More on George Galloway

British MP George Galloway hosts a weekly program on Press TV, an English language internet and satellite channel controlled by the Iranian government. He claims, on his program, to "shoot from the hip" on the essential issues of the day. On the edition broadcast at 9.30pm BST on Sunday 21st June, over 24 hours after the murder of Neda Agha-Soltan (see below), all that Galloway said on the subject of Iran was:

The story of the week as far as the western media are concerned, was the Iranian elections and the resulting street protests. If you ever believed that the BBC, that's the Bush and Blair Corporation, and the US media like Rupert Murdoch's Fox network were impartial, then here was the mountain of evidence against. Opinion masquerading as fact, at length, and usually on shaky-cam. For the record, here's my declaration of interest. Press TV is Iranian owned, but that doesn't influence my opinion, which is that until there is even a scintilla of evidence that the election was fiddled we have to accept the verdict of the Iranian People, however much some of us may not like it. But there's a track record of Britain and the US not accepting democratic decisions, as the starving people of Gaza, who put their crosses in the wrong places, can testify...

Now, it is more than justifiable (in fact it is essential) to point out the West's history of interference and support of despots, in order to question their motives, in, for example, the invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan and their support of Israel's illegal occupations on the West Bank, etc.

But the current events in Iran are completely different to this. The demonstrations are not being orchestrated by Britain and America, however much the increasing deranged-sounding representatives of the Iranian government try to claim otherwise. Much to the likely disappointment of the Iranian leadership (and to the stated disappointment of the Neocon warmongers in his own country), Obama is simply making general remarks supporting the freedom to protest.

However disgusting the history of Western interference in the Middle East (and it is disgusting), it is no excuse for supporting criminals like the current Iranian regime. To do this is to do the same thing in reverse as was done by Imperialism when they supported Saddam Hussein and the Taliban against Iran and the Soviet Union respectively. If all sides in a conflict are wrong, then simply say so. There are no messiahs. That is the philosophy (such as there is one) of this blog.

Even if it wasn't morally repugnant (and it is), it does the left no favours at all when a leading spokesman supports, through his silence, the barbaric acts being carried out in the name of the "Islamic revolution". In fact, for many people, it will completely invalidate anything Galloway says about anything. To campaign against Israel's repression and murder of Palestinians and say nothing of the Iranian Government's repression and murder of its own people is rank hypocrisy.

The legitimacy (or otherwise) of the declared result of the Iranian election (we may never know the truth) is no longer the issue. The tear gas and water cannon and bullets and blood saw to that.

The most charitable thing that could be said of Galloway is that his understandable hatred of the undoubted crimes of the West is leading him into very dark places. But let's not be charitable. Instead, look again at the video of the death of Neda Agha-Soltan below, and then resolve to never listen to anything Mr Galloway says, ever again.