By Andrew Gray from Reuters 2005/07/20
LONDON (Reuters) - Western foreign policy has fueled the Islamist
radicalism behind the bomb attacks which killed more than 50 people in
London, the British 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 unsavory
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 Britain more
of a target for terrorists.
That did not stop the right-wing Daily Telegraph castigating Livingstone,
a maverick member of Blair's 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 toward 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.
LONDON (Reuters) - Western foreign policy has fueled the Islamist
radicalism behind the bomb attacks which killed more than 50 people in
London, the British 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 unsavory
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 Britain more
of a target for terrorists.
That did not stop the right-wing Daily Telegraph castigating Livingstone,
a maverick member of Blair's 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 toward 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.
