Sunday, August 07, 2005

Straight-shootin' George Galloway 

FPF: Keeping in mind the (already disputed) death by heart attack of former British minister for foreign affairs Robin Cook yesterday, one wonders if George Galloway - as outspoken as he is - ever will reach the age of fifty-nine?

George Galloway was born on 16 August 1954 in Dundee. ... - Wikipedia/Galloway - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/7cmmj

Straight-shootin' George Galloway 

by Mike Whitney 

08/06/05 "ICH" -- -- "I am utterly against the punishing of innocent people for the crimes of the guilty, whether it is done on the underground of London or the streets of Falluja by George Bush's air force". George Galloway MP 

GEORGE GALLOWAY IS QUITE A GUY. 

His trip to the Middle East is causing a ruckus back in London, where his criticism of Bush and Blair is appearing like a spread-sheet on the front-page of the tabloids. 

Congrats, George; those two deserve a good lambasting. 

Yesterday he fired-off another barrage, landing a direct hit on Prime Minister Milquetoast and his Texas-twin. He said, "There's far more blood on the hands of George Bush and Tony Blair than there is on the hands of the murderers who killed those people in London." 

Ka-boom! Right on target. 

Galloway was stellar; praising the Iraqi resistance as "martyrs" and telling them that they "are not just defending Iraq, but defending the whole world against American hegemony." 

Bulls-eye. 

Galloway's comments drew attention to the young men who are swarming to Iraq to fight what he calls the "foreign invaders". They're normally disparaged by the pro-war crowd in the press like Tom Friedman who calls them a "jihadist death-cult" 

What rubbish. Friedman should skip the name-calling and try to figure out who these guys really are. Men don't simply throw away their lives for no reason. It is the injustice of the American occupation that has the swollen the ranks of the Iraqi resistance. 

Galloway knows that and so does Friedman when he's not shoveling manure into the "paper of record". 

Imagine, for a moment, that the US was invaded by an army from Saudi Arabia for the transparent purpose of securing America's great natural wealth. And, imagine that tens of thousands of American people were killed in that invasion, entire cities were leveled as reprisal for resisting, and scores of Americans were tortured and humiliated in the most despicable manner. 

What type of man would risk his own life to travel to the United States to fight for the liberation of the American people from Saudi oppression? 

A terrorist or a martyr? 

Forget the media hype about suicide bombers targeting innocent Iraqis. Communiqués from the resistance have repeatedly refuted those claims saying they do not attack Iraqi civilians, only the occupiers and their collaborators in the Iraqi security services. 

Who're we going to believe; the Pentagon? 

Galloway nailed it when he said, "These poor Iraqis, ragged people with their sandals, with their Kalashnikovs, with the lightest most basic 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." Game; Set; Match. 

Galloway can expect to be roundly throttled for his remarks, but the truth is out and can't be undone. The Iraqi resistance is the frontlines in the war against American global domination. They're doing the fighting in the trenches while Americans continue to stumble around in their perpetual state of amnesia. 

Can't Americans see their civil liberties being methodically savaged by Bush's rubber-stamp Congress? Will it take a decree of martial law to wake them up to this "gathering threat" emerging from the Bush White House? We should applaud Galloway's willingness to state the obvious; that the men who have taken up arms in Iraq are engaged in a life-or-death struggle against a neo-liberal cancer that is menacing the entire world. 

Those who doubt what I say should consider Blair's news conference yesterday, where he rattled-off a whole new list of repressive measures to be directed at Muslims. Mimicking his Crawford mentor, Blair has decided that he has the right to unilaterally make law from his perch at 10 Downing St. without the consent of Parliament.

The fatuous PM now claims the power to close down mosques, deport, clerics and shut down web sites where the views don't meet the dubious standards of the state. Additionally, Israeli trained police-units have been deployed on London's streets with orders to "shoot to kill" terror suspects (or fleeing Brazilians) if there is a perceived risk to public safety. 

Who gave this unctuous, lying politician the right to declare martial law on Muslims? 

Who gave this foppish phony the license to issue Nazi-type edicts that eviscerate basic civil liberties? 

The British people would be foolish to let the wildly-unpopular Blair get away with this monumental power-grab. 

85% of the British people already agree that the London bombings were the direct result of Blair's involvement in Iraq. Similarly, every terrorist-expert on the planet; including analysts at M15, the CIA, and the Israeli Mossad, have supported that very same conclusion.

So, why should the victims of Blair's bungled aggression be the same one's who are collectively punished? 

It's Blair who should be manacled and led away to the stocks, not the Muslims who already are suffering the blowback from his apocryphal war on terror. 

No one in their right mind believes that Blair conjured up these new restrictions. His job is to simply recite his lines for the teleprompter and make sure his eye-shadow and silk-shirt are in order. 

It's the big-money elites behind Blair that have their sights on personal liberty, just as they do in America and Australia. (Australia's Howard is trying to enact similar legislation right now) These are the 3 stooges of the international corporate-banking cabal; the tawdry courtesans of the global parasite-class. 

Just listen to Zbigniew Brzezinski, founder of the Trilateral Commission, former board-member of the Council on Foreign Relations, former Co-Chair of the Bush National Security Task Force, and all-around foot-soldier for American elites. Brzezinski is comfortably lodged at the very center of an elite cadre of nutcases who have been pushing for the New World Order (One world government) for over 20 years. His comments reflect the prevailing views of the main actors in the Bush-Blair-Howard governments. 

"It is also a fact that America is too democratic at home to be autocratic abroad. This limits the use of America's power, especially its capacity for military intimidation. Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization." ("The Grand Chessboard; p.35) 

"Too democratic"? "Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization."? Brzezinski hates democracy every bit as much as the men who back Blair. They've concluded that they can pretty well dispose of personal liberty in a few years by taking advantage terrorist attacks, exploiting public hysteria, and crafting a media narrative that supports the crushing of individual freedom.

That's why we should take these new anti-Islam laws for what they really are; a forerunner to the repressive measures that will be applied to everyone without discrimination in the very near future. 

Can anyone seriously doubt this after seeing the pattern of the last 5 years? 

That's why we need guys like Galloway who'll stand up and take a few hardy swings at the scoundrels in power. His words put a little steel in everyone's spine; and we're going to need it, too.

There's plenty of bad road ahead.

Mike Whitney

[enditem] - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/c6bba

Fwd. by:

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
http://tinyurl.com/8zhvo
Editor : Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/amn3q
The Netherlands
FPF@Chello.nl

*' The war in Iraq is illegal' - BBC video & text - interview United Nation's Secretary General Kofi Annan - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5pl2v

* Corporate News Media: Incompetent, Criminally Negligent or Complicit? - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cqpfe

* Impeachbush.org is mobilizing a massive impeachment contingent at the huge September 24, 2005 anti-war March on Washington. Assemble at 12 noon at the White House. The plans of the impeachment movement - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cex28

FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html

-0-

Cook resigns for ever from Blair's bellicose bunch

Robin Cook, the former British minister for Foreign Affairs, who yesterday died at the age of 59, did what any normal thinking human being should have done: he resigned from Blair's warmongering clan* which smeared and slandered him in any way possible via their media.

by Henk Ruyssenaars

FPF - August 7th 2005 - Refusing to be one of the many criminals 'Guilty by association' of the plethora of war crimes engulfing the globe in the US/UK neocon terror spree and the American Gulag as Amnesty International in the US calls it* - earlier this year Cook declared he had no regrets. “I only feel a sense of relief, strengthened every time I reflect on the failure of the Americans to find these weapons of mass disappearance,” he said.*

And that's why it's good to remember certain parts of Cook's resignation speech in the 'House of Commons', BBC transcript from March 18th 2003: ''which won applause from some backbenchers in unprecedented Commons scenes.'' But at that time Cook (and we all) lacked a lot of information concerning hidden 'London memos'* and most of the other facts distorted by Bush and Blair's 'Lies Factories'. The light of history lately shining on it, reveals some wrong statements and conclusions, but the goal seemed to be mostly right.

Cook justified his step by observing the following:

I HAVE CHOSEN TO ADDRESS THE HOUSE FIRST ON WHY I CANNOT SUPPORT A WAR WITHOUT INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENT OR DOMESTIC SUPPORT.

[ ] France has been at the receiving end of bucket loads of commentary in recent days. It is not France alone that wants more time for inspections. Germany wants more time for inspections; Russia wants more time for inspections; indeed, at no time have we signed up even the minimum necessary to carry a second resolution. We delude ourselves if we think that the degree of international hostility is all the result of President Chirac.

THE REALITY IS THAT BRITAIN IS BEING ASKED TO EMBARK ON A WAR WITHOUT AGREEMENT IN ANY OF THE INTERNATIONAL BODIES OF WHICH WE ARE A LEADING PARTNER - NOT NATO, NOT THE EUROPEAN UNION AND, NOW, NOT THE SECURITY COUNCIL.

To end up in such diplomatic weakness is a serious reverse. Only a year ago, we and the United States were part of a coalition against terrorism that was wider and more diverse than I would ever have imagined possible.

History will be astonished at the diplomatic miscalculations that led so quickly to the disintegration of that powerful coalition. The US can afford to go it alone, but Britain is not a superpower. Our interests are best protected not by unilateral action but by multilateral agreement and a world order governed by rules. Yet tonight the international partnerships most important to us are weakened: the European Union is divided; the Security Council is in stalemate.

THOSE ARE HEAVY CASUALTIES OF A WAR IN WHICH A SHOT HAS YET TO BE FIRED.

I have heard some parallels between military action in these circumstances and the military action that we took in Kosovo. There was no doubt about the multilateral support that we had for the action that we took in Kosovo. It was supported by NATO; it was supported by the European Union; it was supported by every single one of the seven neighbours in the region. France and Germany were our active allies. It is precisely because we have none of that support in this case that it was all the more important to get agreement in the Security Council as the last hope of demonstrating international agreement. [The 'Balkan wa'r is according to me a NATO war crime - HR]

COOK: PUBLIC DOUBTS

The legal basis for our action in Kosovo was the need to respond to an urgent and compelling humanitarian crisis. Our difficulty in getting support this time is that neither the international community nor the British public is persuaded that there is an urgent and compelling reason for this military action in Iraq. The threshold for war should always be high.

None of us can predict the death toll of civilians from the forthcoming bombardment of Iraq, but the US warning of a bombing campaign that will "shock and awe" makes it likely that casualties will be numbered at least in the thousands. [Hundreds of thousands - HR]

I am confident that British servicemen and women will acquit themselves with professionalism and with courage. I hope that they all come back. I hope that Saddam, even now, will quit Baghdad and avert war, but it is false to argue that only those who support war support our troops. It is entirely legitimate to support our troops while seeking an alternative to the conflict that will put those troops at risk. Nor is it fair to accuse those of us who want longer for inspections of not having an alternative strategy.

For four years as foreign secretary I was partly responsible for the western strategy of containment. Over the past decade that strategy destroyed more weapons than in the Gulf war, dismantled Iraq's nuclear weapons programme and halted Saddam's medium and long-range missiles programmes. Iraq's military strength is now less than half its size than at the time of the last Gulf war.

THREAT QUESTIONED

Ironically, it is only because Iraq's military forces are so weak that we can even contemplate its invasion. Some advocates of conflict claim that Saddam's forces are so weak, so demoralised and so badly equipped that the war will be over in a few days. We cannot base our military strategy on the assumption that Saddam is weak and at the same time justify pre-emptive action on the claim that he is a threat. Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of the term - namely a credible device capable of being delivered against a strategic city target.

It probably still has biological toxins and battlefield chemical munitions, but it has had them since the 1980s when US companies sold Saddam anthrax agents and the then British Government approved chemical and munitions factories. Why is it now so urgent that we should take military action to disarm a military capacity that has been there for 20 years, and which we helped to create? Why is it necessary to resort to war this week, while Saddam's ambition to complete his weapons programme is blocked by the presence of UN inspectors?

ISRAELI BREACHES

Only a couple of weeks ago, Hans Blix told the Security Council that the key remaining disarmament tasks could be completed within months. I have heard it said that Iraq has had not months but 12 years in which to complete disarmament, and that our patience is exhausted. Yet it is more than 30 years since resolution 242 called on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories.

WE DO NOT EXPRESS THE SAME IMPATIENCE WITH THE PERSISTENT REFUSAL OF ISRAEL TO COMPLY.

I welcome the strong personal commitment that the prime minister has given to middle east peace, but Britain's positive role in the middle east does not redress the strong sense of injustice throughout the Muslim world at what it sees as one rule for the allies of the US and another rule for the rest. Nor is our credibility helped by the appearance that our partners in Washington are less interested in disarmament than they are in regime change in Iraq. That explains why any evidence that inspections may be showing progress is greeted in Washington not with satisfaction but with consternation: it reduces the case for war.

PRESIDENTIAL DIFFERENCES

What has come to trouble me most over past weeks is the suspicion that if the hanging chads in Florida had gone the other way and Al Gore had been elected, we would not now be about to commit British troops. The longer that I have served in this place, the greater the respect I have for the good sense and collective wisdom of the British people. On Iraq, I believe that the prevailing mood of the British people is sound.

They do not doubt that Saddam is a brutal dictator, but they are not persuaded that he is a clear and present danger to Britain. They want inspections to be given a chance, and they suspect that they are being pushed too quickly into conflict by a US Administration with an agenda of its own.

Above all, they are uneasy at Britain going out on a limb on a military adventure without a broader international coalition and against the hostility of many of our traditional allies. From the start of the present crisis, I have insisted, as Leader of the House, on the right of this place to vote on whether Britain should go to war.

It has been a favourite theme of commentators that this House no longer occupies a central role in British politics.

Nothing could better demonstrate that they are wrong than for this House to stop the commitment of troops in a war that has neither international agreement nor domestic support.

I INTEND TO JOIN THOSE TOMORROW NIGHT WHO WILL VOTE AGAINST MILITARY ACTION NOW.

It is for that reason, and for that reason alone, and with a heavy heart, that I resign from the government.

ROBIN COOK


[enditem] - Story from BBC NEWS - First Published: 2003/03/18 - Url.: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk_politics/2859431.stm

Blair's Bellicose Bunch - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/avdn5

One must remember that Rupert Murdoch is also the disgusting neocon owner of 'The Sunday Times' - August 07, 2005 - Cook, founding member of the awkward squad - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/bglgz

Robin Cook dies - Url.: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1724543,00.html

The American 'Gulag' - Amnesty International - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/3pep2

What's Al Qaida? - http://tinyurl.com/dbemg

The Downing St. Memos - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/83lko

The Netherlands is like Blair's England an American 'Lapdog of War': Url.: http://tinyurl.com/at9m6]

Fwd. by:

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
http://tinyurl.com/8zhvo
Editor : Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/amn3q
The Netherlands
FPF@Chello.nl

*'The war in Iraq is illegal' - BBC video & text - interview United Nation's Secretary General Kofi Annan - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5pl2v

*Corporate News Media: Incompetent, Criminally Negligent or Complicit? - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cqpfe

*Colin Powell: 'It is not anti-Semitic to criticize the policies of the state of Israel' - Url.:http://tinyurl.com/22p6c Who creates our money? And what is 'Press Freedom' about? - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/assvj - The Secret of the private US Federal Bank - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/9jypc -

*Help the troops come home! Url.: http://www.bringemhome.org - In many collaborating countries we need them badly to fight our 'Quisling governments' - Url.: http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/

HR

FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html

-0-