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Religion, Fanaticism and Hate: Making Mass Murderers

Aired December 17, 2001 - 10:25   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: It is a dangerous combination, the marriage of religious fanaticism with absolute hate. Many say this is the spirit driving bin Laden.

But as CNN's Brute Norton now reports, Osama bin Laden is not the first to move forward in a deadly cause.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That two planes flew into the two towers...

BRUCE NORTON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Mass murderers. Why do they do what they do? What do they say about it? We know what Osama bin Laden felt -- joy. Religion, mixed with hatred for America.

Timothy McVeigh, hatred for the government. "What the U.S. government did at Waco and Ruby Ridge was dirty. I gave dirty back to them at Oklahoma City." If he'd known there was a day care center in the federal building, "it might have given me pause to switch targets. That's a large amount of collateral damage." His phrase for the 15 children who died in the center.

Pol Pot, the Cambodian, who, most estimates say, killed between 1 and 2 million people in his small country. Told a reporter the year before he died: "My conscious is clear."

William Calley who fired and ordered his platoon to fire at unarmed men, women, children and babies at a village in Vietnam called My Lai. "There wasn't any big deal, sir," he said at his court martial. "They were all the enemy, to be destroyed."

And, finally, Adolph Eichmann, Adolph Hitler's man in charge of the final solution to the Jewish problem. The solution, of course, was to kill all of the Jews, and while Eichmann didn't manage that, he tried. Years later, Israeli agents kidnapped him in Argentina and put him on trial. His defense basically was, "I did as I was ordered." He was convicted and put to death.

Except for Calley, whose court martial I covered, and who always seemed to me, simply a very young man, who should not have commanded a platoon and who came apart under the severe stresses of that war -- except for Calley, there is a common denominator here. Fanaticism, the belief that my morality is the only true way. That my judgments are supreme. That seems to be true, whether it's bin Laden's hate-filled version of Islam, McVeigh's hatred of his country's government, Pol Pot's genocidal version of Moaism, Eichmann's allegiance to what was almost a religion, a racist doctrine, which preached, "One country, one people, one leader." With no room for outsiders like the Jews.

Hatred unites them and arrogance. The notion that when it comes to right and wrong, only can I decide.

I'm Bruce Norton.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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