Galloway - Guilty?

[Lizard]

Bollocks! He,s a self seeking publicity hound with a dodgy combover.."Gorgeous George" fuck that, Imagine that face staring at you first thing in the morning, he,ll be a hero now in the middle east for facing off that commitee, I,d like to have seen him do that in the Iraq parliment when Saddam was in power.

[Digi-Guy]

"Are thy worse than the Nazis?"

I'll have a good think about this one.... Seeing as my door has not been kicked in I'll have to say NO.

"Lets put it this way - at least the Nazis were up front about it..."

And in your next post you will piss off the ENTIRE world rather than just the millions who suffered at their hands.

"I have no respect or time for any of these types of regimes - extreme right or extreme left."

Oh really I was wondering if you would be starting the (post something really silly party)


DG

[Albert Muffin]

Well, I've read up a fair bit on this, and the committee he faced didn't really get much evidence on him. Though they tried to imply they had a signature, they didn't. Just his name on a few internal papers produced after the invasion (when any objective person must agree, there was a lot of distortion of facts going on.)

Against that, he had some good arguments: the Charities commission failed to find any significant improper use of his Appeal's monies, after examining its bank records.

It's an established fact that forged documents that implicated him were circulating around the same time that the documents acquired by the Senate Committe appeared.

The committe had no direct evidence which could connect him to the allegations (ie no bank records, money transfer records, letters or communications directly tied to him.)

The most they could reasonably claim was that some of the money going to the Miriam Appeal came from a different individual who probably illegally traded in Iraqi oil (though on a much smaller scale than US companies and individuals named in the same hearing). This does not establish that Galloway benefitted personally or that he was aware of the illegal trading.

All in all, nothing that would put me off voting for him, and all the halmarks of a classic political smear.

For a bit of perspective on how GG stands in relation to political/financial corruption and Iraq, check out this article. Yes, that's from the Moscow Times (whatever that is) but is impeccably sourced, as you will see if you check the stories linked there, and the sources they use.

[mart]

Welcome to the cynical world of the O/T Forum Albert. You'll find that some of the inhabitants are congenitally bad tempered eg the nasty mean-minded post about Kylie Minogue.

Mart

[davewells]

The one problem I have with GG is that he should have stood for Parliment where Blair was standing for a full on head to head fight, not in Hackney or Bethnal Green or wherever it was.

[mart]

Got to agree with you Dave. It was a bit of a copout standing in a constituency with a big Muslim population.

Mart

[Albert Muffin]

Copout? Maybe from some ultra-idealist position, but I suspect in the real world what counts is whether he would stand a chance of winning. Politics is the art of the possible, remember. He can make far more impact as a sitting MP than as a failed candidate.

[Albert Muffin]

Thanks Mart, I've been a long-time reader of the main forum (and the old, now archived, one!)

While I obviously disagree with the Eshteemed Offisher on the Galloway issue, I do applaud his and Mr Mann's efforts in resurrecting the Angels back-catalogue at videoangels.com.

But what has happened to the Tiffany video that used to be there? Was it unmasked as a forgery?

[Officer Dibble]

In actual fact, I don't really believe Gorgeous George was on the take. I just thought it would be fun to hype up the issue and see the anti-war sorts squirm.

Weighing up all the (circumstantial) facts, as well as George's character, principles, and demeanour, and also the demeanour of his accusers, I feel that the truth of the matter would more likely to be that, yes, Sadam gave George the option and opportunity to benefit from the oil sanctions - but that would have compromised George's principles. George is not in it for the money, and anyway, he would never get away with it, as the media spotlight was already on him for bigging up Sadam. So, he probably gave it a miss.

However, what is not in doubt is that George has publicly endorsed and hailed Sadam - "Sir, I salute you" - a man who no one doubts has cruelly tortured and murdered thousands of his own people, and in some instances has pulled the actual trigger himself. There is no possible justification for this. So I feel that George is a bit of a crackpot. He's also a character to boot. Which I reckon is a plus, in these days of platitude spouting, 'on message', boring bastards.

Regarding Yes, there are a few minor issues with it at the moment - as I did my usual trick of accidentally deleting a vital folder from the website directory over the weekend. Shit. But we've got most of the data back and I will just have to re-upload some pictures and fill in some missing text over the course of the next few days, and we should then be back to where we were seven days ago, back on track. Sorted.


Officer Dibble

[Pervert]

Respect is for the anti-war candidates who stood against Blair and Hoon. But then you have Mr G---who, I admit gave a great defence in front of that congressional committee, and told a few home truths.

George's career has been punctuated by allegations of dodgy dealings, but none have been proved. Anyway, in spite of all previous prejudices against him, I might have respected Galloway if he had not chosen a particular east London seat where he could exploit the racial fault lines and oust a black woman MP, with a Jewish mother. Standing against Blair, or Hoon, or Straw or some other high-profile Government member would have shown courage, and might have got a sizeable support from the anti-war lobby throughout the country: a focus for the anger against the reasons behind the war.