We've all read about the terrible death toll from the recent London bombings, and other news apparently proving it was the work of Al Quida sympathizers. I was initially surprised that it was such big news; I had thought the IRA blew up that much and more on a monthly basis for a couple of decades, but I guess they were more into personalized murder and bank robbery, rather than creating a massive death toll. Anyway, the very liberal London mayor
has made some comments about the bombings, and his comments are, for some reason, considered very controversial.
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.
Honestly, what is there to argue about that? I mean it's a hard truth, and it sucks to look in the mirror, but his comments seem perfectly logical and historically-accurate to me. He's being savaged for them anyway, of course, despite the fact that most Britians are savvy enough to agree with him.
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."
It's funny how much some people hate to face reality and the complexities of it. Some of those on the US right wing are fond of saying liberals "hate America" and that they "blame America" and that terrorists "hate freedom." I always assume that's sort of sarcastic hyperbole. No adult could really see the issue in such blacks and whites, could they? I mean really, they have to know better and know that the London mayor is speaking the truth; they just choose to go on the crazy attack against him since it's easier than being an adult and facing up to the realities of a complex situation.
I can see the temptation to just say, "We're prefect, they're crazy, we've done nothing wrong." but I could never do it. It seems laughable to me, to try and boil down such complex issues to something so stupidly simple. As if there are these "bad guys" who sit around fuming at our freedom to have a Starbucks on every corner, and want to blow themselves up just out of spite. And honestly, if that was the real situation, and they hated us just for existing, we'd be screwed. It would be like fighting robots or alien invaders in some movie, and they'd never stop coming. They might not triumph ultimately, but they could certianly turn the world into one huge armed camp.
The fact that they are just people with a different perspective on things is good news, in my view. After all, points of view can be changed, and when/if their homelands are given some democratic freedom and shared economic prosperity, most of the support for war and suicide attacks will be gone. I'm not saying that the West should give into every demand and complaint, but it's pretty stupid to keep standing on the fire ant hill while insisting we simply need a stronger insecticide to keep our feet from being bitten.
