Newsweek and Galloway
An excellent defense of Newsweek which includes a reminder of the consequence of lying by...ahem...someone more important than a newsweekly relatively few people in Afghanistan read.
And while it was enjoyable to read British Member of Parliament George Galloway's smack across the brow of the odious Republican Senator from Minnesota, Norm Coleman, I am concerned that too many of our fellow bloggers are falling in love with Galloway, who may still be less than pure in terms of his relationship with the regime of Saddam Hussein, despite his victory in court in a libel suit against the London Telegraph (who received information from possibly American/British intelligence).
Three things that I have noticed re: Galloway that give me pause:
1. Galloway's head of his charity is a Jordanian who may have handsomely profited from oil trading with Saddam's regime.
2. Galloway stated he was a "friend" of Saddam's foreign minister Tariq Aziz.
3. Galloway decried not merely "neo-cons" for supporting the Iraq war, but also "Zionists." This last term is a mighty broad term to use and...as I said, it gives me pause about this fellow.
Finally, let's restore the focus on the fact that the US government allowed US companies to profit in illegal trades with Saddam's regime within the "Oil for Food" program--and then of course there is the point that the US occupation of Iraq under Haliburton and other companies also has its mercenary elements.
posted by Mitchell J. Freedman @ 7:47 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Did you ever hear about the Crusades?
Did you ever hear about the early American colonials who believed in 'manifest destiny?
'Zionism' is the latter-day equivalent of these movements. That is the broad meaning of the term.
It is permissible to write about those earlier historical events. But if you refer to the takeover of Iraq as 'Zionism' (as you say Galloway did) you are irrationally called 'anti-Semitic'.
It was wrong when the 19th century American army would ride thru and torch native American settlements (to get the land, basically) and it is wrong when the 21st century American army rode thru Falluja and torched those settlements.
Essentially the same acts.
'Zionism' is just the latest belief by people that their group is entitled to land somewhere because of their group's inherent specialness (even if someone else is living on that land, and has been for generations).
By happenstance, Israel is involved in the latest historical fantasy of this kind. But this is not because it is a Jewish state. A hundred years from now some other group will be entranced by their own concept of their superiority.
And people like Galloway will oppose that then.
'Zionism' is just a word . But what it broadly denotes is real, and has nothing to do with ethnicity.
Anonymous,
I'll be more clear since perhaps I was not. If someone believes the State of Israel has the right and, at this point in its history, duty to exist, then one is a Zionist.
There are plenty of Zionists, including this blogger, who opposed the US invasion of Iraq by this current occupant of the US White House. There are also plenty of Zionists inside Israel who feel the same way.
General, philosophical arguments against nationalism are evading the issue I have raised with regard to Galloway's use of the term "Zionists." Further, to define "Zionism", as Anonymous does, in a way that is a pejorative for any nationalist movement is disingenuous. Worse, it causes me to beieve Anonymous is a person who is rather upset at the very existence of the State of Israel--which is precisely my sense about Parliament Member Mr. Galloway. I wish I didn't feel that way since I enjoyed Galloway's take-down of Senator Coleman, but that is the way that it is...
Mr Freedman, point 3 is fairly well taken, but point 1 indicts Mssrs Bush far more. His friends accept donations from quite unsavory places. The Koch family, America's #1 convicted environmental criminals and payer of more than $1,000,000 in kickbacks to Saddam. Can you vouch for all of your business associates?
As for friends, apparently everyone loved Stalin, and even Bush. Bush has called many people "friend," including some serious criminals. Upper-class criminals, to be sure.
It's a crime, an instaneously punishable by beatings crime, to leave the house if you are a woman Saudi, unless you have a male escort. Bush is "friends" with these people.
I believe in the 1947 borders. They are the only ones which hold any legitimacy for me.
Maybe the friend bit was too much, too relativistic. But, I'd like to see the full quote, even hear it.
Mmm... so what?
Post a Comment
<< Home