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CNN Saturday Morning News

Is bin Laden's Mindset Similar to Hitler's?

Aired December 08, 2001 - 09:45   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.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: Osama bin Laden goofed. While he may still be eluding allied forces in Afghanistan, his resources are disappearing day by day.

CNN's Garrick Utley likens bin Laden to another well-known individual.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GARRICK UTLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): We can only wonder what is going through his mind. This is not the way Osama bin Laden thought it would play out, not with the defeat of his protectors, the Taliban, not with Afghan women taking off the burqa and men getting shaved and listening to once-forbidden music.

But it's the way it has turned out.

(on camera): What was his mistake? In war, the most important rule is, know your enemy. He didn't. In looking at the United States, he made the mistake of seeing what he wanted to believe.

(voice-over): In 1998, bin Laden said, quote, "We have seen in the last decade the decline of the American government and the weakness of the American soldier, who was ready to wage cold wars and unprepared to fight long wars."

Bin Laden had seen how the United States pulled out of Vietnam, how it did not attack Iran when the American embassy was seized, how it pulled its Marines out of Lebanon when their barracks was bombed and fled Somalia when U.S. soldiers were killed and dragged through the streets.

In his obsession with war on the United States, Osama bin Laden did not understand that it was one thing to attack American interests abroad, but quote another to take so many lives on American soil, an attack which ignited a different rage and response.

Does Osama bin Laden understand his mistakes? Or is he in terminal self-delusion?

(on camera): Which brings to mind another figure who confused obsession with reality, Adolf Hitler. This is not to equate the two or put bin Laden in Hitler's league of horrors and Holocaust. But the two share common traits and behavior which can lead to decisions that seal fates.

(voice-over): Both were driven by hate and deeply rooted grievances that their faith or nation had been mistreated. Blinded by their obsessions, each underestimated how fiercely their enemies would fight back. Each was put on the run, first by aerial bombardment, and then the military collapse of their forces.

When last seen, both were hunted men. One shot himself on this bed in a bunker in Berlin rather than be captured alive.

And the other? What will he do?

Garrick Utley, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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