Posted on 12/19/2002 4:20:16 PM PST by B Knotts
U.S. Sen. Patty Murray was in Vancouver on Wednesday challenging high school students to answer these questions:
What is behind terrorist Osama bin Laden's popularity in some parts of the world, and should the United States adopt his nation-building tactics?
Speaking at Columbia River High School, Murray, D-Wash., responded to questions from students, most about the war on terrorism or government spending for education.
Later Wednesday, Murray visited C-Tran headquarters and checked out a new bus.
Murray met at Columbia River with world history students and student government leaders. Across town, Hudson's Bay High School students participated via teleconference.
Murray concluded the session by challenging the students to consider alternatives to war.
"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."
Be 'better neighbors'?
"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.
"It is a debate I think we ought to have."
Murray was in the minority when the Senate voted 77-23 in October to give President Bush authority to use military force in confronting Saddam Hussein. The state's other senator, Democrat Maria Cantwell, voted for the resolution.
Murray opened Wednesday's event telling the students, "You'll be graduating into a world that is very difficult. ? The economy is struggling. War in Iraq is a very real possibility in the short term" and could cost $200 billion even if it were to last only a few weeks.
The cost of waging war could result in cuts to domestic programs such as Pell grants for college students, she said.
Responding to a question about federal spending for schools, Murray said the Bush administration is backing off its pledge of support for the No Child Left Behind program.
"There are crises in every one of our schools in this country," Murray said, and cutting spending on education has long-term deleterious effects.
Visit to the bus barn
Later in the day, Murray spent 45 minutes at the C-Tran administrative and operations facility at 2425 N.E. 65th Ave. for a holiday potluck. Randy Frasier's Mountain View High School jazz and concert choirs serenaded her with holiday carols.
Afterward, Murray examined a new $312,000 Gillig coach, the first of several dozen that will replace 20-year-old GM buses that have racked up an average of 650,000 miles each.
Murray is on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on transportation, which funnels matching money to states and local agencies for buses and other transit programs. Eighty percent of the cost of new buses will come from federal grants, and the remainder from local C-Tran money.
All the while planning to bomb all of ours. How do you "feel" about that?
She's a racist. She hates Americans. I demand 5 apologies so I don't have to forgive her! She MUST step down for her hateful remarks!
Speaking from my perspective of living in NYC, there is NOTHING more dangerous than a middle or upper class WHITE leftist. The minorities simply support the Dems for pork, the white lefties support leftist causes as a religion.
This woman simply has to be a product of American public education, outcome-based education, EEO handouts, and the quota system. No one this dumb should be allowed to serve as a dog-catcher let alone Senator of the United States.
Because they are ignorant like you?
"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."
WTF???
Because those brainwashed Osama fans love stuff like this....
Is anyone else here just completely perplexed by this comment? I mean dumbfounded??
What the heck is she babbling about? What roads? Last time I viewed pictures of the regions, the roads are the same dirt tracks that were there 800 years ago? Day care? Under sharia (sic) law, the women stay home, go to market (kids in tow), or make meals with a large family unit - they don't use stinkin' day care.
Ms. Murray is a propagandist of the first order. I wish she had brought pictures of all these wonderful UBL contributions. Oh, and by the way, Ms. Murray, these people still live in poverty, the women are still treated as cattle, and the men still practice pederasty.
What a load this senator brings.
I respectfully disagree. We can capture or kill ENOUGH of them so that their Jihad becomes a nullity.
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