I am not on-board with George Galloway, the charismatic and bombastic UK Member of Parliament who is famous for going his own way, and damn the torpedoes.
Yesterday, he went up against Norm Coleman, Senator from Minnesota, and owned his ventilated behind, in an appearance before a Senate Sub-Committe that must count as a major mistake by the GOP.
They thought they had Galloway pegged and fixed, only to find that his appearance has now made it possible for the US media to go mediaeval on GOP Iraq Talking Points.
(Full video on
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4553601.stm)
Transcript in this diary here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/5/17/164138/145
More as we cross into enemy territory!
George Galloway used to be Labour. That was before he got thrown out of the party, due to his vociferous opposition to Tony Blair and Blair's War on Saddam.
Galloway is a leftist of conviction, who is "famous" for decrying the loss of the Soviet Union, as a check against the unbridled imperial ambitions of the USA.
Galloway was also charged with being too cushy with Saddam and Tariq Asiz, the Iraqi Foreign Minister, and was generally discounted as an ally of Saddam during the run-up to war.
Given the amount of prevarication and outright lying that the Whitehall and the White House were willing to undertake, in order to get their War-for-Oil, we shouldn't entirely discount that Galloway may have been handed the glowing end of the ember on this one.
Galloway claims that he was involving himself on behalf of the people of Iraq, who had suffered terribly under the Sanctions, and he has established various beneficial organizations in order to alleviate their suffering. His accusers have charged him with using such organizations to siphon funds from the Oil-for-Food UN agreement with Iraq into his own pockets.
He was in Washington D.C. yesterday in order to counter these charges.
On one memorable occasion, much used against him, he addressed Saddam Hussein in words probably not entirely suitable, amounting to high praise of the dictator. This effusive praise has been much used against Galloway, who claims that he had to treat Saddam in this manner, if he was going to be able to be effective in helping the Iraqi people.
(Of course, given the effusive praise that various representatives of the US Administration have lavished upon the head of Uzbekistan's dictatorial criminal ruler Islam Karimov, we can always take Galloway's manoeverings as par for the course when you're in international politics.)
Galloway has repeatedly beaten back allegations that he received money from Saddam Hussein, on a few occasions netting sizeable amounts in damages, from court desisions against newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph and The Christian Science Monitor.
NOW - here's the point.
Yesterday's encounter between Galloway and Norm Coleman, in the Senate, has created a significant opening for the US media. The charges leveled by Galloway, against the Administration, the Senate and the House, were serious - and any self-respecting outlet should be pursuing these, energetically. Since the charges are now not only a matter of public record, but also severe in the extreme and voiced in the most hallowed halls of the legislative, it should be in the interest of those who believe them false to prove that they are false.
The media should now use these charges, in order to ferret out substantive statements from the Administration and its defenders, as to their legitimacy. And I suspect that this will lead to the incineration of Senator Coleman's sorry behind, for having given this opening to those not walking in lock-step with the NeoCon agenda.
For a White House struggling to contain the fall-out from its tragic misadventure in Iraq, getting their suppressed agenda thrown right back in their face, in this manner, is the last thing they wanted, or needed. And if the media is really serious about pursuing The Big Story, then Galloway has now handed them an excuse for opening up the hive of lies that this Administration has been basing its Middle East policy upon.
As the hunt for Bin-Laden continues as a no-show, Bush/Blair and their interlopers will find themselves increasingly brought to account for their misbegotten and sorry war in Iraq, which is quickly threatening not only to increase the likelihood of terror against the West, but also in opening up another terrible conflagration, as desperate NeoCons start licking their chops at the prospect of diverting the public's attention by attacking Iran, through proxies and sanctions.
Remember - if in for a penny, they are also in for approximately a trillion pounds. That's a lot of motivation for misdeeds.
Will the press stop them? Or will it let itself be stopped, as they are stopping Newsweek?
Or will it use Galloway's charges as an in, whenever confronting the architects of the war on Iraq?