George Galloway

We just finished watching George Galloway on Charlie Rose. I also caught a little bit on CNN earlier today. I don't know Mr. Galloway from Adam, and I'm prepared to be "educated", but I have to say... this guy went to Washington today and kicked ass.

Comments

[Glenn]

As a fellow Scotsman who has often criticised Mr Galloway, I must say that I was immensely proud of him kicking ass today in the Senate. It is undoubtedly the most fun I have had watching any political television in a long time!

Go George!!!

[RickinVa]

The Scotsman begs to differ:

GEORGE Galloway yesterday failed in his attempt to convince a sceptical US Senate investigative committee that he had not profited from oil dealings with Iraq under the UN’s controversial oil-for-food programme.

Despite a typically barnstorming performance full of bluster and rhetorical flourishes, the former Glasgow Kelvin MP was pinned down by persistent questioning over his business relationship with Fawaz Zureikat, the chairman of the Mariam Appeal - set up to assist a four-year-old Iraqi girl suffering from leukaemia.

And it was a Democrat senator, Carl Levin, rather than the Republican committee chairman, Norm Coleman, who gave him the hardest time as Mr Galloway sought to turn the tables on his inquisitors, leaving him no closer to clearing his name than when he took his seat in front of the sub-committee of the Senate’s homeland security and government affairs committee in Washington.

Time and again, Mr Levin questioned him, requesting wearily that he deliver a straight answer to a straight question. But Mr Galloway could, or would not.

The Respect MP clearly thought he came out on top, and said so bluntly afterwards, describing the chairman as "not much of a lyncher".

But Mr Coleman, accused by the MP of being "remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice", appeared unswayed by Mr Galloway’s testimony. "If in fact he lied to this committee, there will have to be consequences," he said afterwards.

Asked whether Mr Galloway violated his oath to tell the truth before the committee, Mr Coleman said: "I don’t know. We’ll have to look over the record. I just don’t think he was a credible witness."

The committee’s report on Mr Galloway’s alleged involvement, published to coincide with yesterday’s hearing, pulled few punches. Despite the MP’s denials, it said, the evidence showed that: "Iraq granted George Galloway allocations for millions of barrels of oil under the oil-for-food programme."

[Glenn]

Rick,

Mr galloway is a controversial figure in Scottish Politics, who is not liked by most newspapers. Here is the other Scottish broadsheet's (quality daily) take on yesterdays interview. Pleasantly balanced I think. Mr Galloway undoubtedly has questions to answer but yesterday I think he raised enough questions that the US has yet to answer and showed that some of the accusations against him are not only false but the evidence being used to "convict him" is fundamentally flawed.

[Rick]

Gerard Baker with some "pleasantly balanced" thoughts on the Galloway affair:

Here is a man who is now making a well-rewarded political livelihood out of a self-told story of his own courage in the face of powerful authority. He has faced down the dark forces mustered by the Tony Blairs, stood up for himself against the hectoring superciliousness of the Paxmans, and now flown all the way to Washington to clear his name in the presence of the high priests of the American Establishment. His whole performance this week was that of the little, resilient, Frank Capra figure, unafraid to speak truth to power.

Yet as he railed against the senators, I couldn’t get out of my head that spectacle of the same man smiling as he lauded Saddam Hussein. As he exploited the fustiness of the surroundings and the plodding lawyerliness of his interlocutors, I couldn’t help but remember how, in the face of a different sort of power, he had saluted its indefatigability and promised to march on to Jerusalem.

I also wondered what his and our life might have been like if he had deployed some of his little-man courage before Saddam; standing up for some of those other hundreds of thousands of other good Muslims — Iraqis, who could have done with a persuasive advocate there and then.

Perhaps in the end, if you’re a cynic you may find Mr Galloway’s asymmetrical approach to authority — a lapdog in the hands of the one who likes to watch as his victims are tortured; a lion in the face of those who threaten with questions and subpoenas — simply the familiar mark of the coward. If you’re an optimist, you might find it oddly comforting The Mother of Parliaments clasps him to her bosom. The world’s greatest deliberative body sits in embarrassed silence as he lectures it on its shortcomings. Nothing surely illustrates better the absolute superiority of the West’s system and what underpins it that we tolerate and even reward such lèse-majesté. We know what Saddam did to those who were brave enough to utter much more cogent critiques of his rule.

Me, though I’ll celebrate my opponent’s right to be wrong, I can’t suppress a slight regret that the price of our liberty is paid in the deference we give to men who excuse tyranny.

My sympathies are with those men, women and children who died because of Saddam’s indefatigable affection for torture and murder; with those who today are suffering still because of his successors’ indefatigable affection for the suicide bomb in the marketplace or at the mosque.

It is the tragic but hopeful people of Iraq who have shown us how to defy power and misery, and who, if we stand firm against the Galloways of this world, will one day get the Respect they truly deserve.

Hear, hear Mr. Baker... Hear, hear... for those with ears...

[Rick]

One more, if I may...

Christopher Hitchens kicks... ahem... ass:

TO THIS DAY, George Galloway defiantly insists, as he did before the senators, that he has "never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one, and neither has anybody on my behalf." As a Clintonian defense this has its admirable points: I myself have never seen a kilowatt, but I know that a barrel is also a unit and not an entity. For the rest, his defense would be more impressive if it answered any charge that has actually been made. Galloway is not supposed by anyone to have been an oil trader. He is asked, simply, to say what he knows about his chief fundraiser, nominee, and crony. And when asked this, he flatly declines to answer. We are therefore invited by him to assume that, having earlier acquired a justified reputation for loose bookkeeping in respect of "charities," he switched sides in Iraq, attached himself to a regime known for giving and receiving bribes, appointed a notorious middleman as his envoy, kept company with the corrupt inner circle of the Baath party, helped organize a vigorous campaign to retain that party in power, and was not a penny piece the better off for it. I think I believe this as readily as any other reasonable and objective person would. If you wish to pursue the matter with Galloway himself, you will have to find the unlisted number for his villa in Portugal.

Even if the matter of subornation and bribery had never arisen, there would remain the crucial question of Iraq itself. It was said during the time of sanctions on that long-suffering country that the embargo was killing, or had killed, as many as a million people, many of them infants. Give credit to the accusers here. Some of the gravamen of the charge must be true. Add the parasitic regime to the sanctions, over 12 years, and it is clear that the suffering of average Iraqis must have been inordinate.

There are only two ways this suffering could have been relieved. Either the sanctions could have been lifted, as Galloway and others demanded, or the regime could have been removed. The first policy, if followed without conditions, would have untied the hands of Saddam. The second policy would have had the dual effect of ending sanctions and terminating a hideous and lawless one-man rule. But when the second policy was proposed, the streets filled with people who absolutely opposed it. Saying farewell to the regime was, evidently, too high a price to pay for relief from sanctions.

Let me phrase this another way: Those who had alleged that a million civilians were dying from sanctions were willing, nay eager, to keep those same murderous sanctions if it meant preserving Saddam! This is repellent enough in itself. If the Saddam regime was cheating its terrified people of food and medicine in order to finance its own propaganda, that would perhaps be in character. But if it were to be discovered that any third parties had profited from the persistence of "sanctions plus regime," prolonging the agony and misery thanks to personal connections, then one would have to become quite judgmental.

The whole thing is worthy of reading in it's entirety, especially for those who find Galloway to be such a... hero...

[Mike]

Rick - thanks for the alternative views. I'll read them with interest, but for the sake of bandwidth I won't bother posting the numerous articles out there with the opposite view point as the one you've supplied.

In the end all we can do is take it all in, mix in our own conscience, and come to our own conclusions.

[Murat]

Does anybody have the transcripts of the George Galloway- Charlie Rose program (I think it was on May 17th)? I don't find it at the web site of Charlie Rose!
Thanks,