Posted on 07/20/2005 6:41:38 AM PDT by Alex Marko
LONDON (Reuters) - Western foreign policy has fuelled the Islamist radicalism behind the bomb attacks which killed more than 50 people in London, the capital's mayor Ken Livingstone said on Wednesday.
Livingstone, who earned the nickname "Red Ken" for his left-wing views, won widespread praise for a defiant response which helped unite London after the bombings. But he has revived his reputation for courting controversy in recent days.
Asked on Wednesday what he thought had motivated the four suspected suicide bombers, Livingstone cited Western policy in the Middle East and early American backing for Osama bin Laden.
"A lot of young people see the double standards, they see what happens in (U.S. detention camp) Guantanamo Bay, and they just think that there isn't a just foreign policy," he said.
Police say they believe there is a clear link between bin Laden's al Qaeda network and the four British Muslims who blew up three underground trains and a double-decker bus on July 7.
"You've just had 80 years of Western intervention into predominantly Arab lands because of a Western need for oil. We've propped up unsavoury governments, we've overthrown ones that we didn't consider sympathetic," Livingstone said.
"I think the particular problem we have at the moment is that in the 1980s ... the Americans recruited and trained Osama bin Laden, taught him how to kill, to make bombs, and set him off to kill the Russians to drive them out of Afghanistan.
"They didn't give any thought to the fact that once he'd done that, he might turn on his creators," he told BBC radio.
ANGER OVER IRAQ
Prime Minister Tony Blair's government has insisted the bombings have no link to its foreign policy, particularly its decision to invade Iraq alongside the United States.
But an opinion poll this week showed two-thirds of Britons see a connection between the Iraq war and the bombings. A top think tank and a leaked intelligence memo have also suggested the war has made the country more of a target for terrorists.
That did not stop the right-wing Daily Telegraph castigating Livingstone, a maverick member of the Labour party who was celebrating London's selection as host of the 2012 Olympics just hours before the bombers struck.
Wednesday's edition of the paper featured a picture of the mayor between photographs of two radical Muslim clerics under the headline: "The men who blame Britain".
Livingstone has made clear he condemns all killing, including suicide bombing. But is also a long-standing critic of Israeli policies towards the Palestinians.
"If you have been under foreign occupation, and denied the right to vote, denied the right to run your own affairs, often denied the right to work, for three generations, I suspect if it had happened here in England, we would have produced a lot of suicide bombers ourselves," he said on Wednesday.
Israel's ambassador to London Zvi Heifetz accused the mayor of expressing sympathy for Palestinian militants.
"It is outrageous that the same mayor who rightfully condemned the suicide bombing in London as ‘perverted faith', defends those who, under the same extremist banner, kill Israelis," he said in a statement.
Red Ken. If even the liberal UK can come up with this name...he must be a commie!
I knew all along it was Bush's fault. . .
And I suppose the west also caused Mulims to kill Bhuddists in Thailand and Indonesia? And it was the west that caused Muslims to kill Africans? And it was the west that caused Muslims to kill Hindus?
Every time Islam comes into contact with another society they kill. The problem is not with the west, it is with Islam.
Well. That didn't take long. How do such people make it through the day, blinded by self-hatred as they so obviously are?
What a fricken idiot!
Not surprising that this nutcase couldn't keep his pro-Islamist, anti-Western bias under control for long.
There was a time not long ago when an imbecile like this, defending the barbaric slaughter of innocents, would be met by an angry mob outside his front door ready to tar and feather him.
You'd think this guy would have enough sense to keep his yap shut after 553 of his citizens were murdered. Brits can be a vengeful folk. Remember what they did to cromwell.
It sounds as if the shock's warn off a bit, and the good mayor has regrouped. His first reaction was disbelief that 'they'd' come after the 'little people'. (Presumably he didn't mean dwarves.) So he's back on the bash Bush/America bandwagon. God forbid he mention that big mosque on the corner with the mullah spewing hate and vans of industrial strength fertilizer being unloaded in the alley.
Uh, no, pinko. They are seeing a MSM made up version of what is happenning in Gitmo...
"Bend Over Ken"
Well, he's doing his best to insure that London is hit again.
You know, the London he's supposed to want to protect.
Is his position ceremonial or is he really in charge of security, police etc?
The biggest killers of Muslims are other Muslims, not Westerners. Of course, the terrorists don't care about that. It's only a crime when non-Muslims kill Muslims.
"Western foreign policy has fuelled the Islamist radicalism "
- This coming from a stooge who has probably never read the koran. What a moron.
"The problem is not with the west, it is with Islam."
Exactly.
And let's not forget 200+ of our Aussie friends killed on holiday in that Bali nightclub...
Really?! When Britain
oppressed the colonials,
did Jefferson or
Franklin strap on bombs
and sail over to London
to blow up people?!
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