In light of the recent attacks in London, it seems that some people are finally asking tough questions about suicide attacks. People are wanting to know what motivates the attackers, and how the attacks can be stopped.

On July 14th, in a speech on the floor of the House, Ron Paul cited research from the book Dying to Win by Robert Pape. Pape’s exhaustive research shows that our intervention in the Middle East leads to these attacks. Here’s a great quote from Paul’s speech:

The clincher is this: the strongest motivation, according to Pape, is not religion but rather a desire “to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory the terrorists view as their homeland.”

The best news is that if stopping suicide terrorism is a goal we seek, a solution is available to us. Cease the occupation of foreign lands and the suicide missions will cease. Between 1982 and 1986, there were 41 suicide terrorist attacks in Lebanon. Once the U.S., the French, and Israel withdrew their forces from Lebanon, there were no more attacks. The reason the attacks stop, according to Pape, is that the Osama bin Ladens of the world no longer can inspire potential suicide terrorists despite their continued fanatical religious beliefs.

The mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, provides another example. He recently said that intervention in the Middle East by Western nations, motivated by oil, along with oppression has caused spawned suicide attacks. Here’s a quote:

“I think we have just had 80 years of Western intervention in predominantly Arab lands because of the Western need for oil.”

“We have propped up unsavoury governments, we have overthrown ones that we didn’t consider sympathetic.”

“And 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 sent him off to kill the Russians in Afghanistan and they didn’t give any thought to the fact that once he had done that, he might turn on his creators.”

The London attacks were truly a tragic event. I am amazed to see someone as close to those events as the mayor of London mentioning that Britain may have actually had a hand in causing them. I can’t imagine that the public want’s to hear that right now, so it seems pretty courageous for Mr. Livingstone to come out and say it.

Can you imagine if Rudolph Giuliani had said something like this after 9/11?