taliban ushered in immediate culture change. Music was played and some women took off their burkas. I think a culture changes slowly, and I think it is starting to change in the Muslim world. The majority of Muslims are in no way barbarians, they want the same basic things we do. I think it will happen in the coming decade.
Geek, Esq.
Galloway is a gift to pro-war pundits.
chadwig
Sorry John, but I don’t see anything in your Galloway quotes that is really inciting violence. I see his statements as an abhorance of violence.
If you’re looking for speech inciting violence, as an earlier post suggested, perhaps look to George Bush’s “bring em’ on” idiocy, or almost anything uttered by our Secretary of Defense.
It seems to me that desperately clinging to a failed policy is far worse than pointing out the folly and the violent consequences of it. Saying that Bagdad is being raped by foreign occupation is both literally and figuratively true.
Time to admit your support for the invasion of Iraq was a fuck-up.
frontinus
Still need more time, demi?
Misguided? Do you know something I don’t?
Luddite
“Hitler made the trains run on time”
Sorry John, that quote was in regards to Mussolini in Italy. German trains are ALWAYS on time, regardless of who is in power :-)
John Cole
Well, not to mention all the trains running on time bit is an urban legend.
mac Buckets
Welcome to non sequiter city. Of course, calling the Committee lickspittle Republicans (when it was a bipartisan committee) was a lie. Do you think GG didnt know exactly who was on the committee? He knew Coleman’s PROFESSION, for God’s sake. He was lying for purposes of drama. So Strike One.
That would be a silly presumption. What, do you want us to prosecute a sitting foreign MP for lying before a Committee who invited him to speak? There’s no point in it, if there’s even a legal way to do it! But that doesn’t make what he said any less a lie.
Non sequiter city, the suburbs.
Galloway lied about his website “telling all” about his donor’s oil dealings with Saddam. Your response? “Bush probably had cocktails with bad guys.” HUH? If you can’t do better than that, just don’t reply. Strike two.
By the way, the third lie, about the previous charge? Even you must accept that one to be a lie. A called strike three.
Why you would sully your own name defending Galloway’s obvious lies with such pathetic attempts at spin is beyond me.
Galloway crushed nothing. He gave his yapping dogs a little red meat in the form of lies and evasions, and you puppies ate it up. Congratualtions on being the REAL lickspittle.
Bob
mac Buckets, my point is that in a world where a war and its incredible cost to the US and the world was built on a pack of lies, calling the Committee that called him a bunch of lickspittle Republicans without acknowledging a Democrat is not a lie to anyone but someone determined to prove Galloway a liar. I would venture to say that many people who visit this blog have said that this Congress sucks even though they may actually admire some of its members. So, please, if you want to prove that Galloway is a “liar” at least use an example of something relevant.
As far as whether bringing charges against Galloway would be silly, well, Coleman threatened Galloway with charges if he “lied” to the Committee, so Coleman was either being silly saying that, or “lying” when he threatened Galloway, or perhaps he just knew how thin on facts his dossier on Galloway actually was. Coleman wanted to besmirch Galloway with the oil-for-food program and couldn’t. Coleman hasn’t done anything about the 52% of the oil-for-food ripoffs done by American oil companies. You wonder why he’d call in Galloway for testimony and not the good old boys down in Houston? Because he was trying to score political points, not find out anything.
demimondian, you refer to the entry in Wikipedia regarding Galloway’s relationship with Fawaz Zureikat, an oil dealer who had been part of the oil-for-food scam. Galloway says he admitted that the guy was mentioned on his website. The American Spectator, not the neutral, unbiased observer, says the business relationship between Zureikat and Iraq wasn’t mentioned. It’s not up on the web anymore so I can’t make any determination. So is the lie that Galloway wasn’t clear on all of Zureikat’s business dealings, to include those that violated the UN’s oil-for-food strictures, and deliberately didn’t advertise it this on the website of his charity? I would venture that there weren’t many mentions of anyone’s business dealings on the charity’s website. Maybe I’m missing the big scandal here, so feel free to correct me.
The whole “oil-for-food” scandal is a manufactured scandal for the rhetorical right that turns out to be a mostly down-home scandal (as over half of the scandal was American). The US and Britain, on the UN’s Security Council monitored the borders (it’s harder for an oil tanker or tanker truck to sneak out of Iraq than for a terrorist to sneak in). There are tens of billions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer ripoffs since the first American boot touched Iraqi soil this time around. There is no good accounting of the billions of Iraqi dollars from their oil sales since military occupation. The big scandal in “oil-for-food” is that Hussein steered contracts and took a little extra on the side to buy scotch and trojans for his sons. He certainly didn’t spend any of that money on weapons of mass destruction because there weren’t any as we all now know.
So let’s call a spade a spade. No one here is condemning Galloway because he didn’t acknowledge that a Democrat was on the committee questioning him. Considering the daily revelations of corporate scandal among our own politicians, I doubt that anyone really cares that an Arab businessman who donated to Galloway’s charity did business with Saddam Hussein. Hey, the President’s father steered billions in agricultural loans to the guy back in the 80s but no one around here seems to remember.
People dislike Galloway because he is outspoken against the war and occupation of Iraq.
Back to mac Bucketts: I defend Galloway because he is being attacked for his opinion against this war, not for the phony moral and legal constructions you folks hide behind. Simple as that.
And he did make Coleman look the utter fool, which explains why those “oil-for-food” hearings have been might quiet lately.