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Politically Incorrect
with Bill Maher
Arianna Huffington
Adel Iskandar
Salman Ahmad
Kevin Nealon
Bill: Good evening, welcome to "Politically Incorrect." Let me tell you who's
here today. Arianna Huffington is here.
Author, of course, nationally syndicated columnist, "Conscious of America: My
Personal Confessor," and this is her new book, it will be out soon, "Pigs at the
Trough: How corporate greed is undermining America." All right. Salman Ahmad,
you were here before, you are great, I'm glad you came back. You're a big band,
the Junoon and they are known to much of the world but America has only
discovered recently and you can get their CDs at www.junoon.com. Thank you for
coming back. Adel Iskandar, this is your book, interesting stuff, it's called,
"Al Jazeera: How the Free Arab News Network scooped the world and changed the
Middle East." And thank you for being here.
And Kevin Nealon, I don't know you personally, but I hear you are very funny.
[ Laughter ]
You used to be on "SNL," it says here. Now your new one is "Conspiracy Zone,"
which I did a few weeks ago on TNN and your movie coming out soon, "Master of
Disguise," with your old buddy Dana Carvey. Give a hand to this panel, please.
[ Applause ]
Okay. I've been meaning to talk about what's going on with the pipe bomber. You
love this 'cause you hate the media, so you'll jump on this. But last night Dan
Rather started the news, "Terror in the Heartland." You know. Israel had a real,
huge suicide bombing today, 16 people died. We can't be bothered with that
because there's terror in the Heartland. It's a kid blowing up mailboxes, hello?
Right? We used to do that. We called it "cabbage night." What is he, gonna
toilet paper the Federal Building? "Terror in the Heartland"?
Arianna: Well, the goods news is we're not talking about Robert Blake. It was
much worse when CNN and FOX would lead with Robert Blake. You know, somebody
whom we've barely remembered until he maybe murdered his wife. But the other
thing about this is --
Bill: Well, we're talking about that tomorrow night, so be quiet.
[ Laughter ]
Salman: But the good thing was it wasn't somebody of Middle Eastern descent,
they would have said, "Al Qaeda operative found." The treasure trove of
information.
Adel: This is another Timothy McVeigh sort of scenario where we are assuming it
had to be someone of Middle Eastern. But this is like the homegrown, backyard
terrorism.
Bill: Right. But there's a much more dangerous and I think disingenuous lie that
goes out when you bring up Timothy McVeigh, and they'll do it with this guy
because he is just a white college kid. When they say, "Well, terrorism is
terrorism and it's all the same and you never know who it's coming from."
Kevin: Well, we're very quick to point the finger at people, you said, "Some
white college kid," we haven't heard his side of the story.
Bill: Maybe there's a reason for it.
[ Laughter ]
Arianna: Yeah, his side of the story is that he was in a failed rock band and so
the world or maybe the government by itself owed him something. But my point is
larger than that --
Kevin: A rock band?
Arianna: A failed rock band, right. My point --
Kevin: I was in a failed rock band.
Bill: Right.
Kevin: There was no terror in the Heartland.
Bill: Well, this guy already did the mailboxing, you could do the flaming poop
in the bag. How about that?
[ Laughter ]
Kevin: I've done that already.
Bill: And then there would be "Terror with the Poop."
Arianna: He was apparently a fan of Kurt Cobain so maybe we can start profiling
all Nirvana fans. The point is that it's not easy to know where terrorism is
coming from.
Whatever you may be saying. Because it wasn't just this guy in the Heartland, it
was also all the anthrax attacks.
Do you remember when the entire nation was obsessed with "Who were the anthrax
terrorists?"
Bill: Yes.
Arianna: And now, it seems pretty clear, even though the Justice Department has
not confirmed it, that there were also home grown, possibly out of our
biowarfare labs.
Kevin: Yeah, I know what you're saying. To put that on the news, "Terror in the
Heartland," it just blows it up to something that it's not. And what scares me
is that people want to do copycat stuff. And if not, it will only encourage this
kid to do more of it. He's getting the attention. That's probably what he wants.
Salman: It takes heat off the Middle East.
Bill: Okay, but this is copycat stuff. And, excuse me, but yes, there is a huge
difference between Timothy McVeigh and what happened on 9/11 and what happened
preceding 9/11, which was a clash of civilizations. I don't care what President
Bush says, and excuse me, my Muslim friends, but there is a clash of
civilizations and --
Salman: There is a clash --
Bill: There is. And the difference between Timothy McVeigh and the 911
hijackers, or this kid, is that Timothy McVeighs of the world have very little
support behind them.
There are maybe a few thousand people who would condone what Timothy McVeigh
did, whereas what the 911 hijackers did, is supported by hundreds of millions of
people.
Salman: Bill, this whole racial profiling thing, you know, what it is managing
to do is undermine the great majority of Muslims, 1.5 billion of whom, the bulk
of which who are fighting their own terrorism and the extremism. But when you
start --
Bill: If only they would.
Salman: They're doing it.
Bill: Where are they doing it?
Salman: I think the media here oversimplifies, amplifies extremist point of
views --
Bill: Yes, they do.
Salman: And if they would go to a country like Pakistan, where, unfortunately,
the city that I live in, Daniel Pearl got murdered, they would find that 45
other Pakistani doctors got killed in mosques, but the country is taking that on
as a personal war against --
Bill: Why were the doctors killed in mosques?
Salman: Because they belonged to the Shiite sect. Muslim sect. Sectarian
violence also.
Kevin: I was part of that for a while.
Adel: On weekends.
Salman: What the larger part of the world doesn't understand is that the Muslim
world is not some monolithic culture.
Bill: No, it's not. But what I'm trying to say is that even if there wasn't
terrorism, and I think in many ways terrorism is also a red herring because it's
so easy to say, "It's just the terrorists." Let's leave the terrorists out of
it. I'm talking about in Muslim societies, women, the way they are treated. You
can be put to death for converting from Islam or renouncing Islam. Beheading.
Salman: Where? Which Muslim countries? Are you talking about the Arab world?
Bill: I read about a stoning in Nigeria recently.
Kevin: You've been listening to Dan Rather too much.
Bill: No, I haven't. Because they wouldn't report it there.
Adel: This whole clash of civilization thing, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The more we think about it the more likely it will happen.
Bill: You're denying that in Muslim societies people get put to death for
adultery, homosexuality. You're denying there are beheadings in Mecca on Friday
night?
Adel: They are very, very sporadic cases and the media picks up on them so
quickly, before any other good news from the Middle East because we thrive on
this. We thrive on it. And it works the same way in the Middle East as well.
The Middle Eastern media pick up more of the demonic coverage from the United
States.
Salman: Let me say this. In Pakistan --
Bill: Yeah.
[ Laughter ]
[ Applause ]
I had an Irish-American bass player who was married to a Pakistani woman. My
wife's a doctor, we live in Pakistan.
We're based in Pakistan, we've played for over 30,000, 40,000 people. If all
these radical extremists in that country was filled with --
Bill: I'm not talking about -- I'm talking about fatwahs on Salman Rushdie. I
mean, in this country, I think it's offensive, I'm not even Christian, but you
can put up a show, which they did, called "Piss Christ." Could you put up "Piss
Allah"? And live? And live?
Adel: Let me ask you this -- Al Jazeera does that all the time.
Bill: Really?
Adel: Al Jazeera invited individuals who are equivalents to Salman Rushdie, the
complete apostates, on their airwaves.
And not only that, they've been accused by a lot of Arabs, Arab audiences as
well as Arab regimes, as being pro-Zionist and pro-Israeli. So in this case, I
mean, we have a clear example of the Middle East wanting to deal with all the
dirt under the carpet.
Arianna: You know what? I went to that website, at memory.org, that actually
translates every day, Al Jazeera, and I know that you're the expert on Al
Jazeera.
But I have never, ever imagined the kind of anti-semitic, anti-American drivel
that is on Al Jazeera day in, day out.
[ Applause ]
You have, again and again, basically a show called "Free Debates," which
basically boils down to whether Zionism is better than Nazism. And you get like
87 --
Kevin: That's a reason I did not get that included in my package. I didn't want
the Al Jazeera network.
Bill: Right, you got the spice channel, HBO --
[ Talking over each other ]
Salman: For most of the Arab world, where there's no freedom of expression, Al
Jazeera gives an outlet for people to see. It's much like how, when the Vietnam
pictures were coming back in the 60s, people actually got an idea of what was
going on in the war out there.
Arianna: Excuse me, the freedom comes down to a debate between those who believe
that the Holocaust did not happen, and those who believe that it was a good
thing.
Bill: Right. Exactly. That's what --
Adel: Who are the guests who are on most of the Al Jazeera broadcasts? Many of
them are very conservative clerics and ultra-orthodox, but there are also
ultra-liberals. In fact, some of the U.S. officials are on. In fact, one of the
best representatives of the U.S. administration has been Chris Ross, former
ambassador and top official in the United States.
Bill: So what? That doesn't address what she is talking about, what I am talking
about, which is that there is a problem in the society, leave the terrorists out
of it.
Terrorists are there because they come from a society that tolerates intolerance
and cruelty and this kind of behavior.
So, if, as Arianna says, the debate is between whether the Holocaust never
happened or was a good idea, doesn't that reflect a society outside of the
terrorists, that needs to adjust?
Adel: Bill, that's a complete stereotype. I mean, we're talking here --
Arianna: No, because --
Adel: Because what we're doing is, we're assuming that Arabs, Middle Easterns
and Muslims are nothing more that the sixth beast. Bedouins, belly dancers,
billionaires. These are very, very basic stereotypes.
[ Talking over each other ]
Bill: Okay, I have to take one of the two "C's" -- It's called a commercial.
[ Applause ]
Bill: Well, today is National Teacher Day. Very good cause.
But awkward, a little, for young boys, because, you know, it's tough to shower
your teacher with gifts and attention without getting your priest all jealous.
Bill: All right, welcome back to -- don't change the channel. It's not a rerun.
I just say that because I've had this discussion so many times with Muslim
friends of mine on this show. And I think you're in denial. You think we're
stereotyping. Let me ask you --
Kevin: First of all, I am not Muslim.
Adel: Neither am I. Neither am I. I'm a Christian.
Bill: Oh, so --
Arianna: So am I.
Salman: I think Arianna's the only one here -- So I'm the only one here --
[ Laughter ]
I'm not in denial. I think you're not looking deep enough.
I think that the war -- the war against extremism within the Muslim war is a war
that the bulk of the Muslim community is fighting.
Bill: How? Where?
Salman: Well, you focus on --
Bill: What are we not reporting.
Salman: -- The Muslim world as being the 100 million Arab/Muslim in the Middle
East. There's 1.5 billion Muslims in the world.
Bill: You're right. That's true.
Salman: That's a minority. So --
Bill: But there's a lot of sympathy for --
Salman: But also, you got to realize, those people, most of them, Middle Eastern
communities has not opened up at all.
One of the reasons they haven't opened up is because United States allies there.
They maintain the status quo. And the United States doesn't sort of push them
and say, "Hey, you know, it's a good idea if they had democracy." Then you have
a reaction like Al Jazeera taking place where they want to show the blood and
gore because all those emotions are suppressed there, and it needs some outlet.
Adel: But Bill, who wouldn't be defensive. I mean, if you -- if you accuse any
population of people, whether they be Arabs, Muslims, Jews, Hindus of committing
tragedies like September 11th, of course they're gonna get defensive.
Arianna: But no wonder he's accusing people. I mean, he made it happen.
Bill: No, no, no. He didn't -- no. Well, that is what most of the --
Arianna: -- For Saudi Arabians. It's Al Jazeera who still reports the fact that
it was the Jews who were warned of the --
Adel: Absolutely not. Al Jazeera completely denied that.
Bill: Oh, please.
Adel: Absolutely. In fact --
in fact, the latest video, which came from Al Jazeera, of Bin Laden, completely
incriminates Bin Laden and everybody working with him. So, for all intensive
purposes, Al Jazeera's working in our favor as opposed to against it.
Bill: Let me ask you about this. This upsets people in this country. I think it
upset people here. When the crowned Prince of Saudi Arabia visited last week to
President Bush at the Ranch, it was reported that he demanded that there be no
female air-traffic controllers, and, of course, because they have our oil and we
have Lincoln Navigators, we said, "Fine."
[ Laughter ]
[ Applause ]
Salman: That's ludicrous.
Bill: It's ludicrous, but, I mean, that's part of the Muslim society.
Salman: It's not part of Muslim society.
Adel: It's just Saudi Arabia.
Salman: It's Saudi Arabia.
Adel: Saudi Arabia is one of the most repressive and oppressive regimes in the
region, and most Arabs and Muslims realize that.
Bill: But Saudi Arabia is the center of the Muslim world.
Adel: It is only the center because it is the home of the most -- the most
sacred of places.
Kevin: From what I have read about this guy, he has peculiar taste, he's a
peculiar man. I mean, you saw "Purple Rain," right?
[ Laughter ]
Bill: That's Prince.
Kevin: No, you know what I'm saying?
[ Applause ]
"Purple Rain" -- the second album. You're thinking --
Bill: Look, they dress similarly, but this is a different man. This is the
Prince of Saudi Arabia.
Kevin: Oh, Saudi Arabia. All right, all right. My mistake.
My bad. I stand corrected.
[ Laughter ]
Bill: The crowned Prince of the royal family.
Kevin: Okay, I'm right there. I'm right there.
Arianna: But if you like the defense -- the defense of opposition. The defense
of why we conceded what he wanted was that it was cultural sensitivity. Now
there is a big difference between cultural insensitivity and mindless misogyny.
I mean, where do you draw the line? Should we have cleared off women off the
streets where his stretch limo is going to go through so as not to offend him? I
mean, haven't we given enough concessions?
Kevin: But he didn't want --he didn't want a woman in the control tower, right?
Maybe one of his 27 wives was jealous.
[ Light laughter ]
Adel: I completely agree with Arianna. Arianna, you're right on the mark with
this because, I mean, yes, it's very oppressive, and there's no way that we
could accept this.
We shouldn't be making concessions for an oppressive --
oppressive approach like that. So -- but we have to make a distinction between
-- we have to make a distinction between the crowned Prince of Saudi Arabia and
the Islamic world.
Bill: Yes, but you can not deny that what happens in Saudi Arabia radiates out
to the Islamic world.
Adel: Absolutely not.
Bill: Absolutely not? Oh, come on. Where was the religion founded? Where does it
come from? It is literally a Mecca of the religion.
Adel: Saudi Arabia is the only country in the Middle East --
[ Laughter ]
What you're saying, really, is --
[ Applause ]
Let me turn this around.
Bill: And it's money, too. Because that Saudi money goes --
Salman: When I was in junior high school -- when I went to junior high school in
the states, I would have to say, you know, the pledge of allegiance, and it
said, "One nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all."
Now, within the United States, I see that. Outside the United States when you
view in, you see -- you see a huge double standard. Now, if Saudi Arabia is this
repressive regime, autocratic, what is the United States doing in order to, sort
of, open them up? Anything? Nothing at all.
What -- let me ask -- in Iran, which is George Bush, you know, Iran is one of
the axis of evil, right? One of the countries?
Bill: Yes.
Salman: Women work there. Women are allowed to vote, women drive cars. They
can't do that in Saudi Arabia.
So why this double standard?
Kevin: But I think getting back to the incident that he's talking about, we
can't cater to every dignitary that comes in from a different country. If Tony
Blair comes in from England, what's he gonna say? [ In English accent ]
"Today, I'd like everybody to drive on the left side of the road."
[ Laughter ]
Are we gonna change the in-flight menus for cannibal dignitaries?
[ Talking over each other ]
Adel: What makes a difference is the economic policy here. I mean, if it had
been --
Bill: Yes, you're right.
Adel: -- If it had been the new elected leader of Madagascar, we would not have
accommodated.
Bill: You're right.
Arianna: That is a very good point.
Bill: It is.
Arianna: The one thing -- the one thing that we haven't done is we have not
created the equivalent of a Middle East Marshall Plan to deal with what's
happening with Palestinian refugees --
Kevin: That's what I'm working on right now, as you see.
Arianna: What are you doing here wasting your time? Now, we can not -- there's
no question that -- even Bush has made it in a recent speech, that nothing
breeds terrorism as much as poverty, humiliation, the kind of conditions that
prevail in the Palestinian refugee camps where refugees are.
And, you know, it's not a question of who is right and who is wrong. And after
the Second World War, we had a Marshall Plan for Germany. I mean, nobody could
have been more wrong than Germany.
Bill: Right.
Arianna: No nation on the planet was more hated than Germany, but we treated
them with Marshall Plan as opposed to what we did after the Second World War
when we kept --
Bill: The First World War.
Arianna: After the First World War --
Bill: Right.
Arianna: -- With the Treaty of Versailles, humiliating them, punishing them, and
then we created the conditions that brought about Hitler. That's what we should
be concentrating on.
Bill: I gotta take a break. We will come back.
[ Applause ]
Bill: Well, yet another Catholic priest has resigned. This one in New Orleans,
after someone found a picture of him in a book, shirtless at the Mardi Gras next
to a drag queen.
[ Laughter ]
Or as they call it in the church, "Casual Friday."
[ Laughter ]
[ Applause ]
Adel: Just before the break, Arianna, you hit it right on the mark. I mean, we
need a Marshall Plan to address the undemocratic policies in the Middle East and
the Arab world, but how do we do that? I mean, for the longest period, we've
been forging relationships with executive leaders in the region that are
completely oppressive.
Instead, we need to talk to the public. We're not communicating with the public,
we're busy clapping and patting the backs of the princes and the emirs and the
sheiks. We need to talk to the people.
Arianna: And that's why it's harder now.
Adel: And the only way we can do that is through networks that people trust. And
fortunately or otherwise, we need to collaborate with Al Jazeera 'cause,
unfortunately, they are the most popular.
Arianna: But right now, as the voice of America --
Bill: Well, that's a danger issue.
Arianna: The voice of America is introducing, through non-partisan leadership,
which on the board of broadcasting, started Westwood One and knows how to do
commercial radio, introducing a real radio satellite network that actually has
music, that uses all the techniques we know to communicate in the Arab world.
Adel: You can't sell policy in the Middle East using the Backstreet Boys. That's
the problem.
Arianna: No, we're not using the Backstreet Boys, we're using Arab pop music.
[ Talking over each other ]
Not the Backstreet Boys. We know how to communicate, we're just not using --
Bill: Here's the problem with that. It goes under the theory that "They will
like us better if they see us more." I think they will like us better if they
see us less.
[ Applause ]
The image of the ugly American in the loud shirt, you know, yelling at the guy,
being a pig, and ignorant.
[ Talking over each other ]
Salman: I tell you, Jewish friend of mine who shows me all those reports where
the media is skewing the Jewish side of the reporting. And all the Muslims
believe that the Jewish control the media. Basically, there is no middle ground.
Arianna: I actually don't agree with you, Bill. I think the more they know us,
the more they are going to love us.
Bill: The more they know you, the more they'd like us.
Arianna: Provided that we also come with some real policies like a Marshall
Plan. We don't just stand --
Adel: They're going to see us as imperialism. That's the problem. They're gonna
think it's an imperialistic approach.
Arianna: It depends on what we come with.
Adel: They're gonna back off. They're gonna say, "Listen, get out of our
business, get your hands off of our land."
Bill: I think we gotta stop blaming America for everything.
You have to admit that the Muslim world has to look in the mirror before they
look at -- just say that and I'll get you off denial.
Adel: We all have to look in the mirror.
Bill: Okay, we got to take a break.
[ Applause ]
Bill: All right, so if you have any information about mailboxes, dog poop or
toilet paper, please contact the Homeland Security Office. "Pigs at the Trough"
and "Al Jazeera" -- Al Jazeera in your bookstores.
[ Applause ]
abc.go.com
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