The Real Questions About the Boston Attack

With so few answers on hand about motives behind the Boston bombings, are we asking the right questions? Columnist Glenn Greenwald tells Bill that, if there is a connection between the perpetrators and radical terrorist groups, we need to investigate why “there seem to be so many people from so many different parts of the world willing to risk their lives or their liberty in order to bring violence to the United States, including to random Americans whom they don’t know.”

Greenwald rejects the oft-given answer: “They hate us for our freedom.”

“People are very cynical about that answer and realize that’s not really the reason,” says Greenwald. “When [terrorists] are heard, which is rare, about what their motive was, invariably they cite the fact that they have become so enraged by what Americans are doing to Muslims around the world, to their countries in terms of bombing them, imprisoning them without charges, drone attacking them, interfering in their governments, propping up their dictators, that they feel that they have not only the right, but the duty to attack America back.”

Watch the full conversation between Bill Moyers and Glenn Greenwald on this weekend’s Moyers & Company.