The Demagogue

Hero of the new left George Galloway spoke in Vancouver this evening from the pulpit of a church in front of perhaps 1,000 rapt spectators. For anyone who knows anything about Galloway, it was a vintage speech: Israel bad. Palestine good. The Taliban have the USA on the run in Afghanistan. The neocons are dragging us to war with Iran. Islamophobia is rampant in the West. And of course, he surely, absolutely, indisputably, doesn't hate Jews.

I'll say this for George Galloway: He knows how to work a crowd. Then again, it's always easier to get a standing ovation when most of your listeners have already drunk the Kool-Aid.

Any time he'd spit out the names, "Bush", "Harper" or "Kenney", the people would rumble and groan and hiss. And when he raised his voice for "the people of Palestine", the crowd would clap and cheer on cue. Even his comedy skills were impressive; a little joke implying that the thuggish Taliban was bloodily mopping the floor with our soldiers and those of our NATO allies sent a ripple of chuckles through the pews.

After laboring on at length about the neocon character of the Canadian government that tried to prevent him from coming to this country (except that it never tried any such thing, as Terry Glavin has pointed out in great detail, along with more of Galloway's bald-faced lies), and his intention to sue the government, it was time to talk about this government's strong show of support for Israel: "Were you asked if you wanted to pay any price to support Netanyahu's Israel? Is there anything in Canada's national interest to be gained from such a thing?" Of the failure to gain a UN Security Council seat, which some attributed to this stand, "(Harper) said it's a badge of honor. No, it's a badge of shame!" Naturally, Galloway's words were punctuated by thunderous applause - evidently by people who find it shameful to provide some modicum of support for a fellow human-rights respecting Western democracy.

Now it was time to begin cataloguing the Jewish state's terrible crimes. First on the list: assassinating a Hamas leader and weapons smuggler in Dubai. "It can be dangerous visiting Dubai," Galloway warns. "There might be a gang of murderers on the loose, using the stolen passports of friendly countries. Fifteen of them might come and murder you in your hotel room, because that's what happened in Dubai last year." Oddly, the words "Hamas" or "bombmaker" never crossed Galloway's lips in recounting this incident of neutralizing genocidal terroris..., er, murder of an innocent.

Later, Galloway expands on the crime of "starving the Palestinians in an illegal siege to punish them for how they voted in the only democratic election ever held in any Arab country ever in history." He clarifies that the Israeli blockade "is not about rockets being fired from Gaza. It's not about the insistence of charters. It's aout the fact that the Palestinians voted for a party that the powers of the world don't like."

How many distortions could Galloway pack into even a tiny part of his speech? First of all, while life in Gaza is certainly not like in Vancouver, there are no starving Palestinians in Gaza. There certainly was an election, but contested by one corrupt party versus one terrorist party, neither of which has any history of governing a liberal democracy. The winner took over Gaza in a violent coup after a political settlement was not reached and Hamas has governed Gaza with an iron fist ever since. It's main exports are rockets and suicide bombers. A party that "the powers of the world didn't like"? Well, at least Galloway got that right. Nobody likes murderous terrorist assholes.

Galloway's singular criticism of Israel (and seeming reluctance to criticize the murderous regimes of others in the region, including his employers at Press TV, the Iranian news agency) has led to accusations of anti-Semitism. So he felt the need to address this point: "There are limits to free debate and barriers to those who advocate free speech must have cognizance of. They include the just and righteous prohibition of speech which whips up racial or religious hatred... I have spent all of my life fighting racism and hatred. How could I conceivably be accused of being against Jews? It is absurd as it is offensive!"

Admirable words. Perhaps the confusion stemmed from when Galloway handed over wads of cash and other aid to officials of Hamas, the genocidal terrorist organization whose constitution includes this unhelpful section: "The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews; until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him…"

Or perhaps its his unstinting rhetorical support for Arab regimes that have institutionalized anti-Semitism throughout their countries. For instance, Galloway says of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad that "people believed that his reforming zeal and his vision of Syria as a genuinely independent Arab country....was one that was widely appreciated across Europe." Reforming zeal? In a fascist totalitarian state that still tortures dissidents? Interesting.

On Afghanistan, Galloway is a troops-out-now sort of fellow. "I see that your government has broken its promise to the military families, to the military themselves and the voters, in Canada. You have been promised again that you would be withdrawing from this doomed and disastrous 10 year war in Afghanistan." He disparaged the high cost of training the Afghan Security Forces without great result, noting (to a perverse chorus of laughter from the audience) that "nobody's training the Taliban, by the way, and they seem to be doing quite well."

Then he goes to the classic misdirection of most critics of the Afghanistan mission. To any reasonable observer, there is no occupation of Afghanistan. The USA is not trying to carve out a new state for their union any more than Canada wishes to have a province located in Central Asia. International forces fight alongside Afghan forces in a United Nations-mandated role. And everyone knows that if international forces pull out, there will be a bloodbath beyond imagination. Simply put, if the soldiers stay until the Afghans train up, lots of people will live.

But none of that matters to Galloway who notes completely irrelevantly that "the people of Afghanistan have never been successfully occupied by any foreign army." Of course, the crowd ate it up.

Galloway's analysis? To sum up, the war can't be won. The soldiers are dying for nothing. Get out as fast as you can and save your own skins. If Afghanistan once more becomes a Taliban theocracy and a haven for Al Queda, so be it. You can't win a war against determined fascists. How awfully progressive of you, Mr. Galloway.

Indeed, according to Galloway, by taking on the Taliban and Al Queda, we've "created hundreds of thousands of new bin Ladins. With every murderous attack on a wedding party, or any kind of congregational gathering, every attack from drones or from the highest tech military aircraft, every massacre in Afghanistan or Iraq is recruiting and fanaticizing scores, hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of bitter, enraged Muslims, even incinerating themselves in order to harm us."

Here, Galloway casually conflates a relatively successful record of targeted assassinations against Taliban commanders bent on jihad with all (regrettable) incidents involving civilians, whom the Taliban routinely put in harm's way. He sees no good coming of efforts to neutralize the heavily armed psychotics who threaten Afghan civilians, aid workers and of course, our own soldiers. In effect, he reverses the roles of victim and victimizer: our response to the global threat of jihad is actually the root of the violence... which preceded it - a logical impossibility. But once again, the crowd was in love with him.

But he wasn't done yet. Galloway was now ready to lead his audience towards the soft bigotry of low expectations. "These wars are driving more and more people to hate us... They're always looking for an Islamic organization to blame for the fanaticization that's under way in the Muslim world. Always looking for a book to ban or a a book to proscribe. But actually, all that a young Muslim needs to get radicalized is the possession of a television and the ability to watch the news."

Yes, Mr. Galloway. Don't blame the poor Muslim youth who blow themselves up on airplanes, buses and trains. They can't think for themselves. They're zombies. Drones. How could they know that mass murder is so awful and human life so precious... when the television shows them images of our soldiers (gasp) fighting to protect innocents against fascists who have tried to hijack their religion?

Thankfully, the vast majority of Muslims do not give in to Galloway's perverse view on Muslim's psychology. Otherwise, we would truly be in Hell.

The sad truth is that while there were a brave few who attended Galloway's performance and even some who managed to ask pointed questions about Galloway working for the news agency of a regime that rapes and tortures dissenters and crushes democratic opposition, the vast majority of the assembled throng ate up the speaker's words. Say what you will about Galloway's vile theories and observations. The man knows how to work his audience. And he's got plenty willing to listen in the first place.

Jonathon Narvey is the Editor of The Propagandist