Galloway wins!

I think it’s worth noting the key point seems to have been that Galloway wasn’t given the opportunity to respond:

“He did not therefore have a fair or reasonable opportunity to make inquiries or meaningful comment upon them before they were published”

and:

“Again, he did not have a proper opportunity to respond in advance to allegations of such gravity.”

I’m disappointed we never got to truth. As I’ve said on a couple of occasions, I always found the supposed provenance of the Telegraph’s documents totally unbelievable.

A British journalist turns up as an Iraqi government building is being looted, trashed, burned etc and out of the thousands of documents floating about in the rubble happens on the one that implicates one of his newspaper’s favorite targets. How likely is that?

Read this comment on Galloway by Glenn Reynolds and you’ll see why he puts the ass in bombastic.

This post on Tapped speaks volumes about the quality of Reynolds erudition on the subject.

I might add that some of those same opponents of the war also opposed the Reagan and Bush I support of Saddam, which, had it not been given both Gulf Wars may have been avoided, not to mention thousands of deaths in the 1980’s and 1990’s.

Mark, it’s blindingly obvious that more Iraqis have died due to the poorly planned war and occupation than would have been killed by Saddam or the sanctions regime over the months it would have taken to at least state the case for intervention and attempt to assemble a real coalition. There was a liberal case for international intervention; I and others made it. Had Bush & co. acted in good faith only to be rebuffed by “Old Europe” anyway, I would be far more sympathetic to the case for unilateral war.

Um, I thought this was the comments section for the Galloway libel trial.

“Galloway’s name is not cleared by this (nor could it be; the truth of the allegations was not an issue in the trial because of the Telegraph’s use of the privilege defence). ”

I don’t think this is right. If I understand the law (which I may not) it would have been sufficient for the Telegraph to establish the truthfulness of their claimed provenance, that is, the story about the journalist finding the document in an Iraqi government office. On this story, the possibility that the Iraqi government was lying seems sufficiently remote that it could be discounted.

As I say, it seems more likely either that the Tele forged the document or that the journalist was lying about provenance and actually got the document from a paid source, who might either have found it or forged it.

It seems to me that Galloway’s name has been cleared in the sense that the Telegraph has implicitly conceded that it had no reasonable basis for this particular allegation.

I see what you mean. My personal opinion is that the documents accurately record the fact that Iraqi oil-for-food money was paid to a businessman (can’t remember the name but it’s in the documentation) who represented himself as being Galloway’s agent. I’m even prepared to believe that some of this money actually did find its way into funds controlled by Galloway via the Mariam appeal. I’ve never liked or trusted Galloway as a man, and there are real issues to be raised about the funding of his charities and their apparent commingling with his personal finances.

But some of the specific claims which it was found that the Telegraph was making rather than reporting (specifically, that Galloway was receiving and dealing in barrels of oil) never had the ring of truth, and it isn’t on to libel someone no matter how much you don’t like them.

It’s rather like the BBC’s Gilligan story; it was a good story, not without basis and the UK public did deserve to hear it, whether or not its central claims could be made to stand up in a court of law. I honestly believe that the court would have ruled this way if the DT had just managed to keep a lid on the insults.

Like John Quiggin said, we mustn’t forget the context: it was a very heated moment at the heart of what Norm calls the “first war”. Debate was virulent, and that paper magically turning up was a tremendous propaganda victory, at a moment where Blair’s grip on public opinion was very very tenuous because the second resolution failed (anyone remember that?).

Also, I note the BBC seems not to be reporting this at all, which I think is interesting, given the flak they took (completely unjustifiably) over their coverage of the war and the political decisions running up to it.

That’s not true at all – it was the BBC website that first alerted me to the news of the libel victory. True, it’s no longer on the front page, but the story’s almost 24 hours old and nothing significant has happened since, so that’s no surprise.

I didn’t watch any BBC news programmes yesterday, but the presence of a video attachment to the online story suggests that they ran it too.

OK, sorry, I didn’t realise they ran it yesterday and Galloway is on the Front page of their British politics thing now, so, I suppose, vague conspiracy theory disproven.

“[I]t’s blindingly obvious that more Iraqis have died due to the poorly planned war and occupation than would have been killed by Saddam or the sanctions regime over the months it would have taken to at least state the case for intervention and attempt to assemble a real coalition.”

I’m not sure what you think this gets you, but if it’s as obvious as you say, you should have no problem proving it. I look forward to your argument.

I’m rather surprised, given that Galloway has said that he staked everything he has on the case, that he didn’t join Conrad Black to the libel in the same way as Michael Foot joined Murdoch all those years ago.
Accusing an elected MP of treason is quite a thing; I understand it’s a serious offence that sometimes gets people sent to prison, so for an editorial to do it without the express approval of the proprietor seems unlikely.

The big nightmare from Galloway’s victory (which I think was deserved) is that it gives impetus to his campaign as a Respect (basically, the anti-war party) candidate in my beloved Tower Hamlets, London in the next election.

Oona King, the current MP for Tower Hamlets, is Labour, and has done a fine job of helping the borough, which has always been one of the UK’s poorest, to improve. Tower Hamlets has a very large Muslim population, though, and Galloway could draw enough of the vote to affect the ultimate result. He won’t win himself, I think – Respect is fringe party – but it’s possible that he could split the Labour vote, giving the win to (gasp!) the Tories, who, as far as I know, have never held Tower Hamlets.

This would be a true blow for the borough – you’d have a predominantly anti-immigration party running one of the most immigrant-rich boroughs in the UK. (It may well be the most immigrant-rich; don’t have stats to hand.)

Last election’s results were (from memory):
Labour 50%
Conservative 25%
Lib Dems 15%

Accusing an elected MP of treason is quite a thing; I understand it’s a serious offence that sometimes gets people sent to prison, so for an editorial to do it without the express approval of the proprietor seems unlikely.

Until very recently (1997?), treason was one of the few capital offences left on the statute books – so you’re right, it’s about as serious as allegations get.

Tower Hamlets isn’t a constituency; it’s a local authority.

Verbal slip-up; we foreigners are easily confused.

Perhaps the main part of the Muslim community is in Poplar and Canning Town, but Bow and Bethnal Green are both heavily Muslim. Or do my eyes deceive me?

I know there’s a lot of resentment aimed at King for being a Blair babe and for not coming out against the war, but I’d say she’s a damn sight better an option than the Tory candidate, whoever that may be. Galloway has already contributed to one Tory victory in Tower Hamlets; I’d hate for him to contribute to another. Though hopefully that earlier loss will galvanise the Labour party in Tower Hamlets.

“Truth is not a defence in UK libel cases, if I recall correctly”, for God’s sake.

Quite. “No, Glenn, you don’t. Now shut the fuck up.” He’s the mirror-image of Galloway, in many respects.

Incidentally, I believe the Telegraph’s David Blair was a contemporary of yours, dsquared.

>I’m not sure what you think this gets you, but if it’s as obvious as you say, you should have no problem proving it. I look forward to your argument.< Um, why don't you check the next blog post? It's about the _Lancet_ study; I don't think sanctions and Saddam would have killed at a rate of 100,000 people/21 months. Genocidal, you say? He had shown he was capable of mass murder, but was he gassing Kurds in March 2003? Let me put it this way: If Bush hadn't made a total hash of the occupation, Iraqi casualties would be a fraction of 100,000 -- say, p*(1E5). Even if Bush had waited x months while Saddam and sanctions killed at a rate of S per month, S*x + p*(1E5) < 1E5.

Mark,

I wouldn’t infer it if you weren’t busy implying it. I’m correctly inferring it, by the way, even if you feel I’m incorrect to do so.

As for ignoring things, you still haven’t addressed the causus belli as brought out by Wolfowitz, nor have you addressed the piss-poor security situation in Iraq, which is probably impacting many more Iraqis on a daily basis than were being impacted before the war.

“My comment is about the practical consequences to innocent iraqis under both war opposition and Saddamist supporters; continued fascist dictatorship.”

No, it wasn’t. Your comment was that “if you opposed the war you agitated for the same set of affairs as that of Saddam’s fascist supporters.”

Now, it’s reasonable to assume that “Saddam’s fascist supporters” would have wanted a “set of affairs” based on perpetual Saddamist rule well into the future. Since you’re not, to put it mildly, in a position to assume that opposing the war was equivalent to that position, your original statement is nonsense — in exactly the same way as it would have been nonsense to argue that the US during the Cold War was “objectively pro-Soviet” for failing to invade and depose the Politburo.

So, yeah. The reason the “anti-war left” tended to laugh at the “objectively pro-Saddam” yammering that preceded the war is that it was silly then, and it’s silly now, heady though I’m sure it is to throw around accusations with the word “fascist” attached to them. If you insist on engaging in that kind of juvenile flamebaiting, though, kindly don’t try to dignify it with words like “civil” and “polite.” It’s neither.

Now, if you want to contend that the consequences of opposing the war were continued dictatorship in the immediate term, that’s obviously true. But supporting the war has effectively meant supporting the dismemberment of Iraq by dozens of small fascisms instead of its oppression by a single large Baathist system, so you really don’t get to pretend you’re on the moral high ground.

Mark seems to want to wallow in corpses.

From a safe distance, needless to say.

Mark,

I think it is reasonably civil and polite to point out that you had no adequate answer to the points which were raised in opposition to you on the Norm Geras thread, and that if you want to make exactly the same points that you made there, you really ought to have an answer to them. Specifically, by your standard of evidence, no-one can say anything about causalties in Iraq, including you, and you continue to make the frankly obviously slanderous remark that the left agitated for the continuation of Saddam’s regime. When you have addressed the replies made to these earlier posts, then you should post, before then, just piss off.

I have to admit that Mark’s logic is immensely puzzling. The way he makes the argument is fundamentally false.

“If you dont support action X then you can be taken to support the evils that action X is ( at least nominally ) attempting to eradicate”.

Right. So if I see a boy steal a chocolate bar from a shop and I don’t want to have him executed, I’m in favour of stealing, right ?

Wrong. It’s up to me to decide what the merits of action X are. I may decide that action X is irrelevant to the evil being targeted. I may decide I don’t trust the personnel taking on the job to carry it out effectively.

I may decide that action X may effective in targeting the evil concerned but that it creates innumerable , far worse, potential evils of its own.

But what I don’t have to do is put up with the proponent of action X trying to shift the burden of proof onto me for his half-ass proposals. If they’re bad ideas, they’re bad ideas, and no end of pontification can shift the responsibility for any evil out there onto me just because I don’t agree with your half-ass idea.

Death Penalty advocates are the most tedious example ( I suspect Mark may well be highly Islamic in that sense ). Because you don’t agree that the Death Penalty is the solution to the problem of violence, ergo, you must be in favour of murder , right ?

Wrong. And its the same with Iraq. Just because I don’t agree with the invasion of Iraq it doesn’t follow that I agree with the Saddam tyranny, any more than I think NOT invading China is a betrayal of Tibet. Is that what we should do, Mark, invade China, as otherwise we are not supporing Tibet and we are personally responsible for its destruction ? How about Russia – should we invade there or else be accused of having the blood of Chechnyan massacres on our hands ?

I doubt it. Its funny because there was a government in the 80s that disapproved of the Saddam tyranny but did nothing to stop it. On the contrary it helped it as it seemed a less worse option than supprting Iran. That country was the US. The government Of Ronald Reagan was not , I suggest , pro-tyranny.