Hi. I'm back - sort-of - with an unfamiliar email system and temporary
server,
all of which will be changed within a few days. Please bear with, and I'll
soon
be at [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> , not on
hotmail as I derangedly informed you.
I can't pull up any of my previous outlook express items so can't give
details
about Soldiers' Stories, an event tonight at the Valley Jewish Community
Center
I intended sending you on Thursday. The lineup and music looked wonderful.
Tomorrow will be better.
Ed
Britain's Galloway Turns into Media Hero
The Associated Press Thursday 19 May 2005
London - There is usually no love lost between George Galloway and the
British press.
But after the maverick lawmaker's blistering performance before a US
Senate committee this week in which he excoriated the Bush administration
over Iraq, not even his biggest critics could contain their grudging
admiration.
"Galloway: the man who took on America," ran a headline in The
Independent newspaper on Thursday.
Galloway's combative appearance Tuesday before senators who accused him
of taking kickbacks from Saddam Hussein enhanced his status as folk hero
among his supporters.
The lawmaker is known, even in the highly articulate world of British
politics, for his memorable turns of phrase. On Tuesday, he called the panel
of senators a "lickspittle Republican committee" and accused them of "the
mother of all smoke screens."
Upon his return Wednesday, he was given a standing ovation by hundreds
of people at a rally in London.
"He blasted the whole of the US Senate," said Abdul Khaliq Mian, a
member of Respect, the anti-war party founded by Galloway.
Galloway's no-holds-barred testimony won widespread praise in a country
where many accuse Prime Minister Tony Blair's government of taking a supine
approach to relations with the United States.
"In one hour, George Galloway has shown how to do what a succession of
British ministers ... have conspicuously failed to do: to stand up to
American bullying and mendacity," reader Andy Bailey wrote in a letter to
the editor of the Guardian.
Last week, the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
investigation subcommittee released documents that it said showed that
Galloway and other international figures received valuable oil allocations -
in Galloway's case, allegedly 20 million barrels' worth between 2000 and
2003 - from Saddam as a reward for opposition to U.N. sanctions on Iraq.
In his testimony in Washington, Galloway vehemently denied the
accusations and accused the committee of maligning him before giving him a
chance to defend himself.
"Now I know that standards have slipped over the last few years in
Washington, but for a lawyer, you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of
justice," Galloway told committee chairman Sen. Norm Coleman.
Even observers skeptical of Galloway's belligerent manner and talent for
self-promotion acknowledged the skill of his hard-hitting attack.
The Times marveled at Galloway's "gift of the Glasgow gab, a love of the
stage and an inexhaustible fund of self-belief."
Galloway's testimony was also picked-up by the Arab press, with Egypt's
pro-government Al-Ahram newspaper giving front-page treatment to his
declaration that he had met Saddam "exactly the same number of times as
Donald Rumsfeld."
A former factory worker and amateur boxer, the pugnacious Glaswegian
nicknamed "Gorgeous George" has spent decades honing his man-of-the-people
image.
In 1994 he told Saddam: "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your
indefatigability." Galloway later said he had been referring to the Iraqi
people, not their leader.
As a left-leaning Labour legislator, he opposed sanctions and then
military action against Iraq. He was expelled from the party in 2003 after
urging British soldiers not to fight.
He responded by launching his anti-war party and running again for
Parliament, unseating Labour lawmaker Oona King in the London constituency
of Bethnal Green and Bow on May 5.
"I think I won the battle of public opinion and I am going to continue
my work," Galloway told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "My battle
continues to try and force the British government to withdraw our soldiers
from Iraq, where they should never have been, where too many have been
killed and where they are in grave danger."
***
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8882.htm
<http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8882.htm>
"Catastrophe" in Iraq
Dahr Jamail
05/18/05 " Iraq Dispatches
<http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/dispatches/000243.php> " - - I
neither read nor listen to corporate media drivel concerning Iraq...but
today I wonder what they could possibly be saying to justify the failed
occupation of Iraq on this horrible day. I also wonder how people in America
have yet to take the appropriate action necessary in order to force their
government to impeach Bush and bring him and his regime to justice for the
countless war crimes they have committed in Iraq.
Yesterday Hassan Nuaimi, high ranking member of the Association of Muslim
Scholars (AMS) was found dead in Baghdad. One of his arms was broken and a
hole was drilled into the side of his head.
This coming the day after the AMS had accused the Shia led government of
state sponsored terrorism by using the Shia Badr Brigade
<http://www.google.com/custom?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&c2coff=1
&client=pub-5174720432180771&cof=FORID%3A1%3BGL%3A1%3BBGC%3AFFFFFF%3BT%3A%23
000000%3BLC%3A%230000ff%3BVLC%3A%23663399%3BALC%3A%230000ff%3BGALT%3A%230080
00%3BGFNT%3A%2300%20> s to murder Sunnis.
In response to the murdering of Nuaimi, two Shia clerics were gunned down in
Baghdad yesterday.
Harith al-Dhari, head of the AMS, blamed the Shia Badr Brigades for the
recent spate of killings of Sunni clerics in the country.
Dhari, making a statement that could be interpreted as an announcement of
civil war, said Sunnis would not keep silent over the killings.
"We are heading towards a catastrophe, only God knows when it will end, this
is a warning from us," he said angrily.
The Badr Brigades were in exile in Iran during much of Saddam's rule, and
returned to Iraq after the invasion and have been a fully operational
militia in Iraq ever since. I have seen their members in full uniform and
with heavy weapons in Baghdad during a Shia demonstration last summer. The
Badr Brigades was headed for years by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the head of the
Shiite United Iraqi Alliance who won the largest percentage of votes in the
January 30 "election."
There has been a low-grade civil war going on for quite some time-but now
the veil has been ripped off by the statements made by Dhari.
All Sunni mosques in Iraq will be closed for three days...an ominous symbol
of things to come.
Thus, any argument that the US military should remain in Iraq to prevent a
civil war can be flushed. Besides, anyone arguing that the US military was
there to protect the Iraqi people is either blind, in denial, or knows
absolutely nothing about the reality on the ground in occupied Iraq. The US
military in Iraq are unable even to protect themselves, let alone civilians.
I conducted an informal interview two days ago with a UN official here in
Amman...thus I'll leave his name out of this...for now. He told me that 95%
of the reconstruction funds for rebuilding Iraq have been spent outside of
Iraq.
So the argument of staying in Iraq to help rebuild the country-that too
could have been flushed long ago. Want to find someone accountable-look to
some of the larger contributors to the Bush Administration. We all know
their names by now. Check their profit margins as of late while you're at
it.
I watched the news about the aforementioned statements by al-Dahri on
Al-Jazeera with one of my close Iraqi friends here. As we watched the large
funeral procession with the body of the murdered cleric while al-Dahri made
his ferocious statements, I watched her head drop into her hands as she said
softly, "This is so horrible what has happened to my country since the
Americans came."
And she couldn't be more correct. For the Bush Administration is guilty
under international law for the catastrophe Iraq has become. Under
international law it is the primary responsibility of the occupier to
safeguard the citizens of the country they occupy.
For the Bush Administration, that means over 100,000 dead Iraqis and
counting.
Other news most likely omitted by most corporate television outlets in the
US today?
In Baquba a car bomb detonated near a police convoy which injured 18 people,
most of them policemen.
In Kirkuk 7 bodies of Iraqis who worked for a security company were found.
In Baghdad a roadside bomb aimed at a US convoy injured 7 Iraqis.
A Transport Ministry driver was shot dead in Sadr City.
In Beji 2 Iraqi police were killed by a car bomb.
In Mosul mortar attacks killed 2 Iraqis and injured 7 school kids.
So that's nearly 500 dead Iraqis in a little over two weeks to add to the
list of crimes for the Bush Administration, which grows longer with each
passing day.
Visit Dahr Jamail's web site http://dahrjamailiraq.com
(c)2004, 2005 Dahr Jamail.
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