With all due RESPECT, Mr. Galloway…
Posted by George
Seixon - American in Norway :: Norwegian in America
"Gorgeous George" has made a big come-back since his expulsion from the Labour party in the UK. After his close win for an MP seat, he has gotten the adoration of many opposed to the war and the Bush administration for his fiery performance in front of a Senate committee on May 17th. The media doesn't have any problem transparently showing off their bias in this regard, here are a few headlines:
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Finally, Someone Stands Up to Senate Hypocrites - LATimes
Gorgeous George batters Bush’s beautiful fairy tale - Times UK
British Lawmaker Scolds Senators on Iraq - NYTimes
Papers hail fighting Galloway - BBC
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I think we see where this is going...
After listening to Galloway's testimony, I specifically remembered one thing quite well which made me wonder. After contending that he had known all along about his Mariam Appeal (the political organization they set up to protest the Iraq sanctions) partner's business dealings with Iraq. All except the oil deals Mr. Zureikat apparently was doing with the regime. In explaining this, he said as many times before that he had "done better" than what the senators asked of him. The relevant exchange:
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SEN. COLEMAN: So Mr. Galloway, you would have this committee believe that your designated representative from the Mariam's Appeal becomes the chair of the Mariam's Appeal, was listed in Iraqi documents as obviously doing business, oil deals with Iraq, that you never had a conversation with him in 2001 or whether he was doing oil business with Iraq.
GALLOWAY: No, I'm doing better than that. I'm telling you that I knew that he was doing a vast amount of business with Iraq. Much bigger, as I said a couple of answers ago, than any oil business he did. In the airports he was the representative of some of the world's biggest companies in Iraq. He was an extremely wealthy businessman doing very extensive business in Iraq.
Not only did I know that, but I told everyone about it. I emblazoned it in our literature, on our Web site, precisely so that people like you could not later credibly question my bonafides in that regard. So I did better than that.
I never asked him if he was trading in oil. I knew he was a big trader with Iraq, and I told everybody about it.
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So he "emblazoned" on the Mariam Appeal website that Mr. Zureikat was doing vast amounts of business with Iraq, he says. He clarifies this further later on:
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GALLOWAY: I have already answered that question. I can assure you, Mr. Zureikat never gave me a penny from an oil deal, from a cake deal, from a bread deal, or from any deal. He donated money to our campaign, which we publicly brandished on all of our literature, along with the other donors to the campaign.
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After hearing that they had published that Mr. Zureikat was a donor to the campaign and that he was doing extensive business with Iraq on their website, I thought it would be a good idea to have a look, you know, because I don't go around believing whatever people say just because I like their ideology.
Now I'm guessing that Galloway as a career politician at the ripe age of 50 has a bit limited knowledge of how the internet works, and what is possible on the internet. You see, the Mariam Appeal website has been out of commission since at least September 20, 2002. How do I know that? From using a service called WHOIS. It tells you who holds the rights to a domain name and various information about the registration of the domain name.
The website changed owners on September 20, 2002 when it was registered by a Taiwanese company, most likely acting as cyber-squatters, hoping that someone would buy the domain name from them. Perhaps Mariam Appeal forgot to renew their domain name, and the Taiwanese company snapped it up from them. Regardless, you can see that the Mariam Appeal domain name was registered by the Taiwanese company at this WHOIS service. As you can clearly see on the website as it now exists, and has existed since September 20, 2002 it says, "FOR SALE!!! Contact Us!!!"
Galloway, knowing full well that his website was down, told the Senate committee that he had "emblazoned" on his website that his partner in the organization had extensive business dealings with Iraq and was a donator to the campaign. Thus he most likely believed that there would be no way to check if he was lying or not.
He couldn't have been more wrong.
Using an awesome website called the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, we can look up how the Mariam Appeal website appeared throughout the past few years. I'm fairly certain that Mr. Galloway was not aware of this, for if he was, I'm not certain he would have made the statements he made.
Using this website, the last recorded instance of www.mariamappeal.com, when it was still under control of Mariam Appeal and George Galloway, was on July 21, 2001. As you can see on the website at this point in time, there is absolutely no mention of Mr. Zureikat or any other donors to the organization at all.
web.archive.org
There is no mention of Mr. Zureikat being in extensive business dealings with Iraq. Nothing.
The next instance of the website that is recorded on this service is September 23, 2002. At this point, the domain name has been transferred to the Taiwanese company, and they have set up their page for the sale of the domain name.
Galloway made the following statements regarding the timing of his partner's donations and becoming a representative within the organization:
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SEN. COLEMAN: How much did Mr. Zureikat contribute to Mariam's Appeals?
GALLOWAY: Roughly 375,000 English pounds.
SEN. COLEMAN: About $600,000?
GALLOWAY: I don't know the conversion. But it's 375,000 Sterling.
SEN. COLEMAN: If you can, uh... By the way, Mr. Zureikat was your representative--uh, designated representative--for the activities of Mariam's Appeals. Is that correct?
GALLOWAY: For the activities of Mariam's Appeals. Yes.
SEN. COLEMAN: And when did he get that position?
GALLOWAY: I think late 2000.
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Mr. Zureikat was the designated representative for the activities of Mariam Appeal in late 2000 and donated £375,000. Galloway claims he told everyone about this, and that Zureikat was doing extensive business in Iraq. He said he "emblazoned" it on the website. As of July 21, 2001 there was still not one word about this on their website, and the site went down between that date and September 20, 2002.
Now I feel like this makes Galloway's claim a bit questionable. Does anyone have a subscription to whois.sc silver service, or any other service that will find out more about the history of the domain name www.mariamappeal.com?
Zureikat was not listed as a donor or as having done extensive business in Iraq on Mariam Appeal's website up to or more than 7 months after he donated to the campaign. Even though Galloway contends exactly that, that it was "emblazoned" on their website.
With all due respect, Mr. Galloway, did you tell a fib with the knowledge that the website went down almost 3 years ago and that your statement, according to your knowledge of the internet, could not be checked for accuracy?
Read on if you want more examples of questionable statements from Mr. Galloway, not to mention outrightlies...
I'll start off with three undeniable lies or false statements from Mr. Galloway:
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Galloway: These are the same false allegations which are still the subject of a libel action with the Daily Telegraph (so far I'm £1.6m [$3m] up).
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Well, actually:
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The staff report by the Senate Permanent Sub-Committee of Investigations emphasised that its findings were based on documents that had no relation to the “seemingly forged documents” used in the Daily Telegraph piece, noting that the panel was relying on Iraqi Oil Ministry documents from 2001.
“The Daily Telegraph documents reportedly included allegations that Galloway was on the payroll of the Hussein regime, receiving a salary or direct payments,” it said. “In contrast, the evidence examined by the sub-committee indicates that Galloway was granted oil allocations that would have to be monetised through complex oil transactions.”
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Next:
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Galloway: This is a lickspittle Republican committee, acting on the wishes of George W Bush.
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Not so:
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Today Senators Norm Coleman (R-MN) and Carl Levin (D-MI), Chairman and Ranking Member respectively of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), issued a joint staff report disclosing evidence that the former French Minister of Interior Charles Pasqua and recently reelected member of the British Parliament George Galloway were granted lucrative oil allocations under the United Nations Oil for Food Program (OFF).
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The committee has 7 Republicans and 6 Democrats. Galloway's statement is transparently disingenuous, trying to smear his accusers as foot soldiers of his political enemies.
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Galloway: Isn't it strange - and contrary to natural justice you might think - that I have written and e-mailed repeatedly asking for the opportunity to appear before the committee to provide evidence and rebut their assumptions and they have yet to respond, while apparently making a judgement.
This committee has never written to me, never spoken to me and has not even acknowledged my offer last year to appear in front of them, so it is not much of an investigation.
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Well, there seems to be a difference of opinion about that...
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Contrary to his assertions, at no time did Mr. Galloway contact PSI by any means, including but not limited to telephone, fax, email, letter, Morse code or carrier pigeon. Chairman Coleman would be pleased to have Mr. Galloway appear at the Subcommittee's May 17th hearing entitled, "Oil For Influence: How Saddam Used Oil to Reward Politicians and Terrorist Entities Under the United Nations Oil-for-Food Program." The hearing will begin promptly at 9:30 AM and there will be a witness chair and microphone available for Mr. Galloway's use.
timesonline.co.uk
news.bbc.co.uk
powerlineblog.com
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Here on Saddam Hussein:
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Galloway: I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and Americans governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas. I used to demonstrate outside the Iraqi embassy when British and American officials were going in and doing commerce.
You will see from the official parliamentary record, Hansard, from the 15th March 1990 onwards, voluminous evidence that I have a rather better record of opposition to Saddam Hussein than you do and than any other member of the British or American governments do.
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Well, the Hansard records are available online. Don't mind if I do!
Nov 28, 1990:
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Mr. George Galloway (Glasgow, Hillhead) : The Foreign Secretary was elected this lunch time the Spectator parliamentarian of the year. That accolade is well deserved and I congratulate him upon it. Will he accept that he cuts an unlikely figure in favour of war, war rather than jaw, jaw? Yet the words he has delivered this afternoon amount to an ultimatum, so that it is more rather than less likely that our constituents--young men-- will shortly be coming home dead in bags. I have no truck with Saddam Hussein, and I hope that the Foreign Secretary accepts that. However, on the day when Saddam Hussein has asked President Bush for talks, will the right hon. Gentleman accept that the Iraqis and millions of Arabs across the area who agree with them have a point of view and that it might be useful to sit down and talk about that before the place goes up in flames and our young men and many hundreds and thousands of others are killed?
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Legitimizing Saddam's view that Kuwait was Iraq's rightful territory, check.
Jan 17, 1991:
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In so far as Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator, does it not follow that his own people are by definition his victims, just as much as the hostages and the people of Kuwait? Does it not give the Prime Minister a moment's pause for thought that those are the very people who, as we speak, are being dragged dead and mutilated out of the rubble of the centre of Baghdad?
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Moral relativism of comparing collateral damage of coalition strikes to Saddam being a brutal dictator, check.
Jan 13, 1993:
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Mr. George Galloway (Glasgow, Hillhead) : The Secretary of State should be aware that the action taken tonight is worse than a crime--it is a blunder. It is a blunder because, when the fog of war clears tomorrow, we shall find that the people who have been not "spanked", as my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Mr. George) had it, but torn limb from limb and incinerated under the bombs--smart or otherwise--will be people who never voted for Saddam Hussein and who are not responsible for the crimes that he has committed down the years, including all the years during which the British Government were selling him arms.
The radicalisation and Islamicisation that is occurring across the Arab area and the broader Muslim world will be greatly intensified by what will be regarded as western double standards, whereby the west is ready, at a moment's notice, to pulverise Iraq, but unable, over decades, to do anything about Israel's rejecting and ignoring international law and international standards, or to do anything to save the lives of the tens of thousands of Bosnian Muslims who have died in the current campaign in former Yugoslavia.
Is not the Secretary of State aware that, across the Arab world, Saddam Hussein has been made into a hero by those double standards, and that the blunder and crime that was committed this evening will come back to haunt us in years to come?
Mr. Rifkind : I must first tell the hon. Gentleman that his views are not the views of Arab Governments in the region, who are already welcoming the action that has been taken today. I must also remind the hon. Gentleman that, whereas the coalition today restricted itself deliberately to military targets, the no- fly zone was introduced to prevent Iraqi aircraft, ultimately commanded by Saddam Hussein, from bombing innocent civilians--innocent men, women and children--in southern Iraq. If the hon. Gentleman's advice were accepted, it would lead directly to the non-continuation of the no-fly zone restrictions and to the resumption of the bombing of innocent people. That is where the hon. Gentleman's policy would appear to lead.
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Ouch.
I'll be nice to Galloway though, here's another one...
Mar 15, 1990:
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Mr. George Galloway (Glasgow, Hillhead) : The Iraqi regime has besmirched the name of its people by the judicial murder this morning--as any state which commits judicial murder does.
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But of course, then we have the statements after all of this...
To Saddam Hussein in 1994:
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Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability and I want you to know that we are with you
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And:
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Your Excellency, Mr. President, I greet you in the name of many thousands of people in Britain who stood against the tide and opposed the war of aggression against Iraq and continue to oppose the war by economic means, which is aimed to strangle the life out of the great people of Iraq.
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And some strawmen and other things from his testimony to the Senate committee:
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I told the world that Iraq, contrary to your claims did not have weapons of mass destruction.
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Was that what Saddam told you personally? What about the warheads filled with mustard gas that UNMOVIC destroyed in March 2003? (UNMOVIC May 30, 2003 report, paragraph 119)
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I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to al-Qaeda.
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Iraq and al-Qaeda did have a "connection", however much you want to put into that statement. They had correspondance, agreed to not attack each other, and Saddam Hussein would not deliver Zarqawi to Jordan at their request...
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I told the world, contrary to your claims, that Iraq had no connection to the atrocity on 9/11 2001.
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They never claimed this, Mr. Strawman.
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I told the world, contrary to your claims, that the Iraqi people would resist a British and American invasion of their country and that the fall of Baghdad would not be the beginning of the end, but merely the end of the beginning.
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So now the thugs and murderers that are blowing people up are synonymous with "the Iraqi people"? Wow, alright.
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Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong and 100,000 people paid with their lives; 1600 of them American soldiers sent to their deaths on a pack of lies; 15,000 of them wounded, many of them disabled forever on a pack of lies.
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Obviously Mr. Galloway hasn't read the latest UNDP report that 24,000 Iraqis have died, not 100,000.
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As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns.
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Guns? Is that what we call bacteria samples and civilian helicopters these days?
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I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and Americans governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas.
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Guns and gas? No guns, no gas. Bacteria samples? Yes. Civilian helicopters? Yes. Guns and gas? No. American companies were involved with building an ethylene plant in Iraq, yet it was never finished due to the invasion of Kuwait. I'm not aware that ethylene is a gas, nor a precursor of "gas". Ethylene oxide is a precursor for VX though, if I remember correctly.
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You quote Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Well, you have something on me, I've never met Mr Dahar Yassein Ramadan. Your sub-committee apparently has. But I do know that he's your prisoner, I believe he's in Abu Ghraib prison. I believe he is facing war crimes charges, punishable by death. In these circumstances, knowing what the world knows about how you treat prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, in Bagram Airbase, in Guantanamo Bay, including I may say, British citizens being held in those places.
I'm not sure how much credibility anyone would put on anything you manage to get from a prisoner in those circumstances. But you quote 13 words from Dahar Yassein Ramadan whom I have never met. If he said what he said, then he is wrong.
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Aha, so since mistreatment occurred on a few occasions, then automatically every single prisoner at every prison has been abused and therefore anything they have said is not credible. I'm tempted to check if Ramadan is even in Abu Ghraib prison. With Galloway's record on the facts, I'd doubt it.
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Have a look at the real scandal breaking in the newspapers today, revealed in the earlier testimony in this committee. That the biggest sanctions busters were not me or Russian politicians or French politicians. The real sanctions busters were your own companies with the connivance of your own Government.
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No doubt Mr. Galloway read this Guardian article on his way to the committee:
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The scale of the shipments involved dwarfs those previously alleged by the Senate committee against UN staff and European politicians like the British MP, George Galloway, and the former French minister, Charles Pasqua.
In fact, the Senate report found that US oil purchases accounted for 52% of the kickbacks paid to the regime in return for sales of cheap oil - more than the rest of the world put together.
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How convenient. Sure, US oil purchases may have accounted for 52% of the kickbacks. From this you are supposed to get the idea that American or American companies stood for 52% of the kickbacks, which is exactly what Galloway used as ammo.
OPEC's documents show that 53.75% of Iraq's oil ended up in the USA in the years 2001-2002. If you might understand by now, these two figures have much in common. The number the Guardian has used here applies to all sales of oil that were conducted to sell oil to American companies. For example, Galloway's partner Zureikat may have optioned on some of those allocations from Galloway and sold the oil to the oil company he was involved with. This company would then have had to pay kickbacks. Then this oil company could have sold the oil to the US market, thus part of this magic 52% figure.
Which tells you that the figure is meaningless in assigning blame for kickbacks, and just demonstrates how much oil was going from Iraq to the USA in general.
Now I've mighty tired of writing about Galloway and the liars who defend him, including himself. Only the future knows what is in store for Galloway, but from his record of lying and deflecting, I'm inclined to believe that he is in some kind of trouble here.
seixon.com
simplyappalling.blogspot.com
mariamappeal.com
whois.sc
web.archive.org
web.archive.org*/http://mariamappeal.com
web.archive.org
web.archive.org
publications.parliament.uk
publications.parliament.uk
publications.parliament.uk
publications.parliament.uk
iq.undp.org
guardian.co.uk |
