What a disgrace.

Galloway defends 'martyrs' remark

"Mr Galloway was a vocal opponent of the Iraq war MP George Galloway has defended comments referring to insurgents in Iraq as "martyrs", saying he has not put British troops at risk. During a tour of the Middle East, Mr Galloway spoke of "poor Iraqis" using the most basic weapons to write the names of their towns "in the stars". The Respect MP accused the UK and America of "raping" Baghdad and said the US was losing the war. Labour MP Eric Joyce said the comments endangered UK troops "in a small way". But he said Mr Galloway held little influence. The former Labour renegade said the only people putting troops at risk were in Mr Blair's government. "I said countries occupied by UK and US troops are being raped by them. Jerusalem and Baghdad are in the hands of foreigners who are doing their will. "The people stirring up hatred for our troops are those who put them in Iraq, not the likes of us who want to bring them home to their families. The people who put our troops at risk are the people who put them abroad." Mr Galloway's Respect party stresses that it and the Bethnal Green and Bow MP condemn suicide bombings, whether in London or the Middle East.
Any loss of civilian life is profoundly wrong, says the party, but it blames the US-UK coalition for turning Iraq into a war zone by their invasion. Mr Galloway claimed the insurgents were ordinary Iraqis defending their country against "foreign invaders". "It can be said, truly said, that the Iraqi resistance is not just defending Iraq. They are defending all the Arabs and they are defending all the people of the world against American hegemony." In one speech, the MP said: "These poor Iraqis - ragged people, with their sandals, with their Kalashnikovs, with the lightest and most basic of weapons - are writing the names of their cities and towns in the stars, with 145 military operations every day, which has made the country ungovernable. "We don't know who they are, we don't know their names, we never saw their faces, they don't put up photographs of their martyrs, we don't know the names of their leaders." Mr Galloway was expelled from the Labour Party over his outspoken remarks about the Iraq war. He told Syrian Television: "Two of your beautiful daughters are in the hands of foreigners - Jerusalem and Baghdad. The foreigners are doing to your daughters as they will. The daughters are crying for help and the Arab world is silent. And some of them are collaborating with the rape of these two beautiful Arab daughters."