Kurt Pitzer has met killers who have just as much humanity as he does.

Question: How has your view of human nature changed?

Pitzer:    I have a much broader view of human nature now because I’ve seen and I’ve met, and some level been, become friends with people who have killed and people have been “enemies of the Unites States” who are human just as I am.  And we may have very different backgrounds and ideologies and views of the world, but there’s some basic level, and this is what you look for, this is the thing that you hope to find, the common ground between the them and the us, and that’s [what I go and] say.  I think, you know, part of what you’re trying to do, although, there is no objectivity in journalism is to try to remove yourself or at least recognize your own biases and points of view.  And when you say atrocity, try to look at it from every angle, because there are many people out there who have committed atrocities who believe they’re in a war.  And before judging that good or bad, it’s important, I think, to look at it as from as many different sides as possible.  They’re people who believe that United States is committing atrocities by bombing civilians.  And before you judge that too, I think it’s important to sort of walk around it and try to see it from all sides.