Written by: Beck

e. e. cummings once famously observed, "A politician is an ass upon which everyone has sat except a man." Never was that more true than in the case of George Galloway, the British Member of Parliament. I'm not quite sure how British treason statutes are worded, but I'm pretty sure that his current actions would, under a strict, literal interpretation of just about any nations' treason laws, leave him dangling by a rope.

Oh wait, they don't do that any more in Europe. Still, and there are not many people about whom I would say this, dangling from a rope would be just desserts for the Right Honorable George Galloway.

Galloway (on Al-Jazeera TV, July 31, 2005): This started out as a wish to terrorize the world with American power, or as Sharon would say: "Terrrrrrorize" [nice bit of anti-Semitism] the world with American power. But in fact it ended demonstrating the exact opposite. They can control the skies, but only if they don't come within range of an RPG, but they can't control one single street in any part of occupied Iraq. Not one street. Not one street anywhere. These poor Iraqis - ragged people, with their sandals, with their Kalashnikovs, with the lightest and most basic of weapons - are writing the names of their cities and towns in the stars, with 145 military operations every day, which has made the country ungovernable by the people who occupy it. We don't know who they are, we don't know their names, we never saw their faces, they don't put up photographs of their martyrs, we don't know the names of their leaders. I'm sure, for all the times I spent in Iraq, that I never met any of them before. They are not the comfortable in the former regime, they are not the leaders, with maybe one exception: Izzat Ibrahim Al-Durri. They are the base of this society. They are the young men and the young women who decided, whatever their feelings about the former regime - some are with, some are against. But they decided, when the foreign invaders came, to defend their country, to defend their honor, to defend their families, their religion, their way of life from a military superpower, which landed amongst them. And they are winning the war. America is losing the war in Iraq, and even the Americans now admit it. Even the puppet ministers and regime in Baghdad know it. The former puppet minister (Iyad) Allawi admitted it three times in the last month. America is losing the war in Iraq. And this will not change. The resistance is getting stronger every day, and the will to remain as an occupier by Britain and America is getting weaker everyday. Therefore, it can be said, truly said, that the Iraqi resistance is not just defending Iraq. They are defending all the Arabs, and they are defending all the people of the world from American hegemony.

[...]

It's not the Muslims who are the terrorists. The biggest terrorists are Bush, and Blair, and Berlusconi, and Aznar, but it is definitely not a clash of civilizations. George Bush doesn't have any civilization, he doesn't represent any civilization. We believe in the Prophets, peace be upon them. He believes in the profits, and how to get a piece of them. That's his god. That's his god. George Bush worships money. That's his god - Mammon.

More:

Galloway (on ANB TV, July 28, 2005): Most of the children, most of the schools, most of the buses, were bombed by the United States. Let's keep this clearly in perspective: Most of the children who died in Iraq were killed by George Bush, not by Zarqawi. Most of the schools that were wrecked, buses that were bombed, hospitals that were destroyed, lives that were taken, were taken by George Bush, not by Zarqawi. Number two: Most of the resistance in Iraq is not Zarqawi, It's not foreign, whatever "foreign" means when Iraq is occupied by 250,000 foreign armies. Most of their resistance are Iraqis resisting the foreign occupation of their country. Most of the operations which they carry out are against the occupying forces and their collaborators, and this is normal in every liberation struggle.

I do believe going on foreign TV channels to say everything negative about the nation of which you are an elected representative is just about the most reprehensible thing a citizen can do. What I find perhaps the most astonishing is that the British people continue re-electing this world class, grade-A, unrepentant, unapologetic ass.

(Hat tip: PW)