On Sunday's NBC Meet the Press, special correspondent Tom
Brokaw used a discussion on the Boston Marathon bombings to argue more
broadly that the "roots" of anti-American terrorism across the Islamic
world are U.S. drone attacks: "I think we also have to examine
the use of drones that the United States is involved in and – and there
are a lot of civilians who are innocently killed in a drone attack in
Pakistan, in Afghanistan, and in Iraq." [Listen to the audio [1]]
Brokaw began by wondering: "We have to work a lot harder at a
motivation here. What prompts a young man to come to this country and
still feel alienated from it, to go back to Russia and do whatever he
did? And I don't think we've examined that enough." Speaking of people
in the Middle East, Brokaw warned: "There is this enormous rage against what they see in that part of the world as a presumptuousness of the United States."
The day after the bombing, Brokaw appeared on Today to caution his media colleagues [2] against jumping to conclusions about the motivation of the attack.
Here is a transcript of Brokaw's April 21 Meet the Press comments:
11:11AM ET
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TOM BROKAW: But I think that there's something else that goes beyond the event that we've all been riveted by in the last week. We have to work a lot harder at a motivation here. What prompts a young man to come to this country and still feel alienated from it, to go back to Russia and do whatever he did? And I don't think we've examined that enough. I mean, there was 24/7 coverage on television, a lot of newspaper print and so on, but we've got to look at the roots of all of this because it exists across the whole subcontinent, and the – and the Islamic world, around the world.
And I think we also have to examine the use of drones that the United States is involved in and – and there are a lot of civilians who are innocently killed in a drone attack in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, and in Iraq. And I can tell you having spent a lot of time over there, young people will come up to me on the streets and say, "We love America. But if you harm one hair on the – on the head of my sister, I will fight you forever." And there is this enormous rage against what they see in that part of the world as a presumptuousness of the United States.
(...)
