- Banned
- #1
"I SALUTE YOUR COURAGE, YOUR STRENGTH, YOUR INDEFATIGABILITY"
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ASSOCIATED PRESS
"LONDON — An outspoken critic of the war in Afghanistan claimed Friday that public anger over the conflict propelled him to a surprise victory in a special election for a seat in Britain's House of Commons.
George Galloway, a leftist political maverick, won the Bradford West seat in northern England
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He insisted that resentment at mainstream political parties over the conflict in Afghanistan, which has so far seen 407 British military personnel killed since 2001, had been decisive.
"They have to stop supporting illegal, bloody, costly foreign wars," Galloway said. "The public don't believe that they have atoned for their role in the invasion and occupation of other people's countries and the drowning of those countries in blood."
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Galloway, who was expelled from the country's Labour Party in 2003 for urging British soldiers not to fight in Iraq, represents the anti-war Respect party, and he will be the organization's only House of Commons legislator.
The lawmaker is known in Britain for his strident opposition to the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq ***
In 2010, Galloway was denied entry to Canada on national security grounds over his links to Palestinian group Hamas, which Ottawa considers a terrorist organization. The lawmaker was previously awarded an honorary Palestinian passport by Gaza's Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, after joining aid convoys to the Gaza Strip.
Galloway also has courted controversy over his links to former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and was suspended from the House of Commons for 18 days in 2007 after he was accused of concealing his financial dealings with Hussein's government. An investigation found that a charity Galloway set up had been partly funded by the Iraqi dictator.
Two years earlier, Galloway had angrily denounced U.S. senators while testifying before a Washington committee that accused his political organization of receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in U.N. oil-for-food allocations from Saddam.
During a notorious visit to Iraq in 1994, Galloway was filmed telling Hussein, "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability."
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/10171176
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Galloway's district includes a substantial number of Muslims
and Galloway is something of a showman,
but
Galloway's famous or notorious stand favoring Saddam,
and---
depending, of course, upon your points of view---if any you have---
his harsh condemnation of British and US led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq,
seem to have played the major role in securing his re-election.
A few days ago I accidentally caught an interview of Galloway and was impressed by his candor and earnest and straight-forward remarks
and so I sought out the above article thinking that others might be interested in Galloway as a person
and---granted that one swallow does not make a spring---
his re-election to be a possible harbinger of change upon the part of the British people.
Whatever your opinion of him, I say to Galloway: "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability."