The headline on last nights Evening Standard read “Beckham met Madrid Bomber”. One of the suspected bombers was a huge Real Madrid fan and, towards the end of February, had waited outside the stadium where the team were training to get an autograph from his hero.

This morning’s Mail carried the following headline: “Beckham stalked by Madrid Bomber”.

It’s far easier for the media to vilify the suspect by describing him as “obssessed” and calling him a “stalker”, words and labels which automatically bring to mind a mental image of a sick, twisted and deranged sociopath, rather than accept that maybe he was just an ordinary guy. It’s far easier to think of him as an evil, scheming monster than as a man who loved his football, bought presents for his father and idolised his sporting hero just like hundreds, if not thousands, of British football fans do.

After all, he is suspected of planting the bombs that killed nearly 200 people and injured hundreds more.

I don’t mean to sound like I’m condoning the terrorist actions that took place on March 11th. Far from it. But it’s worth considering that the people who planted the bombs are still only human. I know what it’s like to love my father and to want to please him and buy presents for him, I can even say that I know what it’s like to wait patiently for hours for one of my “heroes” to autograph a piece of paper for me, as I’m sure many people can. But I can’t say I can pretend to understand the reasons why the bombers did what they did or how they could bring themselves to do it. I can’t say I can empathise with the type of belief, faith or religous fervour that they must possess to believe that what they were doing was in anyway justified or acceptable.

A couple of years ago I was privileged to hear Rudolph Guiliani speak at a conference I was attending in Florida. He spoke a lot about the virtues that a good leader should possess, lessons learned from his time as mayor of New York during the 9/11 disaster and the aftermath that followed. I remember he talked about Ronald Reagan (who nominated Guiliani for the position of U.S. Attorney for the Southern States of New York, thereby putting him on the path to subsequent political glory). He said that, despite many peoples criticism of Reagans policies and decisions, he admired the former president because he stuck to his guns. Because he had a fervent belief that what he was doing was the right thing to do, regardless of the opposition that he faced.

This earned him a standing ovation from the crowd. But not from me.

I couldn’t help but think that the likes of Osama Bin Laden and the 19 terrorists who crashed those four planes on that fateful day also had a fervent belief that what they were doing was the right thing.

It seems to me that it’s possession of such unshakable faith and belief that allows a human to do inhuman things.