Return to Transcripts main page

Parker Spitzer

Gadhafi Reality Check; Middle East in the Balance; The Tea Party Effect; Rejecting the Muslim Brotherhood

Aired February 25, 2011 - 20:00   ET

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

ELIOT SPITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, I'm Eliot Spitzer.

KATHLEEN PARKER, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Kathleen Parker. Welcome to our program.

SPITZER: Here's the latest from Libya tonight. Civil war is raging in Tripoli with gunfights in the street as the battle for Moammar Gadhafi stronghold begins. Meanwhile, Americans who've been on a crowded ferry boat for days waiting to leave the port of Tripoli finally escape to safety.

More on that in a moment. But first, information is difficult to confirm in the chaos of Tripoli, but witnesses have reported that armed troops who are loyal to Gadhafi patrol the streets. And snipers are staked out on the rooftops. They reportedly fired on people leaving Friday prayers, opening their weapons on thousands of people pouring out of mosques.

Reports say that there are casualties, but no one is certain how many. Gunfire everywhere. Everywhere, everywhere, everywhere, wrote one Libyan blogger. Three deaths, four deaths, seven deaths, the reports keep coming in.

Meanwhile, in another part of the city, Moammar Gadhafi called on his supporters to fight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MOAMMAR GADHAFI, LIBYAN LEADER (Through Translator): Be prepared to defend Libya. Be prepared to defend the industrial (INAUDIBLE). Be prepared to defend the petrol, the dignity, the independence, the -- glory.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

SPITZER: What you just heard is a leader condemning his own people to slaughter. Even as he exalts over his continued control of the capital city of Tripoli.

Gadhafi and his people have the weapons and they have the troops. What they don't have is a firm grasp on reality.

In an interview on CNN Turks today, here's how safe Gadhafi described the situation. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAIF AL-ISLAM GADHAFI, SON OF LIBYAN LEADER MOAMMAR GADHAFI: Here in the south of the country, everything is normal, it is calm. In this part of the country, everything is calm. In this part, everything is -- except two -- like two areas. One in the city called Zawiya, and a city here. Two hundred (INAUDIBLE) from Tripoli called Mesrata.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

SPITZER: We hate to break it to you, Saif, but the coast is not exactly under Gadhafi's control. As you described opposition forces say the city of Zawiya is under the control of the resistance as is Mesrata, Libya's third largest city.

But there are many other cities that are reported to be under the control of the resistance. Saif does acknowledge the resistance forces control the east, but in what psychologists describe as projection, here's how he describes the situation in Benghazi, the largest city in the region.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

S. GADHAFI: In Benghazi, it is chaos. It is big, big chaos and people are screaming -- it's very bad situation because there's no control, there's no law and order anymore. So the city is in a big mess.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

SPITZER: Let's look at the facts. This is Benghazi today. Benghazi is under the fairly organized control of the citizen group led by the city's lawyers and prosecutors calling themselves the February 17 Coalition.

Meanwhile today, hundreds of Americans finally reach safety. The 500 or so who are on that crowded ferry boat waiting for 16-foot waves to subside in the port of Tripoli have finally reached Malta. At the same time, the U.S. State Department announced that it is suspending embassy operations in Libya.

CNN senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman was the first western journalist to report from Benghazi. He joins us from there right now.

Ben, what are you hearing?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we saw today was a very large demonstration outside the courthouse, the main center of the opposition here. We saw despite the fact that it's very windy, rainy, and cold, thousands and thousands of people demonstrating against the regime of Moammar Gadhafi, and also expressing solidarity for the plight of the people in Tripoli who are also trying to overthrow the regime of Moammar Gadhafi. What we're hearing from Tripoli is that indeed, as was expected after Friday prayers, thousands of people took to the streets. But according to one eyewitness I spoke to didn't take long before the Libyan forces started to open fire on these demonstrators. This eyewitness telling me that the gunfire was in her words intense.

That quickly dispersed the crowds. And what we saw later on Libyan state TV is more of these government organized demonstrations. Not very big I can tell because they're shot very closely. So I've seen reports that only about 200 people were at that pro-Gadhafi demonstration. But clearly Moammar Gadhafi, despite the mounting pressure on him, isn't about to give up -- Eliot.

SPITZER: You know, Ben, it's interesting. The reports from Tripoli absolutely horrifying.

First, any sense of the casualties there? And also, what does it tell us about Gadhafi's lack of control in Tripoli that he is actually firing on any crowds that would congregate?

WEDEMAN: Well, we -- I did speak with somebody who has been in touch with relatives in Tripoli who say that there have been fatalities. But it's very difficult to determine the number at this point.

Now what it tells us is that Gadhafi obviously has zero tolerance at this point for any sort of dissent. So much so that he himself appeared on state television at Green Square, the main square in Tripoli, where he called upon Libyans who support him to defend the country's what he called dignity and petroleum resources.

And also disturbingly, he said that he would open the arsenals of the state and provide weapons to his supporters and tribes loyal to him and to allow them to attack his opponents -- Eliot.

PARKER: Ben, Kathleen. Did the people in Benghazi see Gadhafi's appearance in Tripoli's Green Square? And if so, what was their reaction?

WEDEMAN: Well, Kathleen, people here don't really spend much time watching Libyan state television. In fact, I think I was the only one who was watching it this evening in this city of more than a million people. Not for reasons of entertainment, but obviously for journalistic illumination.

People who did hear about the contents of that speech were a bit disturbed by the idea that he's basically going to throw open the gates to his weaponry and provide it to these tribes to be his supporters, which of course, could open the door to a civil war if it came to that. Although, it does appear that gradually his support is eroding to the point where he may have none left whatsoever -- Kathleen.

SPITZER: You know, Ben, yesterday you told us it was an amazing thing about the fact that the government was being created among the revolutionaries and they were actually beginning to run the city of Benghazi. What is going on in Benghazi today? Is there order? Are things returning to any semblance of a normal life there?

WEDEMAN: Well, not to the semblance of a normal life in the sense that this is a city that has just thrown out in a sense a government occupation that was here for 42 years. But beyond that, yes, it seems that the local government is running the place relatively well.

Schools and things like that aren't open, but banks were open on Thursday. Today, of course, is Friday, the Muslim weekend. So they were closed. This kind of goes in the face of what Saif Islam Gadhafi, one of the sons of the Libyan leader said -- he said that Benghazi was in a state of anarchy and chaos. And that really just isn't the truth.

The fact of the matter is that we've been driving around the city now for several days. And I've seen no sign of lawlessness or looting, none of the places that you would expect to be looted. For instance, banks, department stores, and the alike have been touched.

The only buildings that were burnt down were those that belonged to Libyan intelligence to Moammar Gadhafi's ruling party, to the army, and the police. But by and large, it's a very calm and orderly city given the current circumstances -- Eliot.

PARKER: All right. Ben Wedeman in Benghazi, Libya, thanks for that excellent reporting as always.

SPITZER: One of the big questions tonight, how does the United States grapple with its role in all of this? Is this the key moment for the international community to intervene?

PARKER: Joining us here tonight are two power house experts on the region who've often clashed when it comes to U.S. policy in the Middle East. Bret Stephens is the foreign affairs columnist for the "Wall Street Journal". Rashid Khalidi is the Edward Said professor of Arab studies at Columbia University.

Welcome, gentlemen.

Thanks, Kathleen.

PARKER: A question for both of you but let's start with you, Bret. Let's fast forward to a Libya free of Moammar Gadhafi. What does it look like?

BRET STEPHENS, FOREIGN AFFAIRS COLUMNIST, WALL STREET JOURNAL: Well, there are a few scenarios. One scenario, which is the one I think we're all hoping for is, you know, one in which the lawyers, the civil activists, people who've been very courageously involved in human rights form leading positions in the government. The military falls behind that leadership, and you get a Libya that really wants to finally participate in the community of nations in a way it hasn't for 42 years.

Second scenario is anarchy, which is also a possibility. A third scenario is contending powers who can't quite figure out what it is that they want to do. You know, Libya has been divided between not only tribes but different units in -- in the army. And so there's a recipe for this moving in a very positive direction, there's a recipe for it going the way of Somalia.

PARKER: Do you agree with that assessment? Or what would you add?

RASHID KHALIDI, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY MODERN ARAB STUDIES PROFESSOR: Well, I don't think we're likely to be seeing Somalia, but I think there's a possibility of a division of the country between east and west. The two provinces have always been separate in history and they reunited in the country just in like 1950, '51. So I think that's a possibility.

I think there's reason to be hopeful because the degree of enmity for this regime, the hatred that people have for Gadhafi seems to be uniting them now. Let's hope that that, plus the kind of things that Bret talks about -- I don't usually agree with Bret, but I think he's right on this.

If some of these people who have played leading roles thus far as exiles or inside Libya play the kind of role that we've seen some people in Tunis and some people in Cairo played, maybe, maybe things could work out.

SPITZER: Let's take one sort of division that could occur. Secular or not, is it going to be a government that is dominated by Islam? Or is it going to be a more secular type of government?

KHALIDI: I mean we haven't seen any expressions of political Islam in any of these movements anywhere in the world.

SPITZER: Thus far.

KHALIDI: Since Tunis in December. Now there are powerful Islamic movements in some of these countries, but they have not yet surfaced as the leaders or -- even in Libya where Gadhafi pulverized the opposition and one of the few movements that was able to remain in opposition were the Islamists. We haven't yet seen that. We've heard people talk about secularism in Benghazi when they were free to speak. We will see that.

STEPHENS: You know, Bernard Lewis once made the point that in the Middle East -- he made these remarks a few years ago. In the Middle East where you have a pro-American regime, you have people who are often hostile to the United States. Where you have anti-American regimes, you have people who are often sympathetic. If not to the United States, then to western values.

If that rule is true, that actually is a very hopeful signal for what might happen to Libya. But a lot is going to depend on what the Obama administration does now. You saw Hillary Clinton getting grilled by Egyptian students because the administration was basically standing on the sidelines while they were in the Tahrir Square.

Now the U.S. is also standing on the sidelines. President Obama, you know, has a hard time saying Gadhafi's -- Gadhafi's name. And we're approaching really a critical moment. Tripoli will either stand or fall. We could have the real bloodbath ahead of us. And it matters whether there is decisive, not international community action. American action.

SPITZER: Look, I have been -- many people have been critical of the president for not being more assertive in many ways. It's easy to be critical, of course. What is the affirmative policy he could put in place that would meaningfully advance the fall of Gadhafi and lead to the rise of a secular democracy. Their calculus has to be better to not intervene and be blamed and then change the nature --

STEPHENS: He has to give the military and the holdouts, the pro- Gadhafi holdouts, every incentive not to fire on the people in the streets. Every incentive to switch over, to defect, fly their planes to Malta, have the ships not leave the ports. If necessary enforce a no fly zone, enforce a no sailing zone, so that Gadhafi ships can't go to Benghazi and shell the coast. And ratchet it up day by day as Gadhafi's resistance increases.

SPITZER: Do you agree? Or do you think that our saying anything would in fact --

KHALIDI: Saying things and doing some things might be fine, in fact, maybe helpful. I think certain kinds of overt intervention are going to provoke on the part of this tyrant as they did with Mubarak. And attempt to mobilize his supporters by saying, see, I'm standing up against foreigners.

Now the international community and the United States, which has to take the lead, I think have things they can and should do. But I would suggest that overt intervention by the United States is probably not a wise move.

SPITZER: The military, you mentioned it is one of the pivotal forces, of course, in Egypt. It was the decisive force. Is there an organized military structure in Libya that can make a decision the way --

KHALIDI: It's nothing like --

SPITZER: -- Suleiman could in Egypt.

KHALIDI: Nothing like the Egyptian military.

(CROSSTALK)

KHALIDI: The Egyptian military was a hierarchy like a pyramid and solid like a pyramid. And has operated as an institution. The Libyan military is fragmented, he's divided it up, his sons are in command of key units, and it's a much smaller institution vis-a-vis society.

So the military I don't think will play the same kind of role. Maybe, maybe, we've seen some military officers come out and defect from the regime in a spectacular fashion. It is possible that others could be lured to do that and that that could lead to the breakdown of the regime.

PARKER: I want to switch gears for just a minute, Bret, and ask you about something you wrote that was so interesting. You said that what is happening in Bahrain is really a shot across the bout of China. And you've got Bahrain, this little tiny, tiny country and this hugely populous vast country of China. How -- what are you talking about?

STEPHENS: Yes, I mean, what we're talking now about the Arab revolt or the Arab awakening, but, you know, following Tolstoi, it's a case of every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Bahrain is a very different case from, say, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Yemen. It's a fairly rich state. It's, by the standards of the region, a fairly pluralistic state. Yes, it's a minority Sunni government with a large discontented Shiite population (INAUDIBLE). But in Bahrain you have the kind of (INAUDIBLE) revolution taking place which is --

KHALIDI: They have universal literacy.

STEPHENS: Well, exactly.

KHALIDI: They have a highly educated population. So the problem for the Chinese is, you know, they can look at Egypt and say, OK, miserable ruler, declining standards of living, you know, go figure. This is the sort of thing that happens. But the proposition that the Chinese are making is if we provide you with economic growth, you won't mind having your political liberties taken away. Bahrain is approving that's not -- that's not the case and the Chinese might take that example. That's hard as well.

SPITZER: Just like kids everywhere, they want everything and they want it now.

Bret Stephen, Rashid Khalidi, thanks for being with us.

Coming up next, the Tea Party wanted a seat at the table and now they've got one. Now comes the hard part. Do they start carving up the budget or pass the buck? A conversation with Senator Rand Paul when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PARKER: Don't worry, I'm not going to win. That's what Tea Party pioneer Rand Paul told his wife when he decided to run for the vacant Kentucky Senate seat. Well, now he's got his hands full. An eye doctor whose only political experience was having renegade Congressman Ron Paul as a father.

Rand is suddenly a senator in D.C., wrestling with next week's debt ceiling deadline and proposing his own $500 billion budget slashing. In his free time, he's written a new book called "The Tea Party Goes to Washington."

Welcome, Senator.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R), KENTUCKY: Glad to be with you. PARKER: So glad to have you back. I love your title. It reminds me of "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," where this outsider idealist comes into town and then is god smacked by reality. Is that what happened to you?

PAUL: Well, we'll see what happens. I think some have said when the Tea Party gets here, we'll co-opt them and I've been laughingly saying you know what? We're going to co-opt the rest of them.

And interestingly, you know, one of the interesting things we've been talking about is earmarks. Now we have the president of the United States saying in his State of the Union he will veto any earmarks. So I think we're already co-opting the place.

PARKER: Well, the interesting thing about your proposed budget is that you did not attack entitlements. You didn't touch Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. Why?

PAUL: We wanted to prove that there was a large amount of money that could be gotten without touching entitlements because entitlements is more emotional to many people. But we also did -- in the $500 billion we did cut from the military budget.

I believe exactly what Secretary Gates said that not all defense spending is sacred, not all military or defense spending is necessary. And not all of it is without waste. So you have to look at the military budget.

And it's ultimately what conservatives will have to do, is conservatives have to embrace the fact that if you eliminate all non- military discretionary funding, you don't balance the budget. You have to look at military and then ultimately we have to look at entitlements.

And we are going to look at entitlements. We have a bill that we'll be reforming and fixing Social Security in perpetuity in the next few weeks.

PARKER: And perpetuity, that's forever, right?

PAUL: For a long time. And the way you do it is you basically link up age to longevity. When Social Security was passed in the '30s, we were living to be about 65 years old, we now live to 80. And we have all the baby boomers retiring and I've said, you know what, they've blamed me for a lot of things, but I'm not responsible for the baby boom. That was somebody else, said something to do with that. But we have to fix it and we have to acknowledge there is a problem.

PARKER: What are we talking about? Are we talking about means testing, raising the retirement age?

PAUL: Yes.

PARKER: Give us the specifics.

PAUL: Yes. You do have to raise the age. And I think what you do is you do it gradually. In 1984, we did it by raising a month or two every year. I've told people in my campaign, because I am a moderate, I have told people we're not going to touch Social Security for anybody unless they're under 55.

So really, it takes a while to raise the age, but you need to get started now because if you wait until there's a calamity like there was in Greece, or Spain, or Portugal, they're raising the age dramatically. Overnight they raised the age which is very difficult for people to plan.

So we would raise the age gradually to 69 over, I think, 20 years and then hook it to longevity and it may end up going to 70 over another 10 years. Really over about 30 years it probably goes to 70 and then there would have to be some means testing.

And people aren't going to like that. But the thing is, is the alternative is the system may collapse.

PARKER: All right. Why aren't people going to like that? Because let me just say right now, I would volunteer for this. OK? If you want to raise the age of retirement, that's fine. If you want to test me and see if I can afford to pay my own bills and therefore don't need the money, I'm happy to do that. Why is that such a hard sell?

PAUL: Well, I think people will accept it ultimately. I think young people have already discounted it. All the young people have already anticipated the age will go up and that it is insolvent and something will have to be done.

That's why I don't think it's the third rail anymore and that maybe the American voters are looking for someone who will stand up and say this is how we fix it. This is how we fix it gradually. The least painful way, but we have to step up and fix it.

PARKER: You're one of the few people who's been upfront about the need to cut defense spending. And you said earlier this week that you would not vote for a war that you were not willing to send your own sons to fight or that you were not willing to fight yourself.

PAUL: Right.

PARKER: So given that, don't you think it's time we pulled out of Afghanistan?

PAUL: Well, I think that is a step -- wise test you have to take. And if you're not willing to go or don't think it's somewhere where your kids should go, then you shouldn't be there.

I think initially we should have gone to Afghanistan. I think after 9/11 we can't let people attack our country and let terrorist bases exist. So I think we were right to go there and disrupt things.

I think you could still keep them from reforming with a much smaller presence. You could maybe have 5,000 or 10,000 troops, maybe Special Forces on the base, if anybody attempts to reform. Really, we have to decide, are we going to do nation building? And that's what we're doing there. We're spending billions building schools and bridges, and it's noble that we want to help people. But we're doing it with borrowed money and we're letting our own infrastructure decline. And I think we have to really reconsider.

PARKER: All right. Next week is a big week. It's debt ceiling week. If we have just until a week from today, a week on Friday the government shuts down unless you raise the debt ceiling or pass another continuing resolution to keep things functioning for a little while.

PAUL: Right.

PARKER: I mean are you really willing to see the government shut down?

PAUL: No. I don't want the government to shut down.

PARKER: You don't want to, but are you willing to let it?

PAUL: Well, no. What I want to do is have an alternative. See, I don't think it should be either/or. I don't think it should be either you pass the same thing we're doing now, continue spending as is, or it shuts down.

What about an in between solution? That is, we pass a budget or a continuing resolution that spends what comes in and so we have an approximation of a balanced budget almost immediately. It would be significant, but during that month where you do have the significant decline in spending, then maybe they'd get serious about having a five-year plan.

And I will vote for a gradualism, but there has to be some gradualism. It has to go towards something. It has to balance the budget eventually.

PARKER: Yes.

PAUL: And I won't vote for anything less. And without me, then the people who believe in that, the Tea Party people have no one. If I'm not willing to stand up, no one is. And so I think I'm obligated to do that by the people who elected me.

PARKER: One last question for you. The one everybody wants to know. Is your dad running for president?

PAUL: You know he won't tell me. I've asked him several times and he says he might. And he says he might not. He hasn't decided. But he has an amazing amount of support. I'll tell you, every time I go through the airport, the baggage handlers, the person that takes me there, and the cab drivers, they love him.

And most of them will tell me, well, I'm a Democrat, but I love your dad. He really does well with independents and Democrats and Republicans, too. But he has a cross appeal that very few of them actually have. And I think it's because he will honestly assess the problems and bring it out regardless of sort of party partisanship.

PARKER: Yes, he comes across as someone who tells the truth and doesn't really care what the consequences are. Let the chips fall.

PAUL: Right.

PARKER: But he also said the other day that like you, you know, there is a risk that you might win.

PAUL: That's true.

PARKER: All right. Senator Rand Paul, thanks so much for joining us.

PAUL: Thank you.

PARKER: Coming up, one of Islam's most vocal critics shares her story. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PARKER: Ever since the Egyptian uprising and the fall of Mubarak, the Muslim Brotherhood has gained international prominence. But is it an innocent Islamic society or a dangerous organization bent on conforming the world to its radical views?

SPITZER: Ayaan Hirsi Ali has a unique perspective on the Muslim Brotherhood because she used to be a member. And when we spoke to her earlier she says it's anything but innocent and certainly not to be trusted.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AYAAN HIRSI ALI, FORMER MEMBER, MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD: To understand what I am saying, all you have to do is study their stated goals. They want a society based on Islamic law or Sharia. They have worked towards that and they have learned a lot in the years that they've existed since 1928.

They've used violence over and over again and they have learned from the experience that each time they do that they repel not only the international community but their own potential followers.

PARKER: But aren't there different factions of the Brotherhood? Aren't some for -- peaceful and some are more violent?

ALI: It depends on how you define peace. And within the Brotherhood, yes, there is a debate. They don't have a disagreement. Goals in their mission. They have a disagreement on the means toward the goal.

And I find the non-violent section of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamist organizations far more dangerous than the violent ones. The violent ones can be only violent once or twice or three times and then more powerful forces will simply stamp them down. But the non- violent ones gained power by using the vocabulary of freedom. The institutions of freedom. The -- * AYAAN HIRSI ALI, AUTHOR, "NOMAD": -- and then more powerful forces will simply stamp them down. But the nonviolent ones gain power by using their vocabulary of freedom, the institutions of freedom. They emphasize a democracy and to use it only to elections. And that's what should make all of us suspicious of them.

ELIOT SPITZER, CO-HOST, "PARKER SPITZER": Here's the question. I think we all share your suspicion, your hesitancy, your doubt. The question I have for you, though, is you were a member of the Brotherhood. You have evolved. Is it not possible that they, as well, have changed? They say, look, we know the history, but we too have gone through an evolution, and show us an act of violence recently that you can point to the current leadership. So is there one?

AYAAN HIRSI ALI: If you want to know about the evolution of the Muslim Brotherhood, you're going to come out completely confused. I know of an individual who really should have been a part of this debate. Unfortunately he died. He was a member of the Brotherhood, a Muslim who came out with a publication that stated maybe we should read parts of the Koran in context.

Do you know what the Muslim Brotherhood did to him? They forced him to divorce from his wife, condemned him to death. He fled and he died in exile in the Netherlands, that's the university where I studied. And he's not the only one.

And I have to look at -- let's just look at the record of the people who are talking to us now. The supreme leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, all of his statements point out to the same goals that I've been stating, society and Muslim law. He hasn't changed that.

The public -- you know, the press have to be purged of anything that is anti-Islamic. Cinema and theater have to conform with Islamic laws. Women, religious minorities -- look at the record of the Muslim Brotherhood.

SPITZER: Let me ask you this way. I hear and many people share your hesitancy, concern about the Brotherhood. As a theoretical matter, as you see and want Egypt to move towards a secular democracy, is it a greater risk to ban them or to take the risk of letting them participate in a democracy and running the risk they might win?

AYAAN HIRSI ALI: I don't think the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or anywhere should be banned. But I think in composing a constitution, we should be careful that we don't make the same mistakes we made with the constitutions of Iraq and Afghanistan, two countries that were conquered.

And in those constitutions, all had to conform to the Islamic law. The existing Egyptian constitution article two already has that in it. That kind of rubbish has to go out of the constitution. And we have to say to the Muslim Brotherhood, fine, you can compete along, but then you have to be open to criticism of your intended goals, of your intended policies once they're implemented and the population of Egypt and the entire world can see what your record is.

Everywhere where Sharia is implemented, what happens to women, to homosexuals? What happens to religious minorities? We'll need to be able to say to them and to potential voters, vote for me and not for the Muslim Brotherhood and here's why. And I will side with a campaign of no Sharia doesn't necessarily have to mean no Islam.

KATHLEEN PARKER, CO-HOST, "PARKER SPITZER": A third way, in other words.

AYAAN HIRSI ALI: A third way.

PARKER: All right. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, thank you so much for being with us.

AYAAN HIRSI ALI: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me on.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PARKER: Incredible insight into the Muslim Brotherhood, fascinating conversation as always with Ayaan Hirsi Ali. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SPITZER: Trusted news source or anti-American propaganda outfit for Middle Eastern autocrats? The controversial Al Jazeera network has been praised and condemned as both. It is beamed into 250 million homes in more than 100 countries throughout the globe. But it's not carried on a single major cable system here at home.

PARKER: That may soon change. With its in-depth coverage of the protests redefining the Middle East, Al Jazeera's profile has gone way up. Al Anstey is the managing editor for Al Jazeera English, and we spoke with him earlier.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PARKER: So what is -- what do you think is the obstacle to Al Jazeera English coming to U.S. cable systems?

AL ANSTEY, MANAGING DIRECTOR, AL JAZEERA ENGLISH: I think first of all, we're a new channel. We're four years old. In the first years of our broadcasting we needed to get known. And there were myths and misconceptions about what we stood for. What's happening now and evidenced in the demand we witnessed, 2,000 percent increase in the lines on the first days of the Egypt coverage.

SPITZER: When you say online, you say that because you are available online streamed into the internet.

ANSTEY: Yes, through the web site but also the page hits. There's been an exponential increase in the pickup. I always say if you switch us on and watch us, immediately the myth and is misconceptions are expelled. I think we're seeing the reach of our news gathering, the diversity of our staff, and ultimately the credibility of the information we're putting out. From Egypt, Libya now, challenging stories, but also elsewhere in the world.

PARKER: Some of your critics and skeptics watching even now I'm sure saying yes, but Al Jazeera have a reputation of being anti- American and there is this sense, some have said you are a propaganda arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, et cetera, et cetera. What do you say to those critics?

ANSTEY: If I may say we're categorically anti-nothing and pro- nothing. Our job is journalistic. It is to cover the facts on the ground, all relevant sides of the story. So obviously I refute that.

I talked earlier on about myths and misconceptions. I think what's happened out of lack of vision of Al Jazeera, perhaps in the Iraq war when Donald Rumsfeld said we lied about a report -- and by we, I mean our sister channel Jazeera Arabic.

What Jazeera Arabic did that day was to cover civilian casualties on the ground in Fallujah during the Iraq war. That's exactly the coverage that Al Jazeera continues to do, factual coverage on the ground. And I think it was born out of a myth and misconception at the time which has led to a misconception about what Al Jazeera stands for. And now that's been addressed.

SPITZER: What is the relationship between Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic? I think people look at Al Jazeera Arabic and say there's a different feel to their coverage. Would you concede that?

ANSTEY: We are editorially independently of one another. We share a resource, we share a picture, and we obviously reach out to the experience when they're covering stories. We have benefit from that experience.

But ultimately, the bottom line is they're reaching out to an Arabic speaking population, which is based across the Middle East and North African region, and we are reaching out to an English-speaking audience, which is truly global. That truly means that our editorial agenda will be distinct from our sister channel.

SPITZER: There was a moment not many months ago when Al Jazeera released about 1,600 documents relating to the Palestinian Authority and the negotiations between Abbas and the Israeli government. And there was some screaming and shouting about that. Some accusations you did that to box Abbas in a corner and sort of hurt the negotiating process.

Any accuracy to that? What was the logic behind the release of the documents and what's happened since then?

ANSTEY: We saw the documents some time before we released them. We studied them very, very carefully, we verified them, made sure they were factually correct. We carried out all of the journalism on those documents. And we were absolutely confident with the verification of those documents. We had as it were coverage ready to go, we rolled them out.

SPITZER: Sounds like what the "New York Times" did with WikiLeaks.

ANSTEY: I would imagine it was a very similar process, very different story, though.

PARKER: Thanks so much for being with us.

ANSTEY: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PARKER: Coming up, the debate over cell phone radiation and brain cancer. There's new and somewhat scary science on the subject. We'll talk about with our own CNN Dr. Sanjay Gupta when we return.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PARKER: New concerns today about that cell phone you and your teenager just can't put down. A study out this week shows radiation emissions from cell phones increase brain activity after just 50 minutes.

Published in the Journal of the American medical association, the government-funded study is the latest to sound the alarm on the health hazards of cell phones.

SPITZER: But just how harmful this increased brain activity is, that is still up for debate. Here to help us make sense of it all is practicing neurosurgeon and CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Sanjay, welcome. What was it this study tested for? And what does it mean for all of us?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this study is a bit different than the other studies out there. And a lot of people have been hearing this drumbeat about cell phones and potential health concerns for some time.

The question for a long time has been is there actually a measurable impact of holding a cell phone to your ear? Is there a measurable impact on the brain? All the studies really most of them thus far have been looking at what we call epidemiological studies. Are there changes in the brain of people who use their cell phones a lot?

What this did is a scientific study and actually showed that there were changes in the brain in people who use their cell phone, as you said, for over 50 minutes at a time. It does have an effect on the brain.

In this case, the effect was increased metabolism of glucose of sugar in the brain. That is something that happens in a lot of areas of the brain when the brain is excited for one reason or another. This seemed to be pretty directly connected to cell phone use. It's the first study to really draw that link together.

PARKER: OK, Sanjay, so it shows the brain is excited and there's more activity. But is that a good thing or a bad thing?

GUPTA: Like I said, you know, you have parts of your brain that are going to have increased glucose metabolism for all sorts of different reasons. So we cannot say right now, you know, it's linked to cancer or seizures or anything like that definitively.

But, again, for a long time people were saying this does nothing to your brain, holding a cell phone. You've got the skull to protect you. The nonionizing radiation being emitted from your cell phone is not going to do anything to your brain. This study refutes that.

PARKER: Well, Sanjay, this study was 47 healthy adults. And as parents we're very concerned about our kids who are on the phone probably a lot more than we are. They've always got that thing stuck to their heads, and their brains are not fully formed either. So is there a greater concern for kids than for adults? And does this study help us to get to any higher level of understanding?

GUPTA: Let me bring up two points in response to that. First of all, when it comes to healthy adults versus unhealthy adults, you're right, this study was on healthy adults. Could people who are have some sort of brain problem, whether it be cancer, dementia, epilepsy leading to seizures, could this be more problematic for them? When you have cancer, you get increased glucose metabolism because the cancer is a high-activity part of the brain. Could that worsen this somehow? That is part of the speculation.

But your other point also is an important one. Children are different for all sorts of different reasons. They're not just small adults. They have thinner skulls, and I don't know if we have an image of this, but you can get an idea of how much penetration there is. Look at the far left, a five-year-old child versus an adult. This same non-ionizing radiation, look how much more it penetrates into a young child versus an adult.

Again, we don't know exactly what the impact of that is, but we do know this. A child's brain is still developing, especially at a very young age. So if you're all of a sudden adding this other factor here, you know, significant amount of nonionizing radiation, could it make a difference? The reality is we just don't know the impact of that is. But we know there is an impact, and we know it's worse in children as you can see by the children there.

PARKER: Since you suggest we don't know ultimately if these are harmful to us in the long-term, wouldn't it be better to use, at least a blue tooth or earphone rather than hold the phone up to our heads?

GUPTA: When it comes to public health, you're asking exactly the question people debate all the time. What is the risk, what is the benefit of doing something like that?

I do -- I use a wired earpiece just about all the time when I make calls. I think it's safer for a lot of reasons, especially when I'm driving, but it also gets rid of the problem of holding the cell phone next to my ear. You know, it's one of these things where a lot of people can do this pretty easily without a lot of disruption in their lifestyle.

Obviously cell phones are here to stay, but with incomplete evidence -- but this, you know, steady drum beat of concern that is coming out for more and more legitimate sources, the answer is surprisingly simple, I think, for so many people. Decreasing cell phone usage for children, Kathleen, for the reasons you mentioned earlier, and texting, I think obviously can be a really good thing.

Blue tooth headsets I should point out, they emit a little bit of nonionizing radiation, as well. People leave those in their ears all day long and that could potentially be a problem. So I stick with the wired. It's not particularly sexy, makes me look like a total geek, which I am.

(LAUGHTER)

But it might actually be the right answer if you're trying to eliminate some of these concerns.

PARKER: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much for being with us tonight.

GUPTA: You got it. Take care.

PARKER: Don't Miss Sanjay this weekend as he tackles the tough questions about football and head injuries. It's a special "Sanjay Gupta M.D." Saturday and Sunday and 7:30 a.m. eastern right here on CNN.

Coming up, the real Ronald Reagan. We sit down with the filmmaker behind the controversial new documentary about the 40th president. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PARKER: Ask any conservative, any Republican to name their political role model, and chances are they'll say Ronald Reagan. He's "the Gipper," hailed as a skilled international leader who brought down the Soviet Union, a fiscal conservative against big government. But are they remembering him or a nostalgic fabrication? That's the question raised by a new HBO documentary. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ronald Reagan will say Washington is broken. Ronald Reagan would not endorse any of us --

Ronald Reagan.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of us have grown up accepting with little question certain images as accurate portraits of public figures, some living, some dead. Seldom if ever do we ask if they're true to the original. Even less do we question how the images were created. This is probably more true of presidents in our country because of the intense spotlight which centers on their every move.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PARKER: Joining us now is the documentary's director Eugene Jarecki. Welcome Eugene.

EUGENE JARECKI, DIRECTOR, HBO'S "REAGAN": Thanks for having me.

PARKER: Let's start with the obvious. So what are the myths about Ronald Reagan?

JARECKI: The myths are amazing. We hear them every day. We hear that Ronald Reagan teaches us we should never raise taxes. I learned that Ronald Reagan raised taxes six of the eight years he was in office. They tell us Reagan was against illegal immigration, amnesty for illegal immigrants. In fact it turns out he was very much for amnesty, made a speech about it and signed a bill that gave 2.6 million illegal immigrants amnesty in America.

I was then told we should never negotiate with our enemies when Obama went to talk to Russia recently about nuclear matters, he was decried as very anti-Reagan. In fact, that's precisely what Reagan did, and he prided himself not only on reaching across the aisle, which would be a welcome thing today. Reagan converted all of the Reagan Democrats because he was good at reaching the other side. He was once was a Democrat, another myth.

But at the same time, he reached out between the United States and the Soviet Union across the greatest gulf one could imagine between two countries and not only found common ground with Mikhail Gorbachev, but became friends with him. And that friendship was one of the most meaningful achievements of his life.

SPITZER: And he also was a big deficit spender.

JARECKI: Huge. We are told he shrunk the size of government, no, it grew under Ronald Reagan, as it tends to do under politicians.

SPITZER: That then begs the question, if the actuality and the myth, this huge gulf between the two, how was the myth created, and by whom?

JARECKI: Well, the myth is something that has gathered over time and really taken up more and more sort of shelf space in our consciousness over time.

Part of that is organic. Ronald Reagan is deeply lovable. I can't -- there's no way to watch the amount of footage I've watched of Ronald Reagan over the past few years and not get a window into a deeply compelling, very smart, fascinating man. And so part of it is Reagan by his own merits has achieved a great footprint in American thought. But the other part of it is more conspiratorial. And I use that word very advisedly. There are forces in this country, individuals in this country, people like Grover Norquist, for example, who runs an organization entirely dedicated to building statues of Ronald Reagans, to ensure that inorganically Reagan will not go away.

I think what he would see is opportunists. Frankly opportunists very often today in a sort of radicalized fringe of the far right in this country who increasingly invoke his name to package their own privately held agendas whether he would or wouldn't agree. And more often than not I found that he absolutely wouldn't agree.

SPITZER: Reagan became the rugged individualist, the man who created the entire nation. Is it possible to deconstruct that myth? Or is it now so indelibly part of our psyche it is there written into the history books?

JARECKI: I think it's waiting to be deconstructed. I was very proud this past Presidents' Day that my film about Reagan that looks at adoring things about him and critical things about him. Members of his family, Michael Reagan is in the film, Ron Reagan is in the film, people close to him like George Schultz and James Baker get to talk about their intimate knowledge as well as people who were detractors of Ronald Reagan, who see him as hurting the middle class in America with Reaganomics, or see him having made great compromises in our international standing with Iran-Contra.

All of that, showing the film to 1 million service people around the world in 175 countries. I think that would be the beginning, not of hurting Ronald Reagan, but making him a man again so people can look at him as a real person, not an icon.

SPITZER: Eugene Jarecki, thank you for being here. And thank you for watching. Goodnight from New York.

PARKER: On a personal note, today is my last day on the show. And I just wanted to thank you, the viewers, for tuning in. I look forward to seeing you down the road.

Piers Morgan starts right now.