From: Ant McWatt (antmcwatt@hotmail.co.uk)
Date: Sat May 21 2005 - 15:53:58 BST
Platt,
Thanks again for providing some alternative viewpoints to the Galloway
hearing at the Senate. It was very telling in your last post that, after
initialling pointing to the Senate’s documents as damning evidence against
Galloway, there was a lack of reference to them in your subsequent post.
Now you might want to start thinking about why the Senate have forged
documents in this context and who made them. As regards your other
comments, they came as little surprize and, as usual, I have responded to
the most misleading ones.
Platt stated May 19th 2005:
> >Free speech doesn’t require a megaphone be given to every crackpot who
> >wants to destroy what we fight to preserve and promote around the world.
Ant McWatt replied:
>Well, that’s a bit of a harsh indictment on Norm Coleman. ;-) And,
>anyway, don’t you think people in a democracy should be allowed to make
>their own minds up about who is talking like a crackpot and who isn’t?
>What gives a big mouth reporter on Fox News the right to censor parts of an
>important Senate hearing? Hasn’t it crossed your mind that Fox News were
>possibly trying to hide something? Wake up and smell the coffee!
Missing the point, Platt responded May 20th 2005:
As far as I can determine, the editors at Fox news gave Galloway more
exposure than any other network including the leftist editors at CBS, NBC
and ABC. No doubt the reason for this "censorship" was the judgment by
editors (who are also "people in a democracy") that his testimony lacked
news value.
Ant McWatt comments:
What I was particularly objecting to with Fox’s coverage was that the
voice-overs of their newscasters obscured what Galloway was saying. That
policy is straight out of Orwell’s 1984. As a democrat and believer in
free-speech, it was very disturbing to watch.
Platt stated May 20th 2005:
After all, Americans have heard it all before, ad nauseam.
Ant McWatt comments:
As have the British public, ad nauseam. Personally, I’m sick to death of
hearing about the children and young parents killed by the occupation. I’m
sick to death of hearing about young soldiers (hardly more than children
themselves) being killed in a situation created by middle-aged politicians
who ensure their own children don’t fight in Iraq. I am sick to death about
hearing about the taxpayer’s money being squandered by such a dubious
escapade. I am sick to death of hearing about the massive profits that
corporations such as Halliburton are continuing to make from this occupation
and I am sick to death thinking about the long-term damage this occupation
will cause for world peace and security.
Platt stated May 20th 2005:
Galloway is the British version of Michael Moore.
Ant McWatt comments:
As there are so many people (in the US and UK) against the Iraq occupation
this seems a rather sweeping statement.
Platt stated May 20th 2005:
However, I give Galloway high marks for demonstrating what a bunch of wimps
Republican senators are, even though their lack of cohonies hardly requires
additional evidence.
Ant McWatt comments:
Yes, Michael Hamilton illustrated this very well in his comments about
Galloway. I am keeping an open mind about Galloway’s exact involvement in
Iraq (though it appears that those documents of the Senate are forgeries)
but his independently-minded straight talking in relation to the political
sheep (whether in the Senate or British parliament) has made for a
refreshing change. And, yes, I wish more politicians would reject the
corporate party lines and, like Ten Bears (the Comanche chief whose speech
to Washington politicians is quoted in chapter 3 of LILA) speak their real
minds clearly. Even Dr Hans Blix (the Chief UN Weapons Inspector in Iraq)
has spoken of the culture of spin and hype surrounding Bush Junior and Blair
and famously compared their governments’ attempts to make the case for war
with an advertiser trying to sell a fridge.
> >Apparently Galloway is not in favor of establishing democracy over
>tyranny
> >in Iraq or anywhere else.
>
>I think he is. However, I think – like any reasonable person – he’s
>against illegal wars and the imposition of puppet governments such as the
>one presently installed in Iraq.
Platt replied May 20th 2005:
I guess you missed the free elections in Iraq. Not even Jimmy Carter could
claim they were bogus.
Ant McWatt comments:
Yes, I missed the free elections in Iraq because they haven’t happened yet.
And, no doubt, President Carter would agree with me as indicated by the
sentiments of David Carroll of the Carter Center (the human rights
organization founded by Carter) in the article from the “Washington Post”
pasted below.
=================================
“No Foreign Observers to Monitor Iraq Vote: Only One Outsider from
International Mission May Assess Elections on Site”
By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 22, 2005; Page A12
When 1 million Palestinians voted for a successor to Yasser Arafat, 800
international observers poured into the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to
monitor the polling. Former president Jimmy Carter and former Swedish prime
minister Carl Bildt led one team. A former French prime minister led
another, and there were two U.S. congressional delegations.
When 8 million Afghans voted in October, at least 122 international
observers from across Europe and Asia monitored the presidential election --
and declared it an "orderly and transparent process."
But in Iraq, where 14 million people are eligible to vote, the elections
next week may have only one outsider from the hastily organized
International Mission for Iraqi Elections to evaluate the balloting. If
reluctant governments change their minds at the last minute about letting
their officials go to Iraq, a handful of others may show up. But, even then,
none is likely to tour polling stations or to be publicly identified,
mission and U.S. officials said.
The violence in Iraq means that its elections will be the first among dozens
of transitional elections over the past two decades -- since democracy began
to sweep through eastern Europe, the old Soviet Union, Latin America and
Africa -- that will not have an international observer force touring polling
stations to assess the vote’s credibility, election experts say….
"That means you don’t have an independent voice that can really report
credibly on the quality of the election -- in a context where there are
already extremely difficult circumstances and doubts about the process,"
said David Carroll of the Carter Center, who was an observer in the
Palestinian elections. Among those doubts are whether the insurgents will
succeed in keeping people away from polling places with threats of violence
and whether the minority Sunnis will participate in sufficient numbers for
the balloting to be called successful.
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28599-2005Jan22.html)
===============================
And, because genuine free elections haven’t happened yet in Iraq, the
political situation there is deteriorating as indicated by the following
extract from a recent article by Hannah Allam:
========================
“Iraq Elections May Have Made Things Worse”
By Hannah Allam
Saturday 14 May 2005
Baghdad, Iraq - Two weeks of intense insurgent violence have made it crystal
clear that Iraq’s parliamentary elections, hailed in late January as a
triumph for democracy, haven’t helped to heal the country’s deep divisions.
They may have made them worse.
The historic election sheared off a thin facade of wartime national unity
and reinforced ethnic and sectarian tensions that have plagued Iraq for
centuries. Iraqis immediately began playing the roles the election results
delivered to them: victorious Shiite Muslim, assertive Kurd, disaffected
Sunni Arab. Within those groups lies a mosaic of other splits, especially
between secularists and Islamists vying for Iraq’s soul.
With little social cohesion, violence has soared, fuelled by anger over
foreign occupation and religious differences, while a semi-sovereign,
disjointed government has taken over with little ability to control or
appeal to groups behind the killings. At least 400 Iraqis have died in two
weeks. U.S. casualties are also up. According to Icasualties.org, a Web site
that tracks Iraq coalition casualties, 46 American service members died
under fire in April, and 28 have died so far in May.
(http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/051405F.shtml)
=======================================
Back to Platt May 19th:
> >Good thing [Galloway] wasn’t in charge at the beginning of Word War II.
>Like
> >Chamberlain, he would have capitulated to Hitler in a Munich minute.
Ant McWatt replied May 19th:
>Hitler was a real threat to world democracy. Though Hussein was a despot
>and a dictator he was no real threat to us in the West. Galloway was
>concerned primarily with the children in Iraq who were first starved to
>death by international sanctions and then killed by the US-UK invasion and
>occupation.
Platt stated May 20th 2005:
Two-faced Galloway shows no concern for the children killed by Saddam.
Ant McWatt comments:
Again, from what I’ve seen of Galloway I think this is an ungrounded
accusation (though I still don’t forget that he’s a politician). However, I
think it more likely that the two-faced people in this respect are Blair,
Bush and all those who supported them in the Iraq invasion.
Best wishes,
Anthony.
=============================
In 2005, Scot Bear spoke to the assembled tribes and specifically to the
representatives of Washington, saying:
“There are things which you have said to me which I do not like. They were
not sweet like sugar, but bitter like gourds. I was born in the rain, where
the wind blew free, and there were clouds to break the light of the sun.
When I was at Washington, the Great Father told me that all the Iraqi land
was theirs, and that no one should hinder them in living upon it. So why do
you ask them to leave the oil? The young men have heard talk of this and it
has made them sad and angry. Do not speak of it any more. If the Texan had
kept out of Iraq, there might have been peace. The white man has the
country which they loved. I want no blood upon Iraq to stain the sand. I
want it all clear and pure, and I wish it so, that all who go through among
those people may find peace when they come in, and leave it when they go
out."
As the Doctor read it again this time he saw that it wasn’t quite as close
to political speech as he’d remembered - it was a damn sight better than
political speech. Here were the straight, head-on, declarative sentences
without stylistic ornamentation or spin of any kind, but with a poetic force
that must have put the sophisticated bureaucratic speech of Scot Bear’s
antagonists to shame. This was no imitation of the involuted double-speak
of 2005.
.
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