Galloway actually did very poorly in the hearings, but he has effectively sold many of you with blind rhetoric and by bringing up irrelevant facts.
Here’s some glaring fallacies we saw from Mr Galloway:
- In response to Iraqi documents with his name on them, he said they were the same documents that were dismissed in the Telegraph libel fiasco as forgeries.
No, they were not the same documents. They were from a different agency (and had different dates) and were not involved with the Telegraph matter at all. He told the Senators to “check their facts” when in fact he was lying through his teeth.
- Pointed out that 2 previous documents implicating him were forgeries.
Remember Rathergate? Should Bush be able to say any evidence produced embarassing to him is a forgery because in one instance it was?
For the more discerning viewer here is what actually happened during Galloway’s testimony:
With respect to every single factual allegation made in the report Galloway either affirmed they were true (when such affirmation did not directly hurt him) or refused to answer or gave a non-aswer as a response.
So Galloway factually refuted NOT A SINGLE POINT made in the report.
The only thing he did was throw a lot of rhetoric around, show a lack of understanding about U.S. politics and policies (he made several very inaccurate remarks to Mr Levin for example) and deny everything.
Then he claimed certain documents were forgeries. He has been given these documents to review, and as of yet he hasn’t said, “well my experts have shown these are forgeries.” And if he remains silent it means they weren’t forgeries. He also made the comment that he doesn’t have the ability to determine the validity of a document. That is clearly false, he was involved with a libel trial in which he had to have had some expert show a document was forged to have won, so he obviously knows an expert and how to contact him, or his lawyer does.
The allegations against Galloway rest on linking crooked deals to the Mariam Appeal and linking Galloway to those crooked dealings.
The authenticity of the documents showing impropriety in the Mariam Appeal was questioned by Galloway but he has given us no evidence to back up his questions and he has copies of the documents and can certainly have them looked at to determine whether or not they are forgeries then present that evidence to the world to vet.
The allegation that the Mariam Appeal was used as a conduit was not denied in substance and the question was ducked.
The Zureikat connection was acknowledged but Galloway denied any impropriety and then skillfully skirted around any questions that he might have to answer.
It is obvious that he has spoken to a lawyer who taught him how to respond to the questions so that he would not perjure himself (perjury before Congress = a year in prison, what kind of legal situation that would involve with a British MP I don’t know, but for obvious political reasons Galloway wouldn’t want to be seen as guilty of perjury in the United States.)
Also as for the Mariam Appeal, the Charity Commission (independent regulator of Charities in England and Wales) did a study in 2003 and found no impropriety in the Mariam Appeal.
However this study was conducted in 2003. The Mariam Appeal FYI was began in 1998. In 2003 when the Charity Commission conducted its investigation the charity’s books had been sent to Jordan, and the CC never had access to them nor ever was able to review them. Their entire judgment that “no impropriety” was found is only based on bank account records. So they do not have the full access to make any real determination about a charity and they more or less acknowledge this.
Here’s a link
to the charity commission’s report.
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