Curious George Galloway Statements
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Dumb Things Said By Smart People, Foreign Policy, The War On Terrorism, The World, WarTotten has collected some that were printed on a leaflet and handed out before the Hitchens/Galloway debate last night.
Here are a few and then you can go over there and read the rest.
“If you are asking did I support the Soviet Union, yes I did. Yes, I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life.�
–George Galloway (The Guardian, 9/16/02)“In poor third world countries like Pakistan, politics is too important to be left to petty squabbling politicians. Pakistan is always on the brink of breaking apart into its widely disparate components. Only the armed forces can really be counted on to hold such a country together… Democracy is a means, not an end in itself.”
–George Galloway on General Musharraf’s coup against the elected government in Pakistan (The Mail on Sunday, 10/17/99)“I’m no friend of the Syrian regime, but Syrian troops in Lebanon maintain stability and protect the country from Israel. Lebanon is an Arab country with a border with the Zionist state and that is a very dangerous place.”
–George Galloway, defending Syria’s occupation of Lebanon less than five months before it ended (The Lebanon Daily Star, 12/7/04)“Syria is exposed to foreign pressure because she represents the last castle of the Arab dignity and the Arab rights.”
–George Galloway on the dictatorial regime of Bashar al-Assad (Arabicnews.com, 7/25/05)
Trust me, the rest are equally as indefensible. One even calls former Iraqi trade unionists’ recollections of torture from the Ba’athists as “A party trick.”
In other words, while many of the far left cheer George Galloway, he does not speak for me in the slightest.
This entry was posted on Thursday, September 15th, 2005 and is filed under Dumb Things Said By Smart People, Foreign Policy, The War On Terrorism, The World, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
September 15th, 2005 at 6:31 pm
Courtesy of Sullivan I found this wrap up of reports from bloggers who were at ringside for the big debate. Interesting assortment.
They call Galloway “Gorgeous George,” but he reminds me of the stock pro wrestling character in the old Tex Avery cartoons for MGM: “Gorgeous Gorillawitz.”
September 15th, 2005 at 7:24 pm
UPDATE: Patrick Belton has the blow-by-blow.
November 19th, 2006 at 11:09 pm
About the Pakistan quote…I asked Galloway about this statement in Ottawa, Canada during Nov 06, and he said he never said that. Galloway then denounced Musharrafs dictatorship, made a comment about how he was proud of his work in Pakistan about pushing for Democracy with Bhutto in the 70’s and then expressed his desire for democracy in Pakistan.