What is is with George Galloway?

Bin Laden, like most of the 9/11 hijackers, is a Saudi. He's known with some certainty to be hiding in Pakistan. But Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are US allies, so they invade Afghanistan and Iraq instead. Is that "fair nuff" or just really stupid and cynical?

Unfortunately, despite their "abilities" to do so, no one HAS taken apart a senate committee like that, neither American nor British. It is a shame that it took so long for such a confrontation to occur, and it is also a shame that it most likely won't happen again, and it is (maybe) also a shame that it's speaker has been successfully pegged as "traitor," "ba'athist," etc (truth of these allegations aside, I am talking PR effectiveness here)--he is easy to summarily dismiss. But you cannot dismiss the fact that he did it, and did it well.

Well, Paris suffered in 95' in the GIA bombing campaign (8 dead, 100+ injured) and the Metro was alleged to be a target of Osman Ahmed (Suspected Madrid bomber) last summer. Iraq has likely increased the threat but any city in any Western liberal democracy is at threat.

would it be fantastically simplistic to point out that if there wasn't an occupying force, there wouldn't be a resistance?

Jason Burke – “Al-Qaeda: The true story of radical Islam”

i think everyone here has a point and there seems to actually be more general agreement than momus seems willing to allow. it seems like you're picking fights! i think most people may agree with your thoughts about iraq and so forth, they just happen to think galloway is a jerk whose manner of relaying his opinions is opportunistic and unconstructive. do you disagree with that part of it? because i think that's where the real disagreement may be located.

anyway... i just want to point out that to my recollection the parisian police have happily thwarted several terrorist efforts in the past few years, and suspect numerous "cells" of being active there. so while i would agree that england's involvement in iraq has made them a more likely target for this sort of thing, i don't think france or germany's lack of involvement translates by any means into their not being a target.

this really threw a wrench in this thread. what has it to do with anything? galloway was compared to stalin, it was simply asserted that at some point he was a stalinist--not in a metaphorical sense but in a very real "follow the moscow line" sense. i don't know if this is true or not, but in any event the connection b/t blair and stalin seems like a red herring.

So if we're not with Galloway we're against him. Isn't this the sort of pointless binary politics that both Galloway and Bush pedal and what I am railing against. There are no binary issues because all issues are inter-linked. Life is too complicated to be reduce to soap-box sound bites.

I will get back to you on why Galloway is beyond contempt but I need to consult some people first.

heheh. if only the scottish parliament:

a) had powers to divorce itself from tony's foreign crusades, and
b) had the political will to do the same.

Ah, George Monbiot, a man who wrote after 9/11 "If Al Qaeda did not exist, it would be necessary to invent it".

Way to go with drumming up the moderate sensible support, Mr Galloway.

a bit, yeah, given the level of state violence in iraq before the invasion, and given that the resistance (i used the word, shd have done scare-quotes) is as concerned with murdering iraqis on sectarian grounds as it is with resisting occupation.

In short, his basic position - from the statement he uttered prompting this thread - is that the leaders of the US and UK are engaged in actions which wil result in increasing numbers of innocent civilians dying in Iraq and the industrialsied west, and that people who value human life should perhaps do something more positive that redouble their efforts to continue doing the thing which has helped create the situation and won't make it any better.

Galloway is personally a wanker, but there's nowt to dispute in what he said on Thursday really, aside from his iconoclastic desire to be the one who said it first.

There is truth in the position that our foreign policy since 9/11 has increased the risk of being targetted. So what follows from that truth?

That we should have done nothing about the Taliban? That we should have continued the embargo of Iraq indefinitely? That we should have done nothing to help the catholic population of East Timor, and then cross our fingers that the Bali bombing wouldn't have occurred?

What about the prominent posistion of jews and catholics and hindus and atheists and lesbians and musicians, to say nothing of moslems of all stripes, in our society?

These things make us a target. Does it then follow that we should take steps to obviating these irritants? That we should mourn the immigration that created such a multicultural society?

There is now, as there were during the second world war, a substantial number of people monomaniacally concerned with demonstrating the great evil of our elected leaders, to the point where they are utterly unable to know real fascism when when they see it.

Jamaar Islamir (sp?) have long hated Australia, there's a lot more to the Islamic cause that just the middle east and the current war. Jus' sayin.

this is the essential dichotomy of Gorgeous George. Unfortunately he happens to be the loudest voice saying a lot of things that need saying. However he is one for reducing what need saying to Tabloid headlines in a base reductionist way, and, like most politicians, lack the humility to recognise that he cannot have all the answers

would it be fantastically simplistic to point out that if there wasn't an occupying force, there wouldn't be a resistance?

-- grimly fiendish

This is an important point, and well put!

It doesn't make you a support of Baathism to say that the behaviour of the coalition is creating a well of hatred; as a friend has said elsewhere, we're creating a veneer of genuine grievances that provide support to the opportunists; they want to say 'kill the infidel' but that's a tougher sell than 'kill the bastards who murdered your family'. Until we stop killing their families, we're providing the easiest tools to the theocratic psycho nihilists to recruit.

The question of what we do now sidesteps responsibility. A group of people knew all of the above, and still did it anyway. They were supposed to keep us out of harms way, and they've placed us in it. And now they say that whatever the rights and wrongs, we're in there now and we can't just leave. That's a moot point, and an entirely separate one from the issue of the insane stupidity of the actions of the leaders of this 'coalition' and the point that the more they urge me to move on and ignore their incompetance, the more I'm determiend to hold onto that.

But it is equally obvious that the war is a huge factor in increased Muslim disaffection. Every journalistic investigation into how British Muslims actually feel makes this unmistakeably clear. It will have been the turning point or last straw for many Muslims; for some it will have made the difference between sullen alienation and the feeling that some gesture needs to be made. Even if it hasn't increased the likelihood of the arguably "inevitable" attack, it is likely to increase the probable frequency and ferocity of such attacks. It has increased the likelihood that ordinary people will be maimed or injured.

xpost

ok, so let's allow that afghanistan and iraq have made the islamists measurably more driven and vicious. now what? full withdrawal from both would, by that logic, leave us with pre-invasion islamist attitudes and activies. which is only world trade center I, uss cole, khobar towers, and 9/11 itself. great!

How terribly reassuring.

People should note that the act of killing others and oneself in the process isn't rational so degree level political sophistication misses the point entirely. The British Army entered Northern Ireland in 1969 to protect the Catholic population but that didn't matter - it was an occupying force upholding a state of affairs that led to daily iniquities and humiliations that lead to people snapping. Most people who joined the IRA in the 70s didn't do it after careful consideration of the politcial situation; they did it because they'd been beaten up by the police, or the army or being searched for the 50th time that year, or their parents house was trashed by the army. They did it in rage, not reason.

You're on very dodgy ground indeed here. By detaching terrorism from any motive and any rationale, you come close to some weird conception of Muslim "original sin". Is it a racial or cultural proclivity, then? Why aren't disaffected black youths planting bombs?

And you do know that the French journalists you cite as proof that there might be French casualties were released by their captors, don't you?

what is the 'rationale' then, momus? given the current state of iraq, surely an attack on iran would make about as much sense.

And this is the point about anti-enlightenment fundamentalism - fanatics like these are at their most dangerous not when they're spouting their medievalist nonsense but when they're telling the truth. The BNP's wild nonsense about Jewish conspiracies is easily swatted aside, it's when they start talking about the white working class being ignored is when they start to pose a threat. Ditto fundamentalism - the truth of the injustices of Palestine and Iraq is far more dangerous than the fantasies of their theocratic bullshit.

The big solution to this problem is to make vehicles which don't run on oil, and humans which don't run on religion.

we're a long way off that mate. and to religious people, and people who define themselves as religious, its this kind of thing that can be problematic, setting up non-religousity as superior to religion, the subtext that their religion makes them lesser, inferior, and you're above that somehow. thats another 'clash of civilizations' being set up there, isnt it, another dichotomy. aetheism vs islam? maybe, thats exactly how its being sold to people on the other side of that divide.

im not religious in the slightest btw

The #Russian people are one, indivisible and unbeatable. The sooner western leaders accept that the better it will be for all of us. @MoatsTV https://t.co/r5jNgcGrKv

— George Galloway (@georgegalloway) June 26, 2023

George has discovered that the Russian people are one, indivisible and unbeatable., via his source Kim Dotcom

good to see the big man back saluting strength, courage and indefatigability once more

2/1 to win in Rochdale

me laughing my face off if he wins does not mean a personal endorsement

Labour is focusing resources elsewhere, after its candidate, the Lancashire county councillor Azhar Ali, was repeatedly abused by Deeplish locals. A video doing the rounds online shows him in a takeaway being called “Keir Starmer’s bum chum” while diners shout “free Palestine”.

The Labour candidate made some remarks about 7/10 being a Netanyahu inside job, it's surprising he hasn't been suspended. Grifter George has got the Nick Griffin endorsement. It's as ugly as it gets really, but still hope Labour lose.

the Green candidate has suspended his campaign after some islamophobic tweets resurfaced (but it's too late to take him off the ballot), plus Simon Danczuk is running for Reform UK so Rochdale voters who want to vote for a terrible candidate are spoiled for choice. There's a reverend running as independent focussing on environmental stuff who seems ok? (haven't done any detailed research, so don't hold me to that if he turns out to be an axe murderer or something)

This by-election is giving huge "microcosm of the state of politics in England" vibes

The Rochdale election was stolen. JD Vance is sane