Cracking speech by Galloway in Commons.

[two sheds]

Ello if Zachor's against him and those are the sort of arguments he musters, I'm headed for the Galloway fan club.

 

[DotCommunist]

Looks like he's doin the Robot

 

[two sheds]

the white phosphorus was used as intended to illuminate battlefields.

Interesting, hadn't heard that before. Was that in the same sense that Hiroshima was intended to illuminate battlefields? It lit Japan up nicely you know.

I'd respond to some of the other drivel too, but I know he wouldn't listen.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

have you been drinking?

Some Islamofascist must have spiked my coffee with the blood of Jewish babies, I think.

Curiously the last time I felt like this was after reading a Zachor post too. I came over all Hamas.

 

[DotCommunist]

we are all hizbollah

 

[Bakunin]

Interesting, hadn't heard that before. Was that in the same sense that Hiroshima was intended to illuminate battlefields? It lit Japan up nicely you know.

I'd respond to some of the other drivel too, but I know he wouldn't listen.

I found it rather odd too, given that the standard use of white phosphorous shells is as a means of making a smokescreen rather than illuminating a target. If you want to illuminate a target then you'd use parachute flares, as a it's rather inconvenient trying to make a target easier to see by laying a smokescreen all over it.

 

[killer b]

He was the only well-known politician to call the war on Iraq exactly what it was, and its perpetrators exactly what they were. He has my undying respect for that alone.

he wasn't well known before iraq though. he's essentially built his career on being anti-war...

that said, i do enjoy his speeches. but he's still a massive tit.

 

[Wilf]

Galloway's 'votes v expenses' rating (back when he was a Labour MP):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4626218.stm

 

[two sheds]

I found it rather odd too, given that the standard use of white phosphorous shells is as a means of making a smokescreen rather than illuminating a target. If you want to illuminate a target then you'd use parachute flares, as a it's rather inconvenient trying to make a target easier to see by laying a smokescreen all over it.

Yes, not to mention the reports from local doctors and (as i recall) humanitarian organisations on the phosphorus burns they'd seen on civilians. Perhaps the shells were intended as inside lights to help Palestinians read more easily during the winter months. Bloody Palestinians, no sense of gratitude

 

[Bakunin]

I found it rather odd too, given that the standard use of white phosphorous shells is as a means of making a smokescreen rather than illuminating a target. If you want to illuminate a target then you'd use parachute flares, as a it's rather inconvenient trying to make a target easier to see by laying a smokescreen all over it.

Oh and, Zachor, I should also mention that it's not exectly every infantryman's top ambition in life to have to go steaming into an impenetrable smokescreen with absolutely no idea of what's waiting for them on the other side. And I'll further stick my neck out by saying that I think the various former infantrymen on here are likely to agree with me on that one.

 

[Fuchs66]

the white phosphorus was used as intended to illuminate battlefields.

Hmm all the photos I saw were taken in daylight so not a lot of illumination needed.
E2A Bakunin beat me to it

 

[two sheds]

I heard that all the missiles they sent over were to help the Palestinians dig swimming pools for a bit of R&R.

 

[DexterTCN]

The trouble is, Galloway has made another excellent, detailed, informed and topical speech on recognisable faults with an upcoming inquiry into the causes of the UK going into the Iraq war.

Has anyone else?

His detractors have fuck all except all the old shite they bring up, literally I'm sure, every time he gets coverage. They will not discuss the topic of this thread.

Galloway is talking about proper measures and responses to one of this country's most disgraceful actions. I protested strongly and loudly against the war in Iraq and he was one of the few to speak out against it and he's been paying the price ever since.

I thoroughly believe we were misled by the prime minister, the cabinet and the media. (Remember Paxman after GG won in London?)

As far as I'm concerned, those who try to distract and muddy the waters by talking about Saddam, Big Brother etc. are just traitors to this country.

Here's his current expenses list afaik:- http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/george_galloway/bethnal_green_and_bow#expenses 4thwrite...maybe a comment from you on it as you brought the subject up?

Correct me if I'm wrong but Galloway was 100% correct about the Iraq war being staged by the liars Bush and Blair, yes?

And the quality of the detractors...er...and their arguments? PM....still yapping about Saddam and ignore the Rumsfeld retort? Zachor? Well...I'm not shooting racist fish in a barrel, Zachor is actually good for the Left, Palestinians and anti-war arguments because he's such a useless twunt. From what I see he's currently defending the burning of children because it helps with street-lighting. Even PM's trying to get him to shut up.

 

[dylans]

the white phosphorus was used as intended to illuminate battlefields. If you want to talk about war crimes what about the war crimes committed against Israelis by terrorist groups purporting to represent the Pals? The bus bombings the missile attacks on civilians the random murders of civilians. They have a far more legitimate claim to be called war crimes.

Although I am saddened by the existence of the Security Fence and believe that it is restricting movement by Pals unecessarily in some cases it cannot be denied that it has reduced the amount of suicide bombing attacks on Israeli civilians.

You smug tory cunt.

You make me sick. In the conflict between a slave and a slave owner, your knee jerk response is to support the slave owner (or the status quo which amounts to the same thing) An oppressed people have every right to use whatever violence they see fit against their oppression. If violence "saddens" you, then end the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people and support a viable homeland. Don't expect them to be trapped in a castrated bantustan at the mercy of Israeli bombers and then attack them when they fight back.

I mean, do you have eyes? We all saw the absolutely inhuman brutality of the Israeli assault on Gaza. It's the most congested place on earth. To launch an assault with the kind of air power used by Israel on Gaza is to have absolutely no regard for civilians. No regard whatsoever.
Women, children, schools, houses, streets. Whole neighbourhoods. The fuckers destroyed the place around the population. Smashed it to rubble with air power and tanks. Whole neighbourhoods reduced to rubble.

Israel's behaviour in the Gaza Strip and Beirut, is utterly indefensible. They committed serious war crimes History will say that. The Israeli state should be prosecuted for war crimes. And you have the nerve to apologise for it in anyway, shape or form? Are you sure you want to do that, to apologise for an atrocity? Because that is what you are doing.

You, by even attempting to apologise for Israel's adventure in Gaza, are complicit. You are apologising for an atrocities. You. That's my definition of a smug cunt.

 

[fela fan]

Good point. Whatever the shortcomings of Blair at least he didn't suck up to dictators and murderers like Galloway. Sometimes in poltiics you have to deal with distasteful people but you do it whilst holding your nose. Galloway unlike Blair actively seeks out and courts disgusting dictators not because he has to but because he wants to.

Personally I'm surprised that Galloway managed to tear himself away from his paymasters in Tehran to turn up at the commons. Maybe the Commons pays better expenses than acting as a mouthpiece for Ahmedinejad.

You what???? Are you having a laugh?

Blair is a war criminal. He's responsible for thousands of deaths of human beings. Galloway doesn't even get in the same league as blair the murderer.

Blair is in the same league, however, as hussein.

 

[fela fan]

Dexter, good post mate.

 

[kabbes]

I thought that the title was "Crackling speech". I thought that maybe he'd contracted swine flu.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Bush was at least elected unlike Saddam.

Arguable.

Also we've been selling Hawks worldwide for years and not just to Indonesia. The Indonesian Hawk sales were a relic of previous government actions (like the Al Yamamah deal with Saudi) and the Export Control Act has toughened up the regimes for the export of defence equipment considerably from when the Hawks were first sold to Indonesia (up until 03 we were still using the emergency 1939 export act)

Supposedly.

 

[ViolentPanda]

the white phosphorus was used as intended to illuminate battlefields.

From around 4,000ft, with a flare charge that dies by the time the parachuted munition reaches about 1,500ft, so that "fall-out" is well-dispersed.
What the IAF and IDF did was deploy at low level knowing that it would have anti-personnel effects, but also knowing that know-nothing shit-wits like yourself would try to excuse it.

If you want to talk about war crimes what about the war crimes committed against Israelis by terrorist groups purporting to represent the Pals? The bus bombings the missile attacks on civilians the random murders of civilians. They have a far more legitimate claim to be called war crimes.

Are "terrorist groups" and "terrorist individuals" armies then? Have all and sundry made an official declaration of war against the state of Israel?
No and no. You're talking shit.

Again.

Although I am saddened by the existence of the Security Fence and believe that it is restricting movement by Pals unecessarily in some cases it cannot be denied that it has reduced the amount of suicide bombing attacks on Israeli civilians.

Arbitrary imprisonment does that.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I found it rather odd too, given that the standard use of white phosphorous shells is as a means of making a smokescreen rather than illuminating a target. If you want to illuminate a target then you'd use parachute flares, as a it's rather inconvenient trying to make a target easier to see by laying a smokescreen all over it.

Dropped illuminant munitions have a different dispersal method to wp shells and grenades, so have different effects (although illuminant munitions still cause a lot of smoke, they do so where it's more easily dispersed, rather than on the ground).

 

[ViolentPanda]

Oh and, Zachor, I should also mention that it's not exectly every infantryman's top ambition in life to have to go steaming into an impenetrable smokescreen with absolutely no idea of what's waiting for them on the other side. And I'll further stick my neck out by saying that I think the various former infantrymen on here are likely to agree with me on that one.

Or to inhale WP smoke.

 

[two sheds]

Dexter, good post mate.

Yep, points in there that should be responded to still.

I mentioned cults above - one glaring example of how cults respond to someone they don't like is to attack the person rather than what s/he's saying.

 

[Bakunin]

Or to inhale WP smoke.

Which is a really healthy option and doesn't ruin people's lungs and/or choke them to death at all, at least not in any war fought on Zachor's planet.

Yep, sounds great to me. I'm just off to a warzone to march through an impenetrable smokescreen, without knowing who, what or how many of the enemy are there, while taking in the biggest lungfuls of WP smoke I can breathe in.

Great days, they'll be.

Great days.

 

[DexterTCN]

Anyway....back on topic?

Nothing that I can see in the news today on this.

 

[phildwyer]

Anyway....back on topic?

Nothing that I can see in the news today on this.

How surprising.

 

[gosub]

Anyway....back on topic?

Nothing that I can see in the news today on this.

Actually got commended by Quintin Letts at end of Daily Mail PMQ sketch which itself got flagged up on Times blog.


speech is up on Hansard

 

[JHE]

How often is MP makes speech in Commons news? How often is MP makes impressive speech in Commons news? If he'd managed to get himself thrown out, it would have been news.

I don't think the news media are deliberately under-reporting GG.

Perhaps there should be more reporting of speeches in Parliament. I think there used to be more.

 

[DexterTCN]

My final point is that because of the deceit, proper consideration was not given to all the policy options. There were other ways of bringing down Saddam Hussein. We could have got rid of the sanctions, or indicted him like we did Milosevic and let the Iraqi people help to do it. None of the other options were considered. This is a disgrace to our history and it shows that our institutions do not work. We need an inquiry that will lay out everything from which we can learn the lessons about decision making and our role in the world, so that we never ever again engage in such actions, which have left terrible destabilising effects on the wider middle east.

Claire Short from the same thing.

 

[likesfish]

Galloway scores against an open goal.
blair should be roasted.
deciding to fight a war that didn't need to be fought.
for political reasons not getting kit to the troops in time because it was more important to look like trying to avoid war than prepare properly.
having no fucking plan for what happened next.
cutting numbers of troops so they couldn't do the tasks that needed to be done.

 

[two sheds]

Galloway scores against an open goal.
blair should be roasted.
deciding to fight a war that didn't need to be fought.
for political reasons not getting kit to the troops in time because it was more important to look like trying to avoid war than prepare properly.
having no fucking plan for what happened next.
cutting numbers of troops so they couldn't do the tasks that needed to be done.

Not exactly an open goal. Labour cronies are all stuffing the goalmouth waving their hands above their heads furiously to distract us. Brown's walked off with the ball and won't tell us where it, or whether we'll ever be told whether someone does eventually score.