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CNN Talkback Live
New Study Suggests Rise in Underage Drinking; Does It Matter What Muslims Think of America?
Aired February 26, 2002 - 15:00 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.
ARTHEL NEVILLE, HOST: Hello everybody and welcome to TALKBACK LIVE. I'm Arthel Neville.
How many of you drank liquor or beer or wine while you were in high school? Did anybody drink in grade school? Now a new study suggests underage drinking is growing more common, especially the binge kind that gets kids in trouble.
But the big question in, what do you do about it? We'd like to hear from you, so give us a call at 800-310-4CNN, or e-mail me at talkback@cnn.com and we'll include you in those discussions.
But right now, we're going to take a look at everything else we're talking about today.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NEVILLE: Does it matter what Muslims overseas think about America?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's Americans themselves who (UNINTELLIGIBLE) the 11th of September attacks. It's definitely not bin Laden.
NEVILLE: Also, seven-year-old Danielle Van Dam is still missing, so how could her neighbor be charged with the girl's murder?
And, a new study claims 31 percent of high school kids are binge drinking. That's five drinks an hour, at least once a month. Those underage drinkers are sopping up a quarter of all alcohol consumed in the United States. And guess what? The study shows many parents see it as a right of passage.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NEVILLE: Well, what do you think about that, drinking as a right of passage? Well, here are a couple of other number for you. By their senior year, 80 percent of high schoolers have tried alcohol, 47 percent have tried marijuana, and 29 percent have tried another illegal drug. Now the study's authors are defending their results, despite complaints from a liquor industry group, which is disputing the findings. With all that in mind, let's meet our guests. Catherine Bath she's a program director at Security On Campus, Incorporated. It's an organization dedicated to college campus safety. Now, Ms. Bath's son died of aspiration pneumonia after drinking too much. He was a junior at Duke University.
Also with us, Dr. Drew Pinsky, a board-certified internist and addiction specialist. He's best known for his show "Loveline" which is a Westwood One syndicated radio program.
And, Jacob Sullum, senior editor of "Reason" Magazine, and author of "For Your Own Good: The Anti-Smoking Crusade and the Tyranny of Public Health."
I want to thank all of you for being with us this afternoon.
JACOB SULLUM, "REASON MAGAZINE": Thank you.
NEVILLE: Sure. Ms. Bath, I'd like to start with you. I'd like to ask you, is the -- how much is parental involvement or lack thereof, responsible for this problem?
CATHERINE BATH, SECURITY ON CAMPUS, INC.: Well, parents can make a difference. I just want to say, I lost my only son and we had a very loving relationship. A mistake I probably made was, I was a little ignorant about how big the drinking scene in high school and on college campuses was.
When my son said to me, "mom, I think it's OK to be a social drinker," I thought he meant two or three drinks, which is my definition of social drinking in most adults. What he meant was 10 or 15 beers with his buddies on a regular basis. I did not realize that.
NEVILLE: Yes. Let's talk about the idea that some parents let their kids drink alcohol at home, so it's no longer the forbidden fruit. Where do you stand on that?
BATH: Well, I think that parents need to realize that alcohol is a very dangerous drug, even though it's very condoned in this society. People should see it for what it is, and if they're going to let kids drink at their home -- for instance, my son had a friend in high school where the parents did allow them to drink. What if a child leaves that home and crashes their car into a tree? They will be legally responsible. They will be sued. They need to know that.
DR. DREW PINSKY, HOST "LOVELINE": Arthel, if I could jump in here.
NEVILLE: Sure, go right ahead.
PINSKY: The fact is that everyone that has looked at this has come to the conclusion that drinking in the home is not a good idea. If it were a good idea, certainly experts would suggest legally go ahead and do this. It's not a good thing. Kids need very, very clear boundaries, very specific kinds of recommendations. We actually recommend zero tolerance. They will drink anyway, believe me, and if you create the appropriate consequences for the transgressions, then they will understand how to modify their behaviors. But the fact is that drinking in the home ends up being a bad idea.
NEVILLE: Now Dr. Drew, I'm standing here with Margaret from Texas. You have what, an 18-year-old son who's in college, and you say that he brings his friends over to your house and they drink at home.
MARGARET: Yes.
NEVILLE: Why do you allow that and do you feel OK with that? Do you think it's better for them to drink at home than to take it out elsewhere?
MARGARET: I have very strong emotions about it. He calls me from college and he's drunk and he's drinking with all of his friends and I worry what's going to happen.
PINSKY: Well, does he have alcoholism in his family history? Is his mom or dad an alcoholic?
MARGARET: No, but what's that word, do as I say, don't do as I do?
PINSKY: But the fact is though, alcoholism if that's indeed what he has, is very adversely affected by people encouraging and enabling their behaviors. It really needs to be set down a boundary that he comes up against that lets him realize that he's got a problem. These...
NEVILLE: Can I just -- Dr. Drew, if I may...
SULLUM: I wonder if I could question that point.
NEVILLE: Go ahead.
SULLUM: I think to assume that because somebody drinks in college that maybe he's an alcoholic, is really quite elite. It's actually...
(CROSSTALK)
PINSKY: If somebody's calling their moms.
SULLUM: Wait, excuse me. If somebody's calling his mom intoxicated, I think that's kind of a clue that perhaps something is going on here. That's not deviant behavior.
PINSKY: Well, this is not...
SULLUM: For a college student, this is not deviant behavior.
PINSKY: To call parents intoxicated is normal behavior? SULLUM: The question is...
MARGARET: This is not about me. It's about my son. So I don't appreciate this at all.
NEVILLE: Right, because suddenly you're attacking the family here. You're talking to Margaret inadvertently by saying that she's responsible for her son's drinking. She didn't say that her son is an alcoholic.
(CROSSTALK)
NEVILLE: Excuse me for a second, because you said that they were there drinking at home with their friends, and again, you say what to that? I would like you to reemphasize that because apparently you've got some people who disagree with you here.
MARGARET: I prefer that I know where he's at and he's not drinking and driving. He could be doing the same thing in a friend's house instead of at mine.
PINSKY: All right, we need to define our terms here. What is alcoholism? The American Society of Addiction Medicine has defined alcoholism as progressive use in the face of adverse consequence with a biologic history or genetic history.
MARGARET: Well, define progressive.
PINSKY: Progressive?
MARGARET: Yes.
PINSKY: Meaning continued use over time. It may not increase rapidly. It may be very slightly increased. It may increase over 10 years, but when there are consequences and the relationship of the substance continues, that's alcoholism.
Now I believe that making a parent frightened that a child's going to hurt themselves when he calls intoxicated, those are consequences, and I think that needs to be looked at very seriously.
Look, we live in a society where alcohol is looked at as an intoxicant, not as a food. In cultures where alcohol is a food, the using alcohol at home tends to work much better. In our society, it doesn't work. Kids look to alcohol as an intoxicant and that's the way they use it.
MARGARET: Well.
PINSKY: It is an intoxicant.
MARGARET: Define drinking. He's called me once when he's been drinking. I said "have you been drinking" and he's being honest with me. So where's he wrong in that?
PINSKY: I didn't say he's wrong for that. I'm not judging anything.
(CROSSTALK)
PINSKY: I'm not judging anything. I'm just telling you you have a medical issue here that needs to be assessed.
NEVILLE: Dr. let me jump in. We've got a caller on the line now. Terry, is it you on the line? Kelly. Go ahead, Kelly. What do you have to say about this?
KELLY: Hi. I'm in New Jersey. I have a seventh grade daughter. She says that the kids brag about going to school, this is middle school, seventh and eighth grades, going to school dances drunk, that they've had parties before they go to the dance and then they get in trouble.
My daughter, of course, doesn't attend the dances. We're extremely up front with our children about abusive substances, and I just find that very, very disturbing because these are 13, 14-year-old children.
PINSKY: Well, I'll tell you what. It's very common behavior. Not only do they go, they go to sweet sixteen parties and then maybe things are being very chaperoned. You think you've got control of things. They go outside and there's things out there available for them.
SULLUM: This issue of control is important. I think the problem is, when you have a zero tolerance approach, you preach only abstinence. You don't talk at all about responsible drinking. You tend to push drinking underground. That means that people are drinking in situations that are more dangerous.
On college campuses, for example, they're drinking without any supervision from staff or faculty. If somebody gets into trouble, they may be reluctant to call for help, because they're afraid that they'll get into trouble with the administration or with police. That is not a situation that's conducive to responsible drinking. And it's important to bear in mind that when we talk about underage drinking, you're talking about -- many of these people you're talking about are, in fact, adults.
They're 18, 19, 20-year-olds, people who are considered adults for virtually every other purpose, but for some reason, we decided they can't have a beer. I think it's a very strange situation when the President's daughter can create a media sensation because she wants to have a Margarita when she's 19 years old. Again, this is not deviant behavior. This is normal behavior for somebody of her age. It's not something the police should be involved with at all. If you want to know -
BATH: The problem is...
NEVILLE: Go ahead.
BATH: ... Mr. Sullum, that the kids aren't just having a Margarita. They're getting smashed. That's the problem.
SULLUM: Sure, but the question is...
BATH: I don't know if...
SULLUM: ... how do you inculcate habits of moderate responsible drinking? Is it by insisting that people not touch alcohol until they turn 21 and at that age, somehow magically, they're going to know how to drink responsibly?
BATH: No.
SULLUM: Or is it by gradually introducing one's kids to alcohol as they grow up, depending on their age and their maturity level.
BATH: Well, that's obviously the way they feel...
SULLUM: And teaching them how to distinguish between responsible and irresponsible behavior.
NEVILLE: It's that way over in Europe, because the age in France, the drinking age, legal drinking age is 16. Now I'm standing here with Heather, who you had a situation in college where you were at a party. There was alcohol involved. The police came in, raided the place, and then what happened?
HEATHER: And they took all of us minors out and gave us breathalyzers, and charged us all with underage drinking.
NEVILLE: And how old were you at the time?
HEATHER: 20.
NEVILLE: So what do you think about this? How did you feel when that happened? Did it change your mind about drinking at a party?
HEATHER: It changed my mind drinking at a party, but it didn't change my mind about drinking.
NEVILLE: In general?
HEATHER: Yes.
BATH: So this is what we need to do. We need to educate the kids about what alcohol really is. We're not really educating them. We're just saying "no."
SULLUM: Well, that's right. I agree with that. I think in order to educate them, you have to teach them about the genuine risks that are associated with drinking.
BATH: That's right, and there are some real...
SULLUM: You have to point out the difference between moderation and excess.
BATH: Right.
SULLUM: Things like if you drink enough alcohol, you can die.
BATH: That's right.
SULLUM: And that's something a kid should know. They should know what quantity of alcohol is enough to cause acute intoxication.
BATH: They should know that.
SULLUM: And can actually lead to his death.
(CROSSTALK)
SULLUM: There's no way they're going to know that unless people can instruct them in an above board open manner so they can actually...
(CROSSTALK)
NEVILLE: Let me jump in right here. We're going to go to break and we're definitely going to continue this subject when we get back, and I'd like to toss around this idea, the fact that maybe children are inadvertently taught that drinking is OK to relax, a glass at wine at dinner, a couple of glasses of wine on the weekend. What do you think about that? I want to hear from you, and TALKBACK LIVE will continue right after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NEVILLE: And welcome back everybody to TALKBACK LIVE. I'm Arthel Neville. We are talking about a study that is released, saying that drinking, underage drinking is becoming an epidemic. I'm standing here now with Lucille and you wanted to comment on something that one of our guests said earlier.
LUCILLE: Yes. I was very concerned about the zero tolerance that the guest said. I don't think zero tolerance solves anything. It's not more than if one were to say that the electric chair keeps people from killing people. It doesn't. That's zero tolerance to die.
To me, if we're going to raise our children, it is no harm to have a glass of wine and some cultures are built around those type of things. But everything in moderation, and when we take 10 and 15 pills to keep ourselves going, we grownups, that is just as bad as our children drinking.
We're driving ourselves groggy from pills and different things. And so what we need to do is address in this culture how we're going to live, how we're going to enjoy what the Lord has provided for us to enjoy. Everything in moderation and our children will not come to us if we have zero tolerance.
My husband and I have been married 46 years. I will not go to him if I don't think that he's going to tolerate what I have to say. So in raising five children, we raised five sons and a daughter. They all went to college. They drank a little in high school. They drank more in college and we didn't like that.
But now, they do very well and they're responsible citizens. So I don't think a little drinking is going to hurt, although I know there are a lot of accidents related to teenagers. We parents have got to train our children to do things in moderation.
NEVILLE: Thank you very much.
BATH: If it was just a lot of drinking, we wouldn't be here today.
SULLUM: I think the problem is, the problem with zero tolerance or just say no as an approach to alcohol or to many other things is when kids ignore that message, as most kids do, they're left with no guidance at all as to how they can minimize the harm that they cause to themselves or to other people.
PINSKY: Well don't confuse...
(CROSSTALK)
SULLUM: If a kid gets into a situation where he's in trouble, where he's drunk and he needs to get home, if he's been given a message of zero tolerance and just say no, and you're going to be punished if you ever touch a drop of alcohol, how likely is he to call his parents and ask for a ride rather than get in the car that's being driven by somebody who's drunk or trying to drive himself?
(CROSSTALK)
NEVILLE: Excuse me. We have a caller on the line. I want to let the people get a chance to speak. Caller, go ahead.
BARBARA: Is that mine?
NEVILLE: Go ahead, Barbara.
BARBARA: I'm here.
NEVILLE: Go ahead. What do you have to say?
BARBARA: Well, I want to say if we're including 18, 19 and 20- year-old youngsters, young people in this talking that we're doing, then how can we possibly send them out to war to die for us and not allow them to have a drink and go into a bar and at least have a few? Or, as Bush's daughter, have a Margarita or whatever it was?
PINSKY: I'm very concerned about something. We are confusing and blurring a 16-year-old and 18-year-old and a 20-year-old. These are very, very distinct and different times of life. Each has different parenting needs. Please don't forget that. Eighteen to 22, the three of us up here I don't think have any disagreement on moderation and modeling and how to introduce alcohol. But at 16, the parenting needs are profoundly different, profoundly different, and kids need very, very clear boundaries, the clearer the better. They will push them. They will break them. They will get consequences, and they will adjust their behavior accordingly. That's parenting. We need to be parents.
BATH: Right. We need to parent, but we need our job as parents made easier. Our job as parents in this country is very, very difficult. We have the alcohol industry beaming glamorous beer ads at our kids, you know, from the time they're five years old, and it's very hard to go against that kind of subliminal programming that they're doing.
We're saying "don't drink" but they're seeing on TV, this is a glamorous, sexy thing to do, and they want to try it. So the alcohol industry is insuring that everyone tries beer, OK. Now whether you turn into a responsible drinker or not, that's a game of craps.
NEVILLE: Mrs. Bath, that's a good point. Let's take a look now at research we have here from Columbia Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, on how to deal with underage drinking. It says that you should hold parents legally responsible for their children's alcohol use, end all alcohol ads, including beer on television, and increase alcohol taxes and dedicate proceeds to prevention and treatment.
BATH: Yes, those are two key things, reducing or even eliminating alcohol ads and increasing taxes so that they can pay for some of the carnage that is being caused by alcohol induced accidents and deaths, which you know, I mean alcohol causes more -- it cause more in this country than all other illegal drugs put together, and you know, they're advertising a poison. They're not getting us to buy a car or a cleaning product. They're getting us to buy a dangerous drug. Why aren't there warnings, you know?
NEVILLE: Mr. Sullum, I'd like to hear what you have to say about that.
SULLUM: Well, I think first of all, people have been drinking for many thousands of years, long before there were TV commercials advertising beer. I think kids have been drinking, and by kids I mean, anybody from early teens on up to 21, which is the drinking age now. They've been drinking for many...
BATH: But Mr. Sullum, they've never been drinking like this.
SULLUM: ... many years and they're always going to be drinking. The question is not whether they drink, but how they drink, and the harm that they cause when they do drink, whether they know how to drink responsibly or not.
BATH: You know that brings up a good point.
SULLUM: Also, the question is...
BATH: That brings up a good point about the European versus the American thing with the age limit. You know, in this country, we're a car-driven culture. You don't go anywhere without driving. In Europe, it's not like that.
So if the kids are drinking and walking here and there, they're not going to get in as much trouble as our kids who are, you know, 35 percent of them are getting behind the wheel of a car after drinking and another 35 percent are getting in as passengers. That's 60 to 70 percent of our kids putting themselves at high risk, and believe me everyone has a story of knowing someone who's died.
NEVILLE: On that note, I'd like to thank all of you so much for joining us here. And Mrs. Bath, I'd like to say to you that I wanted to make sure you know that I did not imply with my first question that you were anyway responsible for your son's death. I wanted to go on record saying that. Thank you very much, Dr. Drew, Jacob Sullum thanks for joining us today.
And up next, Gallup went out and asked Muslims in other countries what they think about Americans. Can you guess? Should you care? I expect to hear from a lot of you on this one. That's all up next, back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NEVILLE: And welcome back to TALKBACK LIVE everybody. I'm Arthel Neville. Here's a question for you. Do you care what the Muslim world thinks of America? After September 11th, a lot of Americans wondered why anyone would want to attack the United States and kill thousands of innocent people. You heard people ask, "why do they hate us so much?"
Well Gallup pollsters went to nine Muslim countries to find out what people think there of Americans, and joining me now is Frank Newport, Editor in Chief of the Gallup poll.
Frank, let's take a look at some of these results, starting with the opinion of U.S. We're talking about nine Muslim countries here, and 22 percent were favorable opinions of the U.S. versus 53 percent unfavorable. Talk about that for me, if you will.
FRANK NEWPORT, EDITOR IN CHIEF, GALLUP POLL: Well that's probably symptomatic of a lot of what we found in the poll in general. We gave people that question, which is a classic favorable- unfavorable. But we also gave them a list of adjectives about the United States, arrogant, ruthless, conceited, biased towards Arab and Islamic countries, and in all of those instances, large numbers of our respondents in these countries said yes, those kind of negatives apply to the United States.
That number seems high when we ask about approval. I just throw in of George W. Bush as the President, we had even larger numbers of residents of these countries saying unfavorable in answer to that question.
So one of our basic assumptions here, after analyzing the data, is there's just this baseline of negativity towards the country of the United States on the part of these citizens.
NEVILLE: So then if we go to the next poll, which is U.S. military action in Afghanistan, the Morally Unjustified, 77 percent of the people polled find it morally unjustified and nine percent find it morally justified, again continuing with that whole underlying feeling of negativity towards American and anything the American Government might implement.
NEWPORT: That's absolutely right. We even asked people, "well, why do you think the United States and its allies are fighting in Afghanistan if you feel it's so unjustifiable?" And we found a lot of respondents told us reasons that had nothing, little or nothing to do with 9/11, reasons to try to grab power, to become more of a power in Central Asia, reasons to do with natural resources, uranium. We're after uranium. A variety of kinds of excuse reasons that 9/11 was an excuse, they told us, for America to engage in these kind of more imperialistic impulses.
It was pretty eye-opening when we got into the details of why so many of these people simply think that that action in Afghanistan is not something that they support.
NEVILLE: And what are some of those tales? Do you want to expound for us on that?
NEWPORT: Well, what I was just mentioning, the reasons why. I think we're going to talk about in a minute what people think about 9/11 itself, but although there's some recognition that Afghanistan is a result of 9/11, there's clearly a large number of residents of these predominantly Islamic countries who do not buy what we would call the standard explanation for the military action put forth by the U.S. and its allies.
NEVILLE: Which brings us to that part of the poll which says that 15 percent of the people polled find the September 11 attacks morally justified, whereas 67 percent find them -- did we go over that one guys? Excuse me, we did.
NEWPORT: No.
NEVILLE: Okay great, so I'm on a roll there, OK.
NEWPORT: Yes, we talked about -- yes it looks familiar because we asked the same question about Afghanistan.
NEVILLE: Exactly.
NEWPORT: We just saw that. This is about the 9/11 attacks themselves. Is the glass half empty or half full? You know, the good news and I'll use those words, the good news is you saw two-thirds of our respondents that said morally unjustified for the attacks of 9/11, which means that in substance, although they're very opposed to the response to the war, they certainly don't on the average majorities don't condone the actual attacks themselves. We've looked at the 15 percent though, and that's not insignificant.
NEVILLE: Absolutely not.
NEWPORT: Some of those people on a five-point scale are willing to go all the way and say completely justified. So there's a minority, mind you and I think it's important to underscore that it's a significant minority. But of the random samples we talked to in these nine countries, it's not an insignificant number of these residents of predominantly Islamic countries who say completely justified when we ask about 9/11.
NEVILLE: And let's go to one more point here, which the question is, "did Arab groups carry out September 11th attacks?" Eighteen percent answered yes, 61 percent said no. Expound on that for me.
NEWPORT: Well, who did? We followed up and said, all right who did? Some of the people who said they don't think it was Arabs said they didn't know who did it. But we had, for example, in Kuwait the average citizen there, about a third or a little more said it was the Jews or the Israelis who were behind the attacks.
We had heard that thesis before. I think this is the first time we were actually able to confirm that sizable numbers of people in an open-ended question will actually volunteer that, which means that kind of thought is abroad in some of these countries we talked to.
We also heard responses that the U.S. itself was behind the attack, that convoluted thesis that I think we've heard before. That was verbalized back to us. And we also heard the terrorist but non- Muslim terrorist as well.
So they don't support, in general you saw the citizens of these Islamic countries don't support the attacks in general, but neither do they buy into the standard explanation. I think that leads to why there's such negative reaction to Afghanistan.
NEVILLE: Well, Frank Newport, thank you so much for joining us with that information today. And here to talk more about the Muslim perception of Americans and why or if we should care are Adel Bari- Atwan, Editor in Chief of the London-based "Al-Quds" newspaper, and Cliff May, President of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy. He's a former correspondent for the New York Times.
Mr. Atwan, I'd like to start with you. Why would you answer -- how would you answer this? Why do Muslims feel the way they do about Americans? Why do they hate us so much or is that a fair question?
ABDEL BARI-ATWAN, AL-QUDS: No, it's an unfair question. You know, that was the Arabs and the Muslims, the majority of them admire the American experience. They love the American people. They love their achievements. America managed to actually (UNINTELLIGIBLE) developed a huge superpower.
So this is a good example. But the problem that is evident is you know some of the American foreign policies. It's not toward the American people. They can see, you know, America which advocates American administrations which advocate for fairness for justice. You know, they are supporting the occupation of occupied territories and occupying Gaza and West Bank. Also, they are supporting the Israeli Government, political government like Mr. Sharon's government, which is really massacring people there, demolishing houses, bulldozing fields. So it is actually the American foreign policies which is really the center of their resentment.
NEVILLE: Cliff, you disagree with that?
CLIFF MAY, FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACY: Well, with all due respect to Mr. Bari-Atwan, none of the propaganda points he has just recited have anything to do with the fact that most people in the Islamic world do not believe that Osama bin Laden or any other Arab was responsible for 9/11, those atrocities, despite all the evidence.
And if you look at the other things in that poll, it is very disturbing. With all due respect again to Mr. Bari-Atwan, the indictment has to fall, to a great extent, on the Islamic and Arab media, which is full of anti-American slander, anti-Semitic (UNINTELLIGIBLE), and all sorts of terrible things about the United States.
What you just saw in that poll had nothing to do with do you agree with American foreign policy; it said who is response for the atrocities of 9/11? It really -- again, people in the Islamic world are being terrible misinformed, and unfortunately, they're being misinformed not only by their own media, but very much by the media, which is often government-controlled, in countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and countries like Kuwait. And there is a problem, and I hope that people like Mr. Bari-Atwan will look in the mirror and look at their own culpability rather than just say this is all because the United States supports foreign policies we don't agree with. That is why we don't think Osama bin Laden committed the atrocities of 9/11, that's why we think that it was justified.
NEVILLE: Mr. Bari-Atwan, I know you want to respond to that, but hold your thought for a moment for me, because we have to take a break right now.
When we come back, I want to hear from you guys at home as well, so give us a call or e-mail me. We are talking more about this subject after this break. Back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't care anything about America. We are brothers to the Taliban, and feel sorrow about them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NEVILLE: Back now, talking about the Muslim perception of Americans, and I am standing here with Greg from New York.
And you want to weigh in on this subject? GREG: The point was made do we need to be concerned about what others think of us, and I think we do, we live in a global world now. That doesn't justify what they did to us, and we were more than justified in responding in that, but I think we do need to realize we are part of a global world now and we need to understand. We sell goods abroad, we buy from others. We need at least to be aware of other people and their concerns and try, obviously, to work them out peacefully. But once again, I think justified in responding the way we did.
NEVILLE: Thank you very much, sir.
Cliff May, what do you say to that? It seems that Greg from New York was saying that perhaps Americans need to realize that we are not the only country in the world.
MAY: Absolutely, he is absolutely right, and we need to communicate better with the rest of the world, and we haven't done it as well as we should. The reason that people hate us and they do these terrible terrorist acts is often because they have been fed by a steady diet of lies about us.
The headline in this poll was two things. One, that most people in these countries do not believe Osama bin Laden was responsible, despite all the evidence. Two, they don't think the liberation of Afghanistan was justified. And again, I blame the Arab and Islamic media. Al-Jazeera never reported that as a liberation.
At the same time, do the people in these countries know -- and we should be telling them -- that American lives and treasure have been sacrificed for Islamic communities in Kosovo, Kuwait, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Somalia and other places. If we are going to be the superpower, we cannot always be loved. Some people will hate us, envy us, be jealous of us; what we cannot allow is for them to have contempt.
So we should communicate, but these numbers we are seeing today are very disturbing and very disappointing, and it is also unfortunate to hear the blame being put on U.S. policies for these total lies being believed around the world.
NEVILLE: Mr. Bari-Atwan, do you want to weigh in on that?
BARI-ATWAN: Yes, actually I would. I would like to remind my colleague that European governments were extremely critical, especially France, of the American arrogance. And if you conduct a survey now in Europe, I think will reach the same conclusion like the survey in the Muslim world...
MAY:: How about Osama bin Laden, sir?
(CROSSTALK)
BARI-ATWAN: I did not interrupt you when you were talking.
I would like to tell you that I was first person to say that the attacks against the World Trade Center was the work of Osama bin Laden, just to tell you that, and I'm an editor of a respectable Arabic newspaper. So you cannot accuse the media of saying lies.
The second thing...
(CROSSTALK)
BARI-ATWAN: Just listen to me complete, please.
About that resentment, it is there even before September 11, and if you conduct the same survey, you will reach the same conclusion, because if you look at the Arab world and Muslim world, you will feel -- and many people feel, actually -- that Americans are targeting Arabs and Muslims in particular. Iraq was under sanctions, Syria under sanction, Iran under sanction, Sudan was bombed. So Israeli aggression and Israeli occupation...
(CROSSTALK)
NEVILLE: Gentlemen, I'm going to jump in here for a moment.
I'd like to let Kirk from Pennsylvania speak right now.
You said that since 9/11, everything has changed.
KIRK: Right, I think that every since 9/11, the whole scenario -- I understand that we have a place in the world and we have to think about how the rest of the world views America. But September 11 was not a political target; it might have been in the eyes of the Muslim world, but they hit civilians. This is a strategic attack that was executed on September 11; and as a matter of fact, it was a miracle that only 3,000 people died in that tragedy. I mean they had full intention of killing tens and tens and thousands of people.
This is beyond -- it just makes me angry that we are still thinking about what people care about us. We are responding to what -- they killed civilians, they killed our...
MAY: This is a very important point you are making, and let me just help you clarify this important point: However people around the world may disagree with our foreign policy at any point in history -- and always someone will -- there are all kinds of ways to address that. They can do it by coming to America, they can use lobbying firms, P.R. firms, they can speak out on programs like this. What they cannot do is kill innocent American civilians to express themselves; that is never ever justified, and I would like the whole world to agree to that.
NEVILLE: We have a caller on the line right now. Gentlemen, we have a caller on the line right now.
Who is on the line?
Hi, Barbara. Go ahead.
BARBARA: Yes, I think what Mr. May just said was a very important piece of information, and we are a free nation, but most of the world -- and not only the Muslim nations, but most of the world -- finds us arrogant and self-effacing (sic) and rude. And I think we need to step back and perhaps not export everything that we do and everything we think all around the world. Canada is just as a big as country as we are, and they are never in such limelight and in such consternation as we are.
I would like to know from our Muslim guests what he thinks we may do to improve relations with his country and other countries around the world.
NEVILLE: You can respond.
BARI-ATWAN: Shall I answer that?
NEVILLE: Yes, please.
BARI-ATWAN: Yes. It is a very good question. Thank you for posing it. You know, I think, you know, dialogue is the most important thing to advocate for fairness and justice and apply the rules and, you know, the principle of justice all over the world.
Americans were loved actually in 1945 until 1955, maybe '60 in the Middle East and all of the Muslim world because, actually, its foreign policy was fair. I believe this arrogance of power should be actually be limited and that we should understand the other people suffering and the other people's problems, and not to use the language of force all of the time.
And we have to also remember that more than 6,000 innocent people were killed in Afghanistan because of this American carpet bombing. Also...
MAY: We do...
BARI-ATWAN: ... we have to remember that...
MAY: We do not know that. That is not true.
BARI-ATWAN: ... at least, that a million Iraqi, a million Iraqi were killed because of the sanction which imposed on Iraq for the last 10 years by the United States. And we are on the edge of another attack against Iraq and does know many millions will be killed because of this. So, please, please, let us have a dialogue. Let us talk. Let us understand each other. Do not use the language of power and also please stop supporting the aggression, the Israeli aggression against innocent people...
MAY: Before you go into your anti-Israeli propaganda, there is no truth to this idea that 6,000 Afghanis were killed. You do not know that.
BARI-ATWAN: It is not propaganda. It's not propaganda.
(CROSSTALK) MAY: Please, I did not interrupt you. Secondly, as far as Iraq is concerned, the suffering of the Iraqi people has been brought about by Saddam Hussein, not by the United States. When we have used force, we have used it justifiably to save Kuwait, to save Islamic society, including Kuwait, Kosovo, Somalia, Afghanistan. Please look at those facts too.
We should not be simply exporting everything that's American. Everything that's American is not better. The freedom of religion, equality of women, democracy, freedom, I think we should be able to agree in the 21st century those are better than totalitarian dictatorships and terrorism.
NEVILLE: Let's call up an e-mail right now, if you will. We have an e-mail I would like to read to you guys at this point. And it says: "I am a U.S. citizen living in another country. People in the U.S. should worry about what others think of us." What do you guys say to that?
MAY: Again, I do think we should worry about what they think of us, and we should also worry about how they treat us. We saw what had happened to Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, and the idea that that can happen to an American, and it cannot happen with impunity. If we treated people that way in this country, imagine what they would say about us, and they would be right. This is wrong that a people are killed simply for the crime of being American or being Jewish or for being a journalist or why ever he was killed.
(APPLAUSE)
NEVILLE: Thank you very much for those comments, both of you. We are out of time for this segment. Abdel Bari-Atwan and Cliff May, thank you very much for joining us today.
And up next, 7-year-old Danielle van Dam remains missing, yet her neighbor has been charged with her murder. Do police know something they are not telling us? We will discuss that in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(APPLAUSE)
NEVILLE: And welcome back to TALKBACK LIVE everybody. I'm Arthel Neville.
Seven-year-old Danielle van Dam remains missing. She disappeared February 1. A neighbor, David Westerfield, is charged with the kidnapping and murder of the little girl. He will be in court later today.
And right now, we are going to go to CNN's Thelma Gutierrez, who is standing by live in San Diego. Thelma, I understand that in addition to murder, David Westerfield has now been charged with possession of child pornography?
THELMA GUTIERREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That is correct, Arthel. David Westerfield is facing three different charges this afternoon. Count one is murder. That carries a sentence of 25 years to life. Now, the special circumstance allegation that he killed Danielle during the kidnapping makes him eligible for life without parole and also the death penalty if he is convicted. Count two is kidnapping. That carries a sentence of up to 11 years. And count three, possession of child pornography, that carries a fine and a one-year sentence.
Now, we have been talking all day long about how difficult it is to actually get a conviction without a body. Now, San Diego prosecutors have had four such cases in their history. In fact, the lead prosecutor who has been assigned to this case is a man by the name of Jeff Dusek. He has gotten two murder convictions on cases that have been tried without a body and those perpetrators now sit on death row -- Arthel.
NEVILLE: Thelma, I know you have been down there doing your live shots from the courthouse, but I wonder if you have heard anything about the growing animosity within the community against David Westerfield. People putting signs on his lawn saying confess, confess. Have you heard anything about that?
GUTIERREZ: Well, Arthel, as you know, people are outraged; 2,000 people have joined in the search for Danielle. This has actually become something that the community has embraced. They all want to find this little girl. And as you had mentioned, yesterday, people who live next to the town where Danielle lives, actually went up to David Westerfield's home, placed posters on his lawn and told reporters that they want him to confess. So there is growing outrage out here.
NEVILLE: Thelma Gutierrez, thank you so much for that update.
And we have asked former New York homicide detective Bo Dietl to join us on this subject as well. And he runs his own investigative and security firm called Bo Dietl and Associates. Thank you so much for being with us today.
First question I have for you, let's talk about the circumstantial evidence that led police to David Westerfield.
BO DIETL, FORMER NYC HOMICIDE DETECTIVE: You know, this case, first of all, takes a real to the heart. I was out in San Diego last weekend. I was following up on this case. You know, when you are a detective, you get a sick sense. I had this sick feeling about this guy from the beginning. I was out in San Diego for netwolves (ph) and computer cop research, computer -- for child pornography and all that.
But going back to the investigation, when you have the DNA that they found on his clothes, traces of that little girl's blood, they have found also in the trailer, this is real good, solid evidence. You also, I found out, that they have evidence that was found in her room, evidence of this man being in her room. I do not think it is really that much of a circumstantial case, but this is sheer evidence, and certainly it's enough to convict him on the murder. We had the case in New York with the Kimes lady, the Kimes lady and her son who kidnapped the Silverman woman. They never found her body. They never really found any good DNA. But this case has solid DNA evidence and I believe that this DA will get a conviction and the person will get the death penalty. I mean, I am outraged. I have a little daughter and I'm just outraged. And most of the time, 90 percent of these cases, when someone is kidnapped or someone is attacked in a house like this, it is someone who knows them.
NEVILLE: Yes, it really is a case that touches home to everybody. It's such a sad, sad situation that upsets so many people, including myself. And, Chris, you have a guest over there, Mort (ph) from Canada. I think you would like to weigh in on this?
MORT: I think that there's a good chance that he would be involved because of the familiarity with the family and the neighborhood. And maybe he did entice her out of the room somehow, rather than go there himself. But the evidence as presented there said he may have been in the room.
But I think those kinds of things -- the routine of knowing what was going on in the family, and been there many times, I think that would have really helped him in that way.
DIETL: You know, there was some other evidence there. That night I believe he was out in a bar with the mother and a friend of hers, which I believe he assaulted the other woman that was with her.
I mean, he's around this lady, the mother, in a bar; so he knows she's there. So he knows he has an opportunity now to go back to that house. he knows there's a little girl there. He knows he has the time to abduct that little girl. Then he disappears into the desert in his camper. They find DNA in the camper, they find DNA on his clothes. They find his DNA in that little girl's room, on clothes there.
This is a lock-solid case. And again, you have evidence like this, you're going to have a conviction for murder.
NEVILLE: Yes, this is -- you know, I've got to tell you something: This really just disturbs me. Every time we talk about this, every time I see the pictures on the news, it just really bothers me. And I just -- it just makes me sad.
And Timothy (ph), what do you have to say over there about this?
TIMOTHY: I would just like to know, how is it that if the little girl was upstairs in her room and parents were downstairs, how did he execute his plan to get all the way upstairs without somebody else's help?
DIETL: Well, you know, the mother was away; the mother was out. And then when the mother returned, I don't understand why she wouldn't check on her little girl. That, to me, is disturbing right there.
But she doesn't discover the little girl until the next morning. So in reality, he could have removed that girl when the mother was out of the house.
You know, it's really important to look at these pedophiles and child molesters and all that. You know, we've developed this computer cop -- and we talked about it on the show a long time ago. And we check these computers out, we download them, and we're able to see these people on-line.
And parents have a piece of equipment out there where they can use, and they can test their kid's computer to see if these perverts are coming in on their children. There are tools out there for parents to monitor their children on the Internet.
I'm not saying that he met this little girl on the Internet, but this gentleman here that kidnapped this little girl and murdered her, we have to get on top of him. We have to be able to secure our kids.
NEVILLE: Bo Dietl, thank you so much for joining me here today.
And up next we are going to talk to you. It is time to "Ask Arthel." And we'll get through e-mails when we come back.
Back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NEVILLE: All right, welcome back to TALKBACK LIVE. I'm Arthel Neville.
We are going to lighten things up a bit now. I've reserved this segment of the show for us to talk, so let's do it. This is your chance to "Ask Arthel" almost anything you want. Of course, I reserve the right to pick and choose which questions I'll answer. So let me share some of the e-mails I received today. Let's take a look.
Guys, can you put the e-mail up where I can see it?
There it is: "Arthel, you come on a little too strong. Be softer with people. Also, you need to fix the color of your hair."
That's from Ann. Ann, thank you so much for writing. I will consider the whole softening up a bit thing, but talking about my hair, thems are fightin' words.
I'm not changing my hair Ann, so there! But thank you so much for your e-mail.
OK, let's go to the next e-mail. Oh, this one's a poem; I like this.
It says: "Arthel, congrats. Though we're sad you left Fox News, we won't hold it against you. We love you!" And they also wrote a little poem. That's from Jean and Bud in Colorado. And the poem says -- it says: "Today you were superb to and fro. We are left singing the blues, you left our Fox News. You're missed much more than you know."
They are poets and they know it.
All right, thank you so much everybody for joining us here on TALKBACK LIVE. We are out of time. I want to thank everybody for joining us here today in our studio audience, our guests, and you guys at home. Thanks so much for chiming in.
I'm Arthel Neville. You want to be here again tomorrow when we talk with Evander Holyfield. We're going to ask him if he thinks Mike Tyson should stand a fighting chance.
We'll see you then. Judy Woodruff is next with a look at what's ahead on "INSIDE POLITICS."
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