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Amanpour

Confrontation in Egypt Continues; Another View of American History

Aired December 11, 2012 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour.

Real tension in Egypt tonight as neither the government nor the opposition seems ready to step back from the brink yet.

Tonight, mounting pressure to delay this weekend's vote on the controversial draft constitution. Egypt's association of judges today announced that 90 percent of its members refused to oversee Saturday's vote, which Egyptian law requires.

But also tonight a top adviser to the president tells us that they believe they have enough judges to go ahead.

Meanwhile, the head of the Egyptian military has stepped in to call for national dialogue tomorrow. General Abdul Nasser al-Sisi is asking all parties to come together to resolve the political crisis paralyzing Egypt. So once again, the military in the role of national mediator.

And tonight again rival demonstrations in Cairo. As this crisis has unfolded, we've heard little publicly from the Obama administration but now Michael Posner, Assistant U.S. Secretary of state for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, is in Cairo. He's speaking to the government and the opposition, urging both sides to resolve this crisis.

First a look at what's coming up later in the program.

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AMANPOUR (voice-over): He ruffled feathers with his movies, now Oliver Stone looks at American history. And the feathers are flying.

OLIVER STONE, DIRECTOR: And it doesn't change. I have not seen any change in American thinking. We did not learn anything from Vietnam.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Then a man from a country no longer on the map.

MIKHAIL SEBASTIAN, STRANDED TRAVELER: I came here for only four days' vacation.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Stranded in a country that isn't his own.

SEBASTIAN: I feel sad because I just want to go home.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): How can you go home again when home is nowhere?

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AMANPOUR: We'll explain all that in a bit, but first, to America's eyes and ears in Cairo. That's Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner, who I spoke to just moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Secretary Posner, thank you very much for joining me from Cairo. You are at the heart of one of the great constitutional crises of these emerging democracies. Can you tell me first from the U.S. perspective how bad is this constitution that everybody's so exercised about?

MICHAEL POSNER, ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, we have great concerns, clear concerns about both -- and people here have expressed legitimate concerns, both about the content and the process of this constitution.

And let me be clear. Our view is that the constitution needs to be for all Egyptians. It needs to be based on universal principles of human rights which are consistent with what the government of Egypt has said it's going to do -- free press, free speech, right of people to practice their religion, independent judiciary rule of law.

So these are the principles that we're talking, both to the government and to the opposition about it.

AMANPOUR: So what are you telling the government if you are, what are you -- what is your friendly advice to a government that you recognize about how to proceed? And do you believe this draft constitution is worse than under Mubarak?

POSNER: Well, I'm not going to characterize better or worse. What we're saying is that the path to democracy requires building a foundation. It's not just about one election or one document. It's about building strong institutions like the courts, like a free press, like civil society. And it requires buy-in across all of the society. The process is important as is the content of the document.

So we're saying, please, there has to be a legitimate process that is a negotiation among all Egyptians so that people feel a stake in the future.

AMANPOUR: So do you think and are you advising them to delay this referendum?

POSNER: You know, we're -- there are different points of view on that. And we're not going to weigh in on every one of the issues. We clearly want to see a document that is embraced by a majority of Egyptians and a process and a referendum that's free, open, fair and that people really feel a stake in.

We've talked to people -- I've talked to a whole range of people today, who have different opinions about almost every detail. I'm not going to do the scorecard on each of those things. But in the long term, we're taking a long view here.

And the democratic process is bumpy here, to be sure. It's not linear. But we are urging both the government and the opposition to take advantage of this opportunity to create a document and a process based on universal human rights.

AMANPOUR: So what is --

POSNER: Consistent with our values, that's consistent with what Egyptians want.

AMANPOUR: What is your message to the members of the opposition whom you're talking to? Should they be in the streets? What should their strategy be? What do you think they should do?

POSNER: Well, I think all parties here we're urging restraint. There were some terrible violence last week in front of the presidential palace. We've urged the government to conduct an independent investigation of that. This is the time for restraint and for smart thinking about the way forward that's based on principle.

The country needs to get in the direction of having an independent judicial system, free press -- it's really critical that the press be allowed to operate without feelings of being harassed or intimidated. And I talked to some journalists today who said, frankly, that they're nervous about the future.

There needs to be an open space for people to discuss their differences and to negotiate those differences.

AMANPOUR: I know --

POSNER: So this is a part of a long process. It's been two years. We've got to be sure that there's a way forward that every Egyptian feels that their rights are being protected.

AMANPOUR: I know you said you don't want to get into specific advice and nitty-gritty on specific points. But transition to democracy that you describe right now, will it be harmed if this referendum goes ahead on Saturday?

POSNER: You know, I'm not going to answer that because there's so many things moving now. It depends on what the opposition decides to do. It depends on the judges. It depends on whether if there's security.

There are a range of issues about just physical security. I want us to be focused on getting people to step back from the precipice, step back from a place where people are -- the people are very nervous here. There's a lot of tension in the air.

And it's critical that people take the long view and think about a way in which Egyptians together can create a process and a set of structures that are going to make this a sustainable democracy. There's a long road ahead and it's critical that people think in terms of the bigger picture and a universal human rights basis for what they're doing.

AMANPOUR: And what do you make of the reports out of Cairo that vigilante members supporting President Morsi or supporting the Muslim Brotherhood took justice into their own hands and knocked heads and made summary arrests over the last few days?

POSNER: I spoke to both some journalists and some human rights activists, some who were in the vicinity and some who were looking into that incident. It's very troubling that there were people detained, people mistreated.

But there's been violence across the spectrum here. Again, this is a moment for everyone to restrain those impulses and to make sure that there is a peaceful process for negotiating differences. There are very real differences in this society. It's critical that there be a structure and a political process that allows people to disagree and do so in a democratic way.

AMANPOUR: Let me move across to Syria, where they're nowhere near the process that they are in Egypt.

The United States is in a process of trying to bolster a coalition of the opposition. Its first formal action, if you like, on the rebel forces to -- is to name one group terrorist, the Al-Nusra Front.

This is causing quite a good deal of chatter and controversy with some members of the opposition saying, well, how can that be the first thing that you do? You haven't even recognized us and you call these guys terrorists.

What is the United States not recognizing the coalition that you helped to bring together?

POSNER: Well, let me start by saying we are very involved in a range of places -- tomorrow in Morocco -- in working with the Syrian opposition, hastening the day where there is a transition. We recognize the need for the transition and for a new Syria that allows Syrians, whether they're Druze, whether they're Alawi, whether they're Christians, whether they're Kurds, to live together in peace.

And that transition is going to be without Assad. But we also recognize that there are differences in the armed opposition and we've got to be clear as we look forward that there needs to be a peaceful transition, one that doesn't include extremist groups that are bent on using violence to destroy their neighbors.

That's so -- today we recognize that the opposition is not a monolith and there's some groups that need to be excluded from their ranks.

AMANPOUR: Very briefly, yes or a no, will the United States recognize as France and Britain have done the coalition force as the legitimate representatives of the Syrian people, tomorrow, in Morocco?

POSNER: Well, I will leave that. Bill Burns, our deputy secretary of state, is on his way now to Marrakesh for those meetings. And we are certainly seriously looking at options. And I think Bill will be in a good position to answer that tomorrow.

AMANPOUR: Ooh, you dodged that, Secretary Posner.

Let me ask you another question about Bahrain. It's been called and it's been dubbed in some print the inconvenient revolution. The United States is perceived by those protesters seeking reform as not being on the right side of history. And all because of your military necessities and the base of the 5th Fleet in that region.

What do you say to that, that you pick and choose where to defend human rights and where to stay silent?

POSNER: I reject that. I actually was in Bahrain for two days this - - last -- over the weekend for the Manama dialogue. I met with a range of government officials. I was accomplished by General Mattes, by Bill Burns.

We are absolutely pursuing both our strategic interests, which are real, and at the same time we recognize the critical importance, both of the human rights agenda, fulfilling the BICI, the commission of inquiry, human rights recommendations and also urging all sides, both the government and the political opposition to come together.

The crown prince said on Saturday, it's time to have a dialogue. The -- (inaudible), the main Shia opposition group, said we're ready. We're encouraging that. There needs to be a coming together of a very divided society.

We need to be -- the United States needs to stand by our values. We support human rights. We push for these issues and at the same time we maintain our security interests. We can and should do both.

AMANPOUR: Secretary Posner, thank you very much for joining me.

POSNER: Thanks for having me on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: And we will have more on Bahrain later in the week. But before we take a break, another snapshot of Egypt.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): This picture was taken outside the presidential palace today as rival factions prepared to rally for and against the proposed constitution.

And up next, you know Oliver Stone as a filmmaker. Now he has a new calling: professor of American history. Take good notes, because there will be a test when we come back.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program. The American film director, Oliver Stone, has devoted his career to an alternate take on American history. He's the director of Academy Award-winning movies like, "JFK," "Nixon" and "Platoon." And he's also often faced criticism for what some detractors say is loosely based subjects on the truth.

His latest project is a 10-part TV series and companion book. It's called "The Untold History of the United States." It's not the American history that you may have been taught, but Stone says that's precisely the point. The program will be aired outside the U.S. as well. And Stone wants students of all nationalities to know what was left out of American history books.

I met with Oliver Stone a short time ago. We sat down to talk along with his co-author, history professor Peter Kuznick.

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AMANPOUR: Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick, welcome. Thank you for being with us.

Your project, a massive project -- you told me it took four years-plus to do.

You are the truth seekers. You said, in your own promos, that you want to reveal a different side of American history, the side that was not the myth that you learnt in school.

Give the one myth that you want to bat away.

STONE: This is 4 and a half years of work, Christiane. I couldn't put it into one paragraph or one headline. It doesn't -- it's too much to be in there. This is -- this is really, if you want to personalize it, I kind of grew up in '40 -- I was born in 1946 in New York and I lived through this 66 years. And I've seen, from World War II the American story from inside out.

I've also traveled abroad and I -- in Vietnam and all through Europe and Asia, Africa, as you have. And I've seen the world through global eyes and that has changed my perspective.

I am not who I was when I was born. I have changed -- around 1968, I came back from Vietnam, but not until about 1980, when Ronald Reagan was elected, did I start to see a different pattern.

AMANPOUR: We will talk about your Vietnam history, because it is actually fantastic and very, very interesting.

I want to ask you, though, Peter, because you're also a World War II historian, Cold War nuclear activities, et cetera, about how you tried -- and you both tried -- to put an alternative idea, a narrative about the Soviet Union's contribution to World War II. We're going to play an excerpt.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Throughout these pivotal years, the Soviets were regularly battling more than 200 German divisions. In contrast, the Americans and British, finding in the Mediterranean rarely confronted more than 10 German divisions.

Germany lost over 6 million men fighting the Soviets and approximately 1 million fighting on the Western front.

Though the myth lives on that the United States won World War II, serious historians agree that it was the Soviet Union and its entire society, including its brutal dictator, Josef Stalin, who, through sheer desperation and incredibly stoic heroism, forged the great narrative of World War II.

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AMANPOUR: Peter, why so important to you to put this in this film and the book?

PETER KUZNICK, HISTORIAN: Because a lot of America's post-war myths start with World War II. And this is -- what happens during the war is essential for this start of the Cold War.

We're showing the roots of the Cold War in World War II and the atomic bombs and the entire post-war period is an attempt for the United States to maintain its hegemony. So we're -- we have a different message. We're talking about -- we're countering the idea of American exceptionalism.

AMANPOUR: You talk about American exceptionalism and there are plenty of documentaries and films that have highlighted American exceptionalism. I keep thinking of Steven Spielberg, a fellow director of yours, who has done the heroics of World War II from the American side, whether it's "Saving Private Ryan," whether it's "Band of Brothers."

Are you sort of in a kind of a narrative contest, do you think, with Steven Spielberg?

STONE: I think he's a great filmmaker, a great narrative spielmaker. But I don't agree --

AMANPOUR: Spielmaker?

STONE: Spielmaker, yes. He tells a story. But you know, these -- the -- "Private Ryan" is a -- Sgt. Ryan -- Private Ryan is a part of the 1990 surge of patriotism that we saw the United States -- it began with -- somewhat with Tom Brokaw's book, "The Greatest Generation."

We see it in Stephen Ambrose. That's brings me back to the origin myth. It's the atomic bomb myth. The atomic bomb had to be dropped apparently to save American lives. And because of that mythology, we live on in this belief that we are right because we have the bomb. Force makes right.

AMANPOUR: So let me ask you about that, because obviously, you know, you call your opus "Untold Stories." But the story you tell about the atomic bomb and dropping it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been told before, including --

STONE: Told and forgotten.

AMANPOUR: So that's what you're trying to do --

(CROSSTALK)

STONE: We're saying it's ignored history. We're saying it's forgotten or ignored or whatever word you want. It's very hard to come up with a right word.

KUZNICK: Unlearned, I think it's really unlearned history.

But on the bomb question, we're making points that almost nobody else makes and that's that not only was the bomb unnecessary, and the United States knew it was unnecessary and the Russians knew unnecessary even more than the Americans did, but Truman drops it, knowing that he's beginning a process that could end all live on the planet.

AMANPOUR: Listening to you, I feel that you feel a burden of righting the historical ship. You feel that so much of history has been written through the eyes of certain historians and you need to right it a bit.

Oliver, let me ask you, though, it is fascinating to concentrate for a moment on the fact that you actually voluntarily went to Vietnam.

What changed for you in Vietnam? Or did you go to Vietnam expecting to find precisely what you found?

STONE: I wasn't looking for the revelation in the -- in the -- on the road to Damascus. It didn't happen that way. It takes years to -- I saw casual brutality. I saw -- against civilians -- and I saw the bombing. And I -- and, you know, I did our share -- we were in our share of battles.

I was wounded twice; I was decorated. I saw the cynicism and I saw the racism and it was like being a soldier in the Philippine war of 1898. You know, it was a casual racism. That's behind. You know, I go back to the United States and I'm still -- I haven't become an anti-war protester like Peter was. I don't like these people.

But then, over time, I start to learn about more and then by -- when Central America happens and I go down there with Richard Boyle on "Salvador" to research it, I see the same American young soldiers, out in the streets of Honduras and Tegucigalpa, talking to me about what was apparent in 1984 was that Ronald Reagan was about to really planning something to go into Nicaragua.

He was not going -- not only going to support the contras, but he was going to send troops. And I talked to the kids; I said, "Do you remember Vietnam?"

And none of these kids -- they looked rather embarrassed. They looked away, awkwardly. And they said, "I really don't want to talk about that, sir." You know, and all of a sudden, I saw the repetition pattern in American military.

That military pattern continues into Iraq 1 and Iraq 2, both wars -- and Afghanistan. And it doesn't change. I have not seen any change in American thinking. We did not learn anything from Vietnam.

AMANPOUR: And yet, America has now elected a black president for the first time and reelected a black president.

STONE: Yes.

AMANPOUR: This institutional racism that you saw has at least moved.

STONE: Yes.

AMANPOUR: A little. You have made films on Nixon, on George W. Bush, on John F. Kennedy; we've talked about Vietnam. Will you do an Obama?

STONE: I don't -- unless he leads us to disaster and we survive it, but frankly, right now, he's enabled, he's managing a wounded empire, and he's -- I believe he's a very strong and able man.

AMANPOUR: He's not -- he's not a subject for a film for you?

STONE: If I was to do a film -- a film's a different thing than a documentary.

AMANPOUR: Yes.

STONE: If I'm doing a film, it'll be Ronald Reagan, because there's a pivot for us. That's a man who changed the world. He moved America to the Right from 1980. And apparently we're staying on that course.

Now I don't believe the people want that. I really believe the people want change and I want -- they're tired of war. And they want to have -- they want to inform America. They want to clean it up. They want to build up America.

AMANPOUR: Oliver Stone, Peter Kuznick, thank you so much for being here.

STONE: Thank you, Christiane.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: "Untold History of the United States," airing here and soon in the New Year in parts around the world.

And despite its flaws, Abraham Lincoln called America "the last best hope of Earth." And for many strangers to these shores, it has been just that, which makes it all the more painful for one man who can't go home again. His story when we return.

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AMANPOUR: And finally, imagine a world where there's no place like home -- and home is no place at all. We've just been talking with Oliver Stone about a film, "Saving Private Ryan" with Tom Hanks, directed by Steven Spielberg. But do you remember the movie "Terminal," also a Hanks- Spielberg cooperation?

It told the story of a traveler from a fictional land who suddenly finds himself stateless when his country ceases to exist. And his only home is New York's JFK Airport. That was a movie.

But for Mikhail Sebastian, the dilemma is all too real. He was born Armenian in Azerbaijan in what was the Soviet Union. He was forced to flee when the Soviet bloc began to crumble in the 1990s. He sought refuge in the newly independent nation of Turkmenistan. But Sebastian is gay. And homosexuality is illegal there.

So once again, he had to search for a home and he found one right here in the United States. There was only one catch: since he still held the passport from the Soviet Union, a place that no longer existed, he couldn't travel outside the United States.

Last December, he was allowed to fly to American Samoa in the South Pacific for a brief vacation since that's a U.S. territory. But while he was there, he took a short side trip to Western Samoa, not realizing that that's an independent nation. And so for the past year, Sebastian's been trapped in limbo, unable to leave Samoa and unable to return to the United States.

I did not play to stay here so long. I feel sad because I just want to go home.

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AMANPOUR: Home, wherever that is, and what a terrible dilemma.

And that's it for tonight's program. Meantime you can always contact us on our website, amanpour.com. Thanks for watching and goodbye from New York.

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