[quote:09353]
British MP blasts Canada over Iraq
By MIKE OLIVEIRA
Saturday, September 17, 2005 Updated at 6:18 PM EDT
Canadian Press
Mississauga, Ont. — Despite its refusal to fight in Iraq, Canada is complicit in the U.S. war on terrorism and should withdraw from Afghanistan, an outspoken left-wing British MP said Saturday.
“I'm amazed that so many people in Canada believe they're not a part of this crime,” George Galloway said at the sixth annual conference of the Islamic Circle of North America and the Muslim Association of Canada.
“Canada has sent an army of 1,000 soldiers to occupy the Muslim country of Afghanistan (and ships to the Persian Gulf),” Mr. Galloway said.
“Your ships in the Gulf and your soldiers in Afghanistan are doing the dirty work of George W. Bush and Tony Blair. They are freeing American ships and soldiers to go to Fallujah and massacre the people of Iraq.”
Mr. Galloway also called Canada's reputation as peacekeepers a lie, pointing to comments by Gen. Rick Hillier, who said soldiers are fighting “detestable murderers and scumbags.”
Gen. Hillier has said the Canadian Forces has a job to do and that involves killing people.
“That doesn't sound very much like neutrality to me,” Mr. Galloway said to a receptive crowd. “You should raise the demand to end the Canadian occupation of Afghanistan.”
Mr. Galloway is known for his vocal criticism of the war in Iraq and was kicked out of the Labour Party in 2003 for urging British soldiers not to fight in the war.
He launched his own anti-war party and this year won a seat in Parliament, unseating the Labour Party incumbent.
In his speech Saturday, he repeated statements he made recently in New York about why he believes Sept. 11 happened.
“These airplanes on 9-11 may have seemed to have come out of a clear blue sky but, in fact, these monstrous mosquitoes flew out of a swamp of bitterness and hatred and anger which exists in the Muslim world (because of) the injustice of western policy,” Mr. Galloway said.
“It is a crime, it is a sin, in any language, in any religion, to punish innocent people for the crimes of guilty people,” he said.
“But it is a crime and a sin whether it happens in Britain or New York or Fallujah or Baghdad or Palestine or Afghanistan or anywhere else the bombs and rockets are falling.” [/quote:09353]
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