This speech (which is quoted out of context of Galloway's mission at the time anyway) does not detract from the fact that Galloway was trying to stop deaths (the mission was specifically about trying persuade Saddam to give up weapons and to end sanctions), whilst for decades Saddam himself and the imposers of those sanctions had cause tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi deaths.

But that of course is not why the establishment turned on Galloway so viciously...the reason for that is that he co-founded and was at the head of a movement that built the biggest demonstration in British political history in an attempt to stop the hundreds of thousands of deaths that were to come.

And of course this one speech (which incidentally in Arabic was correctly translated as 'salute the Iraqi people') is of course soooo much more important than any of that.

Oh, come now. Galloway stood in front of a man responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of his own people and said:

"Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability, and I want you to know that we are with you, hatta al-nasr, hatta al-nasr, hatta al-Quds [until victory, until victory, until Jerusalem]."

He also said:

"I can honestly tell you that there was not a single person to whom I told I was coming to Iraq and hoping to meet with yourself who did not wish me to convey their heartfelt, fraternal greetings and support."

There is no 'context' in which this is acceptable to me.




Correctly translated? WTF? So Galloway decided to toady up to Saddam safe in the knowledge that it would be 'correctly translated' in Arabic to mean something entirely different? Even Galloway himself wouldn't be disingenuous enough to come up with that.

I don't pretend that Galloway is any worse than some of the mainstream politicians, but to present him as some sort of beacon of virtue, the one principled MP in a sea of corruption, is, frankly, boIIocks.

..with weapons and expertise supplied to him by the very people that slated off Galloway for this visit. Deals that Galloway always opposed while the mainstream politicians and the media praised Saddam constantly.

And yes it is out of context. The arabic translator understood this and translated in a correct idiom. The context is one of negotiation with a tyrant in a bid to end Western-imposed sanctions that had killed many more thousands of people (mainly children) than Saddam could ever aspire to. Would you rather Galloway had said "Get over it Saddam...we're killing your children by their thousands every day and we're buggered if we're gonna stop now" which is what most British politicians at the time would have had to say if they were honest?

You are very quick to lambast Galloway on the basis of one speech (and a rather ridiculous TV charity stunt), but I don't see you jumping to criticise the people who cynically and deliberately armed and groomed Saddam to slaughter those many hundred thousand people.

When it comes to that moral balance sheet the question of principles is IMO a virtual irrelevance.

You're missing the point. Perhaps deliberately, I don't know, though I thought I'd made it clear in my last post. I'm not saying that the mainstream politicians are better than Galloway. Of course they were wrong to arm a tyrannical dictator. Of course they were wrong to then invade Iraq at the behest of the US when their years of arming him all went tits up.

But that the UK and US governments acted appallingly doesn't alter Galloway's obvious character flaws.



Rubbish.

In no way does...

"Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability, and I want you to know that we are with you, hatta al-nasr, hatta al-nasr, hatta al-Quds [until victory, until victory, until Jerusalem]."

...accurately translate to "I salute the Iraqi people". It's utterly ridiculous to suggest that it does.



There's a whole spectrum of stuff he could have said between your extreme example and his own nauseating arselicking. It is possible to negotiate with someone without 'conveying heartfelt fraternal greetings and support'.



The post that I responded to was about Galloway, specifically your assertion that he is 'principled'. Had you said that you thought Tony Blair was 'principled', I could/would have responded to that in a similar manner. Or do you think I should balance every criticism I ever make of a politician with an acknowledgement that other politicians have acted in an even more deplorable manner?



I'd tend to agree with that. If I wasn't responding specifically to your description of Galloway as 'principled'.