George Galloway to be SUSPENDED?

[karlos]

GEORGE'S SUSPENSION?

The Sunday Times this morning ran a front page story claiming on the basis of an ‘authoritative’ source that George Galloway is to be suspended from the House of Commons for a month. If this is so, and we won’t know definitively until the Parliamentary Standards Committee meets on Tuesday, it will be the culmination of a four year campaign against George over the Mariam Appeal, the campaign he set up to end the sanctions against Iraq which cost on most estimates the lives of a million people.

We know the committee has cleared George of any allegation of personal gain from the Appeal, just as the Charity Commission did, once again, a few weeks ago. The committee judging George, however, is composed of MPs almost all of whom voted for the war and includes two prominent members of the Labour Friends of Israel. In the context of even stalwart Republicans losing faith in the US/UK occupation of Iraq and the complete vindication of everything that George, as one of the most prominent anti-war leaders, predicted, it is hardly surprising that this kangaroo court will seek to impose some penalty on George.

Britain is becoming NAZI Germany, Galloway is practically the only MP campaigning against the war and against many of the Labour government's crooked practices like vote rigging and privatising hospitals, schools and Council estates.

So if this suspension goes ahead, it will be a meaningless act, but it will show the depths the UK legislature has sunk to.

[mediadisbeliever]

Poor George...he is one of the finest, or even the finest and most vocal anti-war campaigners in Europe. Fellow MP's in the House squirm when he gets up to talk because he reminds them of their many failings including their cowardly, immoral support for the war. There is not one other MP, other then Michael Meacher whom I can think of who has the guts to tell the truth.
Shame on you all!

[karlos]

Galloway response to 18 day suspension


"Once more and yet again I have been cleared of taking a single penny or in any way personally benefiting from the former Iraqi regime through the Oil for Food programme or any other means.

The Commissioner’s report states that unequivocally no less than six times. The Commissioner further states that it would be a “travesty” to describe me as a “paid mouth-piece” and that my actions on Iraq stemmed from “deep conviction”.

This is therefore an argument about the funding of a political campaign to lift non-military sanctions on Iraq, which killed one million people, and to stop the rush to a war which has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands more.

The Committee appear utterly oblivious to the grotesque irony of a pro-sanctions and pro-war Committee of a pro-sanctions and pro-war Parliament passing judgment on the work of their opponents, especially in the light of the bloody march of events in Iraq since this inquiry began four years ago.

They describe that as questioning their integrity and bringing Parliament into disrepute. The House would do well to honestly calibrate exactly how its reputation on all matters concerning the war in Iraq stands with the public before deciding who precisely has brought it into disrepute.

After a four year inquiry – costing a fortune in public funds – the report asks me to apologise for not registering consistently the Mariam Appeal I established (the Commissioner concedes that I did so, but randomly) and for using House of Commons resources allocated to me to campaign against the policies of those now sitting in judgment on me.

The Committee of MPs acknowledges that “had these been the only matters before us, we would have confined ourselves to seeking an apology to the House”.

However, in a surprisingly thin-skinned rejoinder, the MPs complain that because I questioned their impartiality and made trenchant criticisms of evidence and witnesses (which, incidentally, they don’t attempt to refute in most cases) I am to be suspended for 18 days.

I reiterate that the Commissioner is right to state that he found no evidence that I benefited personally in any way from any Iraqi monies and moreover I never asked any of the Mariam Appeal’s donors – the King of Saudi Arabia, the Emir of UAE, or Fawaz Zureikat, the chairman of the Appeal – from where they earned the wealth from which they made donations to a campaign to end sanctions and war."

George Galloway MP

[truthseeker john]

[kbo234]

Mark Steel: Why should Galloway be the only fall guy?
Perhaps the explanation is their procedures were taken from 'Alice in Wonderland'
Published: 18 July 2007

At last a politician has been suspended for their role in the Iraq war. You'd have thought it would have happened before now, and you might have thought when it finally happened, it wouldn't be the politician most prominently against the war. Suspending George Galloway for his conduct in Iraq is as if last week's trial of those failed suicide bombers ended with the judge saying "This was a monstrous crime. So I'm going to let you off, and jail the bloke who chased you through the Underground."

The main reason given for the suspension is that some of the money for Galloway's charity came from a dodgy Jordanian businessman. Is this the normal attitude with charities, that no donation should be accepted without the donor being investigated? Maybe it's a new culture, and in next year's "Children in Need", Terry Wogan will say: "And how about this? We've had a grand donation of £25 from Mrs Wimthorpe in Derby. Well I've got one thing to say - who the hell are you, Wimthorpe, and what's your game? We're going to go through you with a microscope and if you've put one finger out of line you can keep your dirty money you old scallywag, spina bifida doesn't need you."

Another source of friction is that Galloway's charity, The Mariam Appeal, which assisted sick Iraqis who were suffering from the effects of sanctions against their country, was political in that it was against those sanctions. In other words, it was against the thing causing the suffering. And that's wrong, apparently.

So presumably there will also be investigations into appeals for victims of earthquakes. How dare these people oppose earthquakes in the name of charity? At least they should be balanced, and allow space for supporters of earthquakes to present their side of the story.

The original investigation into Galloway's dealings in Iraq came when The Daily Telegraph accused him of taking money from Saddam, an allegation that cost them £150,000 when they lost the libel case. Now, despite their acceptance he didn't take a penny for himself, the parliamentary committee says his charity "damaged the reputation of the house". So there's the explanation - the full report probably went: "You mean you weren't on the take? How the bloody hell does that make the rest of us look, you b******?"

Somehow, however, the diligent committee seems to have missed other possible examples of the house being brought into disrepute, such as a Prime Minister taking the country into war because "I have no doubt that Saddam possesses weapons of mass destruction - absolutely no doubt, no doubt whatsoever."

And insisting we could be attacked in 45 minutes when he knew this was *; and ignoring his own intelligence that this would make us targets for terrorism; and ignoring the UN and the weapons inspectors, so assisting in the creation of mass carnage, while he swans off to make millions from his memoirs.

If they want to investigate corruption in the Middle East, they could look at the $300m taken in cash from the Central Bank in Iraq, and secretly flown to Beirut in a chartered jet to buy arms, organised by the Iraqi Defence Minister whom we helped put in place. This led to his colleague, national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie saying: "I am sorry to say that the corruption is worse now than in the Saddam era." No wonder Blair resigned - how do you top helping to make Iraq more corrupt than under Saddam? In his new job, is he planning to make Afghanistan less keen on heavy metal and women's football than under the Taliban?

Or the committee could glance at the billion pounds in illegal payments made to Saudi Arabia in order to secure arms deals for British Aerospace. Unlike Galloway's crime, parliament decided this matter was too trivial to warrant an inquiry. And if they did find them guilty, they'd have probably ordered them to pay it back at one dollar a week.

But instead, the person suspended is the one who opposed these things. The only explanation is the Commons procedures were originally taken from a chapter in Alice in Wonderland, in which you get charged by the authorities for being an un-criminal. And maybe that's the plan for our whole legal system, so you'll be sent to prison for being an un-corrupt arms dealer, or an un-robber, while liberal types complain that prison doesn't work because most un-criminals re-offend, and if you lock someone up for not stealing a car, when they're released they'll do something even worse such as not rob a bank.

Meanwhile robbers and murderers will be allowed to stay free, but only if they remember to ask you to draw a line under robbery and murder, and accept that, hand on heart, you thought that robbery and murder was right at the time.

[karlos]

Well the $300 million is the tip of the iceberg, they reckon there is $18 billion missing from the Iraqi coffers, and Bush associate Paul Bremer and co have had their hands in the till for a while now.

Galloway is the sole voice of commone sense and reason. Ok his suspension is purely symbolic but it will demonstrate how Parliament is a totally curropt and morally bankrupt institution.
Blair should be charged wirh cash for honours. Blair should be charged with war crimes. Brown should be charged because he sold all our gold reserves at less than half their true value. So many government ministers have taken bungs. Blunkett, prescott, jowell's husband, mandlesohn. Dont forget the Miliband brothers tax doge with their dad.
The list is endless.

So this is a grotesque act of hypocrasy and in fact it will only make Galloway more popular than he already is. I am an admirer and believe he is the only spokesman for justice in the UK.

[Thermate911]

Galloway for Foreign Secretary! As if...

George: "They describe that as questioning their integrity and bringing Parliament into disrepute. "

Oh my, now that would NEVER do, would it?

Does anyone see the larger picture here, especially when connected with Bush/Cheney's accession to Dicktatorship [sick], due to go into effect on 17/8/07?

Even in these very dark days, I still get a chuckle reading Georges transcript of his US Senate hearings - one of very few transcripts NOT to appear on senate.gov website...

Apply here for a copy if you want it. I also have the clip of his speech to Parliament back in February wherein he accused Bliar, Straw, Hoon, Scarlett, Goldschitt of war crimes...

[Cruise4]

"I have heard George say that he "does not believe in conspiracy theories"!

Thats probably because he believes in 'alternative viewpoints that need examining' and rejects the Mind control inspired slogan that 'Conspiracy theories' represents.

[karlos]

Press release from George Galloway MP

"At least the United States Senate gave me an uninterrupted hearing," said an outraged Georgew Galloway as the Speaker threw him out of the Commons less than one third of his way through his speech of defence against the so-called Standards and Privileges Committee.

"It has come to something," he continued, "When the leading anti-war MP could get a fairer hearing in the Republican Senate than in the British House of Commons.

"I was thrown out of Parliament this evening just as I had given one example of the double standards that go to the heart of this matter. Anyone watching this would have seen Parliament plunged into disrepute as it absurdly decided - through agreeing my exclusion - that I am not permitted to point to those double standards or to criticise those who have produced this unjust report about me.

"We now have the absurdity in which the House of Commons has convinced itself, or at rather pretends that it has, that 10 MPs sat in a committee room somehow cease to be what they by definition are - highly political people who together constitute a political tribunal.

"The public know that is so; MPs, if they were being honest, know it; it's only in the chamber of the House of Commons that you are not allowed to say so.

"I had much, much more to say about the report and the overarching question of who it is in this Iraq affair who has brought Parliament into disrepute. Instead, by voting to throw me out, the MPs present this evening chose to conduct a kangaroo court in my absence.

"They may be happy to close their ears to the truth. Most people in Britain - and abroad - are not.

"They will be outraged at this sham in what is supposed to be the highest court of the land."