George Galloway vs Christopher Hitchens Debate - Who Won?

[bpilgrim]

here's most of it as an MP3 in case u missed it...
http://news.globalfreepress.com/mp3/galloway_hitchens/galloway_hitchens.mp3

FLASH BACK: Heart-n-Soul speech to US...
http://news.globalfreepress.com/mp3/George_Galloway.mp3


more...
http://GobalFreePress.com

peace

[jim3775]

1. Hitchens won in the category of

craziest drunk.

[mzmolly]

2. I missed it but I voted for Galloway.

;)

Thanks for the link, I'll catch it tomorrow.

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

3. Can somebody explain to me why Galloway gets so much love around here?

Has anyone but me bothered to read the shameful parade of statements he's made?

[bpilgrim]

4. because on the most important issue of today, IRAQ, he is RIGHT

and NOT AFRAID to speak TRUTH 2 POWER

calls the war on iraq a PACK OF LIES...
http://news.globalfreepress.com/mp3/George_Galloway.mp3

listen to the debate...
http://news.globalfreepress.com/mp3/galloway_hitchens/galloway_hitchens.mp3

psst... pass the word ;->

peace

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

6. If you say so, friend.

Apparently, it doesn't matter where you get your antiwar support from.

[bpilgrim]

8. i posted the links... he speaks TRUTH 2 POWER

thats why MOST here respect him :hi:

peace

[wtmusic]

9. nevermind

I saw your post below

[chaska]

5. Tell us about it...

I'm ignorant, I'm afraid.

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

7. OK, here ya go.

Here’s what the leaflets say.
George Galloway: No Hero for the Democratic Left

“If you are asking did I support the Soviet Union, yes I did. Yes, I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life.”

--George Galloway (The Guardian, 9/16/02)

"In poor third world countries like Pakistan, politics is too important to be left to petty squabbling politicians. Pakistan is always on the brink of breaking apart into its widely disparate components. Only the armed forces can really be counted on to hold such a country together... Democracy is a means, not an end in itself."

--George Galloway on General Musharraf’s coup against the elected government in Pakistan (The Mail on Sunday, 10/17/99)

"I'm no friend of the Syrian regime, but Syrian troops in Lebanon maintain stability and protect the country from Israel. Lebanon is an Arab country with a border with the Zionist state and that is a very dangerous place."

--George Galloway, defending Syria’s occupation of Lebanon less than five months before it ended (The Lebanon Daily Star, 12/7/04)

"Syria is exposed to foreign pressure because she represents the last castle of the Arab dignity and the Arab rights."

--George Galloway on the dictatorial regime of Bashar al-Assad (Arabicnews.com, 7/25/05)

“Actually, the Iraqi resistance does not target its own civilians. But the people that are being fought by the resistance in Iraq are the people that are working for the occupation.”

--George Galloway (BBC Newsnight, 1/18/05). Three days later a suicide car bomber killed 14 Shiite worshippers as they left a Baghdad mosque (The Scotsman, 1/22/05)

“I thought the President would appreciate to know that even today, three years after the war, I still meet families who are calling their newborn sons Saddam…Sir, I salute your courage, your strength your indefatigability. And I want you to know that we are with you until victory, until victory until Jerusalem."

--George Galloway, flattering the mass murderer Saddam Hussein in person (The Times of London, 1/20/94)

"Mr. Tariq Aziz and thousands of political prisoners are still held illegally as hostages by the occupation authorities…He is viewed with high esteem worldwide by... international figures who have valued his counsel, met him, discussed and negotiated with him."

--George Galloway (The Evening Standard, 4/18/05).

The UK human rights group Indict provides testimony from witnesses who saw Tariq Aziz shoot people at close range, and who report Aziz had advance knowledge of the 1988 gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja (www.indict.org.uk). Galloway has written of being on "the crowded dance floor of a North African nightclub... dancing with Tariq Aziz, the deputy prime minister of Iraq." (The New Republic Online, 4/22/05)

"A civil war with massive violence on both sides."

--George Galloway describing Saddam Hussein’s genocidal assaults on Kurds, democrats and Marsh Arabs in 1991 (“I’m Not the Only One,” Penguin Books Ltd, 2005)

"Just as Stalin industrialized the Soviet Union, so on a different scale Saddam plotted Iraq’s own Great Leap Forward. He managed to keep his country together until 1991. Indeed, he is likely to have been the leader in history who came closest to creating a truly Iraqi national identity, and he developed Iraq and the living, health, social and education standards of his own people."

--George Galloway (“I’m Not the Only One,” 2005)

“The courts killed this woman and I don’t think there can be any justification for it.”

--George Galloway on the death of Terri Schiavo (BBC Question Time, 3/31/05)

"A party trick."

--George Galloway on Iraqi trade unionists’ tearful recollections of torture at the hands of Ba'athists (The Independent, 1/7/05)

“A very, very profound connection.”

--George Galloway, describing his admiration for the Confederate Civil War general Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, who fought to preserve slavery, which he considered ordained by God (The Sunday Herald of Scotland, 8/7/05)

[K-W]

10. Who said he was a hero? Maybe you are looking for idols to worship.

Im not, and I dont think most Democrats are. Galloway is who he is. And cherrypicked out of context quotes from a smear pamphlet have nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not his current speeches are of any value.

You wouldnt happen to be Christopher Hitchens, would you?

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

22. Not Chris Hitchens,

just someone who happens to agree with him. Maybe Galloway's not a hero among the Left, but he sure as hell gets a lot more support than he deserves. I just find it troubling that some people are willing to embrace anyone, as long as they're opposed to the Iraq war. (i.e. Pat Buchanan, George Galloway, etc)

[bpilgrim]

23. "just someone who happens to agree with him" so you support the ILLEGAL

WAR?!?

peace

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

28. No, I support the just liberation of the Iraqi people from the tyranny

of Saddam Hussein, backed by the IWR, and 17 UN resolutions.

[bpilgrim]

29. then WHY did the HEAD of the UN say it was ILLEGAL?

nader voter :shrug:

peace

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

30. Why don't you ask him?

I know what the resolutions said. Annan is just wrong on this one (among other things).

[bpilgrim]

31. I don't HAVE TO - I got DU and KNOW WHY - the INSPECTIONS WERE WORKING

and the neoCONs went in ANYWAYS, with out the GO CODE from the UN.

so NOW the WHOLE WORLD is WRONG but the neoCONs are RIGHT :eyes:

peace

[eridani]

33. Anyone who still supports the Iraq slaughter and theft--

--is either a sociopath or a neocon. But I repeat myself. Since you aren't female you probably don't give a shit that women could work and be seen in public without being covered up before the invasion.

The notion that getting rid of Saddam was the purpose of the fascist assault on a defenseless nation is horseshit. Iraq's neighbors were trying to arrange exile for Saddam, sons, and top associates, but the Psychopath in Chief then announced that the invasion was on even if Saddam left.

[Stockholm]

34. You urgently need to read

Disarming Iraq: The Search for Weapons of Mass Destruction by Hans Blix EOM.

[mogster]

38. Um....I have some questions

Where is the WMD?

Why did Dear Leader lie to get his war come true if he, as you claim, was backed by everyone?

Does it look like a liberation to you? How come?

[K-W]

39. Well you can feast on Hitchens' sad propaganda if you want.

But you should realize that most of DU is intellectually capable of seeing through his tired rhetorical tricks.

I find it terribly refreshing that most people are willing to react rationally to George Galloway instead of trying to stigmatize him to push thier secterian agenda.

[bpilgrim]

11. gotta LINK?

tia :toast:

peace

[wtmusic]

12. All true

Or almost all. His praise of Saddam Hussein is sickening. The death of Terri Schiavo? His opinion.

What else in here is not true, or taken out of context (continue the first quote: "If there was a Soviet Union today, we would not be having this conversation about plunging into a new war in the Middle East, and the US would not be rampaging around the globe." Undeniable. And "The Iraqi resistance does not target its own civilians"? False -- but they didn't before the US invaded, and the vast majority of Iraqi "insurgent" violence is directed toward US forces or the Iraqi puppet government.)

Good idea to vet GOP talking points before presenting them as fact here.

[bpilgrim]

13. ALL SPIN

well, mostly ;->

but GOP talking points is ALL many got when they attack the left.

:hi:

peace

[K-W]

14. And the underlying fallacy is that someone must be a saint to be

worth listening to. I venture to say ive spewed some bullshit in my day. I venture to say Ive been wrong quite a bit.

Regardless, id like to think that every now and again I say something worth listening to.

Stigmatization is always a red flag that somebody is trying to silence people. Galloway is who he is, and people should listen to him and read him with an open mind and think for themselves. And I imagine thats all Galloway wants them to do anyway.

[jim3775]

15. The last few are absolutely silly

"A party trick."

--George Galloway on Iraqi trade unionists’ tearful recollections of torture at the hands of Ba'athists (The Independent, 1/7/05)

oh please, anyone can supply a short quote and make-up context.

"yes"

--Christopher Hitchens after being asked if he is a homosexual.

[personman]

37. Bit out of context...

“If you are asking did I support the Soviet Union, yes I did. Yes, I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life.”

--George Galloway (The Guardian, 9/16/02)

I'm sure it was an honest mistake *ahem*, but your quote seems to be missing the last sentence:

"If there was a Soviet Union today, we would not be having this conversation about plunging into a new war in the Middle East, and the US would not be rampaging around the globe."

Personally, I wouldn't immediately disregard the possibility, that maybe if the U.S. had another big dumb bully to worry about, we wouldn't have the time and resources to be pushing around small, half-ruined countries full of poor people.

Also...who fuckin cares? He wasn't even born in the US. Are we really such blind-patriot control freaks that we expect a foreigner to bow and scrape and apologize for saying something that could POSSIBLY be (mis?)interpreted as un-patriotic by americans?

“I thought the President would appreciate to know that even today, three years after the war, I still meet families who are calling their newborn sons Saddam…Sir, I salute your courage, your strength your indefatigability. And I want you to know that we are with you until victory, until victory until Jerusalem."

--George Galloway, flattering the mass murderer Saddam Hussein in person (The Times of London, 1/20/94)

Here are Galloway's statements about his meetings with Saddam:

"As a matter of fact, I have met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war, and on the second of the two occasions, I met him to try and persuade him to let Dr Hans Blix and the United Nations weapons inspectors back into the country - a rather better use of two meetings with Saddam Hussein than your own Secretary of State for Defense made of his.

I was an opponent of Saddam Hussein when British and Americans governments and businessmen were selling him guns and gas. I used to demonstrate outside the Iraqi embassy when British and American officials were going in and doing commerce.

You will see from the official parliamentary record, Hansard, from the 15th March 1990 onwards, voluminous evidence that I have a rather better record of opposition to Saddam Hussein than you do and than any other member of the British or American governments do."

If you want to argue that it isn't worth a little ego-stroking to a dictator to possibly save some lives, be my guest.

These are just the 2 statements I was familiar with enough to rebut. If the rest are equally substantial I don't think we'll have to worry about them being too persuasive.

As to your question, "Why does Galloway get so much love around here?". I think a better question might be, "Why are you so desperate to discredit this person who stood up to the neo-con, war-hawk, extremist madmen who have stolen power in this country (while alot of our own democratic leaders are curled up in the fetal position), that you are pasting a bunch of half-truth-laden, republican talking points straight from Hitchens into a website that exists for promoting democratic views? As if the burden of justification should be on us?"

Now THAT is the big question.

But I don't really think it's fair to accuse him of having unjustifiable views, I mean...it's not like he supported this crazy illegal war right?

-personman

P.S. You are not a moderate, you're a mild. :P

[Ignoramus]

32. I was unhappy with Galloway's performance

In terms of debate technique, Galloway was pretty pathetic and Hitchens beat him easily. But, I'll vote for Galloway, because he didn't say anything I disagree with, and Hitchens didn't say anything I did agree with.

Galloway didn't answer Hitchens' accusations, which looks pretty bad. For the most part, Hitchens would make an argument, and then instead of addressing his argument, Galloway would make his own argument, so the "debate" became more alternating statements of their positions.

You said in a smaller other thread that Galloway practically expressed support for Hussein (in the debate). When did he say that? I know the words of praise he offered to Hussein, which is sickening, but it's not the same as praising Hussein to others. During the debate, I only heard him criticize Hussein and point out US support for Hussein. Also, he made a distinction between "the resistance", i.e. anyone resisting the occupation with violence, and people exploding bombs in public places etc. Did you think he expressed support for people other than the Americans, blowing up Iraqis?

[K-W]

40. Should he have let Chris Hitchens lead him around by the nose?

Galloway didn't answer Hitchens' accusations, which looks pretty bad.

No it really doesnt. Hitchens was just trying to turn a debate about issues into a debate about Galloway and Galloway wasnt going to take the bait. On a superficial level its easy to be impressed with a sophist like Hitchens, but debates should be judged on who made the most convincing argument, not on who scored rhetorical points.

And as you hinted at, it was really impossible for Hitchens to win the debate because he was arguing an indefensible position giving him the luxery of focusing purely on rhetoric. If you look at style a bullshitter will almost always win a debate.

For the most part, Hitchens would make an argument, and then instead of addressing his argument, Galloway would make his own argument, so the "debate" became more alternating statements of their positions.

But Hitchens didnt address many of Galloway's arguments either. Your analysis seems a bit one sided. And really, this describes almost every debate ive ever seen outside of the odd regimented world of competitive debating which is more about rhetoric than substance.

[Behind the Aegis]

35. A good article you may have missed...

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=457&row=0 :) Not all of us are enamored with him, by any means!

[Lone_Wolf_Moderate]

42. THAT position I can respect. Greg Palast is a good soldier.

I disagree with him on the war (I support it), but his points are otherwise sound.

[cry baby]

16. I won't vote for either.

I thought Galloway would blow Hitchens away with the facts, instead he got really personal and was name-calling and yelling. Hitchens was calm and didn't yell. Galloway brought out some good points, but they got lost in the loudness of his voice and name-calling.

Just my humble opinion, and I was really hoping for Galloway to hit a home run.

[bpilgrim]

18. "Hitchens was calm and didn't yell." he just called names and chided the

audience is all...

Galloway gave a FORCEFUL PASSION FILLED debate filled with damning FACTS that should be brodcasted on EVERY CHANNEL.

imho :hi:

peace

[cry baby]

21. He was certainly passionate, like always. He is mesmerizing.

I just thought he was more effective while testifying in Washington. He was calm and passionate as he took apart every lie and slammed Norm Coleman and the other repukes to the floor.

He has the damning facts, absolutely.

[ConsAreLiars]

17. Hitchens was pathetic - just rambling and ranting

and repeating right wing smears. Couldn't focus, attacked the audience with childish reminders they were on c-span, went on a long stream of consciousness(?) ramble when asked for a one-word answer, defended Bushco even for their hurricane disaster. Galloway didn't have to do anything but watch Hitchens tie himself up in knots while trying to regurgitate as much reich-wing drivel as he could recall.

Pathetic.

[GoldenOldie]

19. Is this the same leaflet that Galloway accused Hichens of distributing?

Hichens distributed his Galloway leaflets prior to the debate. If I am not mistaken Galloway cited the numberous mistakes?

[ConsAreLiars]

24. If you mean the Hitchens style attacks repeated by Lone_Wolf_Moderate

in post #7, s/he was asked to give the source but so far has not done so. It looked like the sort of like the Hitchenesque collection of irrelevancies and selective snips that Galloway described.

During the debate Galloway cited Juan Cole's response to Hitchens' attempt to justify the invasion of Iraq, reprinted here: http://hnn.us/roundup/1.html#15440

[Roy]

25. Yes, he was pathetic. Dennis Miller clone

ramble, lie say nothing. Just have a bunch of brain dead republicans in the audience to whoop and yell to try to make the impression that something he said was worth while, and yell and scream to try and drown the person speaking truth and exposing lies so no one can hear them.

[ConsAreLiars]

27. Exactly. In the past Hitchens, unlike Miller, had managed to maintain

a facade of coherence. He started off OK, sort of what I expected for a PNAC apologist, but as the debate continued I was surprised to see him just spinning and slobbering out simplistic slogans like a madman. And pathetic, because he seemed to know he was just blathering away with nothing but his political allegience (no facts or higher ideals) to guide him.

[bpilgrim]

20. whoever votes for hitch please comment on why

the Iraq War is JUSTIFIED and NOBLE

tia :toast:

peace

[bpilgrim]

36. crickets

peace

[Bill Bored]

26. Did the subject of the stolen 2004 US Presidential Election come up?

I'd think they both might have agreed on that.

[bpilgrim]

41. i didn't hear it...

but i missed the beginning =(

peace