Common Dreams: Mayor Blames Middle East Policy

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Published on Wednesday, July 20, 2005 by the BBC

Mayor Blames Middle East Policy

Decades of British and American intervention in the oil-rich Middle East motivated the London bombers, Ken Livingstone has suggested.

The London mayor told BBC News he had no sympathy with the bombers and he opposed all violence.

But he argued that the attacks would not have happened had Western powers left Arab nations free to decide their own affairs after World War I.

Instead, they had often supported unsavoury governments in the region.

Mr Livingstone was asked on BBC Radio 4's Today programme what he thought had motivated the bombers.

He replied: "I think you've just had 80 years of western intervention into predominantly Arab lands because of the western need for oil.

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http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0720-07.htm