Sen. Murray asks students to ponder bin Ladens popularity

Perhaps, said Sen. Patty Murray, it’s because he and his supporters have spent years building goodwill in poor nations by helping pay for schools, roads and day-care facilities.

At an appearance before a high school honors class, Murray, D-Wash., offered what her spokesman called an intentionally provocative challenge for students to ponder.

"We’ve got to ask, why is this man (bin Laden) so popular around the world?" Murray asked 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?"

Chris Vance, chairman of the Washington state Republican Party, called Murray’s comments offensive.

"It is absolutely outrageous and despicable to imply that the American government should learn a lesson from the madman who murdered thousands of American citizens," Vance said. "I know Senator Murray has a habit of sticking her foot in her mouth, but this goes way beyond a simple gaffe."

Murray’s comments "sent the message to these students that the United States somehow deserved or brought on the September 11 terrorist attacks," Vance said. "I think all decent people can agree that we most certainly did not, that this was an unprovoked attack of terrorism."

Vance called on Murray to retract her comments and apologize.

An expert on terrorism, who co-wrote a book profiling bin Laden and al-Qaida, said Murray’s comments, published yesterday in The Columbian newspaper, were mostly 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, bin Laden, believed to be 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.

"Mostly he did underwrite — and so did many Arab charities — several fundamentalist Muslim schools throughout Afghanistan and Pakistan that teach a very, very, fundamentalist, right-wing version of Islam that preaches hatred for the West," Swetnam said.

Bin Laden’s version of Islam tells Muslims that "people in the West are trying to attack your religion (and) oppress you, and the only way to fight that is to rise up against the United States and its crusader buddies, Israel and Europe," Swetnam said.

Murray, in her remarks to students, said she doesn’t know where she comes down on the question of whether to try to counter bin Laden. 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," Murray said.

"War is expensive, too," she told the students. "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, the state’s senior senator, supported sending U.S. troops to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban and al-Qaida. But she was among 23 senators who voted against a resolution authorizing President Bush to use military force in confronting Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The state’s junior senator, Democrat Maria Cantwell, voted for the resolution.