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THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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BOBBIE BATTISTA, HOST: You circulated a declaration of war amongst fellow congresspeople up in Washington. I know you probably got a fair amount of signatures on that.
You ended up with an authorization of force. Is that enough?
REP. BOB BARR (R), GEORGIA: Certainly I support the president and whatever he believes is most appropriate as the commander in chief right now. My personal view is that we ought to be declaring war on international terrorism and those who harbor international terrorism.
(UNINTELLIGIBLE) that I, and others have proposed this, including (UNINTELLIGIBLE), former Ambassador to the U.N. Jean Kirkpatrick, former Education Secretary Bennett...
BATTISTA: We're having trouble with your mike. Let's switch it back.
BARR: Former -- former...
BATTISTA: You're good.
BARR: Is that OK? Former Speaker Newt Gingrich and a number of others is because only a declaration of war gives our president the maximum flexibility to proceed as he sees fit.
If we go the route, Bobbie, of simply proposing and then passing a specific military authorization for a particular purpose or period of time, that isn't sufficient to take us through the long haul or to contemplate all possible circumstances. That's why I think it's so important to do the -- to go the declaration of war route.
BATTISTA: Kind of eliminates a lot of paperwork, I think, is what you're saying.
BARR: Well, there are questions of international sovereignty that you surmount if you have a declaration of war under certain international conventions that you -- that you would otherwise have to worry about if you have simply a U.S. law authorizing force.
BATTISTA: What do you think is appropriate action at this point in time? BARR: I think it's appropriate to begin action very, very quickly to take out those international terrorist individuals, organizations and infrastructure that we already know about. We know a great deal about these people in these organizations, Bobbie, even though their elusive nature may mean that we don't know where a particular individual is at every moment in time. We know where most of them are. We know where their infrastructure is. We know where their funding comes from. We know who harbors them. So there is an awful lot that can be done quickly.
And I am not among those who subscribes to having to telegraph when we're going to do this. I believe that we ought to move quickly without any warning.
BATTISTA: We heard the president say pretty much that Osama bin Laden should be taken in dead or alive. So I assume that you agree with him that these terrorists should be eliminated rather than brought to justice or brought to trial?
BARR: I'll let -- I'll let the Lord worry about justice for them. I think we ought to take them out and take them out as quickly as we can locate them. I don't -- I don't think we need to worry about Miranda warnings in a war situation.
BATTISTA: Let me bring former Congresswoman Pat Schroeder into this. A declaration of war, do you think that's needed?
PAT SCHROEDER, FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: Well, obviously the problem is that we don't know the war against whom. But clearly, everybody wants action, and we want action when we really know who we can target it.
Now, I think Congressman Barr makes a lot of good points. We do have an awful lot of cells we know about, and as we hear more and more other countries saying they support us, it would be wonderful if everybody moved against the cells in their area.
Obviously, Osama bin Laden, he has been, if not culpable in this incident, in certainly many others. So no matter what, if you can find a way to finally capture him, the whole world would exhale. But not for too long, because there are others around, too.
I think one of the important pieces is also looking at the banking system. Maybe not the Swiss, but I would really like to know if this money came through Switzerland.
You know, the rest of the world is having to be transparent, and yet we are finding that there are certain countries who don't do that, and I think they really are allowing these people to operate. And we really need to say to the global community no more of that stuff. Everybody has to be transparent at this level.
We -- we really can't allow those laws to stay where people can hide their money and then do all sorts of evil things with it.
BATTISTA: Wasn't -- congressman, wasn't an effort made to freeze Osama bin Laden's assets? How far did you get with that?
BARR: We haven't been able to do that yet, Bobbie, but my good friend and former colleague Pat Schroeder makes a very, very good point. We do need to start putting considerable pressure on some of these international financial centers.
We know by and large where the funds that supply Osama bin Laden and other of these terrorists come from. It's not just personal funds that they have, even though he personally is a very, very wealthy man. They get information -- finances from a lot of different sources, and a lot of it, as Ms. Schroeder said, is funneled through accounts in Europe, including in Switzerland. And these countries could be doing an awful lot more than they have been doing to help us in the effort to locate and freeze these assets.
BATTISTA: This man's network -- and we heard Colin Powell refer to him today as basically the chairman of a holding company -- is so far-flung, and some of these extremists fanatics are being harbored in a number of Arab countries. How do we go about this and walk that fine line where we have to accomplish what we need to in order to rid the world of terrorism but we don't want to create some geopolitical disaster in the process?
BARR: Well, it is a fine line, and to be honest with you, I have tremendous faith in President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld and our other leaders. I think we're in very, very good and capable hands. We also have very strong and knowledgeable bipartisan leadership in the Congress that will work with us.
But it is a fine line. I think you have to begin military operations very quickly. Our people, by and large, are very supportive of that, and I think you can't overlook the importance of maintaining national unity and moving forward on behalf of the American people.
But we also have to remember that a huge quantity of our petroleum that we need both for our civilian and our military operations comes from the Middle East. We haven't done a good job in the last 20 years of developing our own resources. So we can't just go in and start carpet bombing countries. We have to be smart about it.
But you start where the main problem is, and that is in countries like Afghanistan and others who very clearly and in a lot of instances for a long period of time have been harboring and supporting these people: countries like Syria, Iraq and Libya, and possibly Iran also.
BATTISTA: Congresswoman...
SCHROEDER: Bobbie, if I could add. I certainly agree with what the congressman has said. But I think we have some other pieces we can do too.
I am thankful every night that Colin Powell is our secretary of state, because he had all of this high-profile during the Gulf War. And it really is helpful to be able to say to some of those Gulf states who, let's face it, have been indirectly funding or directly funding some of these activities, mainly because they thought it would take some of the focus off of them, wait a minute, you really ought to think about this. Guess who pulled your cookies out of the oven during the whole Gulf War? But for Colin Powell and the United States military and the whole U.S. government, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia may not be in the hands they're in now. I think we all know the answer to that.
And so as a consequence, I think it is really time to stop winking at their kind of playing both sides. It's like, well, you've got to understand, we live in a difficult neighborhood, so wink, wink, we have your oil, you'll come if we're threatened, and meanwhile we have to try and buy these folks out.
I really think the American people are beyond any tolerance with that. So I think you try and shut that done, you try and go offer banks that have been kind of hiding this in Switzerland and allowing this man to operate, because this took a huge amount of money. These people were never without money. So money was flowing, money was flowing from all sorts of places. And I don't think the American public will tolerate that one more minute.
BATTISTA: Let me go to a Gulf War vet on the phone, Kevin from Ohio. Go ahead, Kevin.
KEVIN: Yes, ma'am. As you say, I am a Gulf War veteran, and I do support going to war and getting the terrorists, and making them pay for the damage and the harm and the pain that they've caused here in the United States. But I do hope that if we do go over there and we do cause a conflict, that we do it completely this time and not like Desert Storm. I mean, we liberated Kuwait over there, but the job was not finished. If we go after the terrorists that attacked our country, I want us to finish the job.
America has taken, the American people have taken America for granted, thinking it would never to happen to us, it couldn't happen here. And now that it has happened, America is stunned because we thought we was this invincible country. And I...
BATTISTA: Kevin, OK, thank you very much. I wanted the congressfolks here to address that. I'm not sure that we'll ever know that we're done in this war, do you think, congressman?
BARR: Well, Bobbie, the question came up at a news conference we had in Washington last week, when we announced the introduction of our proposed declaration of war. One of the media people in Washington asked, well, how will you know when we've won? I think we'll have a pretty good indication of when we will have at least achieved significant success.
We may never eradicate from the face of the Earth every terrorist, just the same as despite years of our war against mind- altering drugs, we'll never have a completely drug-free society. But that does not mean that we as a nation don't try.
And I think again, as I said and as others have said, we know a great deal about these organizations, I think, and people already as we've gotten into the first week since this tragedy, we're finding out disturbing things about how much we actually did know, but the right information didn't get to the right people and so forth.
BATTISTA: Yeah, we knew so much, how did intelligence miss this one?
BARR: Well, that's one of the most fundamental questions that we're starting to look at, and I think it is a question that we have to get some answers to.
I think we're seeing, unbelievably as it is 60 years after Pearl Harbor, Bobbie, we're still seeing some of the same problems that plagued us back then. Poor cooperation between our different intelligence agencies, peopling tending to discount certain very important information or intelligence that came in. Lack of proper coordination, things not getting to the right people. And then of course the problems in executing proper security measures at our airports. It's really not so much the traveling public that is the problem here. It's allowing people access to the most sensitive areas of airports without background checks, without properly following up on lost badges, lost -- lost flight manuals, lost uniforms and paperwork and so forth.
These are very, very serious problems. And even though it's important perhaps for us to look at what new powers, if any, we need to grant our government -- I'm not interested in a headlong rush to pass more laws and take away more civil liberties. I think the problems are with enforcement of existing laws.
BATTISTA: All right. Hold on just a second here. Let me go to the audience. Reverend, do you have concerns?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It concerns me that we have not yet finished mourning the people who are considered or assumed to be dead and there's many lives that are still coming up lost. There are families that are suffering and will continue to suffer. And it's my concern that we don't need to rush right now and send our young kids over there to shed more blood. We need to kind of get those who have been affected by this, let's give them a decent burial.
And then I call on all the churches in America, let's, the churches, step up to the plate and adopt a family. Let's, the churches, provide $1,000 to each one of thee families, because we've got bread-winners that are gone, that are lost, and children that don't have fathers, children that don't have mothers. We've got bread-winners that have been lost. And I think now is the greatest time that the church can come forward, stand up and give $1,000 to each family through the Red Cross.
Let the Red Cross identify a family. The church will send that $1,000 to the Red Cross.
BATTISTA: Good idea, Reverend. We're putting you in charge of that. OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would love to be in charge of that, through the Red Cross only, though.
BATTISTA: Let me get -- let me get an opinion here from Jason quickly.
JASON: My opinion is this: You have to remember this is not bin Laden's first attack against the United States. This is a repeated several of attacks and he is not going to stop. We have to take action against him and his organization now.
I mean, how do you feel if you were going to go to a football game or to a baseball game? You're going to have to worry if bin Laden has his people there to blow it up.
We have to take action. And as far as to declaring war against Afghanistan, we've given Afghanistan and the Taliban ample warning that anyone who aids and abets these fugitives, there will be no distinction. And the Taliban today refused to hand over bin Laden. So just like in the United States, even though if you don't commit a crime and you're not there, you're still an accessory. You know, Afghanistan and the Taliban, they're still an accessory to bin Laden and his terrorist acts against us.
BATTISTA: And Larry over here, quickly.
LARRY: Yeah, I agree with you absolutely. But -- and I believe that it's imperative that we do strike back. But first of all, I also think that it's important that we -- that we gather intelligence on the people that were involved, the factions, the organizations that were behind this. I think it's imperative that we know who these people are.
Undoubtedly, innocent people are going to be killed. I mean, that's just one of the consequences of war. But the bottom line is let's just not go over there half-cocked. Let's go over there with a purpose and let's execute that purpose when we go over there.
BATTISTA: Congressman, looking to the future and before -- before you get out of here, I wanted to ask you about the counter- terrorist measures that Congress has been asked to pass. What will those entail? And I know there's a couple in particular that you would like to see changed.
BARR: One area, Bobbie, that I have actually been working on for over a year now is to untie the hands of both our president and our intelligence agencies in a couple of areas. For example, to me it doesn't seem to make any sense, if we give a president authority to wage war and to bomb areas around the world, whether it's Kosovo, Somalia or very possibly now Afghanistan, to try and take out a foreign terrorist leader, and yet we don't give him the authority to go in with a Delta Force team or a special operations team and take out that one individual. That doesn't make any sense, yet for a generation we've had a restriction on the books that won't allow us to assassinate a foreign terrorist leader. We ought to repeal that, so the president has the full range of options available to him.
Also, we don't need to tie the hands of our intelligence agencies so that they can only deal with those foreign agencies that have the same view of human rights as we do. That severely limits the ability of our intelligence agencies to gather intelligence information that could save us from this sort of thing.
BATTISTA: Can't deal with just Boy Scouts, that's for sure.
BARR: There are very few in the world outside of America.
BATTISTA: All right, Congressman Bob Barr, I know you've got to go, but thank you very much for coming in and joining us.
BARR: Thank you, Bobbie, and it's great being with my former colleague and friend, Pat Schroeder.
BATTISTA: And she will be staying with us. As we go to a break here in just a few moments, let me do some e-mails. Helen in North Carolina says: "We must not give the terrorists what they want. To retaliate with force would give them an excuse to do it to us again. Just impose severe sanctions and embargoes on Afghanistan and any other country that supports the terrorists."
Nick e-mails us: "The morale of the American people will never rise until they see evidence that someone is paying dearly for this outrage."
Stay with us. Gary Bauer will also be joining us. We'll be back right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BATTISTA: Welcome back. Joining us now is CNN's Nic Robertson, who is the only Western correspondent in Afghanistan. He joins us from Kandahar way of videophone.
And Nic, we know that Pakistani officials met with leaders of the Taliban today in order to demand that they turn over Osama bin Laden. Have you heard anything about how that meeting went?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, with Taliban officials have characterized the meetings as they are considering what's been told to them. They also say, however, that they've heard it all before. The focus really shifts from where we are, Kandahar in the south of Afghanistan, to Kabul in the north tomorrow, where 600 of the country's top religious leaders will gather to debate just that issue of Osama bin Laden and the issue of what Afghanistan would do if it were to be attacked in the coming days.
BATTISTA: I asked you on Saturday if it was considered certain that Osama bin Laden was in Afghanistan. I think that you answered that we were pretty much to assume that. Is that -- do you think that's still the case or is it likely that he is not there?
ROBERTSON: It's highly likely that he is here. We certainly haven't heard anything to the contrary. It does have to be said that the borders with Pakistan are incredibly porous. And although we've heard today that Pakistan is sealing its borders more effectively with Afghanistan to keep out a flood of refugees that might seek shelter there.
There is -- there (UNINTELLIGIBLE) in these borders where it's very, very difficult for Pakistani authorities to patrol. I was there with their anti-narcotics force a couple of years ago going over these desert areas in helicopters. And you can see mile upon mile upon mile where cars were just able to drive freely across the border.
So it would be possible for him to sneak him across the border, but it would probably put him in more danger if he were to do that, because he would be putting himself closer to possible apprehension.
BATTISTA: Questions from the audience for you. Let me take one from Ray.
RAY: Thank you. I was wondering to what extent is Pakistan willing to support the U.S. once we do attack Afghanistan. Will they give us the permission to use the airspace? Will we be allowed to go on land with forces across their country?
ROBERTSON: Well, so far the Pakistan leadership has indicated that it would want to debate each issue exactly, exactly what they were going to do. But so far, they've been very clear that they would give whatever support is required. And certainly, the Pakistani officials, in contrast with the way they've dealt with the Taliban in the past, those diplomats coming here today have delivered a very, very hard, tough, straight-in-the-face message if you will to the Taliban. This is quite uncharacteristic of Pakistani-Taliban relationships in the past.
It would appear very clear this time that Pakistan is very much behind America on this issue, although the very specifics of land, air, exactly whether they can use ports, et cetera, we understand that those will have be worked out case by case.
Certainly, though, Pakistan has a lot to offer the United States in those -- in those particular assets.
BATTISTA: Eric, question?
ERIC: Is there visible evidence that Afghanistan is preparing to go to war with the United States?
ROBERTSON: Certainly the leader, Mullah Omar, made a public address a couple of days ago, and the way he did that was on the radio system here, the national radio system. And the Taliban, of course, banned all television when they came to power five years ago.
And in that address, he really gave people a pep talk, pumped them up if you will in preparation for a possible war. He told people to put their faith in God, in Allah, and if they did that, then they should be safe, they should not be afraid of America. So there's been a sort of a preparation of the population, if you will.
In terms of military preparation, certainly we just traveled 300 miles yesterday driving down from the capital, Kabul, down here to Kandahar in the south, and I must say we didn't see any military preparation on the way down. There were perhaps only two checkpoints between here and Kabul, 300 miles away.
So it does -- we don't get the feeling on the ground right here where we are that there is an intense military buildup going. But it also has to be said the Taliban have a lot of assets deployed in the north fighting their ongoing civil war, and they don't have a huge amount of military assets anyway. What they really have is a lot of young, dedicated fighters willing to throw down their life to put Taliban in power over the whole country.
BATTISTA: All right, Nic Robertson, thank you very much for joining us. Appreciate all the information you bring us once again.
We will continue here -- are we taking a break or continuing on? We're taking a quick break here and then we'll be back with Pat Schroeder and Gary Bauer. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BATTISTA: Welcome back to this extended edition of TALKBACK LIVE: America Speaks Out. Former Democratic Congresswoman Pat Schroeder is still with us and joining us is Gary Bauer, president of American values,a pro-family advocacy group. He served as a domestic policy adviser to President Ronald Reagan and he ran for president as you might recall, in the year 2000. Gary, thanks for being patient. Things are still in a bit of a flux around the network. Let me get you to weigh in on where this country should be headed in terms of retaliation particularly in the immediate future, if Pakistan is unsuccessful in convincing Osama bin Laden.
GARY BAUER, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Bobbie, I am not sure that I am going to say anything that has not already been said. This is not a quick fix. I don't think we can turn on the television sets a couple of days from now and see a few bombs blowing up in a desert somewhere and say to ourselves, well, we have taken care of that.
This is a long process. There are a number of countries. For over a decade I have been involved in promoting terrorism, aiding and abetting it. We just have not been quite frankly, very realistic about this sort of thing and let me raise an example that has not been mentioned this afternoon.
For over a decade, Beijing, China has attempted to transfer technology to help radical Islamic nations build an Islamic bomb. China has signed agreement after agreement with us saying they will stop doing this and they have broken every agreement. Everybody in Washington knows it and we know what that radical Islamic bomb would be used for. It would be blithely to go on saying that trade was the most important thing with China. So I think we have just got to get a lot more serious as Americans about a whose lot of things, or face the prospect of even more terrible headlines ahead.
BATTISTA: Why do you suppose we have gotten complacent? Was it because it had not come home to roost on American soil?
BAUER: I think that is part of it. Democratic governments often have periods of softness particularly after a war, and we were, in our own way, in a long war, a cold war, with the Soviet Union. And I think when the Berlin Wall came down and we some of the other wonderful things happened in Europe , we saw people tasting freedom for the first time, we had the same impulse as we often have as free men and women, we thing that the world was some nice American suburb, when in fact it is more like the South Bronx at midnight. It is still a very nasty place and there are a whole lot of folks who get up every morning with the only thought in mind, what can I do today to harm the United States. And I just think we need to remind ourselves about those kinds of facts lot more than we have in recent years.
BATTISTA: And Congresswoman Schroeder, it's not like we had a little bit of warning, especially in the last 10 years.
SCHROEDER: Well, I honestly think that one of the things we have talked about, and we really shouldn't lose focus on, is we have over 40 intelligence agencies and they really need to be coordinated better and we really need to have human intelligence, not just gadgets. It's got to be a combination of both.
And I think we kind of believed that we could do it maybe too much in a high-tech way. I also think that what we are hearing from the president is so important. We must say to every American that you are not go enforce the law by yourself and to take it out on Arab- Americans is just unconscionable. We have a very good team, and we may or may not have been lackadaisical before, but everybody is focused now and I think that the trick is to work together for a unified response against enemies and terrorists and not against American citizens.
And I think this vigilante stuff really needs to be stopped right now. I am so pleased you are giving this town meeting where we can have this discussion because I think all of us have to say to other citizens, of course you are angry, we are all angry, but the way to deal with this is to deal with this with our brain and not our glands and that is the way we will have progress.
BATTISTA: Let me go to the audience. Ben, your thoughts.
BEN: I would like to agree with Senator Schroeder about military intelligence. We do need more people in military intelligence. Being somebody that spent some time in the Air Force, we always had a saying, there is not such thing as military intelligence.
And the reason why is because over the past 12 years, because of the demolish of communism, we have gotten lax. We have gotten complacent about thinking that everything is cool. We really need to get back and strengthen our military and beefing up our military and getting some serious intelligence, not just a catch phrase.
Also, one thing I really would like to say to everybody: We can't just think that everything is going to happen like that with one strike. If we go over there and we do something to them, no matter what, something is going to happen here. And being someone who is a black American and raised in the '60s here in Atlanta, Georgia, we as Americans cannot judge people by the color of their skin or by the way they look.
BATTISTA: You bring up a concern, and a fear of a lot of Americans. Gary Bauer, I heard Gary Hart this morning, as a matter of fact, saying phase two here would most likely be some sort of biological or chemical terrorist event and it might strike in not a New York or a Washington, but Denver or Seattle or something like that. This is a fear we now have to live with. How do we prepare for that?
BAUER: God forbid that that would ever happen. But look, I think we have to be realistic about this. There are people in the United States now, we know that. We don't know how many there are, but they are here and they have been here for a long time and they mean to do whatever harm they can do to us.
That is why I think the American people have to prepare themselves for something that is going to be lot more difficult and a lot more unpleasant than anything we have seen or experienced in a long, long time. And I believe the president with his rhetoric and some of the other leaders in the administration with their rhetoric are trying to prepare the United States and the American people for some very dark days.
BATTISTA: Guy is on the phone from Ontario, Guy, go ahead.
GUY: Hi, how are you?
BATTISTA: Good, thanks.
GUY: The policy of the United States regarding Middle East terrorism especially in Israel has been to show restraint and continue down the peace path in light of terrorist acts and I was just wondering: Do you not believe that this policy of the current United States government to react with military action is somewhat hypocritical, especially when Colin Powell continues to insist to promote peace in light of continued terrorist acts?
BAUER: I think that the hypocrisy was us sitting here in the United States, some of our government leaders and lecturing Israel on how they should respond when they see their women and children blown up in pizza restaurants and in discos, et cetera. I thought that was terribly inappropriate. And now, unfortunately we have gotten a taste of Israel has had to deal with day in and day out, week after week, month after month, at the hands of people that are dedicated to the destruction of the Israeli state. So I would hope that now we would stop putting pressure on Israel to time after time after time depend on diplomacy when their citizens are in the bull's eye of terrorists.
SCHROEDER: I think it is also so important to call upon on lot of the Arabs who really would like peace and it is time for you to now stand up, because people are losing hope in this whole peace process.
We just have not seen anybody come forward in a long time really saying that. So I don't think we are being at all disingenuous. I think we would all love to have peace, we would all love to have that, but hey, reality is here. It has hit us very hard. I think we also, and I hope our Canadian friends that we called in, will help us much more with these immigrations issues.
Our borders have been very porous and we have been very lax about that too. And I have a feeling that we really have to get much more serious across the board because while we wish for peace we would like to work for peace, the reality is that it is a very dangerous time right now because of people we don't seem to be able to persuade to do anything but cause trouble.
BATTISTA: We do have to take another break here. Gary Bauer and Pat Schroeder thank you both very much for being with us today.
As we do, a couple more e-mails here. Walter in Indiana says: "The U.S.A. and our friends have to do something about the attack. If we don't we are just saying to other terrorists you can do it again. But if we do something about it we might end all of it."
Scott in the United Kingdom says, "I can only hope that insightful and determined individuals with long term objectives lead this war on terrorism. This incident may be the catalyst for positive political change throughout the world."
We will take a break here. When we come back: Why did the terrorists do it? We will ask the guests that question. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BATTISTA: Welcome back. A lot of Americans wonder how anyone could commit such a heinous act and why it happened in America. Joining us now, John Leo, contributing editor and columnist to "U.S. News and World Report" and Clarence Page, "The Chicago Tribune's" Washington based editorial board member. Welcome to both of you.
CLARENCE PAGE, "CHICAGO TRIBUNE": Thank you, Bobbie.
BATTISTA: John, you wrote an interesting piece on town hall.com that basically what you think is at the root of this terrorist cause, what you think this war is all about. So many people, you know, think that we need to get at the root before we can eliminate the problem. What do you think is the root?
JOHN LEO, "U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT": Well, Bobbie, I think a lot of people assume that it has to do entirely with the Middle East, and I think that's a mistake. I don't think it has to do with the residue of colonialism or the Palestinian issue. Bin Laden almost never refers to the Palestinian issue. I think it has to with what I call a global cultural war, that parts of the Islamic world -- by no means all of it -- unable to come to terms with its own problems, to develop tolerance and a way to govern without coercion and violence. It's striking out at the part of the world that carries a different value system, that they resent our democracy, our secularism, our tolerance. And this is something that cannot be negotiated away very quickly. It is a cultural war on a scale that dwarfs our little cultural war at home.
BATTISTA: On the other hand, could we say that some cultural misunderstandings might be at the root of some of our foreign policy decisions? For example, I have an e-mail here from California that says: "Why isn't there more debate about the fairness of America's foreign policy? I think that's what got us into this in the first place," she says.
LEO: Well, I think that's certainly true, that the U.S. is capable of making mistakes and lurching this way and that, but that's not what the radicals are talking about. They're not talking about failures of diplomacy, otherwise they wouldn't be talking about destroying the great Satan, and even if it meant killing women and children. They're talking about a degree of violence and rhetoric and war, indeed, that we have never imaged before. I think it has to do with an explosive reaction against the modern world, that this is a reaction by the people who have not been able to enter the modern world, and resent -- want to deal with those who have.
BATTISTA: Clarence, do you agree?
PAGE: Up to a point, Bobbie, I agree with John, that is cultural war in the way that Bin Laden looks at it. Look at the interviews that have been done with him, look at his regularly-issued fatwas. And he is hoping that the U.S. begins World War III, and that it is fought along the lines of the Muslims versus the infidels. He is an extremist, he is a fundamentalist.
John, I wouldn't quite go along with him to the point of saying that Israel doesn't matter, I'm sure John didn't mean that. Israel does matter, but that was just one of the previous straws. The big straw that broke the camel's back in Bin Laden's view was when the U.S. put military bases in Saudi Arabia, his home country. He felt that was an insult to Allah, to Islam. And while he is quite a modern guy and two of his brothers went to Harvard Law, I understand -- his family has disowned him -- but nevertheless, he feels that he is out to lead a holy war against this cultural encroachment.
I put him in the same category with other fundamentalists. Even Pat Robertson and Jerry Fa;well, whom I have met last week and know last week when they were inferring that this collapse of the World Trade Center was somehow God's punishment for legalized abortion, the ACLU, secular education. They were voicing the spirit of fundamentalists everywhere. And I don't want to put them in the same category with Bin Laden, don't misunderstand me, but if you want to understand where Bin Laden is coming from, you have to look to that religious fundamentalist minority of Muslims and Arabs, and it is a minority. And we shouldn't be prejudiced against the majority of Muslims and Arabs because of them.
BATTISTA: I guess people might ask -- I'm sorry, John. Were you going to say something?
LEO: No, I was going to say I agree with Clarence. I didn't mean to say that Israel doesn't matter. Israel certainly matters in that it's considered an ejection of the demonic West into Arab territory. But I think we have to make a distinction between the intellectuals, as Clarence points out, who may or may not have gone to Harvard and are conversant with modern methods, and the vast majority of people in the extremist world who feel violated by modernity.
I mean, Bin Laden may not be. He may have rational responses to the U.S. setting foot in Saudi Arabia, but the vast majority of his clients that he speaks for are lashing out at the developed world and everything it stands for.
BATTISTA: You know, this thing about being upset about military basis being in Saudi Arabia -- I understand that to a point, but why, at the same time, wouldn't his beef be with the Saudi government who allowed them there?
PAGE: Well, the Saudi government's kicked him out. They expelled him in Saudi Arabia. He does have a beef with the government of his home country. At the same time, of course, Saudi Arabia is the home of Mecca and other very important -- the most important locations in the world of Islam.
But there is a hope here with Arab governments and Islamic governments that don't trust Bin Laden any more than we do. This is going to be a very interesting alignment, and I think -- there's no question, we're in a new world and there are opportunities here to form new alliances.
BATTISTA: Let me take a phone call from Bill in Alaska. Go ahead, Bill.
CALLER: Hi. I'm a Gulf War veteran and currently waiting for my call to join my Air National Guard unit here in Alaska. And my comment is this: Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf War, we had somewhat war power resolutions, which kept politics as part of the equation. When are the politicians going to put politics aside? How many Americans must die before we finally declare war? We know the names. The Taliban are going to execute eight Christians just because they're Christians. We know who the enemies are. It's time to put politics down, declare war and let the military go fight it.
BATTISTA: But even it we -- thanks very much, Bill, appreciate it.
Even if we do that, I would think we still have a problem going about making it happen.
PAGE: That's right. May I respond to that, Bobbie?
BATTISTA: Yes, sure.
PAGE: I'm a Vietnam era veteran. I was drafted quite reluctantly. I felt back then that, you know, if we had enemy attacking us on our shores, it would be different. That's what my father and my uncle had. Well, we got it now. This is the war I've been waiting for, you might say. We have been attacked on our shore. But there ain't no easy way to go into Afghanistan, ladies and gentlemen. The terrain is very rough. It has defeated the British, it defeated the Russians. We cannot go barreling in there and think with just military might we're going to win, any more than we were able to win with military might in Vietnam. We're talking about -- first of all, understanding who the so- called enemy is. The Taliban and their birth with the Mujahadeen, who were encouraged by the CIA in the fight against the Soviet Union. We've got long roots there, but Americans know very little about that area and very little about this movement of which Bin Laden is a part.
And so I have confidence that Colin Powell, another Vietnam veteran, is going to approach this with all deliberate speed, improve the area of ignorance that we currently have about who we're fighting, and approach this both, as far as human intelligence is concerned, maybe delta force units, maybe co-opting members of his movement, and if necessary, full-fledged all-out military action.
BATTISTA: John?
LEO: Well, I agree with Clarence. Our options, militarily, are very limited. I think what your caller is expressing is the frustration and rage we all feel. But whatever kind of strike is made, there's very few targets that we can plausibly hit and do any damage to. We very likely will not be able to find Bin Laden, and I think that the diplomacy -- not the placating kind, but the kind that tries to make the moderate progressive Arab states come down harder and more firmly on our side is important. What Pat Schroeder said a moment ago, that there's an ambivalence in a lot of the developed Arab states. They know that we are what protects them from the radicals, but they sometimes fund and protect the radicals themselves.
I think that ambivalence has to end. Some of the money flowing from the oil-rich states to the radicals is a kind of protection racket that we have to do something about. So that's the frontier of diplomacy, which side are you on? Not a public declaration, but forcing the hand of the developed states that want to be where the U.S. is, and realize that we are their allies and their future.
BATTISTA: Let me go to the audience here quickly and Jenna?
JENNA: Yes, I have a question and a comment. I think when we say that it is a war between two cultures and that's basically it, I think we fail to recognize a substantial part of the problem here. And I think that that is a cyclical process that's going on here, dealing with a lot of Islamic world. And that is where the United States government sees a threat, sees a problem, sees a dastardly, cowardly act as happened Tuesday, imposes harsh sanctions or something on a country like Afghanistan or Iraq, in which thousands of civilians die. And that brings more anger and brings more frustration and another cowardly act happens. And thus, the cycle keeps going on.
Do you really think it's only a war of culture? Don't you think that maybe we should be looking at the frustration that comes from American policy?
Well, if it were just about American policies, I don't think we would see the terrorism in Uzbekistan or Chechnya that we see. All around the Arab world, there are pockets of extreme terrorism, and it can't all have to do with Israel or U.S. policy. I think it has to do partly with that, but partly with the frustrations of a culture that hasn't been able to enter the modern world.
BATTISTA: I have to take a quick break here. Andy is on the phone from California. Andy, I'll take your call when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BATTISTA: All right. Andy is on the phone in California. Andy, go ahead.
CALLER: Hi, Bobbie. What I want to say is I think what we have here is (UNINTELLIGIBLE) for free. It requires the entire world, civilized world, to bind together to fight this, not in a reactionary way -- a systemic, operative way that involves all existence of civilization, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) economic. And including military, in some selected ways. And I think, that in essence, this is haves versus have-nots, and the have-nots somewhat are self-limiting by Islam, this radical Islam mentality. But because poverty is so prevalent in these areas, it foments these kind of radical thinking and beliefs that -- America, because they have, and they don't.
BATTISTA: Let me jump in here, Andy, because you're really kind of breaking up. I'm not sure if you're on a bad cell there or whatever. I think, gentlemen, you got the gist of what he said -- haves versus have- nots, basically.
PAGE: Yes, I would say that, as far as the haves versus have- nots go, you know, we're talking about countries that are not democratic, countries that don't have truly free markets, free flow of ideas. The worst offender is Afghanistan under the Taliban, who won't even let girls or women be educated, even at home. We are talking about a world that's trying to hold on to the past while the future is encroaching, and many people resent it.
The young lady earlier who was talking about our American foreign policy, our view of the world being partly at fault, here, I'm not going to exonerate us or our country. I think after wartime, it's certainly easy to try to turn your back on the rest of the world, or to practice unilateralism when you're the big kid on the block. But it's important to remember that people resent whoever the biggest kid on the block is. And that resentment is going to be there.
One further thing: Yes, a lot of people do call us the great Satan, as Tony Lake, former national security adviser, pointed out. Satan was not a warrior, Satan was a tempter. Satan offered the temptation out there, and in the eyes of many in the Islamic world, Western culture -- you know, Hollywood is our second-biggest export, ladies and gentlemen. We dominate the world, as far as culture is concerned, and it's spreading.
There are people who resent that. Some extremists will take the law into their own hands in the form of a perverted holy war, one that is not truly backed by the Koran, as most Islamic scholars will assure you. But that danger is out there for us.
BATTISTA: A comment -- question from Loretta?
(CROSSTALK)
BATTISTA: Oh, I'm sorry, John, go ahead.
LEO: I was just going to add that I agree with Clarence, the one point we were talking about before, about whether America has helped provoke this by hurting Islamic interests. Well, yes, sure, we defend Israel. But remember, we went in to defend Somalia, a Muslim nation. We spent a lot of money and time and energy protecting the Muslims in Yugoslavia. And most recently, the United States went well out of its way to put great pressure on Israel to come to terms with the Palestinians.
So whatever mistakes we have made, they have not been one-side by any means.
BATTISTA: Loretta, go ahead.
LORETTA: Yes, I was responding to David's comment about karma and, you know, what did the United States do to deserve this?
And I think my comment was is that actually, if we look at the history of the United States, we've actually always been there to help our neighboring countries in the global wars that we've in the past. And I find it extremely difficult.
I have heard a lot of people say, well, maybe America deserves this because of our policies and some of the things we've done. No, America does not deserve this. America has been -- certainly we're made our mistakes, I think, but to stop to think, we've been a great country that has been there to help many others oftentimes, even to the demise of our own citizens.
So when we look at that, we have to be thankful that America has been there for others, and we hope others will be here for us.
(APPLAUSE)
BATTISTA: Let me take another phone call from Julia out in Massachusetts. Julia, you have an interesting perspective.
CALLER: Hi.
BATTISTA: Hi.
CALLER: I was born in the former Soviet Union. I am now a citizen of the United States. I was five years old when Soviet troops entered Afghanistan, so for me, when I became conscious of what was going on it was already a fact of life. And I have seen people who came back from there. They came back changed, and most didn't come back.
My point is that while the American public is calling for quick revenge, retaliation, ground troops in Afghanistan, people just don't understand what it's like in there. People don't understand that American army has never had a chance to train on a terrain like the terrain in Afghanistan. I'm very worried about seeing a lot more American troops come home and think, coffins, which is how Russian boys came home, because they were just you know, killed, and unrecognizable. They would have to be put in zinc coffins.
BATTISTA: Julia, thanks very much for your comment. She does make a point: History is not really on our side when it comes to going into a country like Afghanistan.
PAGE: We need to learn the lessons of history, of course. The Russians were in there trying to support an illegitimate government, and they ran into some severe problems, the kind of things we're going to run into if we think again that military might alone is going to win.
We must begin to, first of all, close that information gap that we have about Osama Bin Laden, about his movement. Obviously, we've had our wake-up. I don't say a wake-up call. We've have our wake- up. We should have had a wake-up call in the 2000, when the millennium bomber was captured in Seattle, one of Bin Laden's men about to blow up Los Angeles airport. Instead of waking up, we hit the snooze button. We thought we were going to be able to beat this terrorism thing more easily than we have been able to.
And now, sadly, we have this terrible tragedy. America is awakened. But we must not rush blindly in our rage into a bigger problem, another quagmire. We must do this right way, in preparation for this new century.
BATTISTA: The White House is confirming for us, we're just learning now, that British Prime Minister Tony Blair will be at the White House on Thursday, which is a little bit earlier, I understand, from a trip that he had been planning, obviously, under the circumstances.
Go ahead up here to the back row?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What happened last Tuesday was against all of humanity. There were are all races, religions, ethnicities. Terrorism has been around for thousands of years, and we've got to find a peaceful way to come all of each other. Otherwise, it's the end of humanity.
Planes were flying overhead that afternoon in our home, and I thought, "This is what war must be like." What a terrible, tragedy it would if this is what it ended up to be, because it would affect every one of us.
BATTISTA: You live in Connecticut.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
BATTISTA: So you're close by.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We must live to learn with all of us and love all of us.
BATTISTA: Sergio, you had a concern. You're from Mexico? SERGIO: Yes, my concern is Pakistan is going to lead the United States Army to attack Afghanistan, but I know that Pakistan and India, they have some frictions. Therefore, also they have nuclear weapons. I'm a little bit concerned nuclear weapons are going to get into the equation of this big problem that we have now.
PAGE: May I speak to that, Bobbie?
BATTISTA: Certainly, John.
LEO: I think we have to take into account that Pakistan is in a very vulnerable situation. It's right between Iraq and Afghanistan. It can be invaded from either side. They are carrying our message to the Taliban. Whether we can rely on them to be wholehearted allies or force them to do thing that could topple that regime and put nuclear weapons in the hands of people who do not wish us well. So that has to be very carefully handled, the whole issue of Pakistan.
BATTISTA: I have an e-mail here from Joe in Fort Worth, Texas, who says: "If the Taliban is so concerned about its impoverished people, why don't they ask Bin Laden to contribute some of his many millions to improve life for these poor? The answer probably is that he doesn't care and would rather spend his money on hate and terrorism.
(APPLAUSE)
BATTISTA: Eric, go ahead, your comment.
ERIC: There was a mention of bridging gap of ignorance about Bin Laden and his movements. What about the gap of the rest of the terrorists that could easily take his place if we did bring Bin Laden in?
PAGE: I'm not sure there terrorists who could easily take his place. Bin Laden is a special figure. He's not a strategist, he's not a militarist. He is an inspiration. And ironically, we have helped to improve his charismatic appeal among this extreme element by giving him so much attention.
We have to give him attention, of course. And he -- but at the same time, Colin Powell has said we're not going to just go after Bin Laden, we're going to go after the entire terrorist network. That's a big proposition, but it is an essential proposition, because you're right, one person isn't the whole story.
BATTISTA: We have to end it there. John Leo and Clarence Page, thank you very much for education us. Appreciate your being here.
And we will be back again tomorrow at 2:00 Eastern time for another two-hour special edition of TALKBACK LIVE. Right now, all eyes are on Wall Street, where the markets will be closing in just a few moments. Lou Dobbs takes us up to the closing bell right after this break. Stay with us.
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