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Following are excerpts from a speech given by British MP George Galloway in Damascus University, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on November 13, 2005.
Galloway: Condoleezza Rice has been touring the Arab countries to speak about Syria, so I have come to Syria to speak about Condoleezza Rice.
You know, it never ceases to surprise me that Arab governments can allow a foreigner to come to their country and sit on their tables with their leaders to insult and attack another Arab country. This is the behavior of slave governments, and the Bahraini regime should have asked Condoleezza to leave when she insulted Syria in their presence, in their capital. In fact maybe it's the rulers who should leave. When she visited Cairo a few months ago, the Egyptian masses - who are still a part of the Arab world, by the way - raised the slogan about the Arab rulers: "Give them a visa ya Condoleezza," and I believe that this is a slogan which has not lost its meaning.
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I want to be very clear. I was clear in July, and what I said in July has followed me all over the world by the American and Israeli propaganda machine, so I want to be very clear again. All dignified people in the world, whether Arabs or Muslims or others with dignity, are very proud of the speech made by President Bashar Al-Assad a few days ago here in Damascus.
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For me he is the last Arab ruler, and Syria is the last Arab country. It is the fortress of the remaining dignity of the Arabs, and that's why I'm proud to be here and addressing you this evening.
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After July he (Blair) condemned me for what I said about President Bashar, but only two years before, he was taking the president to meet Her Majesty the queen. If President Bashar is so dangerous a man, why did he take him inside the royal palace in London? The truth is, Mr. Blair changed his policy towards Syria because President Bush ordered him to. Mr. Blair too is a slave of the slaves.
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The reason that Syria is facing this crisis is not because of any bad thing which Syria has done or any weaknesses within its democracy, or within its economy, or within its human rights record - and there are weaknesses in all three of these. The reason why Syria is being threatened is not because of anything bad which she did, but because of the good which she is doing. That's the reason why Syria is being threatened - because she will not betray the Palestinian resistance, because she will not betray the Lebanese resistance, Hizbullah, because she will not sign a shameful surrender-peace with General Sharon, and above all - more than any of these others - because Syria will not allow her country to be used as a military base for America to crush the resistance in Iraq. These are the reasons why Syria is being targeted by these imperial powers.
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Now I warned in July that Lebanon was being sharpened as a knife to be used in the back of Syria, and I warned the Lebanese people that those who care nothing for Lebanon are preparing to use you and your government to weaken the last Arab power. And I turned out to be right. This knife has been sharpened and now they are using it.
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And I warned in July about this character, Mehlis. And please don't call him Sayyed (Mr.) Mehlis. I'm not calling him Sayyed Mehlis.
Translator: We don’t call him Sayyed Mehlis…
Galloway: No, I was interviewed by several Syrian journalists today, and every time I said Mehlis, they said SayyedMehlis. No, he's not SayyedMehlis.
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Just because somebody is appointed by the UN which became - you know, Lenin called the League of Nations a "Thieves' kitchen." The UN became a thieves' and beggars' kitchen, where the thieves make the decisions, and the beggars vote for the decisions, and if the beggars will not vote for the decisions, the thieves will implement the decisions anyway. Because somebody came through the UN it doesn't make them a saint. Mehlis is not a saint, he's not an impartial civil servant, he is a policeman with a record of framing Arab governments, and this is why he was given this job. He was the one who investigated the so-called La Belle disco explosion in Berlin. He named Libya as the responsible party for this crime, and Ronald Reagan used this finding to send a massive and violent attack against Libya, which killed innocent people including the daughter of Mu'ammar Qadhafi herself. This was Mehlis' job, to falsely accuse Libya of this crime, which everybody now knows Libya was not responsible for.
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This record of framing Arab countries is the qualification of Mehlis for his new job of framing Syria.
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This is why he was given this job, and everybody should be aware that the verdict of the Mehlis inquiry was already fixed before he began his investigation. This murder of Hariri was deliberately planned and executed precisely to implicate Syria and to set in train the events which have unfolded.
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Now some people asked me here, do I think that this will all lead to a situation in Syria which can be compared to the fate of Iraq, and I say no. There is no chance of the American army invading Syria, for many reasons. The first reason is because the Iraqi resistance are defeating the American army in Iraq.
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You know, when I went to the American Senate on May the 17th of this year, which seems only yesterday for me, and for the American senators - I heard myself say on a video clip the other day - I told the Senate on May the 17th that 1,600 American soldiers had died. 1,600. That was on May 17th. Today, it's almost 2,100 and rising rapidly. October was the bloodiest month of the war, with the Americans losing 107 dead soldiers in one month.
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Now the Americans cannot control one single street in any town or city or village of Arab Iraq. Not one street can they control safely.
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They can control the skies, but only if they don't come low enough for the RPG.
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No American soldier who leaves his barracks can be sure that he will come back alive.
Translator: No American soldier who leaves his suitcases can be sure he will return to life again.
Galloway: Every Iraqi, every roadside, every car is a potential deadly ending for him. And the American army... The American army is losing the will to fight.
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So America is losing the war in Iraq and she cannot dream of starting a new war in Syria. The second reason is: The public opinion in Britain and America is moving decisively against the policy of Bush and Blair.
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The political strength of George Bush is beginning to seep away into the sand. He is not strong enough to declare another war against another Arab country.
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And in Britain, these are the final days of Tony Blair. The British media is discussing every day whether this day Blair will resign.
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And the third reason why they will never invade Syria is sitting here and is outside in the streets. It is that if they dared to invade Syria, every dignified person in the country would fight them exactly as the people of Iraq are fighting them now.
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When Hitler was on the French coast and my country stood alone, when the Americans were watching the war on television before they joined it, we faced a violent foreign military invasion. And of course there were collaborators in Britain who would have collaborated with Hitler if he had landed, but the vast majority of British people would have fought Hitler, with their teeth, if necessary, because no free people will allow itself to be occupied by a foreign army, and Syria is a free people and will never agree to such an invasion.
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What your lives would be if from the Atlantic to the Gulf we had one Arab union - all this land, 300 million people, all this oil and gas and water, occupied by a people who speak the same language, follow the same religions, listen to the same Um Kulthum... The Arabs would be a superpower in the world if they had this unity, instead of the shameful situation in which the Arabs find themselves today.
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This is not a dream, you know. In the European Union, there is almost 100 languages, there is many religions, there is countries who only 50 years ago were slaughtering each other by the million in war - totally different cultures with nothing in common except living on the mainland of Europe. But we are making a European Union which in 20 years will balance the power of the United States of America, inshallah.
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Chairman Mao said that sometimes the enemy struggles mightily to lift a huge stone, only to drop it on its own feet, and I believe that's what has happened in the world today.
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Instead of terrorizing the whole world with American power, the invasion of Iraq has showed everybody in the world the limitations of American power.
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Hundreds of thousands are ready to fight them in the Middle East, and in Latin America there is revolution everywhere. Fidel Castro is feeling young again. Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Chile are all electing left-wing governments that are challenging American domination. And in Venezuela the hero Hugo Chavez has stood against them over and over and over again.
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Chavez was twice overthrown on America's orders, and twice the poor masses of the slums of Caracas poured onto the streets in their millions and reinstalled him in the president's house. America cannot dare to touch his head, because if they harm Hugo Chavez, a fire will erupt in Latin America which will engulf them.
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So I say to you, citizens of the last Arab country, this is a time for courage, for unity, for wisdom, for determination, to face these enemies with the dignity your president has shown, and I believe, God willing, we will prevail and triumph, fwa-salam aleikum.
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