The Choice of Comrades

In a thoughtful report on the Battle for Bethnal Green and Bow the left of centre American magazine The New Republic reveals that “In 2002 [Galloway] wrote of his experience on ‘the crowded dance floor of a North African nightclub ... dancing with Tariq Aziz, the deputy prime minister of Iraq’”.

According to Indict witnesses have testified that Tariq Aziz was a perpetrator in a genocidal regime. One testified, “These were ministers and members of the leadership who SADDAM HUSSEIN ordered to be executed...those taking part included TARIQ AZIZ...I saw that TARIQ AZIZ used a medium sized revolver. The victims were all shot at close range of no more than one metre." Another testified "The following persons were informed of all major decisions prior to their implementation...they were informed of the intended attack on Halabja...these included...TARIQ AZIZ...".

But TNR reports that not all voters in Bethnal Green and Bow are being taken in by Galloway. “Abdullah Muhsin, the London representative of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, has been speaking at meetings in the district and telling voters about the struggle for a democratic Iraq. He told me in a phone interview that when Bethnal Green and Bow residents ask him about Galloway, he responds--with a certain understatement—that "Galloway's friendship with the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein has not been very helpful to the cause of the Iraqi people." It would be a powerful expression of democratic solidarity if a citizen of the world's newest democracy can prevent one of the oldest democracies from seating, in the mother of all parliaments, a man who boasts about having danced with Tariq Aziz”.

Choose your comrade: Tariq Aziz or Abdullah Mushin.

To read the whole article go to Harry’s Place
(AJ) (hat tip HP)