Bushisms

[minnow~]

Whether you love him or hate him you must admit that some of these are pretty funny [img]smile.gif[/img]

http://www.dslextreme.com/users/mark...2/bushisms.htm

enjoy!

[phantas~]

I dont think it is at all funny

as in here...

bush and his friends strike at the very basis of democracy..this is only a tiny part of it..

Galloway matter settled

By a staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

The Christian Science Monitor and British Member of Parliament George Galloway have reached a settlement, including a payment to him, over an article based on documents the Monitor obtained last April in Baghdad.

The documents purported to show payments from the Saddam Hussein regime to Mr. Galloway over a period of 12 years, but the Monitor eventually performed ink-dating tests that discredited the documents, suggesting they were almost certainly forged. The Monitor ran a front-page story last June outlining the ink tests and other expert examinations that included an apology to Galloway and to Monitor readers. Later that summer, Galloway threatened to sue the Monitor in Britain, which does not have the same free-press or free-speech protections as American law. The settlement also includes a statement that was read in open court, endorsed by the Monitor, which reiterates that the aspersions the original documents cast on Galloway are unfounded.


Galloway has filed a libel suit against the London-based Daily Telegraph over articles based on an entirely different set of documents, also found in Baghdad last April, that also alleged payments to him by the Hussein government. In recent weeks, an Iraqi newspaper reported on other documents discovered by officials in the Iraqi oil ministry. These documents are said to list profitable concessions under the UN oil-for-food program doled out by the Hussein government to foreigners, including Galloway associates, who provided funding for a charity he ran. Galloway himself has reportedly denied receiving any oil concessions and has said he is unaware that his charity received any proceeds from such deals. None of these documents repeats or offers any evidence of the transactions described in the documents that led to the Monitor article.


The documents obtained by the Monitor were provided by a former Iraqi army general. He has not acknowledged that the documents were forged.

(George Galloway won his libel suit ...the CSM admitted the fraud and paid undisclosed damages...the real damage is already done..
(note that they were forged...the question is..BY WHOM..and FOR WHAT PURPOSE??????????????

I know...the real world is so much more difficult to deal with..
and one need to be there to deal with it!

[Moby]

The George Galloway Puzzle
British Member of Parliament George Galloway stands accused of accepting bribes from Saddam Hussein. But some of the evidence looks suspicious.
By Michael Nicholson: 5 May 2003

Firebrand British left-winger George Galloway has lots of enemies, including powerful members of his own ruling Labour Party. Prime Minister Tony Blair is said to find him most distasteful, not least for the visits he paid to Iraq over the past ten years and the photos he posed for shaking hands with Saddam Hussein.

Now, Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper has discovered documentary evidence in Baghdad that Galloway was possibly in the pay of Saddam's regime, allegedly receiving around $600,000 per year in funds diverted from the UN-monitored Iraqi oil for food program. If the accusations turn out to be true, he could potentially be charged with corruption and be deselected as a parliamentary candidate. For his part, Galloway is suing the Daily Telegraph for libel.

The outspoken British Parliament representative from the working class constituency of Kelvin, in north Glasgow, has not done much to ingratiate him to Tony Blair's government. A fierce opponent of both the war in Iraq and the current military occupation by US and British forces, he has publicly described both President Bush and Prime Minister Blair as "wolves".

He recently stated that "the real traitors to our (British Army) boys are those who have sent them into a dirty, illegal war to support the political purposes of George Bush." And he has described the Blair administration as "a government of liars, war criminals and murderers."

Guilty as Charged?
While Galloway is sometimes his own worst enemy and his acid tongue has often landed him in trouble, the real question is whether he is guilty as charged. Daily Telegraph reporter David Blair (no relation to the Prime Minister) found files on Galloway in two boxes labelled "Britain" among the burnt-out remains of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry in Baghdad. The files appear to name Galloway as a recipient of large sums of money.

Just how the incriminating files survived the bombing, burning and looting of the Foreign Ministry remains unclear. "The file was found in a tiny room adjoining the Foreign Minister's office," explained David Blair. "Everything else had been burned to a cinder. Why the contents of the room with the box file survived is a mystery."

The core document is a supposed memorandum from the chief of Iraqi security to Saddam Hussein's office and forms the basis of the serious allegations against Galloway. The document reads: "his projects (Galloway's) and future plans for the benefit of the country (Iraq) need financial support to become a motive for him to do more work. And because of the sensitivity of getting money directly from Iraq, it is necessary to grant him oil contracts and special commercial opportunities to provide him with a financial income under commercial cover without being connected to him directly."

Commenting on the wording of the document, Sabah al-Mukhtar, former president of Galloway's charitable Marian appeal fund and an Iraqi-born lawyer stated "this is not an Iraqi thinking". In other words, the tone and language of the incriminating document did not match accepted norms used by Iraqi officials writing memos in Arabic.

Further, the signature at the bottom of the memorandum is illegible and impossible to identify. If it was signed by the chief of Iraqi intelligence or even his subordinate, as purported, it must be possible to match their signatures. If either man is alive, they should shortly become available for interview.

Stylistic Difficulties and Curious Dates
Other correspondents have identified stylistic anomalies and difficulties in concluding from the document the precise business opportunities allegedly available to Galloway. Another puzzling aspect is that the relevant documents are dated between February 1 and March 1, 2000, and yet they refer to Dr Amina Abu Zaid, Galloway's Palestinian-born wife, as his spouse, even through they were not actually married until March 28, 2000.

A political loner, Galloway has nevertheless received support form some credible sources. Tam Dalyell, the widely respected Father of Britain's House of Commons - the title conferred on the country's longest-serving parliamentarian - told The Inquisitor: "I travelled to Baghdad in 1994 with George Galloway and Tim Llewellyn, the veteran Middle-East Correspondent of the BBC. We were all appalled at the results of (UN economic) sanctions, in particular the shortage of medicines at the children's hospital in Baghdad and at the hospital at Um Quasr. From that moment George has honourably campaigned for a different approach to Iraq. Both Tim Llewellyn and I are agreed that he behaved absolutely properly on that visit."

Former UN weapons investigator and US intelligence officer Scott Ritter recently wrote of Galloway as "a man for whom I have great respect ... 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."

Rumours have circulated among the foreign press corps in Baghdad that the CIA swept the Saddam's government ministries for information and files after the city fell to US forces. Indeed, it would have been odd if this were not so. Yet, intriguingly, no memos have so far surfaced concerning visits to Iraq by British ministers, French government officials, Russians or any number of international arms salesmen, even though these trips are known to have occurred. In fact, of all the Westerners to visit Iraq throughout the 1990s, George Galloway is the only person about whom information has come to light.

"How very convenient," comments Scott Ritter.

Time will certainly tell whether the allegations turn out to be true. For if Galloway did accept such large sums - $600,000 per year over perhaps three years - it will likely prove impossible to conceal.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Nicholson is a journalist and photographer who has travelled widely in eastern Europe and the Middle East. He is currently based in London.


It would seem to me that someone is trying to smear the right honourable member for Glasgow Kelvin "Gorgeous" George Galloway. He's been a thorn in the side of the Labour Party for many years. A lot of people didn't like the fact he brought a child from Baghdad to Yorkhill hospital in Glasgow for treatment. The child was unable to receive treatment in Iraq due to the sanctions that had been imposed on it. The powers at be didn't like this at all. They've wanted to take the wind out of George's sails for a long time.

[JohnUK]

This is an article that was published about a month before the one that Moby posted:


Galloway's a crook - how convenient

These dramatic revelations come just when Britain needs an outspoken voice of dissent more than ever

Scott Ritter
Friday April 25, 2003
The Guardian

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.


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Galloway was criticised for being a friend of Saddam Hussain's - usually portrayed as being a regular visitor to Iraq...

In fact, Galloway met Saddam Hussain TWICE - no more than that. And incidentally, that's the same number of meetings as Saddam had with Donald Rumsfeld - except Rumsfeld made a point of not being seen with Saddam, and certainly not being photographed with him...

And of the two people - Galloway and Rumsfeld - one met Saddam to try and stop a war, while the other was there to sell him weapons...

Can you guess which was which???

[Blazey]

or better yet..pose as rotten trying to be cute..oh wait..he fails miserably as usual..*claps for his effort*..since no one else will..*smooch to the snail*..i always knew you were a slug..too bad you had to go and prove it again.. [img]tongue.gif[/img]


moby..long time no see..hope your well..

[rotten]

the most intelligent posts get no attention. You need to start it off posing as chloe blaming blaze for not caring enough. Then you'll get people to actually give a shit.

[rotten]

dont be rude to me.

[Blazey]

wasnt rude..was sarcastic.. [img]eek.gif[/img] [img]biggrin.gif[/img]

[phantas~]

I am very impressed with George Bush
Not only did he manage to be 'elected' by some (missing paper scraps) but he led the western world to war without any intelligence, nor natural cue reading abilities, to win freedom for us all (not to mention any oil from soviet central asia)
I am truly amazed by him...he MUST be pretty damned clever...
and which great electorate recognised all this?....OMG...not the chattering classes I hope *L*
Well..I take my cap off to the French for giving them the ideas.