http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3006166.stm
Although this issue isn’t completely closed yet it looks like it will be soon. Talk about serious libel!
It appears like someone in the US/UK forces in Iraq made a serious effort to blacken the name of the most anit-war UK MP and botched it.
I wouldnt like to be the editor of the Christian Science Monitor at the moment. This mistake is going to cost.
My first serious post …
How many lies, how much pure bullshit has to be exposed before people sit up and take notice?
Sometimes I just want to scream!
I dunno – it looks like George still has some explaining to do. The Telegraph’s documents came from a different source. And I think it’s very presumptuous to lay the blame for this on US/UK forces as the source for these questionable documents as they were apparently acquired from an Iraqi general in mid-April.
That’s it. What’s the point of asking for a cite any more? I thought that story was a pretty good one at the time. From WMDs to this, the NYT, and so much else–media credibility is in tatters, IMO.
At least the CSM devoted some column space to admitting that they were misled. Perhaps every paper should have a “We Screwed Up” section on Sunday.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for a retraction from december. :rolleyes:
So we’re to believe that around the same time someone was faking the documents the Christian Science Monitor were given, a Daily Telegraph reporter just happened to quite literally stumble across an entirely different set of documents that said more or less the same thing?
This in the same country they can’t find whopping great WMDs or any evidence thereof, but one reporter just has to wander through a bombed-out, looted building for things to fall into his lap?
This whole affair stank right from the start. As I’ve said previously; plenty disagree with Galloway’s politics, but very few suspect him of not being honest (well, as much as you can be while being a politician).
Galloway is going to make millions out of this and the Daily Telegraph must be worried.
Reading this story in The Times, it would appear that Galloway has not yet started legal proceedings against The Daily Telegraph.
The reason for this is that he simply does not have the resources to do so.
The Christian Scoence monitor issue is set to change this, it has admitted that it was ‘misled’, and that the documents originally reported as being dated 1991/2, were in fact printed no more than two years ago and possibly less.
In effect they admitting they libelled George Galloway, but there is more, other publications picked up on this story and repeated the libel too.
With the money that Galloway will almost certainly win, he has stated that this will give him the resources to go after the Telegraph and others who joined the throng.
The apologies from the Christian Science Monitor are hardly of the scale of the original article which apparently covered the whole of the front page in bold type.
It stretches credulity somewhat to believe that there was only one set of forged documents, or that this smear campaign ended with the first documents.
What we do have is a likely history of trying to smear Galloway, which comes as no great surprise to me as he has a history of meeting with the bogeymen of the West and the UK, such as Colonal Ghaddaffi, IRA leadership, Saddam Hussain etc.
His anti war stance has been consistant throughout his many years in public office and it seems to me that if he were allowed to gain serious credibility unchecked by smears from various agencies, perhaps the voting public might start to ask serious questions, not something the Wests’ power brokers and war mongerers want to happen.
I would like to see some of those with republican views who were very quick to endorse this war on Iraq, respond to this amateurish attack on Galloway, and the amateurish smear campaign, I would like to see some of their justifications for these lies that have been printed about him.
Why? Why should someone here that was Pro-War have to “justify” something they had nothing to do with?
~J
If you had noticed in sevreral threads on this board, there are those who have swallowed the official line completely, WMD’s, Al-Qaeda links, Galloway traitor, the lot.
What we have now is,
No WMD’s,
No proven links with Al-Qaeda
No direct threat of any sort to the West, let alone the so-called 45 minutes of danger as proposed by Blair.
Those ‘germ trailers’ turn out to be equiped for producing hydrogen and could not in any way be described as biotech labs.
No evidence of an industrial complex capable of turning out a nuclear device.
…and last of all, no bogeyman traitor working for Saddam Hussain, just one vociferous and high profile opponent of the war that had to be silenced by a smear campaign.
That smear campaign now looks like it was a way to ensure that protests against the war in the UK did not crystallise and form around its leading opponent, prventing him from turning into a figurehead around which informed anti war opinion could gather.
It would also have been a very good disincentive for other high profile protesters too.
That’s why I think that those pro war folk should respond, can they now justify this smear campaign ?
I too would like to hear the ‘usual suspects’ respond to this.
It should be noted that The Telegraph is still sticking to their story. In fact in the article from the CS Monitor where they report on the forgeries, they mention that the expert who showed that their reports were forged also concluded that the Telegraph’s documents appear genuine:
So it seems there is still some more investigation that needs to take place.
It should further be noted on a UK news programme this weekend the editor of the telegraph said he would not be subjecting their documents to any tests because they are sure they are genuine.
Yea, right. All together now … :rolleyes:
I need to hear from the SDMB legal eagles here. Is this actually libel?
I mean, did they say “this guy is traitor”, which would be untrue, or did they say “we have documents that suggest this guy is a traitor”, which would still be true.
If it’s the 2nd, how can it be libel? What they said would be true. They did have documents that suggested . That is not changed by the fact that those documents have been called in to question.
What’s the story?
The story is that the CSM rushed to lay a damning charge on an individual without ascertaining the veracity of the evidence. If that’s not libel it should be something that merits a massive judgement against.
And now we have the Telegraph refusing to test theirs, for see-no-evil reasons I’d guess.
I dislike Galloway and his politics but it always looked to me like a crude fit-up.
The Telegraph ran an editorial today reaffirming their story and describing the circumstances of the document’s acquisition in some detail.
IANAL.
But in UK law, and I suspect just about any other country’s, this is still a libel. Otherwise you could circumvent any all libel law by saying “Someone else told me that …” and when challenged defend yourself by claiming that this is true, you were told by someone else.
Thus, repeating a libel is as bad as being the first to state it. The fact that these documents say something does not permit any paper to repeat what they say, if they are indeed libelous.
You can often see this is action when libel cases are first reported. Media sources usually won’t state the details of what the libel is alleged to be, in case they are charged with repeating the libel.
I don’t know about the UK, but I believe that in the US the CSM wouldn’t be guilty of libel because Galloway is a public figure. He would need to prove malicious intent in reporting the story, rather than just the fact that it is untrue.
That’s really hard to do.
The documents that the CSM obtained and those that the Telegraph obtained were quite different. A Telegraph reported discovered the first set of Galloway/Iraq docs in a bombed out building and, from what all experts who have examined these docs have said these are consistent with Iraqi gov’t docs. OTOH the docs that the CSM obtained were bought by a CSM reporter after it was realized that there was a market for 'em. The two sets of documents are very different in nature and in the circumstances that they were obtained- I don’t think it’s fair to claim that because someone faked the second set that the first set must necessarily be fake as well.
Uh-huh, the “Bollinger Bolshevik” doesn’t have the resources to sue for libel…
…OTOH, there is a very bad smell about The Telegraph’s refusal to submit their documents for analysis.
The ‘we think they are genuine because we say they are genuine’ defence doesn’t really convince me.
Hunnpf. HUUUNNPF. cant…roll…any…harder…haemmorhaging…every…orifice…damn you tagos…can’t stop…rolling…too…much…contempt…
RIP
Ben Hicks
1983- 2003
Cause of Death: Massive intercranial bleeding from optic nerve caused by overexposure to hypocrisy and shameless weaseling.
He will be sorely missed, especially by his goldfish who have no-one to feed them now.