The first was their excellent take-down of George Galloway and his coddling up to Arab dictators while criticizing the West for doing the same. George Galloway is a target of the right and the Harry's Place-type left almost ad nauseam, but much less frequently, as far as I'm aware a target of the far left. Which makes it all the more satisfying and refreshing to see a far left group take him down so thoroughly and completely.
It starts with a nice collection of hypocrisies and shocking statements by Galloway:
It goes on to make a rather excellent and perceptive distinction of which principles Galloway uses to determine which "unconscionable thugs and criminals" (in the oh-so-memorable words of Christopher Hitchens) are worthy of Galloway's praise: "achievements" and "anti-imperialism":Galloway tells the same anecdote on the “Respect” website:
“Last week at a breakfast in Dubai, an Englishman munching his halal sausages said: ‘Your mate’s getting a hard time in Libya isn’t he?’ – though YouTube is groaning with films of me denouncing Gaddafi over many years. Of course, he could have been getting his Arab dictators mixed up, or – worse – confusing me with Tony Blair.” (2)
It’s easy to understand why Galloway is so justifiably worked up about this kind of thing.
Given the price of a suite in Dubai’s “One and Only Royal Mirage Hotel”, you shouldn’t have to put up with having your breakfast soured by a sausage-munching Englishman who can’t tell one dictator from another.
The sausage-muncher should have known that when Galloway uttered the immortal words, “Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability and I want you to know that we are with you, until victory, until Jerusalem,” it was at a meeting with Saddam Hussein, not Muammar Gaddafi.
The sausage-muncher should have known that when Galloway wrote that a military commander who had seized power in his country in an army coup “seems an upright sort to me and should be given a chance,” he was referring to Pakistan’s General Musharraf, not Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi.
The sausage-muncher should have known that when Galloway joked with a dictator’s son about Cuban cigars, weight loss and hair loss, and promised him, “we’re with you, till the end,” he was socialising with Uday Hussein, not Saif Gaddafi.
The sausage-muncher should have known that when Galloway praised a Middle East dictatorship as “the last Arab country, the fortress of the remaining dignity of the Arabs,” praised its ruler as “the last Arab ruler,” and told the victims of the dictatorship that they were “a free people,” he was speaking of Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, not Gaddafi’s Libya. (3)
The sausage-muncher should have known that when Galloway referred to a country in the grip of a reactionary dictatorship for the past three decades as a country which “has only been a democracy for thirty years but (which) has come a long way in that thirty years,” he was referring to the Iran of the mullahs, not to Gaddafi’s Libya.
The sausage-muncher should have known that when the London School of Economics accepted a donation from the Gaddafi Foundation, this was a bad thing and justifies Galloway’s recent quip about the “Libyan School of Economics”, but when the same Gaddafi Foundation made a donation of a hundred lorries to Galloway’s last “Viva Palestine” convoy, this was something to be welcomed. (4)
Read the whole thing, it is an excellent take-down.The criterion of ‘anti-imperialist struggle’ is easiest understood by contrasting what Galloway has had to say about Gaddafi (not his “mate”) with what he has had to say about Al-Assad (a man of “dignity”).
According to Galloway, speaking in 2008, Gaddafi was “just another Arab dictator” because he had abandoned the ‘anti-imperialist struggle’:
“Gaddafi has betrayed everything and everybody. He turned away from the justified struggle of the Arab people against Zionist occupation and against imperialist domination of the region. He has lost any respect which any struggling people had for him. …”
“I think this is all a tragedy. Gaddafi was always strange, but in the past he took an Arab stance, even if it was more in words than in deeds. But now he is just like all the rest. … He was terrified of American power. But he should have waited because the uprising in Iraq has broken the American power.”
“Gaddafi surrendered to America when he saw Saddam fall but before the Iraqi people rose. If he had waited just one year he would have seen that in every street of Iraq the Arab resistance is defeating the occupation. He lost confidence and faith in the Arabs long ago.” (5)
By contrast, according to Galloway in 2005, Syria was “lucky to have Bashar Al-Assad as her president” because that dictator had kept Syria on the straight-and-narrow of ‘anti-imperialist struggle’:
“Syria will not betray the Palestinian resistance, she will not betray the Lebanese resistance, Hizbullah, she will not sign a shameful surrender-peace with General Sharon, and … Syria will not allow her country to be used as a military base for America to crush the resistance in Iraq." (6)
Earlier this month Galloway returned to the same argument: “The government of Syria for a long time has pursued a policy of Arabness. Of Arab nationalism, of Arab dignity, of support for the Palestinian cause, material support, material support for the resistance, rejection for the foreign occupation of Iraq. And a refusal to bow before the foreign powers.” (7)
Thus, Gaddafi, having ditched ‘anti-imperialism’, is “just another Arab dictator”, whereas Al-Assad, having remained loyal to ‘anti-imperialism’, is “the last Arab ruler”.
The criterion of ‘anti-imperialist struggle’ is easiest understood by contrasting what Galloway has had to say about Gaddafi (not his “mate”) with what he has had to say about Al-Assad (a man of “dignity”).
According to Galloway, speaking in 2008, Gaddafi was “just another Arab dictator” because he had abandoned the ‘anti-imperialist struggle’:
“Gaddafi has betrayed everything and everybody. He turned away from the justified struggle of the Arab people against Zionist occupation and against imperialist domination of the region. He has lost any respect which any struggling people had for him. …”
“I think this is all a tragedy. Gaddafi was always strange, but in the past he took an Arab stance, even if it was more in words than in deeds. But now he is just like all the rest. … He was terrified of American power. But he should have waited because the uprising in Iraq has broken the American power.”
“Gaddafi surrendered to America when he saw Saddam fall but before the Iraqi people rose. If he had waited just one year he would have seen that in every street of Iraq the Arab resistance is defeating the occupation. He lost confidence and faith in the Arabs long ago.” (5)
By contrast, according to Galloway in 2005, Syria was “lucky to have Bashar Al-Assad as her president” because that dictator had kept Syria on the straight-and-narrow of ‘anti-imperialist struggle’:
“Syria will not betray the Palestinian resistance, she will not betray the Lebanese resistance, Hizbullah, she will not sign a shameful surrender-peace with General Sharon, and … Syria will not allow her country to be used as a military base for America to crush the resistance in Iraq." (6)
Earlier this month Galloway returned to the same argument: “The government of Syria for a long time has pursued a policy of Arabness. Of Arab nationalism, of Arab dignity, of support for the Palestinian cause, material support, material support for the resistance, rejection for the foreign occupation of Iraq. And a refusal to bow before the foreign powers.” (7)
Thus, Gaddafi, having ditched ‘anti-imperialism’, is “just another Arab dictator”, whereas Al-Assad, having remained loyal to ‘anti-imperialism’, is “the last Arab ruler”.
The second article is entitled "Libya: No illusions in West but 'anti-intervention' opposition is abandoning rebels".
The writer has clearly looked a very difficult question right in the face, and come to a rather uncomfortable conclusion. That question, which should be put to all anti-interventionists is this: "Are you willing to stand by and watch Gaddafi slaughter the inhabitants in Benghazi and crush the revolution because you don't want to see the West intervene." It is fair to be skeptical of Western motives, how this could end, mission-creep, the cost, hypocrisy and so on, but until you tackle that all-important question, and give a convincing answer to it, you simply aren't being serious. So congratulations to Workers' Liberty for looking this question dead in the face, and coming to the conclusion that it must support Western intervention, a traditional foe, because there is simply no other serious option right now.
On 17 March, after much procrastination, the United Nations agreed to military action against Libya’s dictator Muammar Qaddafi, whose murderous forces were advancing on the rebel stronghold of Benghazi.I don't know about everyone else, but I find a far-left which expresses solidarity, real solidarity, with opposition to dictators who are not allies of the West, to be a pretty refreshing break from the weasels, opportunists and moral cretins who get into bed with every reactionary and lunatic dictator as long as he is an "anti-imperialist" with "achievements".
The Stop the War Coalition immediately issued a statement condemning “a new war”, and “escalating armed intervention in Libya”. Socialist Worker headlined “No to intervention in Libya! Victory to Arab revolutions!” Much other left-wing commentary has focused on opposing intervention.
But the rebel forces in Benghazi greeted the UN decision with jubilation. Benghazi is a city where Qaddafi has, in the past, conducted the mass public execution of oppositionists. They knew what they could expect if Qaddafi triumphed. And it seemed likely that Qaddafi was on the verge of defeating the revolution, or at least inflicting terrible slaughter.
To oppose – that is, demonstrate against, and make a serious effort to prevent – the limited military action against Qaddafi, is to tell the rebels in Benghazi “you’re on your own.”
What socialist would want to send out such a message? Only one not deserving the name.
There is of course no reason to trust the armies of the West, or their Arab allies, to bring democracy to Libya or anywhere else. There is no guarantee that Western intervention will even succeed in its shortterm aim of halting Qaddafi’s advance.
The force which is advancing democracy across the Middle East is the mass movement, above all the workers’ movement. In Egypt a new, independent trade union federation has been formed in the midst of a wave of militant strikes.
This is the agency to which socialists look to transform the Middle East.
But neither such workers’ movements nor the labour movement internationally have a military force of our own to come to the aid of Benghazi. We can build our own forms of solidarity with the popular movement in Libya. We can be vigilant against whatever political steps the Western powers take (including, for example, any attempt to rehabilitate Qaddafi, which they may think is the best, most “stable option).
But what issue of principle should make us demonstrate against the one thing which might prevent untold slaughter, prevent Qaddafi’s immediate bloody victory, and therefore a crushing defeat for the wave of revolutions?
It is not good enough for socialists to point out that Cameron, et al, are no friends of the Libyan people. Indeed they are not. But what do you propose to do, instead, then, to prevent Qaddafi crushing his enemies? Socialists either address this real, life-and-death question or they are irrelevant poseurs.
It’s not good enough to argue that the West has supported dictators in the past and will do so again. Of course it will. But how able the West is to impose its agenda on the Middle East in future depends on the self-confidence of the mass movement. A terrible defeat in Libya might sap that self-confidence much more than a temporary acceptance of Western assistance.
We need to develop a strong solidarity campaign which is independent ofWestern (or Arab) governments. We need, in particular, to help the new Egyptian workers’ movement to continue to grow and develop, which could have an immense, positive effect on the whole region.
Instead, some socialists have responded to this crisis by putting their hostility to America above the lives of the Libyan rebels.
And this is a shameful disgrace.
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