War is an organized, armed, and often a prolonged conflict that is carried on between states, nations, or other parties^[1][2] typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political communities, and therefore is defined as a form of political violence.^[1][3] The set of techniques used by a group to carry out war is known as warfare. An absence of war (and other violence) is usually called peace.

In 2003, Nobel Laureate Richard E. Smalley identified war as the sixth (of ten) biggest problems facing the society of mankind for the next fifty years.^[4] In the 1832 treatise On War, Prussian military general and theoretician Carl von Clausewitz defined war as follows: "War is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will."^[5]

While some scholars see warfare as an inescapable and integral aspect of human culture, others argue that it is only inevitable under certain socio-cultural or ecological circumstances. Some scholars argue that the practice of war is not linked to any single type of political organization or society. Rather, as discussed by John Keegan in his History of Warfare, war is a universal phenomenon whose form and scope is defined by the society that wages it.^[6] Another argument suggests that since there are human societies in which warfare does not exist, humans may not be naturally disposed for warfare, which emerges under particular circumstances.^[7] The ever changing technologies and potentials of war extend along a historical continuum. At the one end lies the endemic warfare of the Paleolithic^{[citation needed]} with its stones and clubs, and the naturally limited loss of life associated with the use of such weapons. Found at the other end of this continuum is nuclear warfare, along with the recently developed possible outcome of its use, namely the potential risk of the complete extinction of the human species.

Etymology[link]

Mural of War (1896), by Gari Melchers.

The English word war derives from the late Old English (c.1050) words wyrre and werre; the Old North French werre; the Frankish werra; and the Proto-Germanic werso. The denotation of war derives from the Old Saxon werran, Old High German werran, and the German verwirren: “to confuse”, “to perplex”, and “to bring into confusion”.^[8] Another posited derivation is from the Ancient Greek barbaros, the Old Persian varhara, and the Sanskrit varvar and barbara. In German, the equivalent is Krieg; the equivalent Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian words for "war" is guerra, derived from the Germanic werra (“fight”, “tumult”).^[9] Etymologic legend has it that the Romanic peoples adopted a foreign, Germanic word for "war", to avoid using the Latin bellum, because, when sounded, it tended to merge with the sound of the word bello ("beautiful")

History of warfare[link]

Before the dawn of civilization, war likely consisted of small-scale raiding. One half of the people found in a Nubian cemetery dating to as early as 12,000 years ago had died of violence.^[10] Since the rise of the state some 5,000 years ago,^[11] military activity has occurred over much of the globe. The advent of gunpowder and the acceleration of technological advances led to modern warfare. According to Conway W. Henderson, "One source claims 14,500 wars have taken place between 3500 BC and the late 20th century, costing 3.5 billion lives, leaving only 300 years of peace (Beer 1981: 20)."^[12]

In War Before Civilization, Lawrence H. Keeley, a professor at the University of Illinois, says that approximately 90–95% of known societies throughout history engaged in at least occasional warfare,^[13] and many fought constantly.^[14]

The percentages of men killed in war in eight tribal societies, and Europe and the U.S. in the 20th century. (Lawrence H. Keeley, Archeologist)

Keeley explained several styles of primitive combat such as, small raids, large raids, and massacres. All of these forms of warfare were perpetrated by primitive societies. The use of the massacre by pre-state societies can be exhibited by the Dogrib tribes of the subartic in North America. The Dogrib tribe eventually destroyed the Yellowknife tribe by killing 4 men, 13 women, and 17 children which accounted for 20 percent of the population.^[10] This was a devastating blow from which the Yellowknife tribe never recovered. Keeley further explains how small raids are not organized due to the lack of leadership and any formal training. This causes raids to be short and quick with relatively low numerical casualties but may significantly damage a percentage of a population. The deficit of resources also can account for a lack of fortifications and defensive structures in primitive prestate societies. The protection provided by a defensive could not justify the valuable resources used and labor implemented to build it.^[10]

William Rubinstein wrote that "Pre-literate societies, even those organised in a relatively advanced way, were renowned for their studied cruelty ... 'archaeology yields evidence of prehistoric massacres more severe than any recounted in ethnography [ie, after the coming of the Europeans]'. At Crow Creek, South Dakota, as noted, archaeologists found a mass grave of 'more than 500 men, women, and children who had been slaughtered, scalped, and mutilated during an attack on their village a century and a half before Columbus's arrival (ca. AD 1325)' ".^[15]

In Western Europe, since the late 18th century, more than 150 conflicts and about 600 battles have taken place.^[16]

Japanese samurai attacking a Mongol ship, 13th century

The Human Security Report 2005 documented a significant decline in the number and severity of armed conflicts since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s. However, the evidence examined in the 2008 edition of the Center for International Development and Conflict Management's "Peace and Conflict" study indicated that the overall decline in conflicts had stalled.^[17]

Recent rapid increases in the technologies of war, and therefore in its destructiveness (see Mutual assured destruction), have caused widespread public concern, and have in all probability forestalled, and may hopefully altogether prevent the outbreak of a nuclear World War III. At the end of each of the last two World Wars, concerted and popular efforts were made to come to a greater understanding of the underlying dynamics of war and to thereby hopefully reduce or even eliminate it all together. These efforts materialized in the forms of the League of Nations, and its successor, the United Nations.

Shortly after World War II, as a token of support for this concept, most nations joined the United Nations. During this same post-war period, with the aim of further delegitimizing war as an acceptable and logical extension of foreign policy^{[citation needed]}, most national governments also renamed their Ministries or Departments of War as their Ministries or Departments of Defense, for example, the former US Department of War was renamed as the US Department of Defense.

In 1947, in view of the rapidly increasingly destructive consequences of modern warfare, and with a particular concern for the consequences and costs of the newly developed atom bomb, the initial developer of the concept of this bomb, Albert Einstein famously stated, "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."^[18] Fortunately, the anticipated costs of a possible third world war are currently no longer deemed as acceptable by most, thus little motivation currently seems to exist on an international level for such a war.

Still since the close of World War II, limited non-nuclear conflicts continue, and surprisingly enough, some outspoken celebrities and politicians have even advocated for the proclamation of another world war.^[19] Mao Zedong urged the socialist camp not to fear nuclear war with the United States since, even if "half of mankind died, the other half would remain while imperialism would be razed to the ground and the whole world would become socialist."^[20]

Ten largest wars (by death toll)[link]

Three of the ten most costly wars, in terms of loss of life, have been waged in the last century. These are of course the two World Wars, then followed by the Second Sino-Japanese War (which is sometimes considered part of World War II, or overlapping with that war). Most of the others involved China or neighboring peoples. The death toll of World War II, being 60 million plus, surpasses all other war-death-tolls by a factor of two. This may be due to significant recent advances in weapons technologies, as well as recent increases in the overall human population.

• 60,000,000–72,000,000 - World War II (1939–1945), (see World War II casualties)^[21][22]
• 36,000,000 - An Shi Rebellion (China, 755–763)^[23]
• 30,000,000–60,000,000 - Mongol Conquests (13th century) (see Mongol invasions and Tatar invasions)^[24][25][26]
• 25,000,000 - Qing dynasty conquest of Ming dynasty (1616–1662)^[27]
• 20,000,000 - World War I (1914–1918) (see World War I casualties)^[28]
• 20,000,000 - Taiping Rebellion (China, 1850–1864) (see Dungan revolt)^[29]
• 20,000,000 - Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945)^[30]
• 8,000,000–12,000,000 - Dungan revolt (China, 1862–1877)
• 7,000,000–20,000,000 Conquests of Tamerlane (1370–1405)^[31][32]
• 5,000,000–9,000,000 - Russian Civil War and Foreign Intervention (1917–1922)^[33]

Types of warfare[link]

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War, to become known as one, must entail some degree of confrontation using weapons and other military technology and equipment by armed forces employing military tactics and operational art within the broad military strategy subject to military logistics. War Studies by military theorists throughout military history have sought to identify the philosophy of war, and to reduce it to a military science.

Ruins of Guernica (1937). The Spanish civil war was one of Europe's bloodiest and most brutal civil wars.

In general, modern military science considers several factors before a National defence policy is created to allow a war to commence: the environment in the area(s) of combat operations, the posture national forces will adopt on the commencement of a war, and the type of warfare troops will be engaged in.

Conventional warfare is an attempt to reduce an opponent's military capability through open battle. It is a declared war between existing states in which nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons are not used or only see limited deployment in support of conventional military goals and maneuvers.

The opposite of conventional warfare, unconventional warfare, is an attempt to achieve military victory through acquiescence, capitulation, or clandestine support for one side of an existing conflict.

Nuclear warfare is warfare in which nuclear weapons are the primary, or a major, method of coercing the capitulation of the other side, as opposed to a supporting tactical or strategic role in a conventional conflict.

Civil war is a war where the forces in conflict belong to the same nation or political entity and are vying for control of or independence from that nation or political entity.

Asymmetric warfare is a conflict between two populations of drastically different levels of military capability or size. Asymmetric conflicts often result in guerrilla tactics being used to overcome the sometimes vast gaps in technology and force size.

Intentional air pollution in combat is one of a collection of techniques collectively called chemical warfare. Poison gas as a chemical weapon was principally used during World War I, and resulted in an estimated 91,198 deaths and 1,205,655 injuries.^{[citation needed]} Various treaties have sought to ban its further use. Non-lethal chemical weapons, such as tear gas and pepper spray, are widely used, sometimes with deadly effect.

Warfare environment[link]

The environment in which a war is fought has a significant impact on the type of combat which takes place, and can include within its area different types of terrain. This, in turn, means that soldiers have to be trained to fight in a specific types of environments and terrains that generally reflects troops' mobility limitations or enablers. These include:

British paratroopers inside one of the C-47 transport aircraft, September 1944 Warfare by objective: Defensive warfare Offensive warfare Warfare by doctrine: Attrition warfare/Fabian warfare Maneuver warfare Guerilla warfare Static warfare/Positional warfare Insurgency warfare Counterinsurgency warfare U.S. Marine Raiders gathered in front of a Japanese dugout, January 1944 Warfare by terrain: Jungle warfare Desert warfare Mountain warfare Arctic warfare Naval warfare Littoral warfare Urban warfare Amphibious Warfare

Behaviour and conduct in war[link]

The behaviour of troops in warfare varies considerably, both individually and as units or armies. In some circumstances, troops may engage in genocide, war rape and ethnic cleansing. Commonly, however, the conduct of troops may be limited to posturing and sham attacks, leading to highly rule-bound and often largely symbolic combat in which casualties are much reduced from that which would be expected if soldiers were genuinely violent towards the enemy.^[35] Situations of deliberate dampening of hostilities occurred in World War I by some accounts, e.g., a volley of gunfire being exchanged after a misplaced mortar hit the British line, after which a German soldier shouted an apology to British forces, effectively stopping a hostile exchange of gunfire.^[36] Other examples of non-aggression, also from World War I, are detailed in "Good-Bye to All That." These include spontaneous ceasefires to rebuild defences and retrieve casualties, alongside behaviour such as refusing to shoot at enemy during ablutions and the taking of great risks (described as 1 in 20) to retrieve enemy wounded from the battlefield. The most notable spontaneous ceasefire of World War I was the Christmas truce.

The psychological separation between combatants, and the destructive power of modern weaponry, may act to override this effect and facilitate participation by combatants in the mass slaughter of combatants or civilians, such as in the bombing of Dresden in World War II.^{[citation needed]} The unusual circumstances of warfare can incite apparently normal individuals to commit atrocities.^[37]

Effects of war[link]

Nations customarily measure the ‘costs of war’ in dollars, lost production, or the number of soldiers killed or wounded. Rarely do military establishments attempt to measure the costs of war in terms of individual human suffering. Psychiatric breakdown remains one of the most costly items of war when expressed in human terms.

—No More Heroes, Richard Gabriel^[16]

Disability-adjusted life year for war per 100,000 inhabitants in 2004.^[38]

  no data

  less than 100

  100-200

  200-600

  600-1000

  1000-1400

  1400-1800

  1800-2200

  2200-2600

  2600-3000

  3000-8000

  8000-8800

  more than 8800

The Apotheosis of War (1871) by Vasily Vereshchagin

On soldiers[link]

Soldiers subject to combat in war often suffer psychological and physical casualties, including depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, disease, injury, and death.

In every war in which American soldiers have fought in, the chances of becoming a psychiatric casualty – of being debilitated for some period of time as a consequence of the stresses of military life – were greater than the chances of being killed by enemy fire.

—No More Heroes, Richard Gabriel^[16]

During World War II, research conducted by US Army Brigadier General S.L.A. Marshall found that, on average, only 15% to 20% of American riflemen in WWII combat fired at the enemy.^[35] In Civil War Collector’s Encyclopedia, F.A. Lord notes that of the 27,574 discarded muskets found on the Gettysburg battlefield, nearly 90% were loaded, with 12,000 loaded more than once and 6,000 loaded 3 to 10 times. These studies suggest that most soldiers resist firing their weapons in combat, that- as some theorists argue- human beings have an inherent resistance to killing their fellow human beings.^[35] Swank and Marchand’s WWII study found that after sixty days of continuous combat, 98% of all surviving soldiers will become psychiatric casualties. Psychiatric casualties manifest themselves in fatigue cases, confusional states, conversion hysteria, anxiety, obsessional and compulsive states, and character disorders.^[35]

One-tenth of mobilised American men were hospitalised for mental disturbances between 1942 and 1945, and after thirty-five days of uninterrupted combat, 98% of them manifested psychiatric disturbances in varying degrees.

—14–18: Understanding the Great War, Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau, Annette Becker^[16]

Additionally, it has been estimated that anywhere from 18% to 54% of Vietnam war veterans suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.^[35]

Based on 1860 census figures, 8% of all white American males aged 13 to 43 died in the American Civil War, including about 6% in the North and approximately 18% in the South.^[39] The war remains the deadliest conflict in American history, resulting in the deaths of 620,000 soldiers. United States military casualties of war since 1775 have totaled over two million. Of the 60 million European soldiers who were mobilized in World War I, 8 million were killed, 7 million were permanently disabled, and 15 million were seriously injured.^[40]

Why?, from The Disasters of War (Los desastres de la guerra), by Francisco Goya, 1812-15. A collection of depictions of the brutalities of the Napoleonic-Peninsular War.

During Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, more French soldiers died of typhus than were killed by the Russians.^[41] Felix Markham thinks that 450,000 crossed the Neman on 25 June 1812, of whom less than 40,000 recrossed in anything like a recognizable military formation.^[42] More soldiers were killed from 1500-1914 by typhus than from all military action during that time combined.^[43] In addition, if it were not for the modern medical advances there would be thousands of more dead from disease and infection. For instance, during the Seven Years' War, the Royal Navy reported that it conscripted 184,899 sailors, of whom 133,708 died of disease or were 'missing'.^[44]

Les Grandes Misères de la guerre depict the destruction unleashed on civilians during the Thirty Years' War.

It is estimated that 378 000 people died due to war each year between 1985 and 1994.^[45]

On civilians[link]

Many wars have been accompanied by significant depopulations, along with destruction of infrastructure and resources (which may lead to famine, disease, and death in the civilian population). Civilians in war zones may also be subject to war atrocities such as genocide, while survivors may suffer the psychological aftereffects of witnessing the destruction of war. During the Thirty Years' War in Europe, for example, the population of the German states was reduced by about 30%.^[46][47] The Swedish armies alone may have destroyed up to 2,000 castles, 18,000 villages and 1,500 towns in Germany, one-third of all German towns.^[48]

Estimates for the total casualties of World War II vary, but most suggest that some 60 million people died in the war, comprising around 20 million soldiers and 40 million civilians.^[49] The Soviet Union lost around 27 million people during the war, about half of all World War II casualties.^[50] Since a high proportion of those killed were young men, the postwar Soviet population was 45 to 50 million fewer than post–1939 projections would have led one to expect.^[51] The largest number of civilian deaths in a single city was 1.2 million citizens dead during the 872-day Siege of Leningrad.

On the economy[link]

Once a war has ended, losing nations are sometimes required to pay war reparations to the victorious nations. In certain cases, land is ceded to the victorious nations. For example, the territory of Alsace-Lorraine has been traded between France and Germany on three different occasions.

Typically speaking, war becomes very intertwined with the economy and many wars are partially or entirely based on economic reasons such as the American Civil War. In some cases war has stimulated a country's economy (World War II is often credited with bringing America out of the Great Depression) but in many cases, such as the wars of Louis XIV, the Franco-Prussian War, and World War I, warfare serves only to damage the economy of the countries involved. For example, Russia's involvement in World War I took such a toll on the Russian economy that it almost collapsed and greatly contributed to the start of the Russian Revolution of 1917.

World War II[link]

One of the starkest illustrations of the effect of war upon economies is the Second World War. The Great Depression of the 1930s ended as nations increased their production of war materials to serve the war effort.^[52] The financial cost of World War II is estimated at about a trillion U.S. dollars worldwide,^[53][54] making it the most costly war in capital as well as lives.

By the end of the war, the European economy had collapsed with 70% of the industrial infrastructure destroyed.^[55] Property damage in the Soviet Union inflicted by the Axis invasion was estimated to a value of 679 billion rubles. The combined damage consisted of complete or partial destruction of 1,710 cities and towns, 70,000 villages/hamlets, 2,508 church buildings, 31,850 industrial establishments, 40,000 miles of railroad, 4100 railroad stations, 40,000 hospitals, 84,000 schools, and 43,000 public libraries.^[56]

Factors ending a war[link]

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Women and priests retrieve the dead bodies of Swabian soldiers just outside the city gates of Constance after the battle of Schwaderloh. (Luzerner Schilling)

The political and economic circumstances, in the peace that follows war, usually depend on the facts on the ground. Where evenly matched adversaries decide that the conflict has resulted in a stalemate, they may cease hostilities to avoid further loss of life and property. They may decide to restore the antebellum territorial boundaries, redraw boundaries at the line of military control, or negotiate to keep or exchange captured territory. Negotiations between parties involved at the end of a war often result in a treaty, such as the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, which ended the First World War.

A warring party that surrenders or capitulates may have little negotiating power, with the victorious side either imposing a settlement or dictating most of the terms of any treaty. A common result is that conquered territory is brought under the dominion of the stronger military power. An unconditional surrender is made in the face of overwhelming military force as an attempt to prevent further harm to life and property. For example, the Empire of Japan gave an unconditional surrender to the Allies of World War II after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (see Surrender of Japan), the preceding massive strategic bombardment of Japan and declaration of war and the immediate invasion of Manchuria by the Soviet Union. A settlement or surrender may also be obtained through deception or bluffing.

Many other wars, however, have ended in complete destruction of the opposing territory, such as the Battle of Carthage of the Third Punic War between the Phoenician city of Carthage and Ancient Rome in 149 BC. In 146 BC the Romans burned the city, enslaved its citizens, and razed the buildings.

Some wars or aggressive actions end when the military objective of the victorious side has been achieved. Others do not, especially in cases where the state structures do not exist, or have collapsed prior to the victory of the conqueror. In such cases, disorganised guerilla warfare may continue for a considerable period. In cases of complete surrender conquered territories may be brought under the permanent dominion of the victorious side. A raid for the purposes of looting may be completed with the successful capture of goods. In other cases an aggressor may decide to end hostilities to avoid continued losses and cease hostilities without obtaining the original objective, such as happened in the Iran–Iraq War.

Some hostilities, such as insurgency or civil war, may persist for long periods of time with only a low level of military activity. In some cases there is no negotiation of any official treaty, but fighting may trail off and eventually stop after the political demands of the belligerent groups have been reconciled, a political settlement has been negotiated, the combatants are gradually killed or decide the conflict is futile, or the belligerents cease active military engagement but still threatens each other. An example is the Chinese Civil War which essentially ceased by 1950 but the People's Republic of China fought diplomatically to isolate Taiwan, but it still threatens Republic of China (commonly known as Taiwan) with an invasion. For this reason, some historians consider the war not ended but continuing.

List of ongoing wars[link]

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Conflicts in the following list are currently causing at least 1,000 violent deaths per year, a categorization used by the Uppsala Conflict Data Program^[57] and recognised by the United Nations.^[58][59] The UN also use the term "low intensity conflict," which can overlap with the 1,000 violent deaths per year categorisation.^[60]

Start of conflict	War/conflict	Location	Cumulative fatalities	Fatalities in 2010/11
1964	Colombian Armed Conflict	Colombia	50,000+	1,000+[61]
1967	Naxalite-Maoist insurgency	India	~11,200	1,174+[62]
1978	Afghan Civil war	Afghanistan	600,000–2,000,000[citation needed]	10,461+ [63]
1991	Somali Civil War	Somalia	300,000[64]–400,000[65]	2,318+[66]
2004	War in North-West Pakistan	Pakistan	30,452[67]	7,435[68]
2004	Shia Insurgency in Yemen	Yemen and  Saudi Arabia	25,000[69]	8,000
2006	Mexican Drug War	Mexico	39,392+[70]	24,374[71]
2009	Sudanese nomadic conflicts	Sudan	2,000–2,500[72]	708
2011	Sudan–SPLM-N conflict	Sudan	1,500+	1,500+[citation needed]
2011	2011 Syrian uprising	Syria	3,000+[73]	3,000+

Efforts to stop wars[link]

Execution at Verdun at the time of the mutinies of 1917, when parts of the French Army refused to conduct further offensive operations.

Anti-war movements have existed for every major war in the 20th century, including, most prominently, World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War. In the 21st century, worldwide anti-war movements occurred ever since the United States declared wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2001, the US government decided to invade Afghanistan to fight against international terrorism that caused the September 11 attacks. Opposition to the War in Afghanistan spread all over the world. Protests occurred in cities in Europe, Asia, and all over the United States, criticizing its ineffectiveness and illegitimacy. However, they did not stop the US engagement in the war. As of now, the public view worldwide does not seem to favor the war. Organizations like Stop the War Coalition, based in the United Kingdom, keep working on campaigning against the War. They raise awareness of the war, organize demonstrations, and lobby the governments.^[74]

There also exist significant worldwide opposition to the Iraq War. The US engaged in the war to eliminate the weapons of mass destruction that the Iraqi government allegedly had developed. Critics oppose the war based on the argument of violation of sovereignty, civilian deaths, absence of the UN approval, and lack of justification. However, they did not stop the involvement again. Since then, the US government has been harshly criticized by the public, domestically and internationally, for its conduct during the war, especially in the killings of civilians. Even though the government has been counting the US soldiers up until now, they have refused to release numbers on the civilian deaths.^[75] Individual projects like Iraq Body Count project tries to reveal the actual number of deaths from the war based on journalistic data, showing the civilian effort to face the truth of war.

The Mexican Drug War, with estimated casualties of 40,000 since December 2006, has been recently facing a fundamental opposition.^[76] In 2011, the movement for peace and justice has started a popular middle-class movement against the war. It has won the recognition of President Calderon, who started the war, but has not ended it.^[77]

Governments also use the method of disarmament to stop and prevent the cost of war.

Motivations[link]

There is no scholarly agreement on which are the most common motivations for war.^[78] Motivations may be different for those ordering the war than for those undertaking the war. For example, in the Third Punic War, Rome's leaders may have wished to make war with Carthage for the purpose of eliminating a resurgent rival, while the individual soldiers may have been motivated by a wish to make money. Since many people are involved, a war may acquire a life of its own from the confluence of many different motivations.

The Jewish Talmud describes in the BeReshit Rabbah commentary on the fight between Cain and Abel (Parashot BeReshit XXII:7) that there are three universal reasons for wars: A) Economic, B) Ideological/religious, and C) Power/pride/love (personal).^[79]

The Ottoman campaign for territorial expansion in Europe in 1566, Crimean Tatars as vanguard. The Tatars essentially sought booty, especially slaves.

In Why Nations Go to War, by John G. Stoessinger, the author points out that both sides will claim that morality justifies their fight. He also states that the rationale for beginning a war depends on an overly optimistic assessment of the outcome of hostilities (casualties and costs), and on misperceptions of the enemy's intentions.

As the strategic and tactical aspects of warfare are always changing, theories and doctrines relating to warfare are often reformulated before, during, and after every major war. Carl Von Clausewitz said, 'Every age had its own kind of war, its own limiting conditions, and its own peculiar preconceptions.' ^[80] The one constant factor is war’s employment of organized violence and the resultant destruction of property and/ or lives that necessarily follows.

Psychoanalytic psychology[link]

Dutch psychoanalyst Joost Meerloo held that, "War is often...a mass discharge of accumulated internal rage (where)...the inner fears of mankind are discharged in mass destruction."^[81] Thus war can sometimes be a means by which man's own frustration at his inability to master his own self is expressed and temporarily relieved via his unleashing of destructive behavior upon others. In this destructive scenario, these others are made to serve as the scapegoat of man's own unspoken and subconscious frustrations and fears.

Other psychoanalysts such as E.F.M. Durban and John Bowlby have argued that human beings are inherently violent.^[82] This aggressiveness is fueled by displacement and projection where a person transfers his or her grievances into bias and hatred against other races, religions, nations or ideologies. By this theory, the nation state preserves order in the local society while creating an outlet for aggression through warfare. If war is innate to human nature, as is presupposed and predetermined by many psychological theories, then there is little hope of ever escaping it.

The Italian psychoanalyst Franco Fornari, a follower of Melanie Klein, thought that war was the paranoid or projective “elaboration” of mourning.^[83] Fornari thought that war and violence develop out of our “love need”: our wish to preserve and defend the sacred object to which we are attached, namely our early mother and our fusion with her. For the adult, nations are the sacred objects that generate warfare. Fornari focused upon sacrifice as the essence of war: the astonishing willingness of human beings to die for their country, to give over their bodies to their nation.

Despite Fornari's theory that man's altruistic desire for self-sacrifice for a noble cause is a contributing factor towards war, in history only a tiny fraction of wars have originated from a desire for war from the general populace.^[84] Far more often the general population has been reluctantly drawn into war by its rulers. One psychological theory that looks at the leaders is advanced by Maurice Walsh.^[85] He argues that the general populace is more neutral towards war and that wars only occur when leaders with a psychologically abnormal disregard for human life are placed into power. War is caused by leaders that seek war such as Napoleon and Hitler. Such leaders most often come to power in times of crisis when the populace opts for a decisive leader, who then leads the nation to war.

Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. ... the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country. – Hermann Göring at the Nuremberg trials, April 18, 1946^[86]

Evolutionary theories[link]

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Several theories concern the evolutionary origins of warfare. There are two main schools one sees organized warfare as emerging only in the mesolithic, as a result of the emergence of complex social organization, higher population density and political organization and competition over resources. The other school tends to see human warfare simply as an extension of animal behavior, such as territoriality and sexual competition.^[87]

This school argues that since organized warlike behavior patterns are also found in many other primate species such as chimpanzees,^[88] as well as in many ant species,^[89] this suggests that between group conflict is a general feature of animal social behavior. Biologists studying primate behavior have added to the debate, documenting warlike activities among several primate species and seeing similarities to humans.^[90] Others argue that while war may be a natural phenomenon, the development of technology and complex social organization has accelerated the scale of warfare to exceptional levels among modern humans, starting at some point in the mesolithic, and escalating with the development of weaponry and large-scale state formations.^[91]

Dayak headhunters in Borneo, ca. 1927

One line of evidence for violent conflict among the ancestors of humans is sexual dimorphism. In species that have high levels of male competition over females, males tend to be larger and stronger than females. Humans have considerable sexual dimorphism, although lower than our nearest primate relatives.^[92] The strength difference is greater for upper-body strength than for lower-body strength. Men are in general terms also larger, faster, and more aggressive. Their skeleton, especially in the vulnerable face, is more robust. This suggests that male competition has been an important factor in human evolution.^[93]

Steven Pinker in his book The Blank Slate argues that raiding or warfare between groups of humans in the ancestral environment was often beneficial for the victors. This includes gaining control over scarce resources as well as the women of the defeated or raided group. Various features of modern warfare such as alliances between groups and preemptive wars were likely part of these conflicts. In order to have a credible deterrence against other groups (as well as on an individual level), it was important to have a reputation for retaliation, causing humans to develop instincts for revenge as well as for protecting a group's (or an individual's) reputation ("honor"). Pinker argues that the development of the state and the police have dramatically reduced the level of warfare and violence compared to the ancestral environment. Whenever the state breaks down, which can be very locally such as in poor areas of a city, humans again organize in groups for protection and aggression and concepts such as violent revenge and protecting honor again become extremely important.

Ashley Montagu strongly denied universalistic instinctual arguments, arguing that social factors and childhood socialization are important in determining the nature and presence of warfare. Thus, he argues, while human aggression may be a universal occurrence, warfare is not, and would appear to have been a historical invention, associated with certain types of human societies.^[94] This argument has been supported by ethnographic research conducted in societies where the concept of aggression seems to be entirely absent, e.g., the Chewong of the Malay peninsula.^[95] Crofoot and Wrangham have instead argued that warfare, if defined as group interactions in which "coalitions attempt to aggressively dominate or kill members of other groups", is a characteristic of most human societies. Those in which it has been lacking "tend to be societies that were politically dominated by their neighbors".^[96]

Economic theories[link]

Kuwaiti oil wells on fire, during the Gulf War, 1 March 1991

War can be seen as a growth of economic competition in a competitive international system. In this view wars begin as a pursuit of markets for natural resources and for wealth. While this theory has been applied to many conflicts, such counter arguments become less valid as the increasing mobility of capital and information level the distributions of wealth worldwide, or when considering that it is relative, not absolute, wealth differences that may fuel wars. There are those on the extreme right of the political spectrum who provide support, fascists in particular, by asserting a natural right of a strong nation to whatever the weak cannot hold by force.^[97][98] Some centrist, capitalist, world leaders, including Presidents of the United States and US Generals, expressed support for an economic view of war.

Is there any man, is there any woman, let me say any child here that does not know that the seed of war in the modern world is industrial and commercial rivalry? – Woodrow Wilson, September 11, 1919, St. Louis.^[99]

I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. – Major General Smedley Butler (simultaneously the highest ranking and most decorated United States Marine (including two Medals of Honor) and Republican Party primary candidate for the United States Senate) 1935.^[100]

For the corporation executives, the military metaphysic often coincides with their interest in a stable and planned flow of profit; it enables them to have their risk underwritten by public money; it enables them reasonably to expect that they can exploit for private profit now and later, the risky research developments paid for by public money. It is, in brief, a mask of the subsidized capitalism from which they extract profit and upon which their power is based. – C. Wright Mills, Causes of World War 3, 1960.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. – Dwight Eisenhower, Farewell Address, January 17, 1961.

Marxist theories[link]

The Marxist theory of war is quasi-economic in that it states that all modern wars are caused by competition for resources and markets between great (imperialist) powers, claiming these wars are a natural result of the free market and class system. Part of the theory is that war will only disappear once a world revolution, over-throwing free markets and class systems, has occurred. German Marxist Rosa Luxembourg theorized that imperialism was the result of capitalist countries needing new markets. Expansion of the means of production is only possible if there is a corresponding growth in consumer demand. Since the workers in a capitalist economy would be unable to fill the demand, producers must expand into non-capitalist markets to find consumers for their goods, hence driving imperialism.^[101]

Demographic theories[link]

Demographic theories can be grouped into two classes, Malthusian theories and youth bulge theories.

Malthusian theories[link]

US Army soldiers in Somalia, 1993

Malthusian theories see expanding population and scarce resources as a source of violent conflict.

Pope Urban II in 1095, on the eve of the First Crusade, spoke:

For this land which you now inhabit, shut in on all sides by the sea and the mountain peaks, is too narrow for your large population; it scarcely furnishes food enough for its cultivators. Hence it is that you murder and devour one another, that you wage wars, and that many among you perish in civil strife. Let hatred, therefore, depart from among you; let your quarrels end. Enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulchre; wrest that land from a wicked race, and subject it to yourselves.^[102]

This is one of the earliest expressions of what has come to be called the Malthusian theory of war, in which wars are caused by expanding populations and limited resources. Thomas Malthus (1766–1834) wrote that populations always increase until they are limited by war, disease, or famine.^[103]

This theory is thought by Malthusians to account for the relative decrease in wars during the past fifty years, especially in the developed world, where advances in agriculture have made it possible to support a much larger population than was formerly the case, and where birth control has dramatically slowed the increase in population.

Youth bulge theory[link]

Median age by country. A youth bulge is evident for Africa, and to a lesser extent for South and Southeast Asia and Central America.

Youth bulge theory differs significantly from Malthusian theories. Its adherents see a combination of large male youth cohorts – as graphically represented as a "youth bulge" in a population pyramid – with a lack of regular, peaceful employment opportunities as a risk pool for violence.

While Malthusian theories focus on a disparity between a growing population and available natural resources, youth bulge theory focuses on a disparity between non-inheriting, 'excess' young males and available social positions within the existing social system of division of labour.

Contributors to the development of youth bulge theory include French sociologist Gaston Bouthoul,^[104] U.S. sociologist Jack A. Goldstone,^[105] U.S. political scientist Gary Fuller,^{[106][107][108]} and German sociologist Gunnar Heinsohn.^[109] Samuel Huntington has modified his Clash of Civilizations theory by using youth bulge theory as its foundation:

I don't think Islam is any more violent than any other religions, and I suspect if you added it all up, more people have been slaughtered by Christians over the centuries than by Muslims. But the key factor is the demographic factor. Generally speaking, the people who go out and kill other people are males between the ages of 16 and 30. During the 1960s, 70s and 80s there were high birth rates in the Muslim world, and this has given rise to a huge youth bulge. But the bulge will fade. Muslim birth rates are going down; in fact, they have dropped dramatically in some countries. Islam did spread by the sword originally, but I don't think there is anything inherently violent in Muslim theology.^[110]

Youth Bulge theories represent a relatively recent development but seem to have become more influential in guiding U.S. foreign policy and military strategy as both Goldstone and Fuller have acted as consultants to the U.S. Government. CIA Inspector General John L. Helgerson referred to youth bulge theory in his 2002 report "The National Security Implications of Global Demographic Change".^[111]

Palestinian militant with rifle, 2009

According to Heinsohn, who has proposed youth bulge theory in its most generalized form, a youth bulge occurs when 30 to 40 percent of the males of a nation belong to the "fighting age" cohorts from 15 to 29 years of age. It will follow periods with total fertility rates as high as 4-8 children per woman with a 15-29 year delay.

A total fertility rate of 2.1 children born by a woman during her lifetime represents a situation of in which the son will replace the father, and the daughter will replace the mother accounting for a small proportion of deaths to factors such as illness and accidents. Thus, a total fertility rate of 2.1 represents replacement level, while anything below represents a sub-replacement fertility rate leading to population decline.

Total fertility rates above 2.1 will lead to population growth and to a youth bulge. A total fertility rate of 4-8 children per mother implies 2-4 sons per mother. Consequently, one father has to leave not 1, but 2 to 4 social positions (jobs) to give all his sons a perspective for life, which is usually hard to achieve. Since respectable positions cannot be increased at the same speed as food, textbooks and vaccines, many "angry young men" find themselves in a situation that tends to escalate their adolescent anger into violence: they are

1. Demographically superfluous,
2. Might be out of work or stuck in a menial job, and
3. Often have no access to a legal sex life before a career can earn them enough to provide for a family. See: Hypergamy, Waithood.

The combination of these stress factors according to Heinsohn^[112] usually heads for one of six different exits:

Mexican soldiers detain cartel suspects in Michoacán, 2007

1. Emigration ("non violent colonization")
2. Violent Crime
3. Rebellion or putsch
4. Civil war and/or revolution
5. Genocide (to take over the positions of the slaughtered)
6. Conquest (violent colonization, frequently including genocide abroad).

Religions and ideologies are seen as secondary factors that are being used to legitimate violence, but will not lead to violence by themselves if no youth bulge is present. Consequently, youth bulge theorists see both past "Christianist" European colonialism and imperialism and today's "Islamist" civil unrest and terrorism as results of high birth rates producing youth bulges.^[113] With the Gaza Strip now being seen as another example of youth-bulge-driven violence, especially if compared to Lebanon which is geographically close, yet remarkably more peaceful.^[114]

Among prominent historical events that have been linked to the existence of youth bulges is the role played by the historically large youth cohorts in the rebellion and revolution waves of early modern Europe, including French Revolution of 1789,^[115] and the importance of economic depression hitting the largest German youth cohorts ever in explaining the rise of Nazism in Germany in the 1930s.^[116] The 1994 Rwandan Genocide has also been analyzed as following a massive youth bulge.^[117]

While the implications of population growth have been known since the completion of the National Security Study Memorandum 200 in 1974,^[118] neither the U.S. nor the WHO have implemented the recommended measures to control population growth to avert the terrorist threat. Prominent demographer Stephen D. Mumford attributes this to the influence of the Catholic Church.^[119]

Youth Bulge theory has been subjected to statistical analysis by the World Bank,^[120] Population Action International,^[121] and the Berlin Institute for Population and Development.^[122] Detailed demographic data for most countries is available at the international database of the United States Census Bureau.^[123] Statistic data about historical development of demographic and economic parameters over the last 200 years for each country can be visualized at Gapminder.^[124]

Youth bulge theories have been criticized as leading to racial, gender and age "discrimination".^[125]

Rationalist theories[link]

Rationalist theories of war assume that both sides to a potential war are rational, which is to say that each side wants to get the best possible outcome for itself for the least possible loss of life and property to its own side. Given this assumption, if both countries knew in advance how the war would turn out, it would be better for both of them to just accept the post-war outcome without having to actually pay the costs of fighting the war. This is based on the notion, generally agreed to by almost all scholars of war since Carl von Clausewitz, that wars are reciprocal, that all wars require both a decision to attack and also a decision to resist attack. Rationalist theory offers three reasons why some countries cannot find a bargain and instead resort to war: issue indivisibility, information asymmetry with incentive to deceive, and the inability to make credible commitments.^[126]

U.S. Marines direct a concentration of fire at the enemy, Vietnam, 8 May 1968

Issue indivisibility occurs when the two parties cannot avoid war by bargaining because the thing over which they are fighting cannot be shared between them, only owned entirely by one side or the other. Religious issues, such as control over the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, are more likely to be indivisible than economic issues.

A bigger branch of the theory, advanced by scholars of international relations such as Geoffrey Blainey, is that both sides decide to go to war and one side may have miscalculated.

Some go further and say that there is a problem of information asymmetry with incentives to misrepresent. The two countries may not agree on who would win a war between them, or whether victory would be overwhelming or merely eked out, because each side has military secrets about its own capabilities. They will not avoid the bargaining failure by sharing their secrets, since they cannot trust each other not to lie and exaggerate their strength to extract more concessions. For example, Sweden made efforts to deceive Nazi Germany that it would resist an attack fiercely, partly by playing on the myth of Aryan superiority and by making sure that Hermann Göring only saw elite troops in action, often dressed up as regular soldiers, when he came to visit.

The American decision to enter the Vietnam War was made with the full knowledge that the communist forces would resist them, but did not believe that the guerrillas had the capability to long oppose American forces.

Thirdly, bargaining may fail due to the states' inability to make credible commitments.^[127] In this scenario, the two countries might be able to come to a bargain that would avert war if they could stick to it, but the benefits of the bargain will make one side more powerful and lead it to demand even more in the future, so that the weaker side has an incentive to make a stand now.

Rationalist explanations of war can be critiqued on a number of grounds. The assumptions of cost-benefit calculations become dubious in the most extreme genocidal cases of World War II, where the only bargain offered in some cases was infinitely bad. Rationalist theories typically assume that the state acts as a unitary individual, doing what is best for the state as a whole; this is problematic when, for example, the country's leader is beholden to a very small number of people, as in a personalistic dictatorship. Rationalist theory also assumes that the actors are rational, able to accurately assess their likelihood of success or failure, but the proponents of the psychological theories above would disagree.

Rationalist theories are usually explicated with game theory, for example, the Peace War Game, not a wargame as such, rather a simulation of economic decisions underlying war.

Political science theories[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2008)

The statistical analysis of war was pioneered by Lewis Fry Richardson following World War I. More recent databases of wars and armed conflict have been assembled by the Correlates of War Project, Peter Brecke and the Uppsala Conflict Data Program.

There are several different international relations theory schools. Supporters of realism in international relations argue that the motivation of states is the quest for security. Which sometimes is argued to contradict the realist view, that there is much empirical evidence to support the claim that states that are democracies do not go to war with each other, an idea that has come to be known as the democratic peace theory. Other factors included are difference in moral and religious beliefs, economical and trade disagreements, declaring independence, and others.

Another major theory relating to power in international relations and machtpolitik is the Power Transition theory, which distributes the world into a hierarchy and explains major wars as part of a cycle of hegemons being destabilized by a great power which does not support the hegemons' control.

Military adventurism can sometimes be used by political leaders as a means of boosting their domestic popularity, as has been recorded in US war-time presidential popularity surveys taken during the presidencies of several recent US leaders.^[128]

War ethics[link]

Morning after the Battle of Waterloo, by John Heaviside Clarke, 1816

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This section may contain original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding references. Statements consisting only of original research may be removed. More details may be available on the talk page. (January 2010)

The seeming contradiction between warfare and morality has led to serious moral questions, which have been the subject of debate for thousands of years.^[129] The debate, generally speaking, has two main viewpoints: Pacifists, who believe that war is inherently immoral and therefore is never justified regardless of circumstances, and those who believe that war is sometimes necessary and can be moral.

There are two different aspects to ethics in war, according to the most prominent and influential thought on justice and war: The Just War Theory.^[130][131] First is Jus ad bellum (literally translated as "right to war"), which dictates which unfriendly acts and circumstances justify a proper authority in declaring war on another nation. There are six main criteria for the declaration of a just war: first, any just war must be declared by a lawful authority; second, it must be a just and righteous cause, with sufficient gravity to merit large-scale violence; third, the just belligerent must have rightful intentions – namely, that they seek to advance good and curtail evil; fourth, a just belligerent must have a reasonable chance of success; fifth, the war must be a last resort; and sixth, the ends being sought must be proportional to means being used.^[132][133]

Once a just war has been declared, the second standard, or aspect, is put into effect. Jus in bello, which literally translates to "right in war", are the ethical rules of conduct when conducting war. The two main principles in jus in bello are proportionality and discrimination. Proportionality regards how much force is necessary and morally appropriate to the ends being sought and the injustice suffered.^[134] The principle of Discrimination determines who are the legitimate targets in a war, and specifically makes a separation between combatants, who it is permissible to kill, and non-combatants, who it is not.^[134] Failure to follow these rules can result in the loss of legitimacy for the just war belligerent, and so thereby forfeit the moral right and justice of their cause.^[131]

In besieged Leningrad. "Hitler ordered that Moscow and Leningrad were to be razed to the ground; their inhabitants were to be annihilated or driven out by starvation. These intentions were part of the 'General Plan East'." —The Oxford Companion to World War II.^[135]

The Just War standard is as old as Western Civilization itself, and still has significant impact on thinking about the morality of wars and violence today.^[136] Just War Theory was foundational in the creation of the United Nations and in International Law's regulations on legitimate war.^[129]

These two positions generally cover the broad philosophical and ethical bents mainstream society. However, there are several theories on and about War which are in the minority in culture, but which, because of the influence they have had in recent history, demand mention here. These strains of thought on human society and war can be broken up into two main camps: Marxist and Fascist, both of which view war as purely practical.

Marxism, and other such historicist ideals, hold that history advances through a set of dialectics (as stated by Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus: thesis, antithesis, synthesis). Marx, and his followers, in particular held that history advances through violence. Marxism-Leninism, in fact, held the belief that outright incitement to violence and war was necessary to topple Capitalism and free the proletariat. In these theories, the question of ethics has no place, as the value of the war is entirely dependent on whether it advances the revolution or synthesis.

Fascism, and the ideals it encompasses, such as Pragmatism, Racism, and Social Darwinism, hold that violence is good.^[137][138] Pragmatism holds that war and violence can be good if it serves the ends of the people, without regard for universal morality. Racism holds that violence is good so that a master race can be established, or to purge an inferior race from the earth, or both. Social Darwinism thinks that violence is sometimes necessary to weed the unfit from society so that civilization can flourish. These are broad archetypes for the general position that the ends justify the means.

See also[link]

War portal

	Book: War
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

General reference

War-related lists

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: War

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Warfare

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: War

• Correlates of War Project
• Correlates of War 2
• Antiwar.com
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry
• Complex Emergency Database (CE-DAT) – A database on the human impact of conflicts and other complex emergencies.
• The Art of the War
• World War I primary source collection
• Death Tolls for the Major Wars and Atrocities of the Twentieth Century
• International humanitarian law – International Committee of the Red Cross website
• Customary international humanitarian law International Committee of the Red Cross
• International humanitarian law database – Treaties and States Parties
• Customary IHL Database

George Galloway MP
Galloway at a Stop The War protest in London, 24 February 2007
Member of Parliament for Bradford West
Incumbent
Assumed office 29 March 2012
Preceded by	Marsha Singh
Majority	10,140 (16.7%)
Member of Parliament for Bethnal Green and Bow
In office 5 May 2005 – 6 May 2010
Preceded by	Oona King
Succeeded by	Rushanara Ali
Majority	823 (1.9%)
Member of Parliament for Glasgow Kelvin
In office 1 May 1997 – 5 May 2005
Preceded by	Constituency created
Succeeded by	Constituency abolished
Majority	7,260 (27.1%)
Member of Parliament for Glasgow Hillhead
In office 11 June 1987 – 1 May 1997
Preceded by	Roy Jenkins
Succeeded by	Constituency abolished
Majority	4,826 (12.3%)
Personal details
Born	(1954-08-16) 16 August 1954 (age 57) Dundee
Citizenship	British
Political party	Respect (2004–present) Labour (1967–2003)
Residence	London
Website	www.georgegalloway.com

George Galloway (born 16 August 1954) is a British politician, author, journalist, and broadcaster, and the Respect Member of Parliament (MP) for Bradford West. He was previously an MP for the Labour Party, for Glasgow Hillhead and then its successor constituency Glasgow Kelvin from 1987 until 2005. He was expelled from the Labour Party in October 2003 because of his strident public opposition to the Iraq War.^[1] He subsequently became a founding member of the left-wing Respect Party, and was elected as the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005.^[2] In 2010, Galloway unsuccessfully contested the seat of Poplar and Limehouse, and in 2011 he unsuccessfully contested the Glasgow list for the Scottish Parliament, before being elected as an MP in the Bradford West by-election, 2012.^[3][4]

Galloway is well known for his campaigns in support of the Palestinians in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In the late-1980s Hansard records him delivering a ferocious assault on the Ba'ath regime, and Galloway opposed Saddam's regime until the United States-led Gulf War in 1991.^[5] Galloway is known for a visit to Iraq where he met Saddam Hussein, and delivered a speech, which ended in English with the statement "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability."^[6] He has always stated that he was addressing the Iraqi people in the speech.^[7] Galloway testified to the United States Senate in 2005 over alleged illicit payments from the United Nations' Oil for Food Programme.^[8]

Early and personal life[link]

Galloway was born in the Lochee area of Dundee to a Scottish trade unionist father and Irish republican mother.^[9][10] He describes himself as "born in an attic in a slum tenement in the Irish quarter of Dundee, which is known as Tipperary".^[11][12] He grew up in Charleston and attended Charleston Primary and then Harris Academy, a non-denominational school. During his school years at Charleston Primary and Harris Academy, he used to play football for the school team. As an amateur footballer, he went on to play for West End United U12s, Lochee Boys Club U16s and St Columbus U18s.^[13]

From 1979 to 1999, he was married to Elaine Fyffe, with whom he has a daughter. In 1994, he married Amineh Abu-Zayyad as a second wife in a Muslim ceremony (later after his divorce from his first wife, he and Abu-Zayyad also undertook a civil ceremony); Zayyad filed for divorce in 2005. In 2005, Galloway married as his third wife Rima Husseini, a Lebanese woman and former researcher, also in a Muslim ceremony. She gave birth to their first son in May 2007, and a second son in December 2011. In March 2012, Galloway married Putri Gayatri Pertiwi, a consultant with a Dutch research firm.^[14]

Galloway was raised as a Roman Catholic.^[12] By his own account he decided, at the age of 18, never to drink alcohol. He disapproves of it and describes it as having a "very deleterious effect on people".^[9][15] He stated at a March 2012 rally "We stand for justice and haqq" and "A Muslim is somebody who is not afraid of earthly power but who fears only the Judgment Day. I’m ready for that, I’m working for that and it’s the only thing I fear".^[16]

In a April 2012 New Statesman magazine interview with Galloway, Jemima Khan asserted that the politician had become a Muslim sometime around 2000, but had not advertised this fact.^[17] Galloway subsequently denied a ceremony had taken place: "I have never attended any such ceremony in Kilburn, Karachi or Kathmandu. It is simply and categorically untrue."^[18]

Labour Party organiser[link]

Galloway joined the Labour Party at 13 years old and, within five years, was secretary of the Dundee West Constituency Labour Party. His enthusiasm led him to become Vice-Chairman of the Labour Party in the City of Dundee and a member of the Scottish Executive Committee in 1975. On 5 May 1977, he contested his first election campaign in the Scottish district elections, but failed to hold the safe Labour seat at Gillburn, Dundee. He was defeated by the Independent candidate Bunty Turley. Galloway became the secretary organiser of Dundee Labour Party—the youngest ever Scottish chairman—in March 1981 at 26 years old.^[19]

In his mid-20s after a trip to Beirut in 1977,^[12] he became a passionate supporter of Palestine stating "barely a week after my return I made a pledge to devote the rest of my life to the Palestinian and Arab cause". He supported Dundee City Council which flew the Palestinian flag inside the City Chambers and was involved in the twinning of Dundee with Nablus in 1980,^[20] although he did not take part in the visit of Lord Provost Gowans, Ernie Ross MP and three City Councillors to Nablus and Kuwait in April 1981.^[19]

In 1981, Galloway wrote an article in Scottish Marxist supporting Communist Party affiliation with the Labour Party. In response, Denis Healey, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, tried and failed to remove Galloway from the list of Prospective Parliamentary Candidates. Healey lost his motion by 13 votes to 5.^[21] Galloway had argued that this was his own personal viewpoint, not that of the Labour Party. He once quipped that, in order to overcome a £1.5 million deficit which had arisen in the city budget, he, Ernie Ross and leading Councillors should be placed in the stocks in the city square: "we would allow people to throw buckets of water over us at 20p a time."^[22]

Galloway stood for a place on the Labour Party National Executive Committee in 1986; in a large field of candidates he finished second from the bottom. At the 1986 Labour Party Conference, he made a strong attack on the Labour Party's Deputy Leader and Shadow Chancellor Roy Hattersley for not favouring exchange controls.

War on Want[link]

From November 1983 to 1987, Galloway was General Secretary of War on Want, a British charity that campaigns against poverty worldwide. In this post he was much travelled, writing eye-witness accounts of the famine in Eritrea in 1985 which were published in The Sunday Times and The Spectator.^[23]

The Daily Mirror accused him of living luxuriously at the charity's expense.^[24] An independent auditor cleared him of misuse of funds,^[25] though he did repay £1,720 in contested expenses.^[26] He later reportedly won £155,000 from "The Mirror in an unrelated libel lawsuit.^[27]

More than two years after Galloway stepped down to serve as a Labour MP, the UK Government investigated War on Want. It found accounting irregularities from 1985 to 1989, but little evidence that money was used for non-charitable purposes. The commission said responsibility lay largely with auditors, and did not single out individuals for blame.^[25]

Reported Break In[link]

In an article published by the Daily Mail at the beginning of May 2012, it was asserted that staff at his £1.4 million London home had discovered items had been moved and curious objects were found in the house such as an empty bottle of gin and a gay pornographic video stashed in a closet. The culprit is thought to have been an unidentified homeless man.^[28] Galloway has increased security at his home to prevent any more homeless intruders.

Parliamentary career[link]

Member of Parliament for a Glasgow seat[link]

In the 1987 election, Galloway won Glasgow Hillhead constituency for the Labour Party from Roy Jenkins of the Social Democratic Party (who had briefly led that Party earlier in the decade) with a majority of 3,251. Although known for his left-wing views, Galloway was never a member of Labour's leftist groupings of MPs, the Tribune Group or the Socialist Campaign Group. In 2002, Galloway stated "I am on the anti-imperialist left... If you are asking did I support the Soviet Union, yes I did. Yes, I did support the Soviet Union, and I think the disappearance of the Soviet Union is the biggest catastrophe of my life."^[29]

Asked about a War on Want conference on Mykonos, Greece during his previous job, the new MP replied "I travelled and spent lots of time with people in Greece, many of whom were women, some of whom were known carnally to me. I actually had sexual intercourse with some of the people in Greece."^[30] The statement put Galloway on the front pages of the tabloid press and in February 1988 the Executive Committee of his Constituency Labour Party passed a vote of no confidence in him.^[30]

He gained re-selection when challenged by Trish Godman (wife of fellow MP Norman Godman) in June 1989, but failed to get a majority of the electoral college on the first ballot. This was the worst result for any sitting Labour MP who was reselected; 13 of the 26 members of the Constituency Party's Executive Committee resigned that August, indicating their dissatisfaction with the result.^[31]

In 1990, a classified advertisement appeared in the Labour-Left weekly Tribune headed "Lost: MP who answers to the name of George", "balding and has been nicknamed gorgeous", claiming that the lost MP had been seen in Romania but had not been to a constituency meeting for a year. A telephone number was given which turned out to be for the Groucho Club in London, from which Galloway had recently been excluded (although subsequently readmitted). Galloway threatened legal action and pointed out that he had been to five constituency meetings. He eventually settled for an out-of-court payment by Tribune.

The leadership election of the Labour Party in 1992 saw Galloway voting for the eventual winners, John Smith for Leader and Margaret Beckett as Deputy Leader. In 1994, after Smith's death, Galloway declined to cast a vote in the leadership election (one of only three MPs to do so). In a debate with the Leader of the Scottish National Party Alex Salmond, Galloway responded to one of Salmond's jibes against the Labour Party by declaring "I don't give a fuck what Tony Blair thinks."^[31]

Although facing a challenge for the Labour nomination for the seat of Glasgow Kelvin in 1997, Galloway defeated Shiona Waldron. He was unchallenged for the nomination in 2001.

In the 1997 and 2001 elections Galloway was the Labour candidate for the seat of Glasgow Kelvin, winning with majorities of over 16,000 and 12,000 respectively. During the 2001 Parliament, he voted against the Whip 27 times. During the 2001–02 session he was the 9th most rebellious Labour MP.

Expulsion from the Labour Party[link]

Galloway became the Vice President of the Stop the War Coalition in 2001. He is actively involved, often speaking on StWC platforms at anti-war demonstrations. From this position Galloway made many aggressive and controversial statements in opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. These were the formal reasons for his expulsion from the Labour Party. He reportedly said in a 28 March 2003 interview with Abu Dhabi TV that Tony Blair and George W. Bush had "lied to the British Air Force and Navy, when they said the battle of Iraq would be very quick and easy. They attacked Iraq like wolves...." and added, "... the best thing British troops can do is to refuse to obey illegal orders."^[32] He called the Labour Government "Tony Blair's lie machine."^[33] The Observer reported in 2003 that the Director of Public Prosecutions looked at a request by the solicitor Justin Hugheston-Roberts to pursue Galloway under the Incitement to Disaffection Act, 1934,^[34] though no prosecution occurred.

On 18 April, The Sun published an interview with Tony Blair who said: "His comments were disgraceful and wrong. The National Executive will deal with it." The General Secretary of the Labour Party, citing Galloway's outspoken opinion of Blair and Bush in their pursuit of the Iraq war, suspended him from holding office in the party on 6 May 2003, pending a hearing on charges that he had violated the party's constitution by "bringing the Labour Party into disrepute through behaviour that is prejudicial or grossly detrimental to the Party". The National Constitutional Committee held a hearing on 22 October 2003, to consider the charges, taking evidence from Galloway himself, from other party witnesses, viewing media interviews, and hearing character testimony from Tony Benn, among others. The following day, the committee found the charge of bringing the party into disrepute proved, and so expelled Galloway from the Labour Party. Galloway called the Committee's hearing "a show trial" and "a kangaroo court".^[35]

2005 election[link]

In January 2004, Galloway announced he would be working with members of the Socialist Alliance in England and Wales, and others, under the name Respect – The Unity Coalition, generally referred to simply as Respect.

Galloway later announced that he would not force a by-election and intended not to contest the next general election in Glasgow. Galloway's Glasgow Kelvin seat was split between three neighbouring constituencies for the May 2005 general election. One of these, the new Glasgow Central constituency, might have been his best chance with a relatively large Muslim vote. However, his long-time friend Mohammad Sarwar, the first Muslim Labour MP and a strong opponent of the Iraq War also intended to go for it; Galloway did not wish to challenge him. After the European election results became known, Galloway announced that he would stand in Bethnal Green and Bow, the area where Respect had its strongest election results and where the sitting Labour MP, Oona King, supported the Iraq War. On 2 December, despite speculation that he might stand in Newham, he confirmed that he would be the candidate for Bethnal Green and Bow.

The ensuing electoral campaign in the seat proved to be a difficult one with heated rhetoric. The BBC reported that Galloway had himself been threatened with death by extreme Islamists from the banned organisation al-Ghurabaa. All the major candidates united in condemning the threats and violence.^[36] On 5 May, Galloway won the seat by 823 votes and made a fiery acceptance speech, saying that Tony Blair had the blood of 100,000 people on his hands and denouncing the returning officer over alleged discrepancies in the electoral process. When challenged in a subsequent televised interview by Jeremy Paxman as to whether he was happy to have removed one of the few black women in Parliament, Galloway replied "I don't believe that people get elected because of the colour of their skin. I believe people get elected because of their record and because of their policies."^[37] Jeremy Paxman during the same BBC interview accused Galloway of being a demagogue.^[37]

Oona King later told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that she found Paxman's line of question inappropriate. "He shouldn't be barred from running against me because I'm a black woman. ... I was not defined, or did not wish to be defined, by either my ethnicity or religious background."^[38]

"It's good to be back", Galloway said on being sworn in as MP for Bethnal Green after the May election. He pledged to represent "the people that New Labour has abandoned" and to "speak for those who have nobody else to speak for them."^[39]

Parliamentary participation statistics[link]

After he was suspended and later expelled from the Labour Party, Galloway's participation in Parliamentary activity fell to minimal levels. After speaking in a debate on Iraq on 25 March 2003, Galloway did not intervene in any way in Parliamentary debates or ask any oral questions for the remainder of the Parliament and his participation in House of Commons divisions was among the lowest of any MP.^[40]

Following the 2005 election, his participation rate remained low, and at the end of the year he had participated in only 15% of Divisions in the House of Commons since the general election, placing him 634th of 645 MPs. Of the eleven MPs below him in the rankings, one was the then Prime Minister Tony Blair, five were Sinn Féin members who have an abstentionist policy toward taking their seats, three were the speaker and deputy speakers and therefore ineligible to vote, and two had died since the election. Galloway claims a record of unusual activity at a "grass roots" level. His own estimate is that he made 1,100 public speeches between September 2001 and May 2005.^[41]

In September 2009, he still had one of the lowest voting participation records in parliament at 8.4% as a total of 93 votes out of a possible 1,113 divisions.^[42]

Suspension from the House of Commons[link]

On 17 July 2007, following a four-year inquiry, the House of Commons Select Committee on Standards and Privileges published its sixth report. The Committee concluded that there was no evidence that Galloway gained any personal benefit from either the former Iraqi regime, or from the Oil-for-Food Programme.

However, it found that Galloway's use of parliamentary resources to support his work on the Mariam Appeal "went beyond what was reasonable."

In response, Galloway stated

At a press conference following publication of the report, Galloway stated "To be deprived of the company for 18 days of the honourable ladies and gentleman behind me [in parliament] will be painful ... but I'm intending to struggle on regardless ... What really upset them [the committee] is that I always defend myself.^[46]

Candidate at other elections[link]

On 10 August 2007, Galloway confirmed he would stand in newly created constituency of Poplar and Limehouse^[47][48] where the Labour Party had a notional majority of 3,942.^[49] The Labour candidate was the current Poplar and Canning Town MP Jim Fitzpatrick. Galloway said he had planned to stand down from Parliament at the next election, but was prompted to stay on and fight to win the neighbouring east London constituency after he felt he was unfairly suspended from Parliament for 18 days. In the election Galloway was defeated, coming third after the Labour and Conservative candidates. He received 8,460 votes. Galloway headed the post-split Respect (London-wide) top-up list for the London Assembly election, 2008 but was not selected.^[50]

On 5 May 2011, in the Scottish Parliament general election, 2011, the Respect Party, on whose list Galloway was standing in the Glasgow electoral region, received 6,972 votes (3.3%), failing to achieve any seats in the Holyrood Parliament.^[51][52]

2012 by-election[link]

After the resignation of sitting Labour MP Marsha Singh due to ill health, Galloway returned to Parliament at the March 2012 Bradford West by-election in an unexpected landslide result, with Galloway calling it "the most sensational victory in British political history".^[53] His 36% swing from Labour was the third-largest in modern British political history.^[54]The result was seen as a major disappointment for Labour, with Galloway speaking of his belief that it showed the "alienation" of voters from the leading three political parties.^[55]

On 16 April, Galloway was sworn into Parliament by the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow.^[56]

Political views[link]

Galloway advocates greater spending on welfare benefits, and some nationalisation of large industries. Galloway is opposed to abortion, although he supports Respect's pro-choice stance. He opposes Scottish independence but supports the right of the people to vote on the matter via a referendum. He also supports the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. In the 2007 Scottish Parliament election, George Galloway supported Solidarity,^[57] despite not supporting all their policies, such as Scottish independence. Galloway has attracted most attention for his comments on foreign policy, taking a special interest in Libya, Pakistan, Iraq, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. According to the report Preventing terrorism, where next for Britain? from the counter-extremism think tank Quilliam, which receives private and public funding, Galloway is "Islamist backed".^[58] Inayat Bunglawala, chair of Muslims4Uk and a former MCB spokesperson, disagreed, saying: "This is just like something straight out of a Stasi manual. The advice from Quilliam is frankly appalling and incredibly self-serving."^[59]

Iraq and Saddam Hussein[link]

Galloway opposed the 1991 Gulf War and was critical of the effect the subsequent sanctions had on the people of Iraq. He visited Iraq twice and met senior government officials. His involvement caused some critics to deride him as the "member for Baghdad North". In 1994, Galloway faced some of his strongest criticism on his return from a Middle-Eastern visit during which he had met Saddam Hussein "to try and bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war". At the meeting, he reported the support given to Saddam by the people of the Gaza Strip and ended his speech in English with the statement "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability".^[60] In a January 2007 edition of the BBC's Hardtalk he stated that he was saluting the "Iraqi people".^[7] Galloway's speech was translated for Hussein. Anasal-Tikriti, a friend of Galloway's and a Respect candidate, spokesman for the Muslim Association of Britain said: "I understand Arabic and it [Galloway's salutation] was taken completely out of context. When he said "you" he meant the Iraqi people, he was saluting their indefatigability, their resolve against sanctions. Even the interpreter got it right and, in Arabic, says salutes the stand of the Iraqi people'."^[61]

In 1999, Galloway was criticised for spending Christmas in Iraq with Tariq Aziz, who was Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister. In the 17 May 2005, hearing of the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Galloway stated that he had had many meetings with Aziz, and characterised their relationship as friendly.^[62] After the fall of Saddam, he continued to praise Aziz, calling him "an eminent diplomatic and intellectual person". In 2006 a video surfaced showing Galloway enthusiastically greeting Uday Hussein, Saddam's eldest son, with the title of "Excellency" at Uday's palace in 1999.^[63] "The two men also made unflattering comments about the United States and joked about losing weight, going bald and how difficult it is to give up smoking cigars," according to The Scotsman.^[64]

In a House of Commons debate on 6 March 2002, Foreign Office Minister Ben Bradshaw said of Galloway that he was "not just an apologist, but a mouthpiece, for the Iraqi regime over many years." Galloway called the Minister a liar and refused to withdraw: "[Bradshaw's] imputation that I am a mouthpiece for a dictator is a clear imputation of dishonour" he said, and the sitting was suspended due to the dispute.^[65] Bradshaw later withdrew his allegation, and Galloway apologised for using unparliamentary language. In August 2002, Galloway returned to Iraq and met Saddam Hussein for a second time. According to Galloway, the intention of the trip was to persuade Saddam to re-admit Hans Blix, and the United Nations weapons inspectors into the country.^[66]

Galloway signing an asylum seekers petition, sitting on the edge of the StWC stage at the 2005 Make Poverty History rally.

Giving evidence in his libel case against the Daily Telegraph newspaper in 2004, Galloway testified that he regarded Saddam as a "bestial dictator" and would have welcomed his removal from power, but not by means of a military attack on Iraq. Galloway also pointed that he was a prominent critic of Saddam Hussein's regime in the 1980s, as well as of the role of Margaret Thatcher's government in supporting arms sales to Iraq during the Iran/Iraq war. Labour MP Tam Dalyell said during the controversy over whether Galloway should be expelled from the Labour Party that "in the mid-1980s there was only one MP that I can recollect making speeches about human rights in Iraq and this was George Galloway."^[67] When the issue of Galloway's meetings with Saddam Hussein is raised, including before the US Senate, Galloway has argued that he had met Saddam "exactly the same number of times as US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met him. The difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps the better to target those guns."^[68] He continued "I met him to try to bring about an end to sanctions, suffering and war".

During a 9 March 2005 interview at the University of Dhaka campus Galloway called for a global alliance between Muslims and progressives: "Not only do I think it’s possible but I think it is vitally necessary and I think it is happening already. It is possible because the progressive movement around the world and the Muslims have the same enemies. Their enemies are the Zionist occupation, American occupation, British occupation of poor countries mainly Muslim countries."^[69]

Israel and Palestine[link]

At a 22 July 2006 demonstration (and later in a Socialist Worker op-ed),^[70] Galloway stated "Hezbollah has never been a terrorist organisation!" The National Union of Students of the United Kingdom passed a motion condemning Galloway for this statement. In 2009, Galloway received a Palestinian passport from Hamas leader Ismail Haniya. Hamas are a considered a terrorist organisation by the European Union, and the US.^[71]

According to Al-Ahram, in a series of speeches broadcast on Arab television, Galloway described Jerusalem and Baghdad as being "raped" by "foreigners," referring to Israel's illegal annexation of East Jerusalem, and the war in Iraq.^[72]

In an interview with the American radio host Alex Jones, Galloway blamed Israel for creating "conditions in the Arab countries and in some European countries to stampede Jewish people ... into the Zionist state". Jones then alleged that the "Zionists" funded Hitler, to which Galloway replied that Zionists used the Jewish people "to create this little settler state on the Mediterranean," whose purpose was "to act as an advance guard for their own interests in the Arab world..."^[73]

Galloway was introduced as “a former member of the British Houses of Parliament” during a live interview with Qatari Al-Jazeera television, to which he responded: “I am still a member of parliament and was re-elected five times. On the last occasion I was re-elected despite all the efforts made by the British government, the Zionist movement and the newspapers and news media which are controlled by Zionism.”

Galloway expressed support for the Syrian presence in Lebanon five months before it ended, telling the Daily Star of Lebanon "Syrian troops in Lebanon maintain stability and protect the country from Israel". In the same article he expressed his opposition to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559, which urged the Lebanese Government to establish control over all its territory.^[74]

In an interview with the Hizbullah run Al-Manar TV, which aired on 26 July 2011 (as translated by MEMRI), Galloway accused Israel of being responsible for the assassination of Rafiq Al-Hariri, stating that "Israel was the only country with any interest and any benefit to gain from the assassination of the martyr Rafiq Al-Hariri. They are the ones who had the capability to do so, they are the ones who had the motive for doing so, and they are the ones who had the criminal record for doing so. How many hundreds of people has Israel killed in Lebanon? Assassination squads of people landing on the beach, and people planting bombs of one kind or another..." He further stated that "When this inquiry [the Special Tribunal for Lebanon] refused to lead in that direction, I knew it was a fake inquiry" and that "this process and all these individuals are completely discredited."^[75][76][77]

Several months earlier in a speech given in Edmonton, Alberta in November 2010, Galloway stated that

“I believe, and I don’t know anybody who is objective in this matter who does not believe, that Hezbollah are absolutely innocent of this crime, and it is time that the tribunal looked to the people who benefited from this crime..in Israel."^[78][79]

Blair and Bush[link]

At the national conference of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, on 30 June 2003, Galloway apologised for describing George W. Bush as a "wolf", saying that to do so defamed wolves: "No wolf would commit the sort of crimes against humanity that George Bush committed against the people of Iraq."

On 20 November 2004, George Galloway gave an interview on Abu Dhabi TV in which he said:^[80]

On 20 June 2005, he appeared on Al Jazeera English to lambast these two leaders and others.^[80]

On 3 February 2006, Galloway was refused entry to Egypt at Cairo Airport and was detained "on grounds of national security", where he had been invited to 'give evidence' at a 'mock trial' of Bush and Blair. After being detained overnight, he said Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak "apologised on behalf of the Egyptian people", and he was allowed to enter the country. After initial derogatory comments from Galloway^{[citation needed]} and a spokesman from his Respect party regarding Mubarak's pro-Western stance and ties to Bush and Blair, Galloway later commented: "It was a most gracious apology which I accept wholeheartedly. I consider the matter now closed."^[81][82]

Suicide bombings[link]

In the House of Commons, on the day of the 7 July 2005 London bombings that killed 52 people and injured hundreds more, and following a visit to the Royal London Hospital in his constituency where many of the victims had been taken, Galloway condemned the attacks strongly, but argued that they could not be separated from the hatred and bitterness felt among Muslims because of injustices in Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan, including injustices, he said, suffered as a result of British foreign policy:

Winding up the debate for the government in the last moments allotted, Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram described Galloway's remarks as "disgraceful" and accused Galloway of "dipping his poisonous tongue in a pool of blood."^[85] No time remained for Galloway to intervene and he ran afoul of the Deputy Speaker when trying to make a point of order about Ingram's attack. He later went on to describe Ingram as a "thug" who had committed a "foul-mouthed, deliberately timed, last-10-seconds smear."^[86] The men had previously clashed over claims in Galloway's autobiography (see below).

In an interview with Piers Morgan for GQ Magazine in May 2006, Galloway was asked whether a suicide bomb attack on Tony Blair with "no other casualties" would be morally justifiable "as revenge for the war on Iraq?". He answered "Yes it would be morally justified. I am not calling for it, but if it happened it would be of a wholly different moral order to the events of 7/7. It would be entirely logical and explicable, and morally equivalent to ordering the deaths of thousands of innocent people in Iraq as Blair did." He further stated that if he knew about such a plan that he would inform the relevant authorities, saying: "I would [tell the police], because such an operation would be counterproductive because it would just generate a new wave of anti-Muslim, anti-Arab sentiment whipped up by the press. It would lead to new draconian anti-terror laws, and would probably strengthen the resolve of the British and American services in Iraq rather than weaken it. So yes, I would inform the authorities."^[87] Christopher Hitchens claimed this to be a call for an attack while appearing not to.^[88]

Pakistan coup of 1999[link]

At the time of the 1999 Musharraf coup in Pakistan, he wrote, "In poor third world countries like Pakistan, politics is too important to be left to petty squabbling politicians. Pakistan is always on the brink of breaking apart into its widely disparate components. Only the armed forces can really be counted on to hold such a country together... Democracy is a means, not an end in itself and it has a bad name on the streets of Karachi and Lahore."^[89] Nonetheless, on his TalkSport talk radio show, Galloway has been outspoken in criticising the former Pakistani leader Pervez Musharraf.

Record on LGBT issues[link]

In 1994, Galloway voted in support of the equalisation of the age of consent for homosexuality (which was then 21 years) with that for heterosexuality at 16 years.^[90] He also voted against a reduction of the homosexual age of consent to 18.^[91] He voted in favour of permitting unmarried and gay couples to adopt children.^[92] Critics have claimed that his involvement in the leadership of Respect – which made no explicit mention of gay rights in its 2005 election manifesto^[93] and accepted donations from Islamic Party members^[94] – raise questions about commitment to those issues, as does his rather poor voting record in parliamentary divisions, 80% of which he missed, during the 2001-5 parliament while still a Glasgow MP.^[95] However, Respect's 2005 conference, in which Galloway took part, resolved that explicit defence of equal rights and calls for the end to all discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people would be made in all of its manifestos and principal election materials.^[96]

Galloway's assertion on The Wright Stuff chat show (13 March 2008) that the executed boyfriend of homosexual Iranian asylum seeker Mehdi Kazemi was executed for sex crimes rather than for being homosexual^[97] received criticism from Peter Tatchell, among others.^[98] Galloway also stated on The Wright Stuff that the case of gay rights in Iran was being used by supporters of war with Iran.

Humanitarian work[link]

Mariam Appeal[link]

In 1998 Galloway founded the Mariam Appeal, intended "to campaign against sanctions on Iraq which are having disastrous effects on the ordinary people of Iraq". The campaign was named after Mariam Hamza, a child flown by the fund from Iraq to Britain to receive treatment for leukaemia. The intention was to raise awareness of the suffering and death of hundreds of thousands of other Iraqi children due to poor health conditions and lack of suitable medicines and facilities, and to campaign for the lifting of the Iraq sanctions that many maintained were responsible for that situation.

The fund received scrutiny during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, after a complaint that Galloway used some of the donation money to pay his travel expenses.^[99] Galloway said that the expenses were incurred in his capacity as the Appeal's chairman. Although the Mariam Appeal was never a registered charity and never intended to be such, it was investigated by the Charity Commission. The report of this year-long inquiry, published in June 2004,^[100] found that the Mariam Appeal was doing charitable work (and so ought to have registered with them), but did not substantiate allegations that any funds had been misused.

A further Charity Commission Report published on 7 June 2007 found that the Appeal had received funds from Fawaz Zureikat that originated from the Oil For Food programme, and concluded that: "Although Mr Galloway, Mr Halford and Mr Al-Mukhtar have confirmed that they were unaware of the source of Mr Zureikat’s donations, the Commission has concluded that the charity trustees should have made further enquiries when accepting such large single and cumulative donations to satisfy themselves as to their origin and legitimacy. The Commission’s conclusion is that the charity trustees did not properly discharge their duty of care as trustees to the Appeal in respect of these donations." They added: "The Commission is also concerned, having considered the totality of the evidence before it, that Mr Galloway may also have known of the connection between the Appeal and the Programme".^[101] Galloway responded: "I've always disputed the Commission's retrospective view that a campaign to win a change in national and international policy—a political campaign—was, in fact, a charity."^[102]

Viva Palestina aid convoy[link]

In response to the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict, in January 2009 Galloway instigated the Viva Palestina aid convoy to the Gaza Strip. On 14 February 2009, after raising over £1 million-worth of humanitarian aid in four weeks, Galloway and hundreds of volunteers launched the convoy comprising approximately 120 vehicles intended for use in the Strip, including a fire engine donated by the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), 12 ambulances, a boat and trucks full of medicines, tools, clothes, blankets and gifts for children. The 5,000-mile route passed through Belgium, France, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.^[103]

On 20 February, Galloway condemned Lancashire Police after they arrested nine of the volunteers under the Terrorism Act a day before the convoy's launch. Galloway said: "The arrests were clearly deliberately timed for the eve of the departure of the convoy. Photographs of the high-profile snatch on the M65 were immediately fed to the press to maximise the newsworthiness of the smear that was being perpetrated on the convoy." Viva Palestina reported an 80% drop in donations following the broadcast of the arrests and the police allegations on the BBC.^[104]

The convoy arrived in Gaza on 9 March,^[105] accompanied by approximately 180 extra trucks of aid donated by Libya's Gaddafi Foundation. All the British aid was delivered with the exception of the fire engine and boat which were blocked by the Egyptian government. The boat is to be delivered later in a flotilla of craft which Viva Palestina intends to take into Gaza harbour.^[106] On 10 March 2009, Galloway announced at a press conference in Gaza City attended by several senior Hamas officials: "We are giving you now 100 vehicles and all of their contents, and we make no apology for what I am about to say. We are giving them to the elected government of Palestine," adding he would personally donate three cars and 25,000 pounds to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniya.^[107]

The Charity Commission opened a statutory inquiry into Viva Palestina on 23 March 2009, citing concerns over the finances, use of funds for non-charitable purposes, and the lack of "substantive response" to their repeated requests.^[108] George Galloway admitted that the appeal had not responded to the requests, but argued that a substantive response was anyway due to be passed to the Charity Commission only hours after they launched the inquiry. He argued that the Charity Commission's actions were suspicious, hinting that they might be politically motivated.^[108] On 8 April 2009, Galloway joined Vietnam War veteran Ron Kovic to launch Viva Palestina US.^[109]

A third Viva Palestina convoy began at the end of 2009. On 8 January 2010, Galloway and his colleague Ron McKay were deported from Egypt immediately upon entry from Gaza. They had been attempting to help take about 200 aid trucks into the Gaza Strip. They were driven by the police to the airport and put on a plane to London. The previous day an Egyptian soldier had been killed during a clash at the border with Hamas loyalists. Several Palestinians were also injured.^[110][111]

The Foreign Ministry of Egypt released a statement reading: "George Galloway is considered persona non grata and will not be allowed to enter into Egypt again". Shortly after his deportation Galloway said, "It is a badge of honour to be deported by a dictatorship" and "I've been thrown out of better joints than that."^[112][113] He also vowed to go back to the Gaza strip. The Daily Record described his mood as "defiant".^[113]

Controversy[link]

Oil for Food[link]

[edit] Daily Telegraph libel case

On 22 April 2003, the Daily Telegraph published news articles and comment describing documents found by its reporter David Blair in the ruins of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry. The documents purported to be records of meetings between Galloway and Iraqi intelligence agents, and state that he had received £375,000 per year from the proceeds of the Oil-for-Food Programme. Galloway completely denied the story, and pointed to the nature of the discovery within an unguarded, bombed-out building as being questionable. He instigated legal action against the newspaper, which was heard in the High Court from 14 November 2004.^[114]

On 2 December, Justice David Eady ruled that the story had been "seriously defamatory", and that the Telegraph was "obliged to compensate Mr Galloway ... and to make an award for the purposes of restoring his reputation". Galloway was awarded damages of £150,000 plus, after a failed appeal in 2006,^[115] legal costs of about £2 million.^[116]

The libel case was regarded by both sides as an important test of the Reynolds qualified-privilege defence. The Daily Telegraph did not attempt to claim justification (where the defendant seeks to prove the truth of the defamatory reports): "It has never been the Telegraph's case to suggest that the allegations contained in these documents are true".^[117] Instead, the paper sought to argue that it acted responsibly because the allegations it reported were of sufficient public interest to outweigh the damage caused to Galloway's reputation.^[118] However the trial judge did not accept this defence saying the suggestion such as Galloway was guilty of "treason", "in Saddam's pay", and being "Saddam's little helper" caused him to conclude "the newspaper was not neutral but both embraced the allegations with relish and fervour and went on to embellish them".^[116] Additionally Galloway had not been given a fair or reasonable opportunity to make inquiries or meaningful comment upon the documents before they were published.^[114]

The issue of whether the documents were genuine was likewise not at issue at the trial. However, it later transpired that the expert hired by Galloway's lawyers, a forensic expert named Oliver Thorne, said "In my opinion the evidence found fully supports that the vast majority of the submitted documents are authentic."^[119] He added "It should be noted that I am unable to comment on the veracity of the information within the disputed Telegraph documents, whether or not they are authentic."

Others[link]

The Christian Science Monitor also published a story on 25 April 2003, stating that they had documentary evidence that he had received "more than ten million dollars" from the Iraqi regime. However, on 20 June 2003, the Monitor reported^[120] that their own investigation had concluded the documents were sophisticated forgeries, and apologised. Galloway rejected the newspaper's apology, asserted that the affair was a conspiracy against him, and continued a libel claim against the paper.

The Christian Science Monitor settled the claim, paying him an undisclosed sum in damages, on 19 March 2004.^[121][122] It emerged that these documents had first been offered to the Daily Telegraph, but they had rejected them. The documents' origin remains obscure.

In January 2004, a further set of allegations were made in Al-Mada,^[123] a newspaper in Iraq. The newspaper claimed to have found documents in the Iraqi national oil corporation showing that Galloway received (through an intermediary) some of the profits arising from the sale of 19.5 million barrels (3,100,000 m³) of oil. Galloway acknowledged that money had been paid into the Mariam Appeal by Iraqi businessmen who had profited from the UN-run programme, but denied benefiting personally, and maintained that, in any case, there was nothing illicit about this:

The report of the Iraq Survey Group published in October 2004 claimed that Galloway was one of the recipients of a fund used by Iraq to buy influence among foreign politicians. Galloway denied receiving any money from Saddam Hussein's regime. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards had begun an investigation into George Galloway but suspended it when Galloway launched legal action.

US Senate[link]

Allegations[link]

In May 2005, a US Senate committee report^[124] accused Galloway along with former French minister Charles Pasqua of receiving the right to buy oil under the UN's oil-for-food scheme. The report was issued by the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Senator Norm Coleman, a Republican from Minnesota. The report cited further documents from the Iraqi oil ministry and interviews with Iraqi officials.

Coleman's committee said Pasqua had received allocations worth 11 million barrels (1,700,000 m³) from 1999 to 2000, and Galloway received allocations worth 20 million barrels (3,200,000 m³) from 2000 to 2003. The allegations against Pasqua and Galloway, both outspoken opponents of U.N. sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s, have been made before, including in an October report by US arms inspector Charles Duelfer as well as in the various purported documents described earlier in this section. But Coleman's report provided several new details. It also included information from interrogations of former high-ranking officials in US custody, including former Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz and former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan. Among the claims is that there is new evidence to suggest that the Mariam Appeal, a children's leukaemia charity founded by Galloway, was in fact used to conceal oil payments. The report cites Ramadan as saying under interrogation that Galloway was allocated oil "because of his opinions about Iraq."

Socialist Worker reported what they say is evidence that the key Iraqi oil ministry documents regarding oil allocations, in which Galloway's name appears six times (contracts M/08/35, M/09/23,^[125] M/10/38, M/11/04, M/12/14, M/13/48) have been tampered with. They published a copy of contract M/09/23 and allege that George Galloway's name appears to have been added in a different font and at a different angle to the rest of the text on that line. In these documents (relating to oil allocations 8–13), Galloway is among just a few people whose nationality is never identified, whilst Zureikat is the only one whose nationality is identified in one instance but not in others.^[126] Galloway combatively countered the charges by accusing Coleman and other pro-war politicians of covering up the "theft of billions of dollars of Iraq's wealth... on your watch" that had occurred under a post-invasion Coalition Provisional Authority, committed by "Halliburton and other American corporations... with the connivance of your own government."^[127][128]