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COPYRIGHT 2004 Voxant, Inc.
Original Source: THE CHARLIE ROSE SHOW
CHARLIE ROSE: Welcome to the broadcast. Tonight, the former prime minister, senior minister and minister mentor of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEE KUAN YEW, MINISTER MENTOR, SINGAPORE: In China and to a lesser extent in India, we have such an enormous land mass, with such massive populations and high quality, that if they had joined the free trade world right from the beginning after the war, Hong Kong and Singapore may never have been economic miracles. Places like Hong Kong and Singapore, on the periphery of this huge land mass, became places of excellence because the arbitrage on their inefficiencies. We became their contact points with the outside world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLIE ROSE: A program note. We recorded a conversation this evening with Jon Stewart. That interview will be seen next week so that we can show you in the entirety not only his interview next week, but also this evening Lee Kuan Yew. Next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHARLIE ROSE: Joining me now is Lee Kuan Yew. As Singapore`s founding father, he served as prime minister for more than 30 years until 1990. He now serves as a minister mentor to the current prime minister, his son. I am pleased to have him back on this program.
Several years ago, we recorded an hour program at Harvard, where he was being honored, and we got such a remarkable response that I am pleased to have him back to talk about how he sees the world, and especially how he sees his region. But let`s begin talking about the world.
The most important issue facing an American president, I suspect, is the battle against terror and national security. What would you tell the president -- or the next president -- we need to do?
LEE KUAN YEW: I think it`s not just he who is facing this problem of terror. We are all facing it. I am facing it in Singapore. We`ve got to understand what this is all about. It`s not about Fallujah or Iraq or Beslan. This thing has been in the brew for some 30-plus years, in retrospect.
I used to watch my Muslims -- and in Southeast Asia, the Muslims are different. They are relaxed. They are easy to get on with. But over the last 30-odd years, since the oil crisis, and petrol dollars became a major factor in the Muslim world, there have been proselytizing, building mosques, religious schools, madrassas, where they teach Wahhabism, an austere brand of Islam, and sending out preachers and having conferences, globalizing, networking.
And slowly, they have convinced the Southeast Asian Muslims and indeed Muslims throughout the world that the gold standard is Arabia, Saudi Arabia, that that is the real good Muslim. And the result is ...
CHARLIE ROSE: But that`s not what Osama bin Laden teaches .
LEE KUAN YEW: No .
CHARLIE ROSE: Because he, in fact, wants to overthrow ..
LEE KUAN YEW: No.
CHARLIE ROSE: . the regime in Saudi Arabia.
LEE KUAN YEW: But let me explain why. What the Saudis and the other Arab countries did in raising their religious -- or religiosity, the level of fervor throughout the world has done for Osama bin Laden. Having worked it up to a fine pitch and everybody feels, yes, we`re closer to God, he then scouts around for the vulnerable, those who feel they need redemption, that they`ve sinned, they need to redeem themselves, and recruit them to become jihadists.
And that`s where the world`s problems begin. Why have they done this? Well, they say it`s because Americans have supported the Israelis who have been cruel to and oppressive to the Palestinians. Partly true. They say the Russians have killed the Chechens. Also true. They say the Serbs killed the Muslims in Bosnia. Also true. But they killed the Albanians, the Kosovos ...
CHARLIE ROSE: The Russians in Afghanistan.
LEE KUAN YEW: And so on and so on. What we have -- we did not realize -- I did not know this at the beginning. I thought this thought is very odd. Until we found that we are enveloped in this same relentless drive to assert Islam`s right to supremacy, this particular brand of Islam.
CHARLIE ROSE: Radical, fundamentalist?
LEE KUAN YEW: Yes, yes. They don`t consider all these separate incidents to be disparate events connected with each country. It`s every act of cruelty, every atrocity, every massacre of any Muslim anywhere in the world is a crime to all Muslims anywhere in the world. So let us all join together and hit out at those who hit us. And who is the ringleader? America. So let`s kill Americans.
CHARLIE ROSE: Because it`s the strongest nation and because it`s a close friend of Israel, because ...
LEE KUAN YEW: Because it is .
CHARLIE ROSE: Because its armies have occupied and been on our soil -- I mean Osama bin Laden .
LEE KUAN YEW: Right.
CHARLIE ROSE: . was most offended, for example, by the fact that American troops were in his former, his home nation .
LEE KUAN YEW: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: Saudi Arabia.
LEE KUAN YEW: But you know, out of it, but he`s not satisfied. What he wants is to get all of the oil of the Gulf states, have Taliban-type regimes. Then he`s got all the industrial countries -- Christian Europe, America, Japan, China, the lot -- by the throat. Then they have the Muslim Caliphate across the world.
Now, what have I done in Singapore to offend him? Unless he wanted to -- he and his affiliates, the J.I. -- Jemaah Islamiah in Southeast Asia -- were planning seven huge car bombs, of two tons of nitrates each -- each one of them twice the size of the Oklahoma City bomb.
CHARLIE ROSE: In Singapore?
LEE KUAN YEW: Yes, yes. For December 2001. One, for the American Embassy, another for the Israeli, the British, the Australians, the American school, the club where the Americans have their sports, an underground railway station where the Americans de-bus to go to this sports center. Seven of them. It would have caused enormous damage. What have we done? Nothing. All we`ve done is allowed American aircraft and American ships to use our harbor and our airports. So we are lackeys of the Americans. We deserve to be punished.
CHARLIE ROSE: So the question is, first .
LEE KUAN YEW: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: Do you think the Iraqi war has aided in the conflict with terrorism and with radical fundamentalists, wherever they come from, or do you think it has served to distract from the primary battle?
LEE KUAN YEW: It`s a bit of both. Suppose you had not attacked Iraq. Would the world be a safer, nicer place? I don`t think so.
CHARLIE ROSE: But the argument is not that it would be a safer, nicer place, but that, in fact the battle against terrorism might have been more -- been prosecuted with more focus and perhaps they would have been able to carry the battle in Afghanistan deeper, and perhaps they would have been able to carry the battle in Afghanistan deeper, and perhaps they would not have given radical fundamentalists a recruiting message more than they had before the war in Iraq began.
LEE KUAN YEW: Well, that was the view of a terrorist expert who is now based in Singapore.
CHARLIE ROSE: Who sat at this table with me.
LEE KUAN YEW: Yes. How was...
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