Reverting to Form

London's Mayor, Ken Livingstone, surprised me on July 7 when he condemned the terrorist bombing in London. Livingstone is known as Red Ken because of his politics which tend to support Palestinian terrorists over Israel.

Red Ken returned to form in a recent statement in which he blamed the bombing on the war in Iraq and on "... 80 years of Western intervention into predominantly Arab lands because of a Western need for oil."

Ken's view of history overlooks a few important events such as World War II and the Cold War. Surly Ken is not going to blame current governments for Hitler's capture of the Arabian Peninsula as he drove into Africa. It is true that we supported several corrupt governments but the worst excesses were during the Cold War when tin-pot tyrants could take bids on which side would give them a better aid package.

As for the war in Iraq, it is an unknowable. Yes, the terrorists say that this is their motivation now but the shoe-bomber claimed that the sanctions on Iraq motivated him and no one ever made an official statement on what inspired September 11.

The punchline of a recent Doonsbury is that they hate us for our freedom.

Since Bush said it, it must be self-evidently false. Right?

Except they really do consider democracy an abomination to say nothing of Western culture which encourages all sorts of things banned by the Koran.

Would the London bombing have happened if England was not in Iraq? Maybe not. Would other bombings have happened elsewhere? Almost certainly. The problem is that there is no way to tell. Our lack of resolve in the face of previous bombings encouraged September 11. We have Osama's own word on it.

What about the flypaper analogy? Funny thing about real flypaper - it catches lots of flies but not all of them.