Senator Patty Murray sez....Lets be like Osama Bin Laden

[busybody..]

Senator Patty Murray tells high school students the US needs to learn to be a “better neighbor” to the world—like Osama bin Laden.

"We've got to ask, why is this man (Osama bin Laden) so popular around the world?," said Murray, who faces re-election in 2004. "Why are people so supportive of him in many countries ... that are riddled with poverty?

"He's been out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day care facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. We haven't done that.

"How would they look at us today if we had been there helping them with some of that rather than just being the people who are going to bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan?"

Murray said she doesn't know where she comes down on that guns-or-butter question, and building infrastructure in Third World countries would "cost a lot of money, and we have schools here and health care facilities here that are really hurting."

"War is expensive too," she said. "Your generation ought to be thinking about whether we should be better neighbors out in other countries so that they have a different vision of us.

 

[Thrillhouse]

Here's the whole story. It's called an analogy. Maybe not the BEST analogy to make, but it is accurate.


http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/100835_murray20.shtml

Friday, December 20, 2002

Murray asks students to weigh bin Laden's appeal

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

VANCOUVER -- Why is terrorist leader Osama bin Laden so popular in some parts of the world?

Perhaps, said Sen. Patty Murray, it's because he and his supporters have spent years building good will in poor nations by helping pay for schools, roads and other infrastructure.

At an appearance before a high school honors class, the Washington Democrat offered what her spokesman called an intentionally provocative challenge for students to ponder.

"We've got to ask, Why is this man so popular around the world?," Murray said during an appearance Wednesday at Columbia River High School. "Why are people so supportive of him in many countries that are riddled with poverty?"

The answers may be uncomfortable, but are important for Americans to ponder -- particularly students, Murray said.

"He's been out in these countries for decades, building schools, building roads, building infrastructure, building day care facilities, building health care facilities, and the people are extremely grateful. We haven't done that," Murray said.

"How would they look at us today if we had been there helping them with some of that rather than just being the people who are going to bomb in Iraq and go to Afghanistan?"

An expert on terrorism, who co-wrote a book profiling bin laden and al-Qaida, said Murray's comments, published yesterday in the newspaper The Columbian, were on the mark.

"That's kind of a generalization, but mostly accurate," Michael Swetnam, chairman of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in Arlington, Va., said yesterday.

Since about 1988, who is bin Laden, believed to have been the mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, has been on a mission to build schools, roads and even homes for widows of those killed in the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan, Swetnam said.

There is even a rumor that bin Laden helped build an Afghani orphanage, although Swetnam said he has been unable to confirm that.

 

[busybody..]

BullShit!

 

[busybody..]

Does Patty Murray read the federal budgets she's been voting on? The United States may not contribute a large amount of money to foreign aid as a percentage of GDP, but the amounts are significant in real dollars. Did she just miss the $2.4 billion we spent in the Middle East and North Africa in FY00, the $1.8 billion in FY01, or the estimated $1.7 billion in FY02? I am guessing Osama bin Laden, with all the hospital, orphanages, schoolhouses and shelters he built didn't come close. See www.usaid.gov/country/ane/mena_tables.html for summaries of expenditures.

How much is enough for Patty Murray and her fellow travelers? Will people stop flying jets into the side of our buildings if only we give them $5 billion in foreign aid annually? Or could the conflict between the West and the Middle East be about a little bit more than total cash expenditures?


I honestly think that for some people -- and Murray is probably one -- it's hard to imagine that anything matters more than federal expenditures.