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CNN Sunday Morning

Interview With Victoria Jones, Curtis Sliwa

Aired December 16, 2001 - 08:24   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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Another busy week in the news -- we don't need to tell you that -- from the Osama bin Laden tape, to Israel cutting off communications with the Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat.

Joining us for our weekend wrap-up, from New York, conservative talk show host, Curtis Sliwa. And from Washington, on the liberal side, talk show host Victoria Jones.

Good to have you both with us. Let's do ladies first. Vicky, the tape. I've got to admit I -- I'm just -- from where I sit, I'm just mystified at the reaction in the Arab world that this is just a phony. Could you have predicted this?

VICTORIA JONES, WMAL RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Yeah, I did predict it before it came out. What I predicted was that we would be told that it was a phony tape either made by the CIA or made by Hollywood deliberately to foil them, and that the delay of releasing the tape was a government thing.

Of course this was going to happen, because if you want to believe in bin Laden -- and we're talking about belief, not facts -- then you're going to believe in him. But I think that most people in the Arab world do think that the tape is genuine. I think there's a small minority of people who think that it's phony. And I think there was nothing that we could have done. Bin Laden could have stood up on the tape and said, "I did it, I bombed the World Trade Center..."

O'BRIEN: Well, he practically did -- Vicky, he practically did.

JONES: ... and they still would have said -- he practically did. He practically did, but they still would have said it was phony.

So there's nothing we can do about those people. But the majority of people, I think, do accept that this tape is genuine, and very damning.

O'BRIEN: So it was worth putting out there? Curtis, do you agree? Should it have been released? Was it released properly?

CURTIS SLIWA, WABC RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Oh, absolutely. And, in fact, Miles, more troubling to me is there's some Arab Americans -- some Muslim Americans -- who thought it was fake, it was fraudulent, it was phony. But if, in fact, you want to believe that the Masad (ph) originally had bombed the World Trade Center -- which is what these Arab propaganda said -- and had warned 10,000 Jews to escape before the bombing, why, if the Jews in Hollywood -- as they say -- created this, would Spielberg create such a poor representation of Osama bin Laden?

So I think no matter what you put out there for public consumption, there is a strong aspect of the Arabic and Muslim community oversees -- and even here, on our shores -- that have window shades on their eyes, cotton balls in their ears, a zipper on their mouth, and will continue to actually support the efforts of Osama bin Laden through foundations, charities, and that's really through their ongoing propaganda.

O'BRIEN: So you're telling us central casting could do better than what we saw there?

SLIWA: Oh, please.

JONES: But (UNINTELLIGIBLE) conspiracy theory is that it wouldn't have been better because Hollywood's too clever to make it perfect. They would deliberately made it grainy and poor.

O'BRIEN: Oh, boy. We're getting deep.

JONES: I mean, that's where you go...

O'BRIEN: We are so deep into the grass, you know, now...

JONES: I know, it's so weird.

O'BRIEN: ... I don't know if we'll ever get back.

Let's talk about military tribunals. There's a report this morning that the Eastern Alliance has captured all those al Qaeda positions. We don't know where Osama bin Laden is yet. We don't know if that report is -- is going to turn out to be true. But, nevertheless, we're getting closer to the possibility of capturing this guy.

What about a military tribunal for him? Vicky, what do -- how do you weigh in on that one?

JONES: Well that's the last thing that we need for him. We need either a public trial before a criminal court or -- and this is what I think we really need, but we're not going to do it -- he should be charged with genocide and he should be tried internationally. He not only attacked the United States, he attacked 80 countries. This was an assault on the world. I don't think that we have a crime on our books that is big enough to charge him with in this country. And I think he should be charged internationally.

Failing that, he should certainly be charged in a criminal court. All protection should be given to the jurors and to the judge and to any evidence that's secret. But we -- the last thing we need to do is to put him in front of some kind of military tribunal where we don't know -- and the rest of the world doesn't know -- what's happened, and we play into the hands of people who say that we're not being fair. We are fair, we're better than that. We need to keep our standards.

O'BRIEN: Yes, but -- you know, I got to admit, the whole prospect of, you know, Osama bin Laden hiring somebody like Johnny Cochran and staging this trial just turns by stomach. Curtis...

(CROSSTALK)

JONES: Absolutely.

SLIWA: Miles, he would be hiring the anti-Christ of all lawyers, Alan Dershowitz, who said he would have even defended Hitler. And worse than that...

JONES: No, Dershowitz has already said that he would not defend bin Laden.

SLIWA: ... we would see the likes of Geraldo Rivera schlepping over to Osama bin Laden wherever he was being held, like he does each and every year to go to Charlie Manson with the swastika on his head in Vacaville, California. All you'd be doing is giving him a forum like we gave Timothy McVeigh, like Milosevic, the butcher of the Balkans, is getting now. That he's defending himself pro se in front of that international tribunal in The Hague.

No, military tribunals...

(CROSSTALK)

JONES: ... he's defending himself because he doesn't recognize it, and he's still going to be found guilty. Timothy McVeigh was found guilty. Our systems seem to work pretty well.

O'BRIEN: But the same argument that...

JONES: Unless you want to keep these people out of the public eye and make it all secret so we don't see them, because it's too scary to know what...

O'BRIEN: Curtis, the same...

JONES: ... I think we can do better than that.

O'BRIEN: The same argument that you could make for releasing the bin Laden tape could be made for putting him in a public trial.

SLIWA: No, no, no, because...

(CROSSTALK)

O'BRIEN: Do it out in the open.

SLIWA: The tape is unedited. He had no idea that that tape was going to be played for a world body of viewers. And more importantly, if you want to continue to keep putting him on a pedestal -- which you would be if you actually held a trial in which a jury of our peers would end up judging him -- and the likes of every legal vulture would be running to his side to aid and abet him and to act as his voice -- his mouthpiece -- outside of the courtroom on the endless interviews that would take place.

And all of a sudden they would look for the one juror who would say, "Oh, this was part of covert government assistance," going back to his support of the mujahideen, when we supported Osama bin Laden. And it would create that kind of atmosphere.

So a military tribunal, give him the best defense and then put a bullet in the back of his head.

(CROSSTALK)

JONES: Are we so afraid of the truth that we don't want him to have an attorney?

O'BRIEN: All right, let's move on here. And that whole prospect is -- as unsettling as it is. Let's talk about this whole issue of whether it's a military tribunal or civil court or whether he ends up dead.

We were just talking with a guest last hour who said no matter what happens, al Qaeda is going to continue on every bit as robust as ever. It's decentralized. There are cells all over the world, some 60 countries. And they can pull off a World Trade Center-style attack with or without bin Laden. Do you buy that?

JONES: Yes, they can pull off an attack. But of course, now we know that the World Trade Center attack wasn't intended to be so big. My understanding is that the No. 2 waiting to step in for bin Laden is every bit of charismatic as he is. So I think we have reason to be concerned...

O'BRIEN: If he's alive. We don't know who's left.

JONES: No, we don't know who's left. And we can hope they're all dead.

O'BRIEN: All right. Curtis? What do you think? You disagreed on that point.

SLIWA: First of all, I can't imagine you didn't think that it would be as great an attack as it turned out to be, just because he didn't think the entire two World Trade Centers would implode. That was devastating.

And more importantly, he is the head of the monster. He is the evil Cyclops. He controls the financial wing. He controls the moral wing. And more importantly, he is the symbol of al Qaeda.

Chop the head off the monster, and we'll see if any other monster heads emerge. But you will weaken the process of al Qaeda whether it's out in the Philippines, whether it's in Pakistan, or whether it's here in Patterson, New Jersey, Jersey City or Brooklyn, New York, which have become the centers of terrorism right here in the United States of America. O'BRIEN: Yes, but Curtis, the argument against that is that if for whatever reason he is made a martyr -- there's some mystery he's missing or he's dead or even to a trial, military or otherwise. You know, that might somehow involve him and cause a new leadership to arise.

SLIWA: Miles, that argument was made when we had four of his lieutenants on trial here for the bombing of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Don't give them the death penalty, because if we kill them or give them the death penalty, they'll attack us. Well, guess what?

Our jury here in New York, weak, folded like a cheap camera on that argument, didn't give them the death penalty and they attacked us anyway. They attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

O'BRIEN: All right. All right.

(CROSSTALK)

JONES: That was already in the works.

O'BRIEN: We've got to give the last word to Vicky, all right? Go ahead.

JONES: Well, that was already in the works they were going to do that. And if we want to talk about monsters, let's remember that the Hydra grew more heads when the head was cut off. I think we have to be very careful. We have to get them all. And the last thing we need is bin Laden missing and becoming Elvis.

O'BRIEN: All right. That's a good place to leave it, I think. Victoria Jones, Curtis Sliwa, thanks for -- well...

JONES: Thank you.

O'BRIEN: ... we didn't have to have an extra cup of coffee after that discussion. We appreciate it as always.

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