Peter Glover has been following the Galloway and the Senate affair much more closely than I. He’s also got some interesting stuff from the Charity Commission this morning. He calls the Senate appearance yesterday as Galloway 1, Senate 0. Anyone agree?
Galloway and the Senate.
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BUT IS THE B*GGER GUILTY?
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As far as I can tell, the answer would have to be “guilty of what”?
The main accusation against GG, as far as I can tell, is that he received money, knowingly, via the Mariam Appeal, from Faraz Zuriekat, who got it from trading in Iraqi oil allocations, and that Zuriekat was, with GG’s knowledge, given these allocations specifically for the benefit of GG.
The interesting thing about this is that it is not at all obvious that this is a crime.
Linking GG to “oil smuggling”, “sanctions busting”, “taking bread out of the mouths of Iraqi babies”, etc, would obviously be the bigger political win, but nobody appears to be suggesting that they have evidence for this. As it is, the worst that can be pinned on him is the above.
And the thing is, AFAICT, this is the oil-for-food program working normally, as planned. The allocations were always meant to generate a profit for the foreign companies who got them, and it was always intended that the allocation of the allocations (so to speak) was in the control of Saddam. Thus, the allocations system was designed as a slush fund for Saddam, and I don’t see quite why anyone is surprised that it was used as a slush fund, or indeed, on what other possible basis anyone might have expected the allocations to be dished out. The Senate Report refers to these as “illegal payments”, but they never explain why and I don’t think that they were.
The Senate report also claims that Galloway’s name was attached to documents which describe transactions in which oil companies paid kickbacks to the Iraqi government in order to get the oil allocations. This would in general be illegal under the international jus cogens norm against bribery. But the evidence against Galloway here is pathetic. They have his name on a document, plus one interview with a witness who says “in general, people who were in the documents would know all the details of the transaction”. That’s circumstantial evidence which would not stand up five minutes in a court; I doubt that even in a civil action it would establish a balance of probabilities.
So if you’re operating a standard of “innocent until proven guilty”, then the world is about as far off proving GG guilty as it has ever been. Personally, I regard “innocent until proven guilty” as an excellent principle when putting someone on trial for their liberty, but a downright stupid way of choosing your mates or politicians.
And on the wider charge of “being mates with Saddam and his government when it was visible to anyone who cared to look that they were horrible people”, GG is clearly on the hook. Even the latest iteration of his exculpatory story – that the campaign to end sanctions was such a moral emergency that any means to the end was acceptable – seems pretty unconvincing.
He did put on a bloody good show, though, didn’t he? -
I called it a draw myself.
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We’re looking into changing the Constitution so GG can run for president for the Dems…
I watched some of the hearings today and IMO–he gave the right wing exactly what half of this country would like to were we in the same room with those nitwit Republican senators.
Thank you GG–although you didn’t realize it–you spoke for many Americans today as well.
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