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Shock: Tom Brokaw Acknowledged That America's Attacks Abroad Increase the Risk of Attacks at Home
In a nation that often avoids acknowledging its own role
in intensifying cycles of violence, the public got a taste of the truth.
In 2008, the hysterical backlash to the above comment by Barack Obama's minister became a high-profile example of one of the most insidious rules in American politics: You are not allowed to honestly discuss the Central Intelligence Agency's concept of "blowback" without putting yourself at risk of being deemed a traitor to country.
Now, five years later, with America having killed thousands of Muslim civilians in its drone strikes and wars, that rule is thankfully being challenged -- and not by someone who is so easily smeared. Instead, the apostate is one of this epoch's most revered journalists -- and because of that, we will see whether this country is mature enough to face one of its biggest national security quandaries.
This is the news from Tom Brokaw's appearance on "Meet the Press" last Sunday. Discussing revelations that the bombing suspects may be connected to Muslim fundamentalism, he said:
"We have got to look at the roots of all of this because it exists across the whole (Asian) subcontinent and the Islamic world around the world. I think we also have to examine (America's) use of drones (because) 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 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."
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