Posted on 12/20/2002 11:17:23 AM PST by LS
.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.
(Excerpt) Read more at columbian.com ...
Or then again, maybe she is just a fu**ing nut.
You forgot that parking lot he built in lower Manhattan:
Idiot. Sit down and shut up.
You remember, when the US sent a man, er woman, to Mars?
MurryMom, I think we've found your daughter!
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