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CNN Talkback Live
Reactions to Terrorist Attack on the U.S.
Aired September 15, 2001 - 14:20 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.
BOBBIE BATTISTA, HOST: This is a special Saturday edition of TALKBACK LIVE: America Speaks Out. We will be here for two hours today, and we hope that you will take this time to share your thoughts and your fears and your stories about this week's tragedy.
By the way, among the folks in our studio audience today, a group of Atlanta firemen, policemen and a group of international students as well. I'm going to go right to the audience. There are some deep and passionate feelings at work here.
Walt, you are a veteran. Which war?
WALT: Yes, I am a veteran of World War II and Korea. I believe that when we enlisted or joined the military forces, we did so with the idea that our life would be placed upon the line. This tragedy, this profound insanity that has engulfed us in the last couple of days is aimed not at us, but at the people of this country -- the men, the women, the children, the old, everybody, but primarily military, except for the raid upon the Pentagon.
I believe our government needs to stop its in-fighting and bickering among political parties. I believe they need to pay attention to the needs of the country and the people, and I believe that the country in itself must declare last Tuesday as the last day of complacency.
BATTISTA: And Jeff, you are angry as well.
(APPLAUSE)
JEFF: Yes, I am very angry. And I just finished reading the book, "The Band of Brothers," which is now on HBO, and I think everybody should watch it. But I think we need to band together now as brothers and sisters of the United States, as not as Army people but as Americans, and go forward.
And also, Monday is going to be a very important day for us in the United States, because of the stock market, and we must not respond irrationally. We must stop and think, and we must be able to do something. And maybe the money that we've gotten from the government, the $600, everybody should take some of that, and instead of selling, go out and buy maybe just one share of stock, whatever, and I think we need to keep our country together.
BATTISTA: Good advice. Go out and buy American.
(APPLAUSE)
BATTISTA: William is on the phone from Illinois. William, go ahead.
WILLIAM: Yes, I am William from Illinois. I have one comment to make, in that I think some of the things that are happening here are a failure of our government -- during the Cold War, their policies, the countries that they supported, the regimes that they supported, I think it built up this animosity of the people that perpetrated this attack on our country.
And I'm not condoning that. I'm just making that as a statement, but what I'm concerned about here is we are trying to build an alliance now where even the Russians are on our side, and I think that maybe they might have their own agenda and we have to be careful there, but one thing to mention, being a Vietnam veteran, and knowing what happened after we pulled out of Saigon during that war, there were a lot of our people, they are our friends that we just kind of left high and dry. And I think...
BATTISTA: Oh, William, I think we just lost that call. We are trying to keep the comments as brief as we possibly can so we can get as many opinions and comments and questions in.
I'm going bring a couple of guests in at this point who can address some of your concerns and your questions. New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler is with us, as well as Thomas Reynolds. They were with President Bush yesterday as he surveyed the devastation of what used to be the World Trade Center. Also joining us is James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute. Welcome to all of you, gentlemen.
I know you've been listening to some of the comments that you've been hearing here in the last few minutes or so, and I'd like to get your reaction. I think most Americans, it seems to as I've been listening to them, Congressman Nadler, are getting -- they're tempering their anger, if you will, somewhat, and they're ready to support the president and the Congress in this -- the approach of using a little restraint and intelligence, and having our response come on a more measured basis.
REP. JERROLD NADLER (D), NEW YORK: Well, I hope we always use intelligence in whatever we do, obviously.
The goal is not vengeance. The United States was viciously attacked with large casualties. We don't know the extent yet. The first goal has to be to make sure that this is the end of it, to take on the terrorist organization so they can't do it again. The first goal is protection in the future, and that probably means not just striking out in blind vengeance at a terrorist organization, but really, with our allies, with other countries around the world, taking apart the terrorist networks.
That's not going to be easy. And it doesn't mean carpet-bombing Afghanistan or anyplace else, but it's going to be a long, hard struggle to take apart these organizations, destroy them, if you will, that have sworn and now have shown that they mean it to kill as many of our people as possible. We didn't seek this, but that's it.
I was struck by one other thing I haven't heard much comment on, and that is these people didn't have any demands. They didn't demand that we change our policy in the Middle East or in the Persian Gulf or anywhere else, and that's essentially because it has nothing to do with that. They are opposed to us because we are the Great Satan. We are the Great Satan because we represent what is abhorrent to them -- democracy and freedom and modernity. And that's a threat to them.
They are opposed to us, they hate us because of who we are and what we are, not because of what we do. And so, we have no choice but to carry out the struggle hopefully in as restrained a manner as possible and as intelligent manner as possible, but we have no choice.
BATTISTA: Let me get to Nick on the phone in Pennsylvania first, and then Sarah. Nick, go ahead.
NICK: Bobbie.
BATTISTA: Yeah.
NICK: We've just watched a foreign entity use our own airplanes to destroy our own country and kill our own people. Something has to be done about this. These pilots trained at our universities, at our flight schools, and they knew who these 19 people were so quick after the fact. Why didn't they know who they were before the fact?
They have to get tighter. They have to have restrictions on who comes in this country. They have to investigate these people more and more, over and over again. You can't let foreigners in here that have the idea of destroying this country, this great country which we all love.
BATTISTA: Well, we can't assume that all foreigners are going to do that either. Sarah is about ready to jump out of her skin. She was born in Iran.
SARAH: Yes, I'm Sarah. I was born in Iran. I moved here when I was 10 years old. And I've gotten all my education here, and I love this country. And what really upsets me is to see that these people benefit from the United States. They have dollars in their bank accounts, but yet they're willing to kill our people and terrorize against us.
But one thing that's really important that I've, you know, really been thinking about these days is that through every crisis there's an opportunity, and the opportunity here that we must all embrace is that the countries are coming together, and we are all unifying. The United States is unifying. We need to stay together, and we need to fight this together. That's the only way we can fight this tragic incident.
BATTISTA: I want to bring James Zogby into this conversation. We also have with us in the audience a number of Arab Americans or Americans of Middle Eastern descent, and your comments on the backlash that could come as a result of all of this.
JAMES ZOGBY, ARAB AMERICAN INSTITUTE: Well, Bobbie, it's already come, and we are seeing it almost every day. My office got death threats. I personally did. Arab Americans all over the country and Muslims and their institutions have been paying a price in the last few days. The news reports are filled with them, and people are afraid.
But I'll tell you what has gratified me is the extraordinary support from the top down -- the president, the attorney general, the secretary of state made strong statements. The Justice Department has launched a program to work with us nationally to stop these hate crimes and to send out directives to law enforcement on the question of profiling. At the same time, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution, and the House is considering one, decrying violations of civil rights and also violence or threats of violence, hate crimes, against Arabs and Muslims.
This is, as I think all of the folks in the audience have said, a time for America to come together and operate as one country. We cannot either bury our unity or bury our constitution as we seek to unify our people to wipe out this scourge of terror.
The person who said it was right. There were no political demands here. That's Congressman Nadler. This is not a political phenomenon. This is a test of our will as a country to be unified and to build the broadest international and I think national coalition to make sure that we both stop this but don't stop America from being America.
BATTISTA: Let me to Mahdi (ph) in the audience. You are a student here at Emory?
MAHDI: Yes, at Emory University. I just want to reiterate the fact that not only is it sick that these people -- these terrorists have killed so many people, but that they have used my religion, Islam, to perpetuate these acts.
I mean I'm an Arab American and I'm Muslim. I just want to tell all Americans that the American and Muslim community is in complete solidarity with you and in complete support, and that we ourselves are going to help fight these terrorists.
BATTISTA: And Congressman Reynolds, I have an e-mail here from Aaron (ph) in Iowa who says: "I wonder how the United States government will keep the balance of freedom versus security. I fear that this crisis may give authorities power to infringe on freedom of speech and right to privacy."
REP. THOMAS REYNOLDS (R), NEW YORK: Bobbie, first of all, to the Atlanta fireman, I just want to tell you how proud you would be of the fire department of New York. They've done a stellar job. I was with the president yesterday, and I want to salute all the firemen who have done such a great job, along with the cops and the emergency teams in New York.
And to the veteran, I just want to share that this country is united. This week alone, the Congress -- Congressman Nadler from New York City, I from the other end of my state, from two different parties, came before the Congress and addressed for the country and the world how outraged the Congress is on the terrorist acts of our country.
In addition, we have appropriated $40 billion to help New York City and our country rebuild and begin to take on some of the additional burdens that are going on in both New York City and the Pentagon. And finally, we have given the president the ability under resolution to have use of force as he sees fit as our commander in chief to seek retaliation on the terrorists who have caused this damage, loss of life, and injury to our country.
BATTISTA: Let me take just a break here for a moment to get a news update from Kabul, Afghanistan. CNN's Nic Robertson is in Kabul and he joins us by videophone from there. He is the only outside journalist remaining in Afghanistan.
Nic, what you can tell us from there at this hour?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Bobbie, the very latest we have from here is neighboring Iran has closed its border with Afghanistan. That added to the fact that there is already an increase in buying of food supplies here in Afghanistan -- food prices going up and the fact that the Taliban in Afghanistan and moving to a position of high animosity with neighboring Pakistan because Pakistan has agreed to allow the United States full access to the country.
There's a possibility the border could close with Pakistan too, and that would cut off essentially pretty much all food supplies getting into here. So, for the people of Afghanistan, the average people here traumatized by 22 years of ongoing conflict, the days and weeks ahead are looking pretty bleak at the moment, Bobbie.
BATTISTA: I would assume then, Nic, that the Afghani people feel that an attack of some sort is imminent.
ROBERTSON: That is generally the feeling, yes. Certainly their spiritual leader Mohammad Omar addressed them all on the radio last night. He rarely does that. It was a 15-minute address and essentially he was rallying them, telling them to put their trust in Allah and have faith and not to be afraid if they're attacked, but essentially telling them that an attack is quite possible, yes.
BATTISTA: I have questions for you Nic from folks in the audience. Let me take those -- Nima (ph).
NIMA: Actually, I was wondering if in knowing that one of the demands placed upon Pakistan was to close its border to Afghanistan, if the people there are fearful that they will have nowhere to flee if they're among the innocent people who are fearful for their lives, if there is an attack on Afghanistan. ROBERTSON: Well certainly some people have been fleeing in the direction of Pakistan already. The problem, of course, of so many Afghans, the economy here, as many people know, is completely ruined and many people are really too poor to consider even fleeing beyond the confines of its capital Kabul -- never mind all the way to Pakistan.
So while it would be a concern that they may not be able to get across the border, for many people it is far greater concern just to even try and get out of the city. They don't have the money, many of them. Many of them really live everyday wondering how they're going to put food on their plates at the end of the day.
BATTISTA: Muhammad (ph).
MUHAMMAD: Hi, I would like to know if the Afghani people themselves feel bin Laden is responsible for these terrorist acts with the approval of the Taliban.
ROBERTSON: Most people here, and I can't answer your question directly, but most people generally feel that Afghanistan does own a silence to Osama bin Laden because of his assistance to the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) site in the 1980s, which sought to expel the 10-year Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. So they feel that they do owe him a place to stay.
And some people we talked to, as well, say that he is a faithful Muslim and therefore, you know, we should keep the door open to him. That is what our faith practices and that's what we should do. That's the interpretation and of course there are many interpretations put on the Holy Koran by various administrations in Islamic countries around the world.
But that's the way it's interpreted here that there still should be an open door. There still should be a place for Osama bin Laden to stay. The government, of course, telling the people in the daily radio addresses that Osama bin Laden couldn't possibly have been involved in such a complicated exercise. They say number one he couldn't have trained the pilot. Number two, he couldn't have communicated on such a scale as to have put in place such a complex set of events.
BATTISTA: Is it a concern, Nic, that Osama bin Laden is right now at this moment in Afghanistan?
ROBERTSON: Bobbie, there's no reason to believe he's left. He's been here for the last five years. He's very close to the Taliban leadership and there's no reason to believe that he's left at this time.
BATTISTA: Mary Catherine, question.
MARY CATHERINE: Yes, my question is I'm wondering what is the general feeling of the people of Afghanistan. Are they afraid of what may be happening to them sometime soon? ROBERTSON: They are afraid and it goes in two ways. They're afraid because they know that it's just going to bring (UNINTELLIGIBLE) a hardship for them and they've lived through 22 years of it. On the other hand, they've been in 22 years of war and to go into another phase of war, for many of them, it's almost a continuation there's a much more ready acceptance of it.
It's very difficult to understand the psyche of the country and of individuals who've been through such a prolonged conflict, who've seen so much hardship. Most people here would have lost loved ones in the end of fighting over the years. Most people here would have likely had homes damaged and been forced to move some time in the last 20 years.
So, in that context, people here are so traumatized that there is an acceptance of what might happen. But there is concern, at the same time, over personal safety. They really have no concept of what scale of attack could happen.
BATTISTA: All right, Nic Robertson, what we have -- one more question, OK, let me go up here quickly to Harold.
HAROLD: I just want to say to the people that we are united together again and with these foreign countries that we have to battle with everyday and furnish them part of the living and for all the people that here that are here because they want to be here, I say when we tell a country that for their leaders to turn over certain people that we need to be tried and be taken out of this situation, then I feel that if they do not do that, then they should retaliate and this calls here today, they definitely should be great retaliation against them.
BATTISTA: Nic Robertson, thank you very much for joining us. We appreciate all your insights into this. We'll be talking to you again soon.
Let me go quickly to Bill Hemmer in New York City now. Bill is at the Jacob Javitz Center, where folks have been trying desperately to volunteer to relieve tired rescue workers and firemen.
Bill, what's going on?
BILL HEMMER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Bobbie, we have talked to hundreds of volunteers who are disappointed. But we have just found five men who are quite successful in their endeavors. We have with us Mike and Jim Donovan (ph) -- they're brothers, their father Tom is with them as well, then Frank and Joe over here.
The Donovans (ph) are from Brooklyn, and Frank and Joe come from northern New Jersey. They just came out of the -- of the site down there by the World Trade Center. They are volunteers (UNINTELLIGIBLE) for about two days time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
HEMMER: How did thousands of people get turned away and you guys managed to get success to work inside?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got here early and we have the bus -- city bus that brought us down and we were lucky. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) firemen, police officers came out to the bus with us. When we got off the bus, they went to the right, we went to the left and right into the site.
HEMMER: Tell us about -- what's happening in there right now and in the efforts? What can you describe about the situation?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right now the little cranes and the bigger machinery are working and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) running. And they're picking steel out. They're cutting the bigger pieces of steel and once all of that gets out, then the (UNINTELLIGIBLE) brigades go in and they start getting the loose stuff up and then the welders go in, they start cutting again and burning and the cranes are picking everything up.
HEMMER: Hey Frank, are they making progress inside there and if so, how do you measure the progress?
FRANK: In little pieces -- little pieces. You grab a little area; you clean it; you let them get in there. You let them start (UNINTELLIGIBLE) their equipment. You start cleaning out more and more, loading it into the trucks little by little. It's slow going.
HEMMER: Give us an idea for when we talk about this pile of rubble that's been described to us. Are you near the base of the building? Are you still working your way toward it?
FRANK: And then we're just picking away and then handing out pieces. Whatever you can do, they want us to do and then today ...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Base of the building.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're a good 50 yards, 60 yards away from the building, trying to get to the base of the building. When we came down onto Church Street, building number one, it looks like building number one came down onto Church Street (UNINTELLIGIBLE) building and so, right there on (UNINTELLIGIBLE) be Liberty and Greenwich.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's about where we are.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's right at the base of the building. We're all pretty close.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pretty close.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, you'd still have a good ways to go yet.
HEMMER: Mike, tell me this, we were getting reports said often times work is just (UNINTELLIGIBLE) silent and stop. Are you still getting that?
MIKE: Every now and then. You know, I myself, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) be doing and doing and then once in awhile I'd look up at the smoke and then I'd have to stop, get my -- get my thoughts back together and say my little prayer and (UNINTELLIGIBLE) back.
HEMMER: Quickly, I want to get in Tom here. You're a World War II veteran. What do you remember about 1941?
TOM: I remember Pearl Harbor. Same thing, they caught us off guard and everybody didn't know which way to run. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) first day and everything caught (UNINTELLIGIBLE). They hit us on a Sunday. Nobody was in office.
HEMMER: You're in your 70s now. How do you feel today?
TOM: I've seen the whole world go by me. I've seen the change. I've seen the change. I've seen the United States change. We're not (UNINTELLIGIBLE) what did they call it, European (UNINTELLIGIBLE). We're more of a diverse nation than we were.
HEMMER: Thank you, Tom, and I appreciate your time today and best of luck getting back in tomorrow and possibly next week as well.
Quickly back to Atlanta now to Bobbie and TALKBACK LIVE.
BATTISTA: All right, Bill, thanks. And we have our own group of firefighters right here in the audience from the Atlanta Fire Department. Chris and David, as you watch this unfold, I know as journalists when something like this happens, we want to be there. It's a draw, you know, for us to be there covering the story.
I would imagine in some ways it is for you guys too -- that you want to be there. You want to be able to help, right?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think every firefighter in the United States wants to be there to help. What we have to realize, though, we have to utilize help in an organized fashion and there's a tremendous amount of things we can do to help other than just being at the scene. They have that pretty well taken care of and one thing we have to remember is the families of the victims of not only the firefighters and police officers, but all the civilians are going to need help for many, many months to come.
And there's a tremendous amount of things people haven't even thought of as far as helping them weed through the things that have happened when you have a loss. Paperwork, just dealing with things, getting relatives in and out of town. So, that's what we're doing is organizing our efforts because we do have people that want to help.
We're trying to get a list organized together and when the appropriate time comes through the International Association of Firefighters or FEMA, we can send people to help with those other types of things to help the families and the survivors who are left behind. BATTISTA: And David, you were trying to put some perspective on this situation in New York where they've lost 300 firefighters, and that's a big chunk of the fire department there. You said, I believe, that it would be almost like losing an entire limb.
DAVID: It would be -- it'd be like losing the entire shift that's on duty today. In Atlanta, we have got 800 firefighters. They have 14,000. But today in Atlanta, there's about 220 on duty. Also, the largest loss of life the firefighters is was 27 -- back in 1947 in Texas City. So this is just unbelievable.
BATTISTA: Well, let us just say, by the way, I think we just got a call -- call to duty by the way, and we just want to say as they're going out to fight a fire somewhere in Atlanta, that we never say thank you enough for what you guys do. Now is as good a day as any.
Let me go to David. David, your thoughts.
DAVID: My thoughts are going back to something we talked about earlier as far as men wanting to go and to help out in this cause and this war, and one thing that I'm willing to do is would be to do that, to go and to fight as best I could to end this war on -- you want to call it war on terrorism, but a war on hate, that we can try to cut this off right now so the children that I have one day don't have to see any of the devastation, any of the terror that we've had to go through this week in this country ever again.
And I think a lot of young men that are sitting in this audience would hopefully want to say the same things.
BATTISTA: Yeah, a lot of them did a little earlier to us. Congressman Nadler, I -- there's no reason to think right now that there is -- need to reinstitute the draft, but that could come up possibly later?
NADLER: I would doubt that, but we don't really know. I would hope not. I never liked the draft, but we don't know. We have restructured our armed forces since the Vietnam War so that for any real conflict you have to call up reserves.
They're there for the armed forces. We saw that in the Persian Gulf situation, but we are far from having to institute the draft. That would call -- you wouldn't have to do that unless you had a really major land war, which I don't think anybody either wants or anticipates.
BATTISTA: Congressman Reynolds, do you agree?
REYNOLDS: I don't see the draft being a factor of being called up into play at this point. I think we need to give the president time as our commander in chief to move forward on the military buildup, calling of reservists that has occurred today. And we need to just support getting that to that military buildup so that the president's ready to go -- do the retaliation on those terrorists who caused this destruction to our country of people and our buildings. NADLER: But I think it's important to say, if I -- if I can jump in here. The question isn't simply retaliation. If it's simply retaliation, the way we did a few years back, we sent some cruise missiles throughout Afghanistan and through a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan. That's ineffectual. It would invite further violence against us.
This is far more serious. We have been attacked in a very serious way and our response has to be to destroy the ability of the groups to attack us again. And that's going to take effort and it's going to take time and it's going to take our allies as well.
BATTISTA: Jeff in the audience, do you want to respond?
Let me go to Jeff first, go ahead.
JEFF: Yeah, the one thing I haven't heard anybody say is that these people have awaken a sleeping giant and that giant is not going to go back to sleep until whatever needs to be done is done and terrorism is taken out of this country and the world. And the world needs to join this giant in getting to the problem and eliminating the problem.
NADLER: It's very interesting that you said that because on the floor of the House yesterday, the day before, I quoted Admiral Yamamoto, who is the Japanese commander of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and he was quoted as saying afterward -- I think the exact quote was "I fear that all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve," and I think that's the situation now.
ZOGBY: Bobbie, can I get in here?
BATTISTA: Yeah. Yes, go ahead.
ZOGBY: Just two sets of comments. One is I've seen running across the bottom, so many comments about World War III and I don't think this is World War III. Remember the balance of forces then were so different. There was a mighty Germany and a mighty Japan and huge competition for control of Europe and control of the Pacific and a mightier United States, and so we fought a world war.
I believe that the world is very different today and the United States has a very different standing among the nations of the world and this scourge, as grotesque as it is -- this scourge of terrorism is really a phenomenon. It can be isolated, and I believe dealt with some serious blows.
But I do think that from the discussions I've had with people in the Department of State that a very thoughtful approach is being worked through. Understand from what we're hearing now, it took these individuals years of planning to do what they did. I believe that the resolve of the United States is great and the resolve of our allies is great. And I believe that if we approach this as we approached, for example, the situation with Kuwait, the president will make his case.
Certainly, the country will be with him, but I believe we can build a near unanimous coalition throughout the world, and if we do that and we take the time to do this right, I think that we can deal this problem, this scourge of terrorism a huge blow and in fact succeed without a draft, without the kind of fear and trauma that many Americans are afraid of, and are expressing themselves in.
(CROSSTALK)
BATTISTA: Hope you're right.
Let me do a couple of e-mails here. Richard in California: "Please set up a fund where people across the country can contribute to the rebuilding of the WTC. Many of us would like to be able to contribute a small amount just so we can be a part of it being rebuilt and maybe just a little taller."
Heather in Ontario says: "I am a Canadian soldier and I find myself today playing the song "Proud to be an American" over and over again. That song depicts the strength and pride of the American people and it's appropriate at this time. God bless you all."
Mike is on the phone in Vermont. Mike, go ahead.
MIKE: Yes, Bobbie, one of the things I'd like to comment on is that I really think that restrictions need to be let up a little bit on law enforcement in so far as the FBI and the CIA in so far as their ability to deal with these individuals.
You know, the country prohibits the CIA from participating in assassinations, but if you had a sniper on a rooftop shooting at the citizens in New York, you know obviously would do what had to be done to eliminate that threat in that situation. I think the same needs to be done with terrorism. Once these people are identified, you do the best you can to deal with them -- that need be -- they need to be disposed of.
BATTISTA: All right, Mike , thank you very much. There are concerns on the other side of this -- Peter.
PETER: Well definitely. I'm from Norton (ph), New Jersey and my uncle Jerry (ph) is actually a firefighter working ground zero right now and when all this took place, obviously everyone placed cell phone calls trying to talk to their loved ones, and my father also works in the city and I couldn't get to him, and I also couldn't find my mother.
Luckily, my father is in Philadelphia, and the thing is there's a lot of us down here from that area and we don't know really what we can do. You know, we've been giving blood and trying to do fund raisers and things like that, and I think it's very important that all of us really just get together and try and figure out what we can do.
BATTISTA: How do you feel about a response?
PETER: I'll try and make this really simple. The way I feel is that an eye for an eye makes the world blind. We need to be very, very careful in what we do because I mean we're a very powerful empire, and we could really set out something very terrible that we all fear. So, we need to be very, very careful.
BATTISTA: And over here to Martin.
MARTIN: You know one of the things I believe we've forgotten as Americans is what's happened to our entire covert intelligence. I haven't heard a word mentioned today about the lack of funding that we have done for human capital and human intelligence. Not a word has been mentioned -- we've neutered the CIA.
We've neutered the defense intelligence and it's an absolute -- should not be a surprise if something was going to happen and we knew nothing about it. We as Americans truly need to come together as I think we have, and forget all the destinations of a black American, Muslim American. We're Americans first and something else after that.
BATTISTA: Congressman Reynolds, would you like to address that?
REYNOLDS: Yeah, I'd -- the gentleman, I guess in the long-range goal, I'd like to see increased funding for intelligence, something that certainly has been a debate in the past.
But we're dealing with a terrorist network throughout the world that is very complex, and we found that 18 individuals were willing to give their life to crash an aircraft into a building to cause the type of destruction they had to our country. And I think the president is preparing us to get ready for what we need to do as Congressman Nadler said and what I said previous, to move forward, to eradicate the type of terrorism by radical groups around the world that had the ability to pursue America.
And whether it be our country, our embassies, or our military abroad, we've reached a point that we have to go take on the war on terrorism.
BATTISTA: Let me go to the audience.
NADLER: If could I -- could I ...
BATTISTA: Yeah, go ahead, congressman.
NADLER: Can I say something here?
BATTISTA: Go ahead.
NADLER: We spend a very, very large amount of money on intelligence. The same amount is classified, so I can't say. But we spend a very large amount on intelligence. We have not neutered the CIA. That's a myth. I think it is fair to say that we probably have grown somewhat complacent and we're not spending enough on human intelligence as opposed to electronic and satellite intelligence.
That's the easy way. It's certainly easier to have a satellite spy on electronic communications than it is to try to infiltrate a terrorist organization against human beings into it. But clearly that -- we have to place probably a greater reliance on that than we have been. BATTISTA: Florence in the audience.
FLORENCE: This comment is directed toward our learning from history. In the last 10 years, I've had the opportunity to lead holocaust survivor groups between perfect survivors of both perpetuators and victims in 10 different countries, and one of the things that comes out is that they all wish we had not gone along with the policy of appeasement and containment, but have handled the Nazi enemies as soon as it became apparent what they were trying to do.
And what I hope we will do is handle this immediately. I'm also a mediator. There is no mediation with people who are irrational and whose goal is to vandalize and vanquish everyone else.
BATTISTA: And I want to get Matthew up here -- Matthew in the audience also who had some thoughts earlier. Matthew, you don't wish to disclose what your nationality is. We certainly respect that.
MATTHEW: Well, the importance of not disclosing is what people are talking about as far as retaliation, we need to be careful and we ask our politicians to also be careful in the reaction that we have. To move into Afghanistan we have to look at the countries that surround them -- China, India, Pakistan. All these countries which have nuclear weapons, it's a very sensitive area.
We -- so we ask that they -- the Army and the politicians be very sensitive to these areas. We can't just move in with our military force. We have to respect other regions and so, calling for possibly other countries from the Middle East such as Egypt to get involved in some kind of action. And again, it is -- it is right. It's not against an entire country. It's against individuals and we need to remember that so that more innocent lives are not lost.
REYNOLDS: Can I get in here for a second, Bobbie?
BATTISTA: Yeah.
REYNOLDS: One of the things that I think is important here is that the attack on America was the attack, as Tony Blair said, on the free world and democracy. And what I see our country doing while the president as our commander in chief is addressing a military buildup to address our national security concerns.
We also have had a global discussion by the president and by the secretary of state with our nation's, first our allies, then NATO ...
BATTISTA: Let me interrupt you just a moment. Congressman, forgive me.
(INTERRUPTED FOR CNN COVERAGE OF LIVE EVENT)
BATTISTA: Well, the talk has been continuing while you've been bringing us up to date. And we will continue on here for another 35 minutes or so. By the way, we are taking your phone calls and e-mail, as you know. We -- as we understand it, we're being simulcast on several radio stations. So if you want to call, the number is 1-800-310-4CNN or send us an e-mail to talkback@CNN.com.
As we continue, Congressman Jerry Nadler is still with us. Congressman Tom Reynolds had to leave. We understand. And James Zogby at the Arab-American Institute is still with us.
And yes, you know -- well, go ahead Congressman Nadler and then I want to...
NADLER: Thank you. I just want to add one thing here that really people haven't focused on. People think of the World Trade Center area as a great commercial area. And it obviously is. But the -- in the last 10 years, it has become a residential area. And 25,000 people live in that neighborhood, below our Chamber Street. And in the area, which -- except for emergency vehicles, there's no transportation in and out.
And my office and the office of the other elected officials have had to -- I represent that area -- have had to take the lead in dealing with some of the problems down there. For example, I'll mention two of them. A lot of the people in some of those buildings who were young and could move are -- have left the area. They've taken their kids. They're living with relatives or whoever. The old people -- the elderly people haven't been able to. They're stuck in those buildings. The home attendants can't get in or get out. The drug stores can't deliver pharmaceuticals. The drug stores aren't functioning. They can't get their drugs so we have to deal with that.
BATTISTA: Well, it sounds to me then, that there -- there is a way to use a lot of those people who are trying to volunteer.
NADLER: Well, there will be but that has been coordinated.
BATTISTA: Yes.
NADLER: But I want to say one other thing, there are a number -- there are at least 1,500 to 2,000 apartments that are uninhabitable at this point right across from the World Trade Center. We've asked -- we're asking the governor and the mayor -- we -- I spoke to the White House this morning -- to make the housing facilities on Governor's Island available at least on a temporary, emergency basis for some of the people who can't get to their buildings, that can't get to their apartments.
ZOGBY: Bobbie, can I...
BATTISTA: I'm going to -- I want to ask Mr. Zogby something because I know you have to leave here in just a few moments. We hear Aaron Brown talk about an incident earlier this morning at Boston's Logan Airport on a Delta flight that had to be stopped and deplaned and searched and bomb sniffed and everything else and that a man was taken off that plane because he was "vaguely Arab looking". I know that comment concerned you. ZOGBY: It hurts. I'm vaguely Arab looking and my kids are too. I mean I may be a little more than vaguely. The fact is, Bobbie, that we've seen this all over the country. And this is -- one of the problems we're having is that in fact, people are being targeted because they look Arab and that includes Hispanics and some African- Americans and Filipinos are being attacked and called Arabs.
This cannot happen and it should not happen. And one of the things I think your program does so well is bring this discussion to a wider public to say don't let there be an assumption of collective guilt because if you do, we'll really falling into a very dangerous pit that will divide our country and make us weaker.
Look, I've seen situations where -- just the other night, I was doing your show, I think or one of the shows on this network and they were reporting that a number of people were arrested at JFK and taken off the planes and handcuffed and so on and so forth. The Justice Department told us the next day they were all freed and it was bogus. But in the meantime, there was this fear that the Arabs are back at it again.
This was a problem. Nineteen people did evil and we need to find ways to protect ourselves, to ferret out this problem. But we cannot fall down the deep hole of racial prejudice because if we do, it will be a nightmare for all of us at the end.
BATTISTA: James Zogby, I know that you have to leave. Thanks very much for joining us today. I always appreciate your perspective on this.
Eddie, you are an American.
EDDIE: Yes, I am.
BATTISTA: You have ties to Iran. You sort of feel like you have no country is what you told me.
EDDIE: No, I'm very, very -- so delighted to be in this country for 30 years. I have learned so much. It's beyond my imagination.
BATTISTA: And you have some of the same obvious concerns that Mr. Zogby is talking about.
EDDIE: Yes. I have a comment and then I have a question for the guests. The comment is that I have watched this suffering and pain that has gone -- happened through this tragic event in New York. To me, this suffering and pain is not American suffering. It's not Republican or Democrat. It's not Western suffering. It's the humanity suffering.
So the suffering that has happened in the Palestinian families, can we feel the same way we feel today? The suffering is happening in Israeli family. Can we feel the same way that we feel today? This is a suffering of the humanity. So this is what the challenge is for the -- all the leaders and every human being that we have to go to our heart and wherever the suffering is, is our suffering. It is just one suffering. There is no division.
So the division that is taking place in this world, which is the rest of the world and then the free world and not free world. And my question then is to this leaders that they are making this horrendous decision today, is that there has been so much effort to bring the freedom to the east of Europe. Why there is no -- most of these terrorists came from the Saudi Arab, Egypt, Arab Emirates and all of these countries are the very good friend of United States. Why we don't bring democracy in their societies so these kind of people would not fester in the societies?
BATTISTA: And this is -- your question is for the congressman.
EDDIE: My question to the congressman, why we don't promote democracy in the Arab world as we promote democracy in the Eastern Europe?
NADLER: Well, there are limits to the power of the United States. I think the United States has tried over the years to promote democracy. Certainly, the United States information agency, the radio broadcasts and so forth, but especially during the Cold War, which ended only 10 years, United States found itself in alliance with a lot of countries that weren't great democracies, because we had to oppose the communist world, or felt we had to.
Now, Egypt, for example, is supposedly a friend to the United States, and in some ways it is. On the other hand, the government- controlled press in Egypt foments the most vicious racism and anti- Semitism and even anti-American feelings, I think because that's a way for the government to appease the fundamentalist Islamic movements in that country. They feel that that's something they have to do politically.
I'm not sure that the United States -- I mean, should we have been -- I think we should have been and I think we should now put more pressure on countries like Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, for example, to stop promoting this kind of anti-Semitic and vicious racist propaganda. That's actually part of the agreement the Palestinian Authority signed which they never agreed to. But the United States is not in a position to impose democracy on other countries. We can put pressure to a degree.
Now certainly I agree on a different level with what was being said before by Mr. Zogby. We have to make sure that in the United States itself, and where we can affect, where we can really affect things to a much greater degree that we educate our own people that the evil people who did this are not representative of all Muslims or all whoever, and certainly not of Arabs or Muslims who live in the United States, a small number of whom may sympathize with these people, but most of whom, the great majority, do not.
We do not want to see -- we made a terrible mistake in World War II when we interned Americans of Japanese ancestry. We made another terrible mistake when foreign nationals from enemy countries who have fled those countries because they disagreed with the Nazi regime were suspected. So we have to be very careful about protecting civil liberties and civil rights of minority groups in our own country.
BATTISTA: Let me do some e-mails and phone calls here. We're getting an awful lot of e-mails from Canada. We seem to have a lot of friends in Ontario. Sean says: "As a nation of peacekeepers, Canadians stand behind our brothers and sisters in the United States and any action necessary to combat these heinous acts of terror."
Colin in Ontario says: "As a Canadian, I feel for pain for America. As a father and a firefighter, I feel worse for the American people. If asked, I would be there in a heartbeat."
Richard Diaz says: "Puerto Rico is with you. As American citizens, we fought bravely in your wars, we will fight with you on this one as well. Count on us. God bless America."
Let me go to Clinton on the phone in California -- Clinton.
CLINTON: Hello.
BATTISTA: Hi.
CLINTON: Yeah, I'm 63 years old, and if they called me today and they wanted me to go fight, I would go fight. I am just thinking that I hear a lot of this talk -- and even if they arrested bin Laden, what good would that do? Because somebody would take his place. They got to go after the nation or nations that did this act on American citizens. That's all I have to say about that.
BATTISTA: All right, Clinton, thank you very much.
This is an interesting e-mail I've gotten from Gavin in Philadelphia, who says: "I am friend with Pakistani engineers where I work. They have lived here for years. How can I not worry that they are part of the sleeper network of terrorist supporters?"
I wish James Zogby was still here, but congressman...
NADLER: That is one of the really insidious effects of that type of terrorism. There are sleeper agents. And one of the things that any enemy of the United States will try to do is to have us distrusting each other. You can't look at everybody of a generally Arabic appearance or everybody who came from Pakistan 20 years ago or for that matter 20 months ago and worry that he may be a sleeper. There are sleeper agents, but the odds that your friends or that people living next door are sleepers are minuscule. There are millions of people in this country from Middle East -- not just Middle East, but Southern Asian backgrounds. Maybe there are 20 or 30 sleeper agents, who knows? Or 40 or 50.
We cannot start looking at everybody else's in the United States as an enemy. Leave that to the -- to the FBI and to our government investigative agencies to figure out who the sleepers are, who the enemy agents are. We don't want to get to a McCarthy-like situation when we looked at anybody who was to the left of -- you know, who had liberal sympathies, and said, maybe he's a communist. BATTISTA: That is the downside of it, and it's already happening. Matthew, for example, was telling us earlier that your uncle, correct, in Florida? Oh, that was Mohammad -- or Mahdi (ph). One of you was. Mahdi (ph), you were telling me your uncle has been a victim of this already.
Matthew -- go ahead, Mahdi (ph), you tell us about it first.
MAHDI: Well, his house was vandalized. Actually, on his garage and on his mailbox, the word -- the F word was put, and Muslims was put next to it, and then he got some phone calls telling him to get out of the neighborhood. I'm not sure if people wanted to protect him, or they were just telling him to get out. And there were also people run off the road in certain places. Someone had her hand broken at the university in Florida, I'm not going to say which one, but heinous acts have been perpetrated.
NADLER: Let me add here, if I can. The president and Governor Pataki and Mayor Giuliani have been very good in speaking out against this kind of hate crime or generalization. The essence of prejudice is to generalize and say because one Muslim or 50 Muslims did these terrible things, therefore all Muslims or all Jews or all Irish or all whoever are terrible, dangerous people. That's the essence of discrimination and prejudice.
I think it is the duty of all elected officials to speak out and warn people against this kind of conduct, and it's the duty of our law enforcement agencies when they find it -- because there will be some people who will do this. In any society, you are going to get people who are going to disobey the law, and these are illegal acts. Hate crimes are illegal, and they should be punished.
BATTISTA: I'm sure there may be some fear about reporting of them, which there shouldn't be, but that sort of goes along with it.
Matthew, you had a story about your friend?
MATTHEW: Well, it's not a story about a particular friend at all, but I will bring Jerry into it. But I think this country also needs to realize the identity or the image that they have of what an American is is kind of skewed.
I'm an American, and that idea of like it's not just a white person or a black person. There are those of us in colors in between. Our names, they can be Sorab (ph), Jagjeet (ph), Omar (ph). You know, our names come from just like anybody else, our grandfathers, our forefathers before us. But we are Americans, and like I mentioned to you all before, if I was drafted, I would go to war because I'm an American man.
But you had this person mention through the e-mail about, you know, I'm afraid of these Pakistani coworkers, that is ridiculous to say such things, because we love our country just as much. I went to preschool here. I grew up -- I am just as American. This is my identity. And I'm proud of the skin color, and I'm proud of where my parents come from as well. And this is also my identity. But it hurts as an American to hear my fellow Americans say that they are afraid of me. I get second looks. You don't know where I'm from, but it's really bothersome. And all -- I ask all of America to realize that we are in this together. Don't judge us by the way that we look.
And I want to point to my friend Jerry. He is of the Sikh religion. They wear turbans on their head, and a lot of people have confused these folks. You see pictures of the folks from the Taliban, they also wear turbans. That's a regional thing. Jerry is not Muslim, he's of a completely different religion, but there's been violence committed against people of his faith as well, because are ignorant and don't understand.
And Jerry is just like me, we grew up in America, we went to college together here. And I just think it's ridiculous to attack us because of the way we look. And honestly, this is an issue that African-Americans faced in the '60s. We are not -- we are not anything different. We're equals and we are Americans.
BATTISTA: Jerry, did you want to comment on this?
JERRY: Yes, I'd like to say that I'm Sikh American, and as part of our religious uniform, we're required to wear turbans and keep our head covered. And a lot of people do mistake us for these terrorists, because. as you see on the media, when you see the pictures of Osama bin Laden, you see him wearing a turban and wearing a head cover and so forth.
I have spoken to many of my friends across this country, and they have told me of stories of people Sikhs and Arabs and Muslims being chased, being beaten. And we are not the targets. We're all in this together. We need to find these select few people who are committing these attacks against humanity and go after them.
BATTISTA: And one more phone call on this. Sandy in Alabama. Sandy, go ahead.
SANDY: I am an American citizen. I am also a Muslim woman. And I cannot hide the fact that I am a Muslim. I fear for my life, just stepping out the door. Since thing happened, I have been in my home. And I was wondering, how and as this escalates, how am I supposed to feel safe? When is it going to be safe for me to go out of my home, and when is it going to be safe for my children to go back to school?
BATTISTA: All right, Sandy, thank you.
Hesban (ph), you're from Kenya.
HESBAN: Yeah. I am from Kenya, and as everybody knows, like two years ago we had just a problem like this. We had a bombing in Nairobi, which is in Kenya. A U.S. embassy was bombed. And in Kenya, we lost a lot of people. And I share the feeling with the Americans, and I know the way they feel because it happened to us two years ago.
But I've -- I'm asking myself when this thing happened in Kenya and happened right now here in the United States, and I'm asking myself -- why is it happening? I'm asking myself again and again, why, and why do these people really hate? There must be something for it. I mean, why do you really hate and why are you doing this kinds of things? And I'm asking myself again and again, and I can't get any answer at all. So that's only my comment.
NADLER: The -- let me comment, if I could. There doesn't always have to be a rational reason. When you look throughout history why minority groups were hated -- why were the Jews hated in Germany or in other countries? It's not because of anything they did. If they were successful in businesses, that was the cause of discrimination. If they weren't successful, that was the cause of discrimination. It didn't matter. They were called communist and capitalists both.
The fact is the United States is a very -- is the dominant country in the world today. It represents freedom, it represents democracy, it represents modernity, and there are groups who feel threatened by all of those, by a modern society, by democracy, by freedom, and they hate us for that reason. For who we are and what we are, not because of anything we're doing.
As I said earlier in the program, it is striking that these terrorists, Osama bin Laden -- whoever did this and people who have done other terrorist acts in the past, they didn't ask, they didn't demand anything of us. They didn't say, change your policy on this, change your policy on that, they just bombed us, because their opposition to us is not based on a specific policy. It's not based because of the Middle East crisis or anything else, it's because of who and what we are. And there's nothing we can do in all likelihood to change that.
We simply have to defeat them and take away their ability to harm us, because they are going to exercise that just because of who and what we are. And if it is seems not rational, it isn't.
BATTISTA: An e-mail from Lacy (ph) at Cannon Air Force base in New Mexico. It says: "If we don't fight to keep our freedom, we will eventually lose it to those responsible for these attacks on America. My husband is currently in Saudi Arabia, and I fear I will never see him again. But if I don't, I will know that he fought for me, for you and for America's freedom."
Christina.
CHRISTINA: Yes, I'd like to hear our leaders' thoughts on long- term changes we can make in the U.S. role overseas. I think it's time for us as citizens to educate ourselves about our country's history and developing countries and for our leaders to really question themselves and ask, is it still necessary for us to have places like the School of the Americas in Fort Bening, Georgia, where we train military leaders that then turn around and abuse and oppress their own citizens.
Is it still necessary for us to put dictators in power and support those corrupt governments, and that's what we've done over and over in various countries. I think too often we've been looking at short-term problems, and we're not looking at what's truly right for a democratic country to be supporting. And we're creating resentment overseas. I'd like to hear our leaders' thoughts on how we can change that.
NADLER: I don't know who -- I am one of those leaders, I suppose, and I can only give you my own views, which are my own. I agree with you on the School of the Americas. I have voted repeatedly to eliminate the School of the Americas because of the abuses of what it has done. I think that most of the abuses of putting dictators into power are historical at this point. They were done in the context of the Cold War in the perceived necessity of defeating the communist enemy. I don't think we are doing that right now.
I think that the war on drugs, however, is leading us into some of the same mistakes and places in Latin America that there were in communism led us into in Europe and Asia and Latin America, and that's a whole different subject. We ought to promote to the extent we can democracy abroad, but we shouldn't attempt to impose it on people. There are people in this world, the countries with vastly different cultural traditions than the United States, and you can't impose different traditions, different ways of life on them. It's not our business to do so.
We should promote democracy to the extent we can. But that's it. Let people live the way they want to. We should certainly not be promoting or supporting dictatorships, and I think that that's much less of a problem now than it was, say, 10 years ago -- that is, our promoting such things.
BATTISTA: Annette is on the phone. Go ahead, Annette.
ANNETTE: Hi. Well, I basically want to be very brief in saying that I think we're suffering from political correctness. I think that I would be glad to give up some of my civil liberties at this point to be taken off a plane and make sure the plane is safe. I don't condone anything that has been done as far as terrorizing people that live here, but you know, if you would asked the people that died would they have given up a little bit of their civil liberties so that wouldn't happen -- I'm sure everyone of them would have said they would.
I don't think it's out of anybody's way, whether you are Arabic or Hispanic, to be taken off a plane. I would do it gladly, and people should stop whining, because it's basically what they are doing. And stop being an individual, because right now you're not. You're just one United States.
BATTISTA: Congressman, are you anticipating a fight over that necessarily? Do you feel like most Americans do feel like that now?
NADLER: Well, I think that the caller is mixing up two things. Safety on airplanes is not a civil liberties issue. We have to be very careful not to sacrifice our civil liberties. There will be calls, I'm sure, to sacrifice our civil liberties, to sacrifice due process of law, as they were there during the fight against communism, and that we have to be very careful about and not surrender too. Safety on airplanes, going through more rigorous screening to get on an airplane and so forth -- by all means, that's not a civil liberties question. But we should not -- if we allow our society in the name of fighting terrorism or in the name 10 year ago of fighting communism to surrender our civil liberties, we are giving a great victory to the enemies of liberty. And after all, why this country is founded on liberty -- it is to promote liberty, and that's one of our great aspirations and reasons for being, and we should not permit those unspeakable people who don't believe in liberty to cause us to give up some of it.
BATTISTA: Tia (ph) in the audience.
TIA: I would just like to make a point to all the Americans who feel they need to discriminate against like my fellow Americans over here and all the people of different ethnicities in our country that are Americans, I just -- I want to say that the people that have been lost in those two towers were not just white people with blonde hair and blue eyes, they were of all different nations. They were people just like you and me with different colored skin. And they were lost too, they feel the pain.
And I just want to say those people that feel they need to discriminate, they need to stop. Because they hurt just as much as we are, and that's not the solution.
BATTISTA: A couple of more e-mails here. Milton in Los Angeles says: "We need a meaningful dialogue to try to understand why people would resort to such terrible actions. Retaliation does not feel like the proper answer."
Christine in Illinois: "My husband is in the Army reserves, and I support him and our country. The people that did this crime must pay. United we stand. God bless the USA."
Let me go up to the audience here quickly.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Xurica (ph), go ahead.
XURICA: OK. I would like to question my concern basically to the general -- is it fair for them to point their finger to bin Laden, not really knowing if he did it, because it's causing all these emotions -- and people like my sister, she lives in Baltimore, she is in a Muslim Arab school, and they have been like -- people have been harassing them, common people. Media has put a lot of attention on them, and no one really knows, they don't have any hard evidence onto who has done it, so now America...
BATTISTA: Well, let's clarify that, because I think that we must, congressman, since the president came out and named Osama bin Laden as the prime suspect today?
NADLER: Well I'm not in law enforcement, but I am told they have very hard evidence as to who did it. And I think we have to face reality. And the reality is, there is a -- there are a group of related terrorist groups out there, most of whom espouse a certain extremist brand of Muslim fundamentalism. They are not representative of 98 percent -- or 99 percent of Muslims in the world, and we have to fight the people who have declared war on us.
But we also have to make clear that the people who are Muslims or Arabs but who are not part of these terrorist groups are our friends. They are our fellow citizens, and they are not to be equated just because they share the same skin color or the same cultural background or -- not even the same religion, because this fundamental brand of Islam is not the same as most Muslims who believe in peace.
So you have to educate people that they're not same, but at the same time you can't turn your -- your -- you can't ignore the facts of who the enemy is. A small group of people, but we have a pretty good idea who they are, and we have to make sure that we concentrate on them and differentiate them from all the Muslims and the Arabs and other people who are not them. And that's what we have to educate our people on.
BATTISTA: Mahdi (ph) and Mohammed want to respond?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just have a quick question for the congressman. You said that the terrorists made no specific demands, yet if I recall correctly from my Gulf War history, Osama bin Laden -- assuming he is the perpetrator -- said that the reason he's mad at us is because we have American troops in Saudi Arabia, which he considers Islamic holy land. Could you just comment on that briefly?
NADLER: Well, he can say what he wants, and I don't -- but the fact -- well, first of all, that's 10 years ago, if he said. But they made no demand on us in the last 10 years that I know of, or recently.
I'm sure they have grievances, but the point is they didn't say, "remove your troops from Saudi Arabia," or do this, or do that, or else we will. They simply attacked us and over a period of time.
Now, the United States has interests in various places in the world. We have interests in helping out friends. Yeah, if the United States were totally isolationist and did nothing abroad, maybe they wouldn't oppose us. Maybe.
But on the other hand, we have the right to do what we democratically decide to do, as long as it doesn't infringe on others. Now, the -- we don't have a lot of troops in Saudi Arabia, I don't know how many we have there now, but they are there -- I'm not sure we have any troops in Saudi Arabia. But if we do, they are there at the invitation of the Saudi government, for whatever purpose, and for some terrorist to come along and say he has decided that he's going to attack the United States because he doesn't like what we're doing in connection with Saudi Arabia -- well, if he decides to attack us, that makes him our enemy.
BATTISTA: Mohammed?
MOHAMMED: Previously, congressman, you brought up the issue of the billions of dollars spent on intelligence and spy satellites. But if spy satellites can pinpoint any license plate number of car, from anywhere around the world, why can't those spy satellites locate the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden?
NADLER: Well, I am not a technical military expert. But the fact is, our satellites can photograph things on the ground, as you say, they can spy the license plate number, they can intercept electronic communications. But if you don't travel with license plates, if you travel with a hood over your head and don't -- period. If you don't use electronic communications, and you communicate in writing, very difficult. We clearly need more human intelligence.
BATTISTA: Let me go up to the newsroom here quickly to Miles O'Brien. I think Miles is standing by there and he's been keeping track of aviation around the country, and of course the changes that have been made in aviation security. We have a number of the people in the audience, by the way, who are afraid to fly right now and who have changed their plans. And we'll talk to them in a few moments. But give us an overview, if you will, Miles, of what is going on in the country right now.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Bobby, I don't know if you can see this very well with the glare, maybe we'll get a close-up.
But this is basically nearly real time image of what the aviation picture in the country looks like right about now. And what it is showing you is a very, very crowded sky. Look at all these aircraft. There are more than 4,000 aircraft over the United States already. The system is pretty much back to where it would be on a normal day. And I guess what that tells you is things can get back to normal kind of quickly.
Of course, normalcy is a relative thing. We also don't know how many people are on board all of these planes. Take a look at just the Northeast, if you will. You get a sense -- everyone of those blue dots indicates one plane that is in flight. Not all commercial aircraft, but many of them commercial. Some of them chartered, some of them general aviation with instrument ratings.
I think that the concerns are real. I think some of the security issues have to be addressed, and I'm not sure that the FAA has addressed them all with these emergency restrictions.
BATTISTA: A couple of folks in the audience with concerns or questions? Go ahead, Christy.
CHRISTY: I mean, I live in Germany and I have to go back tomorrow. But I think -- I really think -- I mean, there's no other way, but I have to fly, but I don't think that I'm going to come back for a while because of that reason. And I am going to wait until the security in America is the same as in Europe so that I feel comfortable flying again.
BATTISTA: You also had a question for the general, and as I understand he has joined Miles now. General Wesley Clark is up there, former NATO commander. I'll take your question in just a second for the general on that, but let me have you put some strategic perspective, general, if you will, on the news that we got in the past hour or two that Iran has now closed its border with Afghanistan. GEN. WESLEY CLARK, FORMER NATO ALLIED COMMANDER: Well, I think it's a domestic issue for Iran, really. They don't want any more refugees in there. I wouldn't view as either the support or rejection of the United States, particularly. I think it's just something they are trying to do to protect themselves.
BATTISTA: I know you are standing in front of a map there, if you could give us a little bit of an overview of that area and talk about it in terms of military strategy, if and when it comes to that.
CLARK: Well, if it comes to military operations in this area, of course what you have is the country of Afghanistan, which is landlocked, and this is ruled by the Taliban movement, except for a small portion of it which is still -- where they are still fighting.
And the thinking is that the Taliban may be supporting Osama bin Laden. And we don't know precisely where he might be in this area. But it is a landlocked area. It is several hundred miles from access from the sea, it's difficult terrain. There's 26 million people there. They have been through 22 years of civil war. They are impoverished. They have always been fractious, split into tribal groups, resistant to outside presence, and that's even more the case today. So it is a very tough part of the world.
BATTISTA: Question from Christian in the audience.
CHRISTIAN: General, do you think that there are going to be any European countries be involved in any military strikes or operations?
CLARK: Well, I don't know about the military strikes, because you know, obviously that will be done if and when it makes sense, if there's a target, if it's best done. But you know, this is an operation that is directed against a terrorist network. We're talking not about airfields and bunkers and factories. We're talking about groups of individuals who have perpetrated a terrible act on the United States -- several acts on the United States, and are a threat to the rest of the world. So we're talking about something that's best dealt with on a face-to-face basis.
We would like European nations and Arab nations and Asian nations and everywhere around the world, the cooperation from the local police, the national police, the information agencies. We need to really run these cells out of business, wherever they are -- in South America, in Europe, in Asia, person by person. Detain the people, interrogate them, investigate them, back track the information, find out who else is out there and take this network apart and run it back to its source. And ideally, we would lake to bring these people into justice, put them on trial for this terrible act of murder and let justice take its course.
BATTISTA: A question from Cameron here, and this may be our last one, but we'll see. Go ahead, Cameron.
CAMERON: I have two things to say. The first one is a comment toward the congressman -- my sister is one of the people who is not able to get back in her apartment. She lives two buildings away from the Trade Center. She watched the entire thing happen from her bedroom window. And you said earlier that you were going to try and set up housing for those people, and I beg you to please do that, because she is homeless, she is a refugee right now. She doesn't know where to go, she only has the clothes on her back, so...
NADLER: Well, as I said, I put in a call to the White House this morning, and we're going to be talking to the governor and the mayor in the next day about trying to see if it makes sense to open up Governor's Island and to see how long it will take to get that available. They have to -- you know, the facilities there are mothballed, to see how long it will take to un-mothball them, to get the ferry service running there, and if that's a matter of a couple days or a couple weeks. If it's a couple days, maybe we can do that, if it's a few weeks, we need something else obviously.
But we're going to be -- we are working on this now.
CAMERON: All right, thank you. And the second thing I just have for the general, it's a question. What way do you think will be most effective to go into Afghanistan, considering they are not a push-over country, as was illustrated when the Soviet Union invaded them and lost over 100,000 men. Ground war won't work of course, and I mean -- I think we're technology -- or technologically advanced to really keep the body count low. I mean, basically I'm just asking, how are we going to do this? What's the best way?
BATTISTA: We have about 15 seconds, general.
CLARK: I know we're looking at many different ways. The best way is for the Taliban to arrest Osama bin Laden and turn him over to the world community for justice.
BATTISTA: General Clark, thank you very much. Miles, thank you. And Congressman Nadler, we appreciate you being with us for the last couple of hours.
Our audience, I thank you all very much for being here today. Wonderful comments, insightful questions. And we will be here again tomorrow at a slightly different time, from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. tomorrow afternoon, another special edition of TALKBACK LIVE. And we hope that you'll join us then, as America speaks out. We'll be going to Aaron Brown now in New York for the latest on what's going on. Thank you for joining us.
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