MSNBC show
Alan Keyes is Making Sense
Alan KeyesMay 8, 2002
ALAN KEYES, MSNBC HOST: Welcome to MAKING SENSE. I'm Alan Keyes.
Up front tonight, the aftermath of yesterday's suicide bombing in Israel and its implications for Bush administration policy. Before we get to that, though, there are some new developments in the standoff at the Church of the Nativity. MSNBC's Tom Aspell joins us now with an update — Tom.
TOM ASPELL, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Alan. Well, we've been standing here for the last six or seven hours. And we're told by both Israelis and Palestinians that a release of those people in the church is imminent except for the 13 hard-core Palestinian gunmen on Israel's most wanted list.
A deal was struck earlier this evening, according to Palestinians and Israelis, whereby those 13 would remain in the church to be guarded by British and American monitors. Twenty-six others would be sent to Gaza, and the rest, the balance of those people in the church — probably upwards of 120, 130 people — would be free to go.
Now, we've seen some comings and goings from that Door of Humility, the only exit from the Church of the Nativity, during the evening. Some Franciscan friars brought out a Palestinian negotiator. And he is currently with Israeli military officials.
There is a bus standing by in Manger Square. And a short time ago, Israeli soldiers were checking the barricades and the metal detectors leading out of the Door of Humility through which Palestinians coming out of the church will pass to make sure they're not carrying weapons, explosives. And, of course, they'll have their identities checked to make sure none of them sneak out under another name. And then, as I mentioned, 26 will go to Gaza, 13 will remain in the church, and the rest free to go, Alan.
KEYES: What is going to happen to those 13? Have there been any developments since Italy's refusal to take them?
ASPELL: I think that's been the big holdup all along. You know, the Israelis have always insisted they either surrender or go into exile. It took the most wanted gunmen quite a long time to decide that it would be exile rather than staying in there until the death, so to speak.
We understand that while they're held in the church, it's pending a decision on where they'll actually go. And we've heard two countries mentioned during the evening, one that Spain is giving some kind of consideration to taking them in, and at one stage people suggested Canada. However, we were in touch with Canadian officials, who denied that. But I think really the Israelis and the Palestinians will spend some considerable time looking around for a country willing to take them, Alan.
KEYES: Tom, thank you so much. Appreciate that report.
Meanwhile, a day after yesterday's suicide bombing, Prime Minister Sharon is back in Israel. And it now appears that his military has its sights set on Gaza. MSNBC's Martin Fletcher has the latest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARTIN FLETCHER, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Tonight, Yasser Arafat told European diplomats his men have arrested 15 people in Gaza for allegedly helping plan the pool hall bombings. But despite the arrests, NBC News as learned the Israeli cabinet has decided to attack Palestinian targets in Gaza.
(voice-over): A grieving nation calls for revenge, Israelis today yet again burying victims of last night's bombing of a crowded pool hall. And fresh from Washington tonight, Israel's prime minister steps straight into an emergency meeting at the airport with top cabinet members to plot Israel's retaliation. Right-wing leaders are demanding the Army strike quick and hard.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll have to resume our military operation on a much more comprehensive basis. And we'll clean up everything. It will take time. It will be painful. But it appears to have no alternative.
FLETCHER: Now Palestinians are quickly stocking up on food, bracing themselves for another Israeli assault.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We will see tremendous loss of life, whether through incursions again, military invasions against the Palestinians who are already traumatized. But probably it will concentrate on Gaza.
FLETCHER: Though the Islamic militants Hamas claimed responsibility for the pool hall bombing, Israel was quick to blame Yasser Arafat. But today, the Palestinian leader responded by saying he told his police to, quote, “prevent all terror attacks against Israeli civilians.”
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KEYES: Back home here, President Bush met today with Jordan's King Abdullah in Washington. The two discussed ongoing efforts to bring peace to the region. The president issued this advice to Ariel Sharon about his next move.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Whatever response Israel decides to take, my hope, of course, is that the prime minister keeps his vision of peace in mind.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: The president also said that he viewed Yasser Arafat's declaration of war on terror as, quote, “an incredibly positive sign.” Now, I'm going to tell you, I would put the emphasis, I think, on incredibly. That's a word that means beyond belief.
Yasser Arafat reminds me of the fellow who sets a fire in your basement so he can show up at the front door and tell you he's going to help you put it out. It's not entirely clear, though, with all the evidence that suggests that he's been setting the fires why the Israelis would believe in his will to put it out, a will expressed in the past, codified in fact, in agreements that he supposedly gave the nod to, but completely destroyed in terms of their credibility by his actions in the course of the last several months.
So, again, Arafat comes forward and declares a war on terrorism. I've called my people to go get these guys, and therefore you shouldn't react. You shouldn't respond.
He sets up the world to somehow condemn Israel for doing the only thing that has, in fact, proven effective at ending these attacks. The incursions in Ramallah and elsewhere and in Jenin do appear to have subdued the suicide bombings.
The only place that was left untouched in a major way was Gaza. And there you have it, a suicide bombing originates there.
Now the Israelis will move. That's going to put the Bush administration's policy to the test. Are they going to stand on the sidelines again and tut-tut and say it shouldn't be done? Doesn't look like it.
Most of the response during the day has taken it for granted that some response is necessary. Maybe the administration is beginning to appreciate the fact that one can't pursue a war on terror at the expense of the concept required to maintain the foundations of the war, a concept that requires a clear understanding of what terrorism is all about. And when you see an active terrorist, when you see those who are perpetrating terrorism, you have to be willing to recognize who and what they are and move against them.
A lot of people are saying that the Bush administration really wants to go after Iraq in the name of fighting terror. And yet, in many ways, the Iraqis have only been accused of things that Yasser Arafat and his cronies — the Hamas, Saudi Arabia and others — have done, including things like giving money to the families of suicide bombers. If these other folks are not, in fact, complicit in terrorism, then how can we say that Iraq is complicit for doing exactly the same thing?
You can see where we're going here. It is a problem if we're going to try to exempt one set of terrorists and the aiders and abettors of terrorism from any kind of reaction while pursuing, on the basis of the same ideas and concepts, another set of actors, starting with Iraq.
The one willingness in the context of the Middle East policy undermines conceptually and morally the other action. They could end up at the end of the day bringing the Arabs on board for an attack against Iraq while undermining the rationale for that attack in the context of the war on terror.
Would this make sense? I think that they are definitely caught between Iraq and a hard place, a hard place that is constituted not so much by the Middle East itself as by a willingness to see the Middle East as if it can lead American diplomacy in this time of the war even terror. I don't think it can.
I think you must have a war diplomacy. And they should have made clear from the beginning, especially to the Arab actors in the region, that the first prerequisite of any cooperation with the United States was to stand against terror, whatever form it took, and whatever personalities and causes were involved in it.
It has been a mistake to convey the message that some cause, including the Palestinian cause, can be a justification for terror. And I think that the Bush administration needs to move quickly, clearly, coherently, to correct that misimpression.
Well, we're going to be talking about this in the course of the program. We'll get to the “Heart of the Matter” next on whether President Bush's war on terror is, in fact, stuck between Iraq and a hard place. You're watching America's news channel, MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Coming up in our next half hour, the Second Amendment to the constitution. Should it survive? Somebody at the White House has apparently read it, and they're telling the Supreme Court that they interpret the Second Amendment as saying that citizens have the right to keep and bear arms. Amazing, isn't it? That could change the meaning of gun control as we know it. We'll debate the issue in the next half hour.
And a reminder that the chat room is humming tonight. And you can join in right now at chat.msnbc.com.
But now, back to our discussion, is the war on terror caught between Iraq and a hard place, caught between the imperatives of the war on terror and identifying clearly who's responsible for terrorism, and the requirements of a Mid-East policy in which that understanding has become increasingly confused and muddied by administration position?
Joining us to get to the “Heart of the Matter,” John MacArthur, publisher of “Harper's” magazine. He is also the author of the book “Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War.” Also, John Fund of the “Wall Street Journal,” whose columns you can read on-line at OpinionJournal.com. Gentlemen, welcome to MAKING SENSE.
Let me go first to John MacArthur because one of the things that the, as they call it, slug on our program is meant to illustrate is the sense that a lot of folks have gotten watching the Bush administration maneuverings that there is some inconsistency here. But I think that is not just in actions, but an inconsistency between the concepts articulated for the war on terror and the stances that have been taken and articulated in the context of the policy toward the Middle East. Do you think that there is this kind of incoherence in the Bush administration's policy?
JOHN MACARTHUR, PUBLISHER, “HARPER'S” MAGAZINE: Well, it's not exactly incoherence. It's hypocrisy. If we were serious about the war on terror, we would declare Saudi Arabia a terrorist state and withdraw our troops.
I mean, the Saudi Arabian government, through its front organizations, has been funding Hamas and the suicide bombers, it continues to fund the families of these suicide bombers after they're dead, and have been really the rogue state, the aggressive state in the Middle East, for a long time. The notion that Saudis are interested in peace or fighting terror in the sense that we are, or I hope that we are, is preposterous.
KEYES: Well, do you think that the kind of close consultations we've been having with the Saudis and also, of course, the policies that I think they have been influencing, pushing us to accept Arafat and other things, have taken the edge off the charges that we are making against Iraq, because, after all, the idea that we would attack Iraq is in the context of its role in the war on terror?
MACARTHUR: Not at all. The Saudis are not interested in creating a Palestinian state. They've always, in fact, tried to subvert Arafat and subvert the notion of a Palestinian state because Arafat is largely a secular Arab. And having a Palestinian state in control of half of Jerusalem or the so-called holy sites, Muslim sites in Jerusalem, would be an affront to the Saudi sheikhs, as they call them, and the royal family that claims religious superiority and religious precedence over the rest of the Muslim world.
And they're just not interested in creating a Palestinian state. This is the cheapest talk imaginable, that they are pushing a peace plan. And they are...
KEYES: That's...
MACARTHUR: ... as a client of the United States, which is what they are because of the oil, we're willing to put up with that to a great extent because we want to keep our business client as happy as we can.
KEYES: Does that imply that the role that they have played in extremist education and funding of some of these groups that are connected with the terrorist infrastructure is just motivated by hostility to the United States, rather than by this declared goal?
MACARTHUR: Well, it's motivated by the Wahabi Muslim sect, which was invented in Saudi Arabia, which is the most extremist, most immoderate, most radical and destructive force in Islam today. They were the primary funders of the Taliban for a long time. And I believe — I still believe — that they were the principal paymasters for al Qaeda and bin Laden. I think the bin Laden family is still connected — at least parts of it are still connected with al Qaeda.
KEYES: Now, John Fund, over the course of the last several days, I think the president and Colin Powell both have given us the impression that they are closely consulting with the Saudis, with the Arab states, as they move forward. Even in the context of the visit from Ariel Sharon, they were on the phone every other minute talking to the Arab leaders.
Given the fact that there seems to be a question mark behind, for instance, the Saudi role in the war on terror, do you think that kind of consultation should leave the American people with a sense of comfort about the Bush administration's policy? Is there not an inconsistency here that could eventually harm our efforts in the war on terror?
JOHN FUND, “WALL STREET JOURNAL”: Alan, I could agree with you that the policy has elements of incoherence. And I can agree with John that there are elements of hypocrisy. But some of this may be necessary.
There are problems states like Saudi Arabia. And there are mega-problem states like Iraq, which are developing weapons of mass destruction, which the Saudis clearly are not.
And, look, we have often had moral ambiguity in our conflicts. During World War II, we allied ourselves with Stalin's Soviet Union. During the Cold War, we allied ourselves with thugs like Mobutu of Zaire and Franco of Spain.
So, some of this is obviously messy. Some it is, I think, unfortunate. But some of it may be necessary for a larger goal. I may not agree with it. But I may recognize its necessity.
MACARTHUR: The difference is that the Soviet Union was fighting for its survival. It's not at all clear that Saudis are fighting for their survival, although they are threatened...
FUND: I don't think you would...
(CROSSTALK)
MACARTHUR: ... they are threatened by the movement within Saudi Arabia that supports bin Laden. But they are treacherous. And they are not allies in the sense that the British were allies or even to the extent that Stalin was an ally, a military ally. They're not reliable except insofar as they're reliable as a producer of oil.
FUND: We do have more leverage with them than we would with almost any other Arab state for that business relationship. And I think we are exerting some pressure on them. We are getting some results.
MACARTHUR: But what results are we getting?
(CROSSTALK)
MACARTHUR: What results are we getting?
FUND: I think they have dialed back much of their support for much of the schools in Pakistan. I think they have dialed back some of their direct support for terrorists. And I think they at least are making noises about a peace plan.
I'm not an apologist for the Saudis. Believe me. They are a problem. But they do recognize reality. And they recognize that they at least have to play ball with the United States.
MACARTHUR: I don't think so. I wish we could get somebody from Israeli intelligence on the phone right now to tell us what the Saudis are actually doing.
But I just don't — when you talk about leverage also, it's complicated. The Bush family is so involved in business with the oil oligarchs — or oil-igarchs, as I call them in Saudi Arabia — that they literally cannot pursue, they literally cannot pursue a disinterested...
FUND: John, I don't believe in the vast right-wing conspiracy. I'm sorry.
MACARTHUR: ... they cannot pursue a disinterested foreign policy. George Bush, Senior, is connected with the Carlyle Group...
FUND: Here we go.
MACARTHUR: ... which places money for the Saudis. Bush, Junior was involved in Bahrain.
KEYES: John, hold on a second.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: For the benefit of my audience, tell them what the Carlyle Group is.
MACARTHUR: The Carlyle Group is an investment partnership headed by Frank Carlucci, the former Reagan defense secretary, that essentially raises money and places it for investors, wealthy investors. And they do very well with Middle Eastern money.
FUND: And you think this influences Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld in the conduct of American foreign policy?
MACARTHUR: Oh, absolutely.
FUND: I'm sorry. I have more respect for those people than you do.
MACARTHUR: It influences the Bushes. It influences Cheney. The fact that Colin Powell was sent to the Middle East is the signal that the Bush — on his peace mission — is the signal that the Bush administration is not interested in peace because he's more or less a junior minister in this cabinet. He doesn't have any clout. Nobody in Washington thinks that Colin Powell has clout compared with Rumsfeld.
Condoleezza Rice, for goodness sake, Chevron named an oil tanker after her because she was...
(CROSSTALK)
MACARTHUR: Chevron has a very longstanding relationship with Aramco, the Saudi oil company.
FUND: These conspiracy theories...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: One second. John Fund, we are citing here — and I don't know what conclusions might or might not be justified, but I don't think this is a theory. We're talking about a certain set of facts and connections that may or may not imply anything. I am not going to say that I think that there's some vast conspiracy going on. But let me ask you a question. John, let me ask a question.
(CROSSTALK)
FUND: To say that they're directing U.S. foreign policy...
MACARTHUR: Influencing. Influencing.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: John, let me ask one question, because looking at those kinds of connections, looking at the other things that have been going on, would it have been possible, starting in the aftermath of September 11th, to look at the world and the Arabs and basically take a consistent position, John Fund I'm talking to, a consistent position that says to the Saudis and everybody else, “We are at war with terror. We cannot deal with and have any truck with terrorists. You must demonstrate that that is also your policy, or you'll be on the wrong side of the line.” Why haven't we taken that consistent position with these Arab states?
FUND: Well, one of them is the fact that 50 United States senators voted against the mere exploration of the oil resources up in the Arctic Circle. I've actually been there. It's a vast wasteland. And I have to tell you if we're not willing to develop the oil resources in our own country, we are going to be dependent on Iraq for four million barrels of oil a day and dependent on Saudi Arabia.
We have to choose. And, obviously, there are a lot of senators who want to have it both ways.
KEYES: John, that does mean...
(CROSSTALK)
FUND: ... They also don't want us to have — to be dependent on Middle East oil.
KEYES: John, that does mean, though — what you are admitting there, though, call it what you will, explore it in terms of this or that, Carlyle Group, investment relationship, explore it just it terms of our raw dependency. But you are acknowledging then that it seems that our policy is held hostage to this oil influence. Yes or no?
FUND: I'll agree with John. Influenced, yes, but I don't think unduly. I think it's part of the practical necessity of our foreign policy in our modern economy.
I would like moral clarity. I recognize that in the real world you sometimes have to settle for a smidgeon less than that.
MACARTHUR: Yes, well, what we're settling for is a war of attrition between the Israelis and the Palestinians where hundreds and hundreds of people are dying and are going to continue to die while we dither. There is no serious...
(CROSSTALK)
FUND: But, John, you have to admit Yasser Arafat has a whole lot more to do with that than we do.
MACARTHUR: Arafat is terrible. He's a terrible — the Palestinians are ill served by Arafat. And I think any intelligent Palestinian would tell you the same thing. But it doesn't change the fact that United States and Saudi Arabia, our client state, are prepared to take a limited number of casualties, at least we have been up to this point, without doing anything to solve the problem.
I have my own ideas about what might help. But I don't think the Palestinians and the Israelis can possibly trust the United States and Saudi Arabia as honest brokers...
FUND: One thing we can say is that no one trusts...
MACARTHUR: ... on peace.
FUND: ... anyone in the Middle East. And that's part of the problem.
KEYES: But one of the things I'm worried about is that as we move forward in this and listen to the rhetoric and look at the confusion and the destruction, I think, of the conceptual basis that the president himself articulated for the war on terror, the question is going to arise as to whether the American people can trust to a policy that no longer has a clear basis.
They have to make some very tough choices that are going to involve us in the killing of lots of people. And when you do that, you need moral clarity if conscience is to be sustained throughout the effort.
They talk about a war on Iraq. They talk about other things. How are we to send our folks out there, sustain a war that's going to involve the systematic destruction of other countries and people's lives, if we're not clear what the moral purpose is anymore because we've messed things up in our dealings with the Middle East?
This is what causes me a problem, John Fund. How are we to address that problem?
FUND: I think we have to support Israel. But we also have to tell the Saudis that we obviously are not going to tolerate their behavior in the future. We have to find ways to over time cut back our dependence on Middle Eastern oil. And we also, I think, have to address the Palestinians that they need a new set of leaders, a new generation of leaders because the current ones, as I agree with John, completely ill suited for the building of any kind of a viable Palestinian state.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: John MacArthur, a few seconds for the last word here.
MACARTHUR: I think we should pull our troops out of Saudi Arabia as just a beginning, because if we take money off the table and we say to the world we are defending Israel on principle, not because they make a convenient proxy in our oil politics, then we might be able to start talking. Right now, nobody in the Middle East believes that we mean what we say because it's so much about money and oil. And that is simply going to have to change. Otherwise, the killing is going to go on indefinitely.
KEYES: Well, I want to thank both of you for being with me tonight. I think that clearly the discussion that we're having illustrates the dilemma that is faced not just by the administration but by all of us as Americans right now.
This is, yes, a problem for President Bush. But I think it's also a problem we have to take seriously.
We are in grave danger. We have been assaulted by a deep evil. And yet our sense of that evil and our ability to act on it is, in fact, being held hostage in the context of a set of interests represented by the Saudis that are entirely ambiguous when it comes to our best interests, to our security, to our survival.
I don't think we can continue this way. We're going to need a comprehensive policy that frees us from dependency on Saudi oil, that mobilizes our technological advantage in the energy area, and that takes the steps that are needed so we can have a truly independent approach to the war on terror, because I think without that approach we're not going to be able to defend ourselves adequately.
Thank you. And next, stay tuned. We're going to have a debate on the Second Amendment, another area that becomes increasingly relevant in this era of terrorist threat. Is the Second Amendment going to survive? The Bush administration has taken a step that I applaud that could help to make sure it does.
You're watching America's news channel, MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Welcome back to MAKING SENSE. I'm Alan Keyes.
Right now, you're looking live at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Two buses have now arrived and pulled up close to the church entrance. Soldiers have begun lining the outside walls. The release of those inside appears to be imminent. We'll bring you the latest as new details become available.
Back here at home, the Justice Department has come under fire in some quarters for saying that it believes the Constitution protects an individual's right to possess firearms. The announcement was an about-face from judicial interpretations of the Second Amendment held since 1939.
Attorney General John Ashcroft talked about the stand today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I believe that the Constitution of the United States also defends the rights of individuals to bear arms, but it does not grant that right in a way that keeps the government from regulating reasonably firearms in the culture.
And so today, as we have on many occasions, we are participating in the defense of the laws of the United States which allow the government to regulate the maintenance and possession of certain firearms.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms. Isn't that — well, that's what the Constitution says.
Now it appears quite possibly that John Ashcroft has read the Constitution and that he actually intends to apply its language for a change. This is causing heart attacks in some quarters.
But, even though you all know that I have been over time and am willing every day, if need be, to criticize things I think are going wrong with this administration, I want to applaud the possibility that we'd get the right interpretation of the Second Amendment on the table, so that, when we are approaching the issue of how we deal with guns in this society, we do so on a constitutional basis, recognizing that there's a fundamental individual right to be protected.
Well, obviously, there is a debate on this subject in the country. It has been going on for a long time because the rationale of much of the approaches of the gun control is it's just the opposite, and they have had an entirely different understanding of the Constitution.
Joining us now to debate this issue, Larry Pratt, the executive director of Gun Owners of America, and John Rosenthal, chairman and co-founder of Stop Handgun Violence, Inc.
Gentlemen, welcome to MAKING SENSE.
LARRY PRATT, GUN OWNERS OF AMERICA: Thank you, Alan.
JOHN ROSENTHAL, STOP HANDGUN VIOLENCE, INC.: Thank you.
KEYES: Let me ask, first of all, Larry Pratt, why should there be a fuss over the fact that the attorney general comes forward and declares that the Constitution says what it quite obviously says?
PRATT: Well, I'm not quite sure I know either, Alan. It wasn't exactly a radical statement. It's a positive step in the right direction.
But you notice that he didn't say much about the “shall not be infringed” part of the Second Amendment. He was talking about whatever gun control undefined that might still be permissible.
But what he has done is reverse 40 years of wrong headed policy, and he has put the Justice Department firmly on record that the Second Amendment does protect an individual right, and in so doing, at least to that extent, he's put the Justice Department in line with some 25 different federal cases that recognize even sometimes as a passing comment that the Second Amendment, like all the other parts of the Bill of Rights, protect individual rights.
And I think he's also clearly saying that the gun control side's argument that the Second Amendment is just to protect the right of the state to have a militia just doesn't hold up, and, in fact, we've had since 1820 some 33 cases where the federal courts and the Supreme Court have said, no, the U.S. Constitution preempts any state effort to have a militia law in contradistinction and contrary to what the federal government has.
So the only thing you have left is that the Second Amendment has to be intended to protect an individual right, just what the founders said anyway.
KEYES: John Rosenthal, I'll put the same question to you. Why should there be a fuss over the fact that the attorney general applies the clear wording of the Constitution in a clear way?
ROSENTHAL: Well, for roughly 200 years, the federal government has — and courts have ruled, and their interpretation has been that the Second Amendment means you have the right to have a militia, not individual right to bear arms. He's changing and interpreting the way the government has looked at the Second Amendment.
I'm not a constitutional scholar, but I am a gun owner and a business person, and I have seen how effective gun laws can dramatically reduce injuries and deaths from guns.
In our state alone, believe it or not, we're the only state in the nation that requires gun licensing and registration and consumer protection standards for guns, and we've seen a 58-percent reduction in these deaths, and just one law in particular, a child access prevention law, in the last three years, we've seen an 81-percent reduction in injuries and deaths from accidental firearms from 0 to 19. So, you know, gun laws work. We've proven it.
And, you know, I think this is going to be the next slippery slope. We are going to see the next step from Ashcroft, who's been a leader for the NRA when he was in the Senate, looking at and trying to dismantle common-sense laws, and I think it's crazy for Larry Pratt to say that the courts have ruled, the Supreme Court has ruled that it provides the right to have a militia.
Now they may choose over time to change that interpretation, but, frankly, every court has ruled that way except for one in Texas.
KEYES: Excuse me. John, I have to make a correction here because I am a little bit of a constitutional scholar, and what you just said is not accurate.
PRATT: No, it's not.
KEYES: As a matter of fact, Laurence Tribe, not exactly a supporter of any right-wing or conservative views and somebody who is a supporter, in fact, of the gun control approach, looked at the history and had to acknowledge when he wrote that the conservatives on this issue are correct in their understanding of the founders and of the history before we get to the mid-20th century.
So the whole notion of yours, that for 200 years it's been said this way, is entirely wrong.
ROSENTHAL: Well, Laurence...
KEYES: This idea — let me finish, sir, because...
ROSENTHAL: Sure.
KEYES: ... I let you speak even though I was anxious to get in here and correct you. That statement that it's been 200 years is wrong. This was a novel understanding that was introduced in the mid-20th century and that flew in the face of previous precedents, and what Mr. Ashcroft is saying is, “Let's get back to the correct ruling of the Constitution.”
Now, Larry Pratt, I jumped in to make that point, but am I right or wrong here?
PRATT: Well, I would just continue the point you were making.
Sanford Levinson of the University of Texas in Austin, a member of the ACLU, self-described liberal, has come to the very same kinds of conclusions that Laurence Tribe has that you have just quoted.
The fact of the matter is that any honest reading of what the founders were saying was only a debate between how much they had protected individual liberties from the new government, and the Bill of Rights was stuck on to the Constitution as simply a measure designed to try to protect those individual rights.
Now they wouldn't know what we're talking about if we said the Second Amendment surely is to protect a state's right to have a militia. You know, they — I think they should have made it fairly easy for us to know what they had in mind when in 1792...
KEYES: Well...
PRATT: ... just a few months after they finally ratified the Bill of Rights and the Second Amendment, they said, in the Militia Act of 1792, every individual American male who was eligible for the military had to have his own military rifle, ammunition, and keep it at home. That's hardly the National Guard or a state militia.
ROSENTHAL: Excuse me, but, in 1991, former Chief Justice Warren Burger stated that the NRA and the gun lobby's interpretation of the Second Amendment is one of the greatest frauds ever — and he repeats “fraud” — ever perpetrated on the American public.
Now Laurence Tribe is not a chief justice on the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court has always ruled — now they may change their interpretation in the future, but...
PRATT: Well, you know, as a matter of fact...
ROSENTHAL: ... they have always ruled — and I don't think that Laurence Tribe or either of you gentlemen necessarily has the same stature as Chief Justice Warren Burger in his decisions.
PRATT: OK. How about the Supreme Court the same year — 17 — 197 — excuse me — 1991, the Supreme Court held in a case dealing with the Fourth Amendment that all of the Bill of Rights in which they used the term “the people,” which includes, of course, the Second Amendment, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” they all referred to an individual right.
So Mr. Burger was, I guess, calling the majority of that court a bunch of fools and frauds? I don't think so.
ROSENTHAL: Well, you know, the fact is that no one is advocating banning guns in America...
PRATT: Sure they are.
ROSENTHAL: ... that — who are legitimate organizations and people...
PRATT: Handgun Control, Inc.
ROSENTHAL: That is — I'm on the board of that organization. It's called the Brady Center, and they are not advocating banning guns. They're advocating...
PRATT: Well then, you don't know what your...
ROSENTHAL: They're advocating common-sense gun laws, and these gun laws...
PRATT: I'll tell you what...
ROSENTHAL: ... are proven to work, and if you look over time, you know, we have made a dramatic reduction from 40,000 to 30,000 gun deaths last year.
We have common-sense gun laws, including the Brady bill and the assault weapons bill, and we have reduced from 1995 to now the number of people dying from guns, and we have common-sense gun laws. So...
PRATT: John, you've got to ask you — you've got to ask your employees what they're doing.
In the mid-'80s, there was a case that went to the Supreme Court — the Court of Appeals here in Washington, D.C., where Handgun Control was on the side of those trying to keep the gun ban in Washington, D.C.
In 1999, there was a bill that was actually voted favorably by the House of Representatives that said, “Let's overturn at least the handgun ban — there are people who have a gun at home — and do away with the law that says that you can't use a gun in self-defense in Washington, D.C.” Handgun Control opposed that, too.
You've got to go and find out what your employees are doing because they, in fact, are working for gun ban.
KEYES: Well, can I...
ROSENTHAL: You are absolutely lying, and I can't believe that you would do that on national television.
KEYES: Wait a minute. John Rosenthal, hold on a second.
PRATT: You got caught, John. You better go and clean up your own shop.
KEYES: John Rosenthal, can I ask — can I you ask you a question, though, John Rosenthal? It's something I've often wondered about the folks who have this understanding of the Second Amendment. In your understanding, what was the purpose the founders had in putting the Second Amendment into the Constitution. Why is it there?
ROSENTHAL: I believe it was there to protect us against foreign enemies, and, at the time, we didn't have a National Guard. Now we do. In fact, we have a very, you know, adept military. So, again, I'm not a constitutional scholar, but all I know is how the courts have ruled, and I'm a gun owner myself. I'm not interested...
KEYES: John...
ROSENTHAL: ... in debating the Second Amendment. The fact is...
KEYES: Actually, we are. Actually, that's exactly what we're interested in doing right now because it's what we are doing and it's what I think John Ashcroft rightly...
ROSENTHAL: But it doesn't matter what we think. It matters what the courts think.
KEYES: We've got to take a break here. We've got to take a little break here. We will come back, and I think it also matters, though, what the founders say, and I'll be examining that a little bit more in the context of the response that John just gave right after we get back.
And later, my outrage of the day. A little thought about Mr. Sharon's visit to the White House.
But, first, does this make sense?
Al-Jazeera television, that bastion of truth in reporting in the Middle East — they broadcast today that there was an approach to Canada to take the 13 terrorists from the Church of the Nativity. Now the Canadian prime minister has officially shot down the claim.
Of course, there may be some sense to it. After all, if these guys are planning to blow up our nightclubs and our shopping malls and our public places, they'd be a little bit closer to their targets.
Does that make sense?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: We're back. We're talking about the Second Amendment with Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America and John Rosenthal with Stop Handgun Violence, Inc.
As we left, I had asked John Rosenthal a question about why the founders put the Second Amendment in there in the first place. Got the answer that it's to defend against foreign people, so forth and so on.
Partly true, but partly not. If we remember the actual circumstances at the time, John, there were a lot of domestic dangers to defend against. People had to defend their own lives, their own families, their own homesteads, their own communities against all kinds of dangers, and they had also come from a European background in which they knew good and well the experience of having to defend their liberties against abusive governments seeking to interfere especially with their rights of conscience, including the freedom of religion, and that background had a lot to do with the Second Amendment being where it is.
It's not there so people can hunt and fish and play games down at the gun club. It is in the context of serious thinking about what is necessary to sustain liberty.
Larry Pratt, why do people always forget that this is not an entertainment amendment? It was actually a liberty amendment.
PRATT: Well, I think we've moved into an era when it's a fairly popular view to consider that the government ought to be responsible for our old age and our education and our health and also, of course, our security.
But, of course, as we found out on September 11th, the government really can't provide for our security, and every time a crime is committed, chances are there's not going to be a policeman around, and so I think a lot of Americans began rethinking after September 11th and have rediscovered what the founders knew from their own experience, that their own government had gone bad on them.
They had put a Second Amendment in precisely because they had fought a war against their own government. They were all British until they said they weren't in 1776, and in our day and age, we still have at least the problem, not so much from our own government at the moment, but certainly from the criminal element that the government is not able to protect us from, and that's why there's a growing number of states that have made it legal for people to carrying a concealed firearm and why those states have seen a fall in their murder rates and violent crime rates.
KEYES: John Rosenthal, do you think, given that actual background, the founders, the Revolution, coming out of a time when they had to defend themselves against an abusive government — do you want to tell us that you don't think the founders had that experience in mind when they put the Second Amendment in place?
ROSENTHAL: Well, I firmly believe, because the Second Amendment begins with “a well-regulated militia” being necessary for the security of a free state — I believe that the founding fathers meant that that is a militia, and they didn't include everybody in that militia. They included able-bodied males 18 to 45.
So, you know, again...
PRATT: Well, John, the reason...
ROSENTHAL: ... the courts...
PRATT: The reason...
ROSENTHAL: ... have ruled a certain way. If the courts change their ruling, that — so be it.
The fact is most Americans think there's a right to own and possess a firearm, and with those rights come responsibilities. I don't think we need to argue the point.
The fact is that, you know, we need to be responsible about gun ownership, and common-sense gun laws do make sense, and where Larry Pratt and the NRA are going is to try and dismantle any common-sense national gun law and arm everybody.
So not only will people be afraid of one another, but we could fight the government, because we can't trust them, and I think that's an extremist view. I think Ashcroft is an extremist.
KEYES: So, John — John, let me interrupt one second here. You do think, then, that insofar as the founders took a lesson from their own revolutionary experience and the problems with the British, you think that it's absurd to suggest that people might have to be armed in order to defend themselves against their own abusive government? That's just extremism, it's beyond the pale, as far as you're concerned?
ROSENTHAL: I think it is because what good is a firearm, a handgun or a long gun, going to do against tanks and artillery and airplanes and bombs and all the things that our government has? It's crazy. It's like saying...
KEYES: Well, if that's the case...
ROSENTHAL: It's like playing — you know, use — you know, we need to use guns and arm everybody because it's going to help us against terrorism. That's not going to...
KEYES: Larry...
ROSENTHAL: That's not the answer.
KEYES: Larry Pratt...
ROSENTHAL: The answer is common-sense gun laws and background checks at gun shows.
KEYES: All right. We're coming to the end of the time.
Larry Pratt, what's your response to that?
PRATT: Listen, the fact that 33 times federal courts, including the Supreme Court, starting with Houston v. Moore in 1820, have ruled that the states have no right to their own militia laws, unless they are consistent with the federal government. Federal government has preemption. It's in Article 1, Section 8 of our Constitution. The state doesn't have something that conflicts with the Second Amendment. The founders weren't so incompetent...
KEYES: Now, gentlemen...
PRATT: ... that they were going to give us a Second Amendment...
KEYES: Larry...
PRATT: ... that's entirely...
KEYES: All right. We've come to the end of our time. Thank you so much. I appreciate both of you being with me.
Next, my outrage of the day about one characteristic of the visit yesterday between the president and Ariel Sharon.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Now time for my outrage of the day. Actually more sadness than outrage.
The news of the attack against Israel came right in the midst of the president's meeting with Ariel Sharon. I was disappointed that, in just a human gesture, the president didn't choose to stand with Ariel Sharon before the world, express his deep compassion and sympathy with the Israelis and his condemnation of this event.
I'm not thinking now in terms of politics or the large issues of diplomacy. I'm just thinking in terms of the fact that it would have been the decent thing to do. That's my sense of it.
A reminder that, as soon as there are any new developments from Bethlehem, MSNBC will bring them to you live.
Brian Williams is up next. See you tomorrow.
Up front tonight, the aftermath of yesterday's suicide bombing in Israel and its implications for Bush administration policy. Before we get to that, though, there are some new developments in the standoff at the Church of the Nativity. MSNBC's Tom Aspell joins us now with an update — Tom.
TOM ASPELL, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Alan. Well, we've been standing here for the last six or seven hours. And we're told by both Israelis and Palestinians that a release of those people in the church is imminent except for the 13 hard-core Palestinian gunmen on Israel's most wanted list.
A deal was struck earlier this evening, according to Palestinians and Israelis, whereby those 13 would remain in the church to be guarded by British and American monitors. Twenty-six others would be sent to Gaza, and the rest, the balance of those people in the church — probably upwards of 120, 130 people — would be free to go.
Now, we've seen some comings and goings from that Door of Humility, the only exit from the Church of the Nativity, during the evening. Some Franciscan friars brought out a Palestinian negotiator. And he is currently with Israeli military officials.
There is a bus standing by in Manger Square. And a short time ago, Israeli soldiers were checking the barricades and the metal detectors leading out of the Door of Humility through which Palestinians coming out of the church will pass to make sure they're not carrying weapons, explosives. And, of course, they'll have their identities checked to make sure none of them sneak out under another name. And then, as I mentioned, 26 will go to Gaza, 13 will remain in the church, and the rest free to go, Alan.
KEYES: What is going to happen to those 13? Have there been any developments since Italy's refusal to take them?
ASPELL: I think that's been the big holdup all along. You know, the Israelis have always insisted they either surrender or go into exile. It took the most wanted gunmen quite a long time to decide that it would be exile rather than staying in there until the death, so to speak.
We understand that while they're held in the church, it's pending a decision on where they'll actually go. And we've heard two countries mentioned during the evening, one that Spain is giving some kind of consideration to taking them in, and at one stage people suggested Canada. However, we were in touch with Canadian officials, who denied that. But I think really the Israelis and the Palestinians will spend some considerable time looking around for a country willing to take them, Alan.
KEYES: Tom, thank you so much. Appreciate that report.
Meanwhile, a day after yesterday's suicide bombing, Prime Minister Sharon is back in Israel. And it now appears that his military has its sights set on Gaza. MSNBC's Martin Fletcher has the latest.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARTIN FLETCHER, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Tonight, Yasser Arafat told European diplomats his men have arrested 15 people in Gaza for allegedly helping plan the pool hall bombings. But despite the arrests, NBC News as learned the Israeli cabinet has decided to attack Palestinian targets in Gaza.
(voice-over): A grieving nation calls for revenge, Israelis today yet again burying victims of last night's bombing of a crowded pool hall. And fresh from Washington tonight, Israel's prime minister steps straight into an emergency meeting at the airport with top cabinet members to plot Israel's retaliation. Right-wing leaders are demanding the Army strike quick and hard.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll have to resume our military operation on a much more comprehensive basis. And we'll clean up everything. It will take time. It will be painful. But it appears to have no alternative.
FLETCHER: Now Palestinians are quickly stocking up on food, bracing themselves for another Israeli assault.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We will see tremendous loss of life, whether through incursions again, military invasions against the Palestinians who are already traumatized. But probably it will concentrate on Gaza.
FLETCHER: Though the Islamic militants Hamas claimed responsibility for the pool hall bombing, Israel was quick to blame Yasser Arafat. But today, the Palestinian leader responded by saying he told his police to, quote, “prevent all terror attacks against Israeli civilians.”
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KEYES: Back home here, President Bush met today with Jordan's King Abdullah in Washington. The two discussed ongoing efforts to bring peace to the region. The president issued this advice to Ariel Sharon about his next move.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Whatever response Israel decides to take, my hope, of course, is that the prime minister keeps his vision of peace in mind.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: The president also said that he viewed Yasser Arafat's declaration of war on terror as, quote, “an incredibly positive sign.” Now, I'm going to tell you, I would put the emphasis, I think, on incredibly. That's a word that means beyond belief.
Yasser Arafat reminds me of the fellow who sets a fire in your basement so he can show up at the front door and tell you he's going to help you put it out. It's not entirely clear, though, with all the evidence that suggests that he's been setting the fires why the Israelis would believe in his will to put it out, a will expressed in the past, codified in fact, in agreements that he supposedly gave the nod to, but completely destroyed in terms of their credibility by his actions in the course of the last several months.
So, again, Arafat comes forward and declares a war on terrorism. I've called my people to go get these guys, and therefore you shouldn't react. You shouldn't respond.
He sets up the world to somehow condemn Israel for doing the only thing that has, in fact, proven effective at ending these attacks. The incursions in Ramallah and elsewhere and in Jenin do appear to have subdued the suicide bombings.
The only place that was left untouched in a major way was Gaza. And there you have it, a suicide bombing originates there.
Now the Israelis will move. That's going to put the Bush administration's policy to the test. Are they going to stand on the sidelines again and tut-tut and say it shouldn't be done? Doesn't look like it.
Most of the response during the day has taken it for granted that some response is necessary. Maybe the administration is beginning to appreciate the fact that one can't pursue a war on terror at the expense of the concept required to maintain the foundations of the war, a concept that requires a clear understanding of what terrorism is all about. And when you see an active terrorist, when you see those who are perpetrating terrorism, you have to be willing to recognize who and what they are and move against them.
A lot of people are saying that the Bush administration really wants to go after Iraq in the name of fighting terror. And yet, in many ways, the Iraqis have only been accused of things that Yasser Arafat and his cronies — the Hamas, Saudi Arabia and others — have done, including things like giving money to the families of suicide bombers. If these other folks are not, in fact, complicit in terrorism, then how can we say that Iraq is complicit for doing exactly the same thing?
You can see where we're going here. It is a problem if we're going to try to exempt one set of terrorists and the aiders and abettors of terrorism from any kind of reaction while pursuing, on the basis of the same ideas and concepts, another set of actors, starting with Iraq.
The one willingness in the context of the Middle East policy undermines conceptually and morally the other action. They could end up at the end of the day bringing the Arabs on board for an attack against Iraq while undermining the rationale for that attack in the context of the war on terror.
Would this make sense? I think that they are definitely caught between Iraq and a hard place, a hard place that is constituted not so much by the Middle East itself as by a willingness to see the Middle East as if it can lead American diplomacy in this time of the war even terror. I don't think it can.
I think you must have a war diplomacy. And they should have made clear from the beginning, especially to the Arab actors in the region, that the first prerequisite of any cooperation with the United States was to stand against terror, whatever form it took, and whatever personalities and causes were involved in it.
It has been a mistake to convey the message that some cause, including the Palestinian cause, can be a justification for terror. And I think that the Bush administration needs to move quickly, clearly, coherently, to correct that misimpression.
Well, we're going to be talking about this in the course of the program. We'll get to the “Heart of the Matter” next on whether President Bush's war on terror is, in fact, stuck between Iraq and a hard place. You're watching America's news channel, MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Coming up in our next half hour, the Second Amendment to the constitution. Should it survive? Somebody at the White House has apparently read it, and they're telling the Supreme Court that they interpret the Second Amendment as saying that citizens have the right to keep and bear arms. Amazing, isn't it? That could change the meaning of gun control as we know it. We'll debate the issue in the next half hour.
And a reminder that the chat room is humming tonight. And you can join in right now at chat.msnbc.com.
But now, back to our discussion, is the war on terror caught between Iraq and a hard place, caught between the imperatives of the war on terror and identifying clearly who's responsible for terrorism, and the requirements of a Mid-East policy in which that understanding has become increasingly confused and muddied by administration position?
Joining us to get to the “Heart of the Matter,” John MacArthur, publisher of “Harper's” magazine. He is also the author of the book “Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War.” Also, John Fund of the “Wall Street Journal,” whose columns you can read on-line at OpinionJournal.com. Gentlemen, welcome to MAKING SENSE.
Let me go first to John MacArthur because one of the things that the, as they call it, slug on our program is meant to illustrate is the sense that a lot of folks have gotten watching the Bush administration maneuverings that there is some inconsistency here. But I think that is not just in actions, but an inconsistency between the concepts articulated for the war on terror and the stances that have been taken and articulated in the context of the policy toward the Middle East. Do you think that there is this kind of incoherence in the Bush administration's policy?
JOHN MACARTHUR, PUBLISHER, “HARPER'S” MAGAZINE: Well, it's not exactly incoherence. It's hypocrisy. If we were serious about the war on terror, we would declare Saudi Arabia a terrorist state and withdraw our troops.
I mean, the Saudi Arabian government, through its front organizations, has been funding Hamas and the suicide bombers, it continues to fund the families of these suicide bombers after they're dead, and have been really the rogue state, the aggressive state in the Middle East, for a long time. The notion that Saudis are interested in peace or fighting terror in the sense that we are, or I hope that we are, is preposterous.
KEYES: Well, do you think that the kind of close consultations we've been having with the Saudis and also, of course, the policies that I think they have been influencing, pushing us to accept Arafat and other things, have taken the edge off the charges that we are making against Iraq, because, after all, the idea that we would attack Iraq is in the context of its role in the war on terror?
MACARTHUR: Not at all. The Saudis are not interested in creating a Palestinian state. They've always, in fact, tried to subvert Arafat and subvert the notion of a Palestinian state because Arafat is largely a secular Arab. And having a Palestinian state in control of half of Jerusalem or the so-called holy sites, Muslim sites in Jerusalem, would be an affront to the Saudi sheikhs, as they call them, and the royal family that claims religious superiority and religious precedence over the rest of the Muslim world.
And they're just not interested in creating a Palestinian state. This is the cheapest talk imaginable, that they are pushing a peace plan. And they are...
KEYES: That's...
MACARTHUR: ... as a client of the United States, which is what they are because of the oil, we're willing to put up with that to a great extent because we want to keep our business client as happy as we can.
KEYES: Does that imply that the role that they have played in extremist education and funding of some of these groups that are connected with the terrorist infrastructure is just motivated by hostility to the United States, rather than by this declared goal?
MACARTHUR: Well, it's motivated by the Wahabi Muslim sect, which was invented in Saudi Arabia, which is the most extremist, most immoderate, most radical and destructive force in Islam today. They were the primary funders of the Taliban for a long time. And I believe — I still believe — that they were the principal paymasters for al Qaeda and bin Laden. I think the bin Laden family is still connected — at least parts of it are still connected with al Qaeda.
KEYES: Now, John Fund, over the course of the last several days, I think the president and Colin Powell both have given us the impression that they are closely consulting with the Saudis, with the Arab states, as they move forward. Even in the context of the visit from Ariel Sharon, they were on the phone every other minute talking to the Arab leaders.
Given the fact that there seems to be a question mark behind, for instance, the Saudi role in the war on terror, do you think that kind of consultation should leave the American people with a sense of comfort about the Bush administration's policy? Is there not an inconsistency here that could eventually harm our efforts in the war on terror?
JOHN FUND, “WALL STREET JOURNAL”: Alan, I could agree with you that the policy has elements of incoherence. And I can agree with John that there are elements of hypocrisy. But some of this may be necessary.
There are problems states like Saudi Arabia. And there are mega-problem states like Iraq, which are developing weapons of mass destruction, which the Saudis clearly are not.
And, look, we have often had moral ambiguity in our conflicts. During World War II, we allied ourselves with Stalin's Soviet Union. During the Cold War, we allied ourselves with thugs like Mobutu of Zaire and Franco of Spain.
So, some of this is obviously messy. Some it is, I think, unfortunate. But some of it may be necessary for a larger goal. I may not agree with it. But I may recognize its necessity.
MACARTHUR: The difference is that the Soviet Union was fighting for its survival. It's not at all clear that Saudis are fighting for their survival, although they are threatened...
FUND: I don't think you would...
(CROSSTALK)
MACARTHUR: ... they are threatened by the movement within Saudi Arabia that supports bin Laden. But they are treacherous. And they are not allies in the sense that the British were allies or even to the extent that Stalin was an ally, a military ally. They're not reliable except insofar as they're reliable as a producer of oil.
FUND: We do have more leverage with them than we would with almost any other Arab state for that business relationship. And I think we are exerting some pressure on them. We are getting some results.
MACARTHUR: But what results are we getting?
(CROSSTALK)
MACARTHUR: What results are we getting?
FUND: I think they have dialed back much of their support for much of the schools in Pakistan. I think they have dialed back some of their direct support for terrorists. And I think they at least are making noises about a peace plan.
I'm not an apologist for the Saudis. Believe me. They are a problem. But they do recognize reality. And they recognize that they at least have to play ball with the United States.
MACARTHUR: I don't think so. I wish we could get somebody from Israeli intelligence on the phone right now to tell us what the Saudis are actually doing.
But I just don't — when you talk about leverage also, it's complicated. The Bush family is so involved in business with the oil oligarchs — or oil-igarchs, as I call them in Saudi Arabia — that they literally cannot pursue, they literally cannot pursue a disinterested...
FUND: John, I don't believe in the vast right-wing conspiracy. I'm sorry.
MACARTHUR: ... they cannot pursue a disinterested foreign policy. George Bush, Senior, is connected with the Carlyle Group...
FUND: Here we go.
MACARTHUR: ... which places money for the Saudis. Bush, Junior was involved in Bahrain.
KEYES: John, hold on a second.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: For the benefit of my audience, tell them what the Carlyle Group is.
MACARTHUR: The Carlyle Group is an investment partnership headed by Frank Carlucci, the former Reagan defense secretary, that essentially raises money and places it for investors, wealthy investors. And they do very well with Middle Eastern money.
FUND: And you think this influences Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld in the conduct of American foreign policy?
MACARTHUR: Oh, absolutely.
FUND: I'm sorry. I have more respect for those people than you do.
MACARTHUR: It influences the Bushes. It influences Cheney. The fact that Colin Powell was sent to the Middle East is the signal that the Bush — on his peace mission — is the signal that the Bush administration is not interested in peace because he's more or less a junior minister in this cabinet. He doesn't have any clout. Nobody in Washington thinks that Colin Powell has clout compared with Rumsfeld.
Condoleezza Rice, for goodness sake, Chevron named an oil tanker after her because she was...
(CROSSTALK)
MACARTHUR: Chevron has a very longstanding relationship with Aramco, the Saudi oil company.
FUND: These conspiracy theories...
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: One second. John Fund, we are citing here — and I don't know what conclusions might or might not be justified, but I don't think this is a theory. We're talking about a certain set of facts and connections that may or may not imply anything. I am not going to say that I think that there's some vast conspiracy going on. But let me ask you a question. John, let me ask a question.
(CROSSTALK)
FUND: To say that they're directing U.S. foreign policy...
MACARTHUR: Influencing. Influencing.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: John, let me ask one question, because looking at those kinds of connections, looking at the other things that have been going on, would it have been possible, starting in the aftermath of September 11th, to look at the world and the Arabs and basically take a consistent position, John Fund I'm talking to, a consistent position that says to the Saudis and everybody else, “We are at war with terror. We cannot deal with and have any truck with terrorists. You must demonstrate that that is also your policy, or you'll be on the wrong side of the line.” Why haven't we taken that consistent position with these Arab states?
FUND: Well, one of them is the fact that 50 United States senators voted against the mere exploration of the oil resources up in the Arctic Circle. I've actually been there. It's a vast wasteland. And I have to tell you if we're not willing to develop the oil resources in our own country, we are going to be dependent on Iraq for four million barrels of oil a day and dependent on Saudi Arabia.
We have to choose. And, obviously, there are a lot of senators who want to have it both ways.
KEYES: John, that does mean...
(CROSSTALK)
FUND: ... They also don't want us to have — to be dependent on Middle East oil.
KEYES: John, that does mean, though — what you are admitting there, though, call it what you will, explore it in terms of this or that, Carlyle Group, investment relationship, explore it just it terms of our raw dependency. But you are acknowledging then that it seems that our policy is held hostage to this oil influence. Yes or no?
FUND: I'll agree with John. Influenced, yes, but I don't think unduly. I think it's part of the practical necessity of our foreign policy in our modern economy.
I would like moral clarity. I recognize that in the real world you sometimes have to settle for a smidgeon less than that.
MACARTHUR: Yes, well, what we're settling for is a war of attrition between the Israelis and the Palestinians where hundreds and hundreds of people are dying and are going to continue to die while we dither. There is no serious...
(CROSSTALK)
FUND: But, John, you have to admit Yasser Arafat has a whole lot more to do with that than we do.
MACARTHUR: Arafat is terrible. He's a terrible — the Palestinians are ill served by Arafat. And I think any intelligent Palestinian would tell you the same thing. But it doesn't change the fact that United States and Saudi Arabia, our client state, are prepared to take a limited number of casualties, at least we have been up to this point, without doing anything to solve the problem.
I have my own ideas about what might help. But I don't think the Palestinians and the Israelis can possibly trust the United States and Saudi Arabia as honest brokers...
FUND: One thing we can say is that no one trusts...
MACARTHUR: ... on peace.
FUND: ... anyone in the Middle East. And that's part of the problem.
KEYES: But one of the things I'm worried about is that as we move forward in this and listen to the rhetoric and look at the confusion and the destruction, I think, of the conceptual basis that the president himself articulated for the war on terror, the question is going to arise as to whether the American people can trust to a policy that no longer has a clear basis.
They have to make some very tough choices that are going to involve us in the killing of lots of people. And when you do that, you need moral clarity if conscience is to be sustained throughout the effort.
They talk about a war on Iraq. They talk about other things. How are we to send our folks out there, sustain a war that's going to involve the systematic destruction of other countries and people's lives, if we're not clear what the moral purpose is anymore because we've messed things up in our dealings with the Middle East?
This is what causes me a problem, John Fund. How are we to address that problem?
FUND: I think we have to support Israel. But we also have to tell the Saudis that we obviously are not going to tolerate their behavior in the future. We have to find ways to over time cut back our dependence on Middle Eastern oil. And we also, I think, have to address the Palestinians that they need a new set of leaders, a new generation of leaders because the current ones, as I agree with John, completely ill suited for the building of any kind of a viable Palestinian state.
(CROSSTALK)
KEYES: John MacArthur, a few seconds for the last word here.
MACARTHUR: I think we should pull our troops out of Saudi Arabia as just a beginning, because if we take money off the table and we say to the world we are defending Israel on principle, not because they make a convenient proxy in our oil politics, then we might be able to start talking. Right now, nobody in the Middle East believes that we mean what we say because it's so much about money and oil. And that is simply going to have to change. Otherwise, the killing is going to go on indefinitely.
KEYES: Well, I want to thank both of you for being with me tonight. I think that clearly the discussion that we're having illustrates the dilemma that is faced not just by the administration but by all of us as Americans right now.
This is, yes, a problem for President Bush. But I think it's also a problem we have to take seriously.
We are in grave danger. We have been assaulted by a deep evil. And yet our sense of that evil and our ability to act on it is, in fact, being held hostage in the context of a set of interests represented by the Saudis that are entirely ambiguous when it comes to our best interests, to our security, to our survival.
I don't think we can continue this way. We're going to need a comprehensive policy that frees us from dependency on Saudi oil, that mobilizes our technological advantage in the energy area, and that takes the steps that are needed so we can have a truly independent approach to the war on terror, because I think without that approach we're not going to be able to defend ourselves adequately.
Thank you. And next, stay tuned. We're going to have a debate on the Second Amendment, another area that becomes increasingly relevant in this era of terrorist threat. Is the Second Amendment going to survive? The Bush administration has taken a step that I applaud that could help to make sure it does.
You're watching America's news channel, MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Welcome back to MAKING SENSE. I'm Alan Keyes.
Right now, you're looking live at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Two buses have now arrived and pulled up close to the church entrance. Soldiers have begun lining the outside walls. The release of those inside appears to be imminent. We'll bring you the latest as new details become available.
Back here at home, the Justice Department has come under fire in some quarters for saying that it believes the Constitution protects an individual's right to possess firearms. The announcement was an about-face from judicial interpretations of the Second Amendment held since 1939.
Attorney General John Ashcroft talked about the stand today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I believe that the Constitution of the United States also defends the rights of individuals to bear arms, but it does not grant that right in a way that keeps the government from regulating reasonably firearms in the culture.
And so today, as we have on many occasions, we are participating in the defense of the laws of the United States which allow the government to regulate the maintenance and possession of certain firearms.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEYES: The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms. Isn't that — well, that's what the Constitution says.
Now it appears quite possibly that John Ashcroft has read the Constitution and that he actually intends to apply its language for a change. This is causing heart attacks in some quarters.
But, even though you all know that I have been over time and am willing every day, if need be, to criticize things I think are going wrong with this administration, I want to applaud the possibility that we'd get the right interpretation of the Second Amendment on the table, so that, when we are approaching the issue of how we deal with guns in this society, we do so on a constitutional basis, recognizing that there's a fundamental individual right to be protected.
Well, obviously, there is a debate on this subject in the country. It has been going on for a long time because the rationale of much of the approaches of the gun control is it's just the opposite, and they have had an entirely different understanding of the Constitution.
Joining us now to debate this issue, Larry Pratt, the executive director of Gun Owners of America, and John Rosenthal, chairman and co-founder of Stop Handgun Violence, Inc.
Gentlemen, welcome to MAKING SENSE.
LARRY PRATT, GUN OWNERS OF AMERICA: Thank you, Alan.
JOHN ROSENTHAL, STOP HANDGUN VIOLENCE, INC.: Thank you.
KEYES: Let me ask, first of all, Larry Pratt, why should there be a fuss over the fact that the attorney general comes forward and declares that the Constitution says what it quite obviously says?
PRATT: Well, I'm not quite sure I know either, Alan. It wasn't exactly a radical statement. It's a positive step in the right direction.
But you notice that he didn't say much about the “shall not be infringed” part of the Second Amendment. He was talking about whatever gun control undefined that might still be permissible.
But what he has done is reverse 40 years of wrong headed policy, and he has put the Justice Department firmly on record that the Second Amendment does protect an individual right, and in so doing, at least to that extent, he's put the Justice Department in line with some 25 different federal cases that recognize even sometimes as a passing comment that the Second Amendment, like all the other parts of the Bill of Rights, protect individual rights.
And I think he's also clearly saying that the gun control side's argument that the Second Amendment is just to protect the right of the state to have a militia just doesn't hold up, and, in fact, we've had since 1820 some 33 cases where the federal courts and the Supreme Court have said, no, the U.S. Constitution preempts any state effort to have a militia law in contradistinction and contrary to what the federal government has.
So the only thing you have left is that the Second Amendment has to be intended to protect an individual right, just what the founders said anyway.
KEYES: John Rosenthal, I'll put the same question to you. Why should there be a fuss over the fact that the attorney general applies the clear wording of the Constitution in a clear way?
ROSENTHAL: Well, for roughly 200 years, the federal government has — and courts have ruled, and their interpretation has been that the Second Amendment means you have the right to have a militia, not individual right to bear arms. He's changing and interpreting the way the government has looked at the Second Amendment.
I'm not a constitutional scholar, but I am a gun owner and a business person, and I have seen how effective gun laws can dramatically reduce injuries and deaths from guns.
In our state alone, believe it or not, we're the only state in the nation that requires gun licensing and registration and consumer protection standards for guns, and we've seen a 58-percent reduction in these deaths, and just one law in particular, a child access prevention law, in the last three years, we've seen an 81-percent reduction in injuries and deaths from accidental firearms from 0 to 19. So, you know, gun laws work. We've proven it.
And, you know, I think this is going to be the next slippery slope. We are going to see the next step from Ashcroft, who's been a leader for the NRA when he was in the Senate, looking at and trying to dismantle common-sense laws, and I think it's crazy for Larry Pratt to say that the courts have ruled, the Supreme Court has ruled that it provides the right to have a militia.
Now they may choose over time to change that interpretation, but, frankly, every court has ruled that way except for one in Texas.
KEYES: Excuse me. John, I have to make a correction here because I am a little bit of a constitutional scholar, and what you just said is not accurate.
PRATT: No, it's not.
KEYES: As a matter of fact, Laurence Tribe, not exactly a supporter of any right-wing or conservative views and somebody who is a supporter, in fact, of the gun control approach, looked at the history and had to acknowledge when he wrote that the conservatives on this issue are correct in their understanding of the founders and of the history before we get to the mid-20th century.
So the whole notion of yours, that for 200 years it's been said this way, is entirely wrong.
ROSENTHAL: Well, Laurence...
KEYES: This idea — let me finish, sir, because...
ROSENTHAL: Sure.
KEYES: ... I let you speak even though I was anxious to get in here and correct you. That statement that it's been 200 years is wrong. This was a novel understanding that was introduced in the mid-20th century and that flew in the face of previous precedents, and what Mr. Ashcroft is saying is, “Let's get back to the correct ruling of the Constitution.”
Now, Larry Pratt, I jumped in to make that point, but am I right or wrong here?
PRATT: Well, I would just continue the point you were making.
Sanford Levinson of the University of Texas in Austin, a member of the ACLU, self-described liberal, has come to the very same kinds of conclusions that Laurence Tribe has that you have just quoted.
The fact of the matter is that any honest reading of what the founders were saying was only a debate between how much they had protected individual liberties from the new government, and the Bill of Rights was stuck on to the Constitution as simply a measure designed to try to protect those individual rights.
Now they wouldn't know what we're talking about if we said the Second Amendment surely is to protect a state's right to have a militia. You know, they — I think they should have made it fairly easy for us to know what they had in mind when in 1792...
KEYES: Well...
PRATT: ... just a few months after they finally ratified the Bill of Rights and the Second Amendment, they said, in the Militia Act of 1792, every individual American male who was eligible for the military had to have his own military rifle, ammunition, and keep it at home. That's hardly the National Guard or a state militia.
ROSENTHAL: Excuse me, but, in 1991, former Chief Justice Warren Burger stated that the NRA and the gun lobby's interpretation of the Second Amendment is one of the greatest frauds ever — and he repeats “fraud” — ever perpetrated on the American public.
Now Laurence Tribe is not a chief justice on the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court has always ruled — now they may change their interpretation in the future, but...
PRATT: Well, you know, as a matter of fact...
ROSENTHAL: ... they have always ruled — and I don't think that Laurence Tribe or either of you gentlemen necessarily has the same stature as Chief Justice Warren Burger in his decisions.
PRATT: OK. How about the Supreme Court the same year — 17 — 197 — excuse me — 1991, the Supreme Court held in a case dealing with the Fourth Amendment that all of the Bill of Rights in which they used the term “the people,” which includes, of course, the Second Amendment, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” they all referred to an individual right.
So Mr. Burger was, I guess, calling the majority of that court a bunch of fools and frauds? I don't think so.
ROSENTHAL: Well, you know, the fact is that no one is advocating banning guns in America...
PRATT: Sure they are.
ROSENTHAL: ... that — who are legitimate organizations and people...
PRATT: Handgun Control, Inc.
ROSENTHAL: That is — I'm on the board of that organization. It's called the Brady Center, and they are not advocating banning guns. They're advocating...
PRATT: Well then, you don't know what your...
ROSENTHAL: They're advocating common-sense gun laws, and these gun laws...
PRATT: I'll tell you what...
ROSENTHAL: ... are proven to work, and if you look over time, you know, we have made a dramatic reduction from 40,000 to 30,000 gun deaths last year.
We have common-sense gun laws, including the Brady bill and the assault weapons bill, and we have reduced from 1995 to now the number of people dying from guns, and we have common-sense gun laws. So...
PRATT: John, you've got to ask you — you've got to ask your employees what they're doing.
In the mid-'80s, there was a case that went to the Supreme Court — the Court of Appeals here in Washington, D.C., where Handgun Control was on the side of those trying to keep the gun ban in Washington, D.C.
In 1999, there was a bill that was actually voted favorably by the House of Representatives that said, “Let's overturn at least the handgun ban — there are people who have a gun at home — and do away with the law that says that you can't use a gun in self-defense in Washington, D.C.” Handgun Control opposed that, too.
You've got to go and find out what your employees are doing because they, in fact, are working for gun ban.
KEYES: Well, can I...
ROSENTHAL: You are absolutely lying, and I can't believe that you would do that on national television.
KEYES: Wait a minute. John Rosenthal, hold on a second.
PRATT: You got caught, John. You better go and clean up your own shop.
KEYES: John Rosenthal, can I ask — can I you ask you a question, though, John Rosenthal? It's something I've often wondered about the folks who have this understanding of the Second Amendment. In your understanding, what was the purpose the founders had in putting the Second Amendment into the Constitution. Why is it there?
ROSENTHAL: I believe it was there to protect us against foreign enemies, and, at the time, we didn't have a National Guard. Now we do. In fact, we have a very, you know, adept military. So, again, I'm not a constitutional scholar, but all I know is how the courts have ruled, and I'm a gun owner myself. I'm not interested...
KEYES: John...
ROSENTHAL: ... in debating the Second Amendment. The fact is...
KEYES: Actually, we are. Actually, that's exactly what we're interested in doing right now because it's what we are doing and it's what I think John Ashcroft rightly...
ROSENTHAL: But it doesn't matter what we think. It matters what the courts think.
KEYES: We've got to take a break here. We've got to take a little break here. We will come back, and I think it also matters, though, what the founders say, and I'll be examining that a little bit more in the context of the response that John just gave right after we get back.
And later, my outrage of the day. A little thought about Mr. Sharon's visit to the White House.
But, first, does this make sense?
Al-Jazeera television, that bastion of truth in reporting in the Middle East — they broadcast today that there was an approach to Canada to take the 13 terrorists from the Church of the Nativity. Now the Canadian prime minister has officially shot down the claim.
Of course, there may be some sense to it. After all, if these guys are planning to blow up our nightclubs and our shopping malls and our public places, they'd be a little bit closer to their targets.
Does that make sense?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: We're back. We're talking about the Second Amendment with Larry Pratt of Gun Owners of America and John Rosenthal with Stop Handgun Violence, Inc.
As we left, I had asked John Rosenthal a question about why the founders put the Second Amendment in there in the first place. Got the answer that it's to defend against foreign people, so forth and so on.
Partly true, but partly not. If we remember the actual circumstances at the time, John, there were a lot of domestic dangers to defend against. People had to defend their own lives, their own families, their own homesteads, their own communities against all kinds of dangers, and they had also come from a European background in which they knew good and well the experience of having to defend their liberties against abusive governments seeking to interfere especially with their rights of conscience, including the freedom of religion, and that background had a lot to do with the Second Amendment being where it is.
It's not there so people can hunt and fish and play games down at the gun club. It is in the context of serious thinking about what is necessary to sustain liberty.
Larry Pratt, why do people always forget that this is not an entertainment amendment? It was actually a liberty amendment.
PRATT: Well, I think we've moved into an era when it's a fairly popular view to consider that the government ought to be responsible for our old age and our education and our health and also, of course, our security.
But, of course, as we found out on September 11th, the government really can't provide for our security, and every time a crime is committed, chances are there's not going to be a policeman around, and so I think a lot of Americans began rethinking after September 11th and have rediscovered what the founders knew from their own experience, that their own government had gone bad on them.
They had put a Second Amendment in precisely because they had fought a war against their own government. They were all British until they said they weren't in 1776, and in our day and age, we still have at least the problem, not so much from our own government at the moment, but certainly from the criminal element that the government is not able to protect us from, and that's why there's a growing number of states that have made it legal for people to carrying a concealed firearm and why those states have seen a fall in their murder rates and violent crime rates.
KEYES: John Rosenthal, do you think, given that actual background, the founders, the Revolution, coming out of a time when they had to defend themselves against an abusive government — do you want to tell us that you don't think the founders had that experience in mind when they put the Second Amendment in place?
ROSENTHAL: Well, I firmly believe, because the Second Amendment begins with “a well-regulated militia” being necessary for the security of a free state — I believe that the founding fathers meant that that is a militia, and they didn't include everybody in that militia. They included able-bodied males 18 to 45.
So, you know, again...
PRATT: Well, John, the reason...
ROSENTHAL: ... the courts...
PRATT: The reason...
ROSENTHAL: ... have ruled a certain way. If the courts change their ruling, that — so be it.
The fact is most Americans think there's a right to own and possess a firearm, and with those rights come responsibilities. I don't think we need to argue the point.
The fact is that, you know, we need to be responsible about gun ownership, and common-sense gun laws do make sense, and where Larry Pratt and the NRA are going is to try and dismantle any common-sense national gun law and arm everybody.
So not only will people be afraid of one another, but we could fight the government, because we can't trust them, and I think that's an extremist view. I think Ashcroft is an extremist.
KEYES: So, John — John, let me interrupt one second here. You do think, then, that insofar as the founders took a lesson from their own revolutionary experience and the problems with the British, you think that it's absurd to suggest that people might have to be armed in order to defend themselves against their own abusive government? That's just extremism, it's beyond the pale, as far as you're concerned?
ROSENTHAL: I think it is because what good is a firearm, a handgun or a long gun, going to do against tanks and artillery and airplanes and bombs and all the things that our government has? It's crazy. It's like saying...
KEYES: Well, if that's the case...
ROSENTHAL: It's like playing — you know, use — you know, we need to use guns and arm everybody because it's going to help us against terrorism. That's not going to...
KEYES: Larry...
ROSENTHAL: That's not the answer.
KEYES: Larry Pratt...
ROSENTHAL: The answer is common-sense gun laws and background checks at gun shows.
KEYES: All right. We're coming to the end of the time.
Larry Pratt, what's your response to that?
PRATT: Listen, the fact that 33 times federal courts, including the Supreme Court, starting with Houston v. Moore in 1820, have ruled that the states have no right to their own militia laws, unless they are consistent with the federal government. Federal government has preemption. It's in Article 1, Section 8 of our Constitution. The state doesn't have something that conflicts with the Second Amendment. The founders weren't so incompetent...
KEYES: Now, gentlemen...
PRATT: ... that they were going to give us a Second Amendment...
KEYES: Larry...
PRATT: ... that's entirely...
KEYES: All right. We've come to the end of our time. Thank you so much. I appreciate both of you being with me.
Next, my outrage of the day about one characteristic of the visit yesterday between the president and Ariel Sharon.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KEYES: Now time for my outrage of the day. Actually more sadness than outrage.
The news of the attack against Israel came right in the midst of the president's meeting with Ariel Sharon. I was disappointed that, in just a human gesture, the president didn't choose to stand with Ariel Sharon before the world, express his deep compassion and sympathy with the Israelis and his condemnation of this event.
I'm not thinking now in terms of politics or the large issues of diplomacy. I'm just thinking in terms of the fact that it would have been the decent thing to do. That's my sense of it.
A reminder that, as soon as there are any new developments from Bethlehem, MSNBC will bring them to you live.
Brian Williams is up next. See you tomorrow.