Greenwald: Why is Boston 'terrorism' but not Aurora, Sandy Hook, Tucson and Columbine?

[Xithras]

100. In the end, Boston may not end up being classified as an act of terrorism.

The only person who knows for sure whether or not it was terrorism is lying in a hospital bed right now, exchanging notes with the FBI.

One interesting tidbit that was discussed this morning is that the younger brother was apparently not a radical Muslim by any sense of the term. He wasn't active in any Muslim groups, and didn't attend any mosque. While its clear that his older brother did attend a mosque and may have held some fundamentalist views, we still don't know what his actual goal was with the bombing. One of the unanswered questions is still the lack of a claim of responsibility, which nearly always accompanies a terrorist attack.

In the end, the only difference between a "terrorist attack" and a common mass murderer is intent. It's like the difference between a beating being classified as a "hate crime" or a simple random assault. The physical results of the attack are identical, but the motivation of the attackers plays a big role in how we prosecute and penalize it.