Multiple Choice
By Callimachus | Related entries in The War On Terrorism, The WorldSpeaking for broadcast on the Arab media in the Middle East, who said the following:
Two of your beautiful daughters are in the hands of foreigners – Jerusalem and Baghdad. The foreigners are doing to your daughters as they will. The daughters are crying for help, and the Arab world is silent. And some of them are collaborating with the rape of these two beautiful Arab daughters. Why? Because they are too weak and too corrupt to do anything about it.
…
This started out as a wish to terrorize the world with American power, or as Sharon would say, ‘terrrrrrorize’ the world with American power. But in fact it ended demonstrating the exact opposite. They can control the skies, but only if they don’t come within range of an RPG, but they can’t control one single street in any part of occupied Iraq. Not one street. Not one street anywhere. These poor Iraqis – ragged people, with their sandals, with their Kalashnikovs, with the lightest and most basic of weapons – are writing the names of their cities and towns in the stars, with 145 military operations every day, which has made the country ungovernable by the people who occupy it.
…
America is losing the war in Iraq. And this will not change. The resistance is getting stronger every day, and the will to remain as an occupier by Britain and America is getting weaker everyday. Therefore, it can be said, truly said, that the Iraqi resistance is not just defending Iraq. They are defending all the Arabs, and they are defending all the people of the world from American hegemony.
…
It’s not the Muslims who are the terrorists. The biggest terrorists are Bush, and Blair, and Berlusconi, and Aznar, but it is definitely not a clash of civilizations. George Bush doesn’t have any civilization, he doesn’t represent any civilization. We believe in the Prophets, peace be upon them. He believes in the profits, and how to get a piece of them. That’s his god. That’s his god. George Bush worships money. That’s his god – Mammon.”
a. an “al-Qaida in Mesopotamia” spokesman in Hit
b. a radical Imam in a mosque in Saudi Arabia
c. a leader of the Taliban hiding in the mountains near Jalalabad
d. a British member of parliament.
If you picked “d,” you win! It’s that great “anti-war” hero George Galloway, of course. When he went into the U.S. Senate and slapped heads all around, he was a hero in my newsroom. They were agog. They loved him. They longed for such a leader so they could cast their votes for him. What do they think of him now? Well, to have a chance to change their minds, they’d have to see what Galloway has been saying. But the wire services don’t report those kind of quotes over here.
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August 5th, 2005 at 6:46 pm
Callimachus, is there any reason to believe they wouldn’t still be enamoured with him?
August 5th, 2005 at 7:30 pm
I was going to ask the same. That last two paragraphs could have been said by any number of more-or-less respectable people on the left. (Not Hillary or even Howard Dean, perhaps, but I can hear them in the mouths of a Michael Moore or Robert Fisk without any trouble at all.) The first is a little more colorful but it could be passed off as accommodation to the poetic verbal culture of his hosts… the basic idea, that Jerusalem is an Arab city “occupied” by the Joooooz and that the Americans are destroying/have destroyed Baghdad, is also widespread and often voiced.
I’d be interested in the results of the experiment, if you were to share these quotes with some of your colleagues and ask their opinion. (Assuming you wouldn’t get in trouble for doing it, of course.)
How come no one reports the quotes? Is it just that they’re damaging to Galloway? Fear of his lawsuit proneness?
August 6th, 2005 at 1:06 am
I can assure you that many on the left, including myself, are truly horrified by the divisiveness, anti-semitism, apologetics and anti-westernism of Galloway. This is but another reason to be dismayed by his election.
August 6th, 2005 at 1:39 am
I agree with Jeremy. Speaking as somebody from the left, these comments feel like a betrayal. Judging from these excerpts, he doesn’t speak for me in the very least.
Also, I’m curious to see how those in your newsroom would react to this. Why not share this with them? Many of my friends cheered Galloway when he testified in the US. I believe this would make them have second thoughts about his character. I’ll show them and report back with the reactions.
August 6th, 2005 at 9:31 am
Justin, why do Galloway’s current comments feel like a betrayal? They seem perfectly in line with his prior comments.
Jeremy, the fact that Galloway was elected seems to indicate that a large number of people on the left (at least in his district) agree with him. Comments like that may be enough to get people such as myself to hold our noses and vote Republican again in 2006.
Yes, I realize Galloway is British, but honestly, his comments don’t sound that different from, say, comments by Michael Moore, who seems to be the darling of the Left in this country. And they certainly don’t seem any worse than most comments by Chomsky.
August 6th, 2005 at 4:17 pm
Icepick, I’m not sure that Galloway’s district (Bethnal Green and Bow) is as much “left” as it is Muslim. Galloway himself is an old-school leftist, but he knows who his voters are.
Jaed, Justin and others, I don’t think you fully appreciate (or believe) the situation I’m in in my newsroom. The old Mad magazine used to run a re-subscription ad that said, basically, “don’t end it all just because your subscription expired,” and it was illustrated by cartoons of people “ending it all” in creative ways. One I remember showed a guy taking off his hood in the middle of a KKK rally and revealing that he was black.
Well, that’s sort of how it would be for me to question the shibboleths of my co-workers. Not all, but enough of them, and the loudest and most aggressive portion. And I’d end up fighting three or four at once, whose tactics tend toward recrimination not discussion. They’d ignore the Galloway quotes, dismiss them as Web fabrications, and demand that I justify or explain something Dick Cheney said. And I’d probably end up getting something thrown at me again. And I’d probably end up getting another memo from my immediate supervisor alerting me that my activities are grounds for dismissal.
So, in short, it’s not worth it.
August 6th, 2005 at 5:31 pm
Icepick, I’m not sure that Galloway’s district (Bethnal Green and Bow) is as much “left� as it is Muslim. Galloway himself is an old-school leftist, but he knows who his voters are.
I thought the majority of Britain’s Muslim population was moderate? So why elect a leftist like Galloway? Or why not elect an actual Muslim?
I’d really like to see the take of the bloggers here on moderate Muslims. We keep hearing about them, but we’ve heard very little from them, it seems. And the only non-raving-mad bit I’ve read on moderate Muslims was Razib’s recent post over at Gene Expression.
http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2005/08/analogies-going-off-base.php
Although I have to say that if the moderate Muslims are more in line with the Reconstructionist Christians, then the whole War on Terror as a democracy movement is probably sunk.
But to get back on point, if your newsroom colleagues (and I realize your are speaking about a subset of them) are reacting in the way you describe, then I believe they must really support Galloway’s statements. Changing the subject and going on the attack sounds like they just don’t want to admit that they support his statements.
And I have to say, Callimachus, that you have my sympathy on your work situation. I hope you can find some way to make your work life more accomodating.
August 6th, 2005 at 7:34 pm
Agreed. Let’s hope your other writing efforts take off and allow you to leave that place. It sounds really, really awful.
August 8th, 2005 at 3:28 pm
Jaed, Justin and others, I don’t think you fully appreciate (or believe) the situation I’m in in my newsroom.
Callimachus, I’m sorry. I’ve read a bit of what you’ve written about your workplace and I completely believe you. You certainly shouldn’t endanger your job or put yourself in an uncomfortable situation to satisfy my idle curiosity.