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Galloway's a crook - how convenient [Ritter defends Galloway]
The Guardian ^ | 04/25/2003 | Scott Ritter

Posted on 04/24/2003 6:02:41 PM PDT by Mike Fieschko

I was shocked to read about the allegations, ostensibly based upon documents discovered in Iraq, that George Galloway was somehow compensated financially by the Iraqi government for championing its cause. I was shocked because, if these allegations prove to be true, then the integrity and credibility of a man for whom I have great respect would be dramatically undermined.

But I was also shocked because of the timing of these allegations. Having been on the receiving end of smear campaigns designed to assassinate the character of someone in opposition to the powers that be, I have grown highly suspicious of dramatic revelations conveniently timed to silence a vocal voice of dissent.

The charges made against Galloway are serious and they should be thoroughly investigated. Do these charges have any merit? I will continue to operate under the assumption of innocence until proven guilty. I hope the charges against George Galloway are baseless but, to be honest, I simply don't know.

But I do know a few things about George Galloway and the cause he championed with regards to Iraq. I know that he helped found the Mariam Appeal, a humanitarian organisation established in 1998 initially to raise funds on behalf of an Iraqi girl who suffered from leukaemia and who, because of economic sanctions, was unable to receive adequate medical care. I met Mariam in 1999, when she was a guest of the Bruderhof Society here in the US, a religious movement that eschews individual wealth and promotes a simple, communal life. She was getting treatment for the onset of blindness caused by medical neglect related to her leukaemia treatment.

Mariam is a real person, not some political stunt. Her suffering was genuine. So, too, was the joy of her maternal grandmother, who accompanied Mariam to the US when she realised that while Mariam might be blind, she was going to live, thanks in no small part to the work of people like George Galloway, whose dramatic intervention got Mariam out of Iraq and into the hands of those who could care for her.

I know that Galloway helped set up the British-Iraqi friendship association. I know because he invited me to come to London and speak at the association's inaugural meeting. The message I heard him deliver that night was one of human kindness and compassion. He spoke out against the suffering of the Iraqi people under the effects of a decades-long economic embargo. I heard him decry the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. But I also heard him lambast the policies of his own country, and those of the US, which were subjecting the innocent people of Iraq to such suffering.

Establishing the friendship association was a politically incorrect thing to do at the time. Galloway's political opponents could, and did, make political hay from such actions, deriding them as "pro-Saddam". In the months to come, I'm sure many British people will flock to organisations espousing friendship between Britain and Iraq, now that it is the trendy thing to do. Galloway was a friend of the Iraqi people back when they most needed the friendship and understanding of the British people.

I know that Galloway was a leading, and highly vocal, critic of the war with Iraq. He challenged Tony Blair's policies and statements about the justification for the war, namely the allegations made by Britain and the US concerning Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programmes and its failure to comply with its security council-mandated obligations to disarm. I know because I share Galloway's views about the unsustained nature of the British-American case against Iraq.

He spoke out vociferously against Blair's policies on Iraq, demanding evidence concerning Iraqi weapons of mass destruction more substantial than the plagiarised dossier and forged documents produced by Whitehall. The case for war, as flimsy as it was in the months before Operation Iraqi Freedom began, has been shown to date to be utterly without merit, as no stockpiles of hidden weapons of mass destruction have been uncovered by the US and British military forces occupying Iraq.

If it turns out that there are no weapons of mass destruction or programmes related to their production and concealment in Iraq, Blair and his government must be held accountable by the British people for actions carried out in their name. If British policy was sustained on the back of a lie, then those who perpetrated that lie must be called upon to explain themselves. Now, more than ever, the British people need a voice of opposition, because it is from the ranks of the opposition that the matter of policing bad policy will be raised.

To allow George Galloway to be silenced now, when his criticisms of British policy over Iraq have been shown to be fundamentally sound, would be a travesty of democracy. Rather than casting him aside, the British people should reconsider his statements in the light of the emerging reality that it is Blair and not Galloway who has been saying things worthy of investigation.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Miscellaneous; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: galloway; georgegalloway; ritter; scottritter
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To: isthisnickcool
This guy is creepy.

He's a crook too. just not as big a one as Galloway.

21 posted on 04/24/2003 6:22:52 PM PDT by kcordell
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To: Warhead W-88
Sirs,

Please accept my assurances that Klingon Commander Krang has never in his life attempted any hostile action against the United Federation of Planets.

Yours Truly,

Kahn Noonian Kahn
22 posted on 04/24/2003 6:23:29 PM PDT by Warhead W-88
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To: Mike Fieschko
Will this guy EVER go away?
23 posted on 04/24/2003 6:23:43 PM PDT by Exit148
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To: Shermy
Galloway was a friend of the Iraqi people back when they most needed the friendship and understanding of the British people."

I would say surreal sums it up nicely.

I love to see Blair send him to the new "Iraqi" people and see if they still consider him a friend when they needed him most.

His "friends" might take him for a little show and tell in some of soddom's houses of pain.

24 posted on 04/24/2003 6:23:53 PM PDT by BOBTHENAILER (Just like Black September. One by one, we're gonna get 'em.)
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To: Mike Fieschko; Grampa Dave; PhiKapMom
Let's see, we are to be reassured on Galloway because Saddam's paid butt boy who invited underaged girls to watch him perform a lewd act invents Gephardt-esque imaginary friends.

Let's ask Tariq Aziz if Scott Ritte was only at the children's orphanage for the same reason Ritter was online chatting with a 14-year-old girl.

25 posted on 04/24/2003 6:25:12 PM PDT by PhilDragoo (Hitlery: das Butch von Buchenvald)
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To: dighton
Yes. BTW, a gift from the "charity" Mariam Appeal:

Interview of Scott Ritter, Former UN Weapons Inspector, by George Galloway MP (26/06/00) at the inaugural meeting of the Great Britain - Iraq Society

I wonder if Ritter was one of those "third parties" Galloway mentioned that took money.

26 posted on 04/24/2003 6:25:30 PM PDT by Shermy (Full disclosure of Food For Oil books...No Compromise!!!)
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To: Mike Fieschko
This is Ritter's pre-emtive attack against the documents that turn up with his name on it. If you question the case against Galloway successfully then when the dirt on you turns up, you can challenge that evidence from the same playbook.

This is clear proof that Ritter was also getting paid by Saddam's goons.

Sickening!
27 posted on 04/24/2003 6:27:06 PM PDT by faithincowboys
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To: Shermy; cyncooper
Unbelievable. I have NO remaining doubt that Scott Ritter's name will come up again and again in Saddam's files.
28 posted on 04/24/2003 6:28:10 PM PDT by EllaMinnow (Desperately in search of a new tagline...)
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I sent him an e-mail with a link to this article:

Documents indicate payments of more than $10 million for support of Labour Party MP (Galloway)
29 posted on 04/24/2003 6:31:20 PM PDT by george wythe
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To: Mike Fieschko
I thought Scott Ritters fifteen minutes of fame was up a long time ago. Why wont he go away? Who cares what he thinks? Maybe the Dixie Chicks.
30 posted on 04/24/2003 6:31:26 PM PDT by fish hawk
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To: dighton
he seems like one of those guys that marcinko kills in his stories
31 posted on 04/24/2003 6:32:15 PM PDT by 1john2 3and4
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To: Mike Fieschko
Shocked at the timing? They just found the damning documents. Man, oh, man, what did Ritter do to little girls over there that they might discover?
32 posted on 04/24/2003 6:32:27 PM PDT by doug from upland (- to Bill -"You are not fit to be commander in chief" -- father of Sgt. Shughart who died in Somalia)
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To: Mike Fieschko
Hey Ritter, what's in your wallet?
33 posted on 04/24/2003 6:34:14 PM PDT by Mike Darancette (Soddom has left the bunker.)
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To: faithincowboys
I completely agree. He's trying to set up a defense for himself for when the documents which incriminate him surface.
34 posted on 04/24/2003 6:34:37 PM PDT by Green Knight (Looking forward to seeing Jeb stepping over Hillary's rotting political corpse in '08.)
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To: BOBTHENAILER; dighton; aristeides; MadIvan; Grampa Dave; redlipstick; Dog
I wonder if God looks fondly on FR. The war dies out, he gives us Scott and Laci. No new revelations since Monday, he gives us Galloway. And on a day with no new Galloway stories from Britain he gives us Ritter.

Could it be designed any better?

;)

35 posted on 04/24/2003 6:34:56 PM PDT by Shermy (Full disclosure of Food For Oil books...No Compromise!!!)
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To: Angelus Errare
Ritter Scumbag Ping.
36 posted on 04/24/2003 6:36:00 PM PDT by Green Knight (Looking forward to seeing Jeb stepping over Hillary's rotting political corpse in '08.)
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To: Mike Fieschko
oh...defending someone on Saddam's side, how surprising!
Bet ole Scotty has some skeletons in his closet, and I pray we find them!!
37 posted on 04/24/2003 6:37:22 PM PDT by tutstar
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To: Nightshift
ping
38 posted on 04/24/2003 6:37:57 PM PDT by tutstar
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To: Shermy
It also was the day Tariq Aziz turned himself in.Tune in tomorrow.
39 posted on 04/24/2003 6:42:05 PM PDT by MEG33
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To: Mike Fieschko
This is where my Tag Line Comes in Handy.....
40 posted on 04/24/2003 6:42:51 PM PDT by cmsgop ( Arby's says no more Horsey Sauce for Scott Ritter !!!!)
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